How has modern horror parted ways with conventions of the past?
It’s a Friday night. The parents are out for the evening and the teens are ready to party. The beers begin to flow, the sexual tension reaches a peak, and a lone virgin girl sits uncomfortable by the window. Outside the window, almost out of sight lurks a masked figure brandishing a blade.
We’ve seen this scene before. This scene has been played out repeatedly and you can thank the 80s heyday of horror for these tropes and clichés. The horror genre is a low-risk, low-investment for major movies studios. Audiences will put up with the putrid dribble studios churn out as long as they aren’t downright terrible. There’s a reason these films are called cheap thrills (Ha. Ha. See what I did there..)
Whether we know it or not, many of the horror elements we associate with the genre stem from the slasher and exploitation flicks of the 80s. During this decade, was saw the emergence and fame for Michael Myers in Halloween, Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street, and Jason in Friday the 13th.
These icons have embedded their conventions and mythos into our popular consciousness and the horror genre itself has become synonymous with these 80s clichés. The Wes Craven classic Scream quadrilogy memorably spelled out the conventions for us.
Do not leave the room and say you will be right back.
A final, pure girl will make it to the bloody end.
The slut will die.
A masked, faceless seemingly immortal figure will butcher your characters one by one.
The lines between good and evil are so blatantly clear and easily digestible any audience can understand them. Yet, they become low-hanging fruit for any studio and the well runs dry pretty quick. The Blumhouse horror machine has tapped this same formula with their hits of Paranormal Activity, The Purge, and The Conjuring franchises. The films aren’t a typical slasher, but they use the same troupes we have seen since the 80s. These formulaic horror flicks undermine the narrative complexity and thematically rich concepts the horror genre can offer.
But not to worry! More recent horror films are breaking for the algorithmic process of the past. These new films are rewriting the 1980s template. The list below is a brief summation of the latest trends in the horror genre.
1. The Humanization of the Villain
The horror monsters of the past were easy. They were the personification of evil incarnate. They were androgynous figures out to kill for the sin in the world. They were the evil monster under your bed and you were the innocent victim. In the end, the final pure girl remained, and she lived to restore balance in the world. Yet, the early 2000s and current horror have shown us a different side to the villain: the human side. The reboot of Halloween created a mythology around the history we currently knew of Michael Myers. We learned more about his troubled past. The same goes for Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street. The reboot provided an origin story beyond the original series horrible regaling of his conception. Jason kidnapped a girl who reminded him of his mother and Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw 3D had final girl who turned into his caretaker. A non-reboot franchise which humanized the villain was Saw. A sadistic serial killer who created torture devices where his victims killed themselves….also has cancer. We learned about his wife and her miscarriage too.
2. The Final Girl isn’t Quite so Pure
This trend plays off the above humanization critique. The final girls are getting a character development too. Well, many of the female characters in classic horror films are getting a second chance. The women who partook in sex and drugs were slain by our killer and the virgin female girl – full of virtue – would be saved. Many of the female characters who exhibited characteristics other than pure are now witnessing more second act time.
The female lead in the reboot of the was a recovering heroin addict and stars a female who is a burglar out to rob a blind man – yet we are rooting for both girls until they are the last to remain.
Even more interesting is the subtle shift of the female lead in horror. We are accustomed to the lead female role being an innocent character. As well, the character is always cast as a hero and never viewed as the villain of the film. More contemporary films have shifted the lens of female leads from innocent victim to a blend of anti-hero/empathic villain. A few examples of these elements are in the films Under the Skin, Let the Right One In, and Raw. These women are no longer troubled or hindered by past trauma and transgressions but emboldened by them. Furthermore, more movies such as Lights Out or Hereditary are pinning the core relationship of the mother and her children as the crux of the film to deepen the emotional attachment. Previous films attempted to use the females to haunt pretty females for their beauty, haunt young men for their suppressive corporeal deeds, or haunt mothers for their children.
3. Meta-Horror is King
As mentioned above, Scream raised the bar to a new level in meta-horror. This genre lied dormant for some time before the mid-2000s picked up the pace once again. As discussed on our podcast, Cabin in the Woods was a love/hate letter to the horror genre and an attempt to revitalize the repetitive nature of the horror production. The incredibly funny The Final Girls took meta to a whole new level. The movie It Follows is meta in a dual sense. The first element of meta-horror is the clear influences the film used from camera work to set design. These were influenced from the past horror films themselves. Secondly, it stands as a critique of the walk-and-stalk sinner movies of the 1980s. Thus, the meta-horror genre is a reflex of the horror genre itself. The horror genre has become stale to the point a whole sub-genre has ironically began analyzing the flaws it poses.
4. Horror Goes Global
Thanks to the internet, we now can embrace the influx of horror movies from all around the world. The American horror studios can’t get lazy with their films. Otherwise, they won’t make any money. They now are catering to a more diverse and ever-growing international audience. A few of the recent films pushing the envelope and forcing American studios to keep innovating are Under the Skin, The Babadook, and Raw. A psychological Britain horror worthy of Stanley Kubrick’s praise starring Scarlett Johannsson pushed the boundaries of the horror genre in Under the Skin. Australia brought us The Babadook. This film turned folklore and classic bedtime stories into a child’s nightmare any person could relate with. I don’t want to say too much about Raw. It’s a brilliant French film dealing with cannibalism. PLEASE JUST GO SEE RAW. The global market may be the strongest force pushing the horror genre away from a single, hegemonic framework. The future holds a promising horizon for the horror film. The slasher genre maybe a profitable convention of horror’s repressed past, but these new films may finally kill that
that seemingly immortal villain.
Until next time, I remain in the shadows…
seemingly immortal villain.
Until next time, I remain in the shadows…