By DEVIN HARTMANN
It is two in the morning, I cannot fall asleep, and I love it. I watched The Babadook tonight and it was without a doubt one of the best horror movies in recent time, which to be honest isn’t a hard thing to do. But why do i love that tonight, and the next few nights ill have that creeping feeling that something is in the closet?
Chris Lukasik, a recent Ramapo graduate and film major was able to sit down and talk with me about the genre. “To me I hate those movies that i cannot fall asleep after. I like the movies you can watch and walk away from and not have to worry about something under your bed.”
Horror fan Matthew Low disagrees “I like a horror movie that keeps me up at night. I hate it because i start thinking of different possibilities of how a monster would act in real life, or how I would react to seeing a ghost late at night but I still like watching horror movies even if they scare me.”
History
The horror genre has had an interesting run to say the least. Horror movies have been around for over a century, first appearing in the late 1890’s. Le Manoir du diable a french movie that runs around two minutes long is often credited as the first horror movie, depicting what we now see as classic horror cliches including a bat, a medieval castle, skeletons, ghosts, the devil, and religious artifacts.
This opened the door to horror movies in general, the first major sub-genre was monster movies starting with the classics from literature Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula, the Wolf Man. In the 50’s two sub-genres emerged, Armageddon movies and demonic movies, these are the movies that are about the end of the world and spirits and ghosts respectively. Zombie movies also started to appear around this time. The 60’s came and brought slasher movies, arguably becoming one of the most popular sub-genres of horror.
As the years went on these genres mixed, scaring audiences around the world. But what had audiences swarming to the theaters to risk nightmares and keeping one eye behind their shoulder? In 1991 arguably the greatest horror movie ever made was released in theaters. The Silence of the Lambs not only showed the world that horror movies can be good, but that horror movies can be the best movie made. Winning the top five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Adapted Screenplay it was undeniable proof that people loved to be afraid. Jodie Foster plays FBI trainee Clarice Starling who is tasked with partnering with the cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins, to hunt down serial killer Buffalo Bill. From the moment we meet Hannibal we are disgusted, terrified, and yet intrigued. He is a master of psychology and with a sharp wit he would be comparable Sherlock Holmes, however there is a darkness in Hannibal. Maybe its his soft spoken nature, his extreme calmness, or his eyes that look through the camera lens almost looking directly at you but when we are introduced to the man a quiet falls and our fear rises.
Roger Ebert reviews The Silence of the lambs
From Scary to Silly
While horror was once respected and feared as our darkest terrors came to life the genre seems to have fallen from its pedestal in recent time. Found footage movies came and went in the 2000’s pretending that the movie was real, Paranormal Activity being the most popular with a sequel releasing almost every year since the first, however the sub-genre died as quickly as it started, people weren’t convinced and some text on a screen saying that the following events were real just didn’t cut it.
While we’re on the subject of the 2000’s there were a few other sub-genres that came to rise. First being gore porn, movies based on decapitation, torture, and gallons of blood. These are the Saw series or the Human Centipede movies, movies that don’t really last after the first viewing, ones that don’t keep you up at night creeping into your dreams.
“I love Saw” Chris goes on to say “It was one of those movies that you could walk away from, like i doubt something like that would ever happen to me. Like the movie Hostile, i could never go to east Europe now after seeing that movie, its a legitimate fear.”
Satire played a huge role in the genre in the start of the 2000’s as well. We realized we could watch movies that were made to be over the top and ridiculous and actually enjoy them. Movies like Sharknado, a movie about a tornado that carries sharks in it, and Sharktopus, a movie about a cross between a shark and an octopus, draw on the creature features from the 90’s, inspired by Anaconda and Lake Placid these movies combined comedy and horror to maybe not scare us but show us the stupidity of giant monsters attacking.
Horror fans tend to agree that the genre is not what it used to be, remembering the classics that they would stay up late watching and remembering, the fear of going to sleep just to dream about whatever film they had watched has passed.
Audiences knew that horror was a niche thing, having a thrill that could leave lasting fears was exciting. At the end of the day though, for most of us, we know that they are just movies. The boogeyman isn’t real, monsters have weaknesses, and while there may exist a very big snake or spider, there is no invasion starting.
“Like any other genre, horror movies need to change. People change what they think is funny, the same goes with what they think is scary” says John Farella, an avid moviegoer.
Chirs agrees ” I love those stupid syfy channel movies, because they changed the genre, because they were ok with making fun of themselves and not taking them too seriously”
How to Scare Audiences
The genre has changed a lot since its early days. Now horror movies are trying to scare you on a bigger psychological scale. The Babadook is a perfect example. A movie about a boogeyman type monster that becomes real when you first hear of it and more powerful the more it appears in your life. It is a pretty simple concept when you think about it, a monster that becomes real when you hear of it.
Knowing that it exists and thinking about it makes it more powerful, we all have had a monster movie where we thought what if the monster was real. Even in everyday life there are situations like that, I have a test I need to study for, I can’t be late to a meeting, does that person like me, they are all real fears based around the concept of the more you think on it, the more you worry, the worse it gets.
A trope that is on the rise is modern fears. It Follows is a recent horror movie based around the concept that there is a sexually transmitted curse, where the entity can look like anyone, it slowly walks towards you and if it reaches you it will kill you. The fear of trusting yourself and your body to another person can be scary, furthermore this movie reinforces the idea that there is something in the back of your mind you need to constantly keep an eye on, because if you forget, even for a little while, it will catch up to you when you least expect it.
The genre is not dead and with movies like It Follows and The Babadook it seems to be getting a revival. Gone are the many sequels of Saw and Paranormal Activity is coming up on the end of the series giving not only indie filmmakers but big budget studios a chance to look at where we can move forward in the genre. I for one am looking forward to see what the later half of 2010s bring us. Remakes of classics such as Stephen King’s It are in the works and there is even a trailer for the Poltergeist remake that looks amazing production wise. Monster movies like Godzilla will always be around, with Japanese and american made films in production, and Universal Monsters, the horror monster movies from 1923-1960, has just been rebooted with Dracula Untold; the first in many planned classic monster movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, the mummy, the invisible man, to be rebooted in a shared univers and a team up movie, think The Avengers but with monsters, in the works.
Is this the start of the next wave of horror? If the genre tells us anything it’s that it survives on evolving. From haunted castles to sharks raining down, funny or terrifying horror will live on for generations to come.