How Horror Got Its Groove Back

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     I don’t think any other film genre has gone through as many changes in such a short period of time as horror. The early 2000s until now have seen it transition from torture porn (Saw) to Japanese remakes (The Ring, The Grudge) to found footage films (Paranormal Activity) and then to really, really cheap filmmaking (everything my dreaded nemesis Jason Blum has ever produced). However, in recent years there seems to have been a shift in horror, as indie films in the genre have been making big waves for being both scary and actually good. 2016 has been another one of those years, with not one or two but four big and highly acclaimed horror films (with at least one more to come). But what has made them so good? Let’s dig in! (Slight spoilers for The Babadook, The Witch, and Lights Out follow below.)

     Let’s just get this out of the way right now: of the four horror movies I mentioned, I haven’t seen The Conjuring 2 yet, though I plan to by the end of the year. So in this article I’ll be talking about The Witch, Lights Out, and Don’t Breathe. Before we discuss these, though, I want to go over my thoughts on the recent trends in horror and why I hate them so much. The main problem, both with found footage and the Blumhouse productions, is that they rely mainly on gimmicks and nothing else. There’s no real story or character to it, and you can kiss the idea of being well shot or creatively put together out the window. Of course there are exceptions in mainstream horror (like last year’s Unfriended), but these only serve as stark contrast to what horror has become. The three movies I’m going to be discussing today break this mold in more than a few ways, which is why I think that they’re so good.

     Breaking the “every film in February is bad" mold is The Witch, a horror film set in the 1600’s, which follows a Puritan family living in the woods and trying to survive as they are hunted by a supernatural presence. This film already breaks the mold just with that description, taking viewers to an altogether foreign time and place, but that’s not where it stops. Taking some cues from last year’s incredible It Follows, director Robert Eggers builds tension and horror through his filmmaking rather than cheap jump scares, using long wide shots of the untamed wilderness of Massachusetts and the creepy forests around the family’s home to showcase their isolation. It’s visual storytelling at its best, something horror hasn’t done well in a long time.

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     Honestly, though, it’s the way The Witch plays up the psychological aspects of the horror scenario that really sets it above the others. In this time, religious fervor and paranoia are at an apex, and when strange things begin to happen, the family immediately begins to turn on each other. It’s not only a depressingly accurate summation of how things like the Salem Witch Trials were able to begin, but it shows how extremism really affected people. Thomasin, the oldest daughter, and Caleb, the oldest son, are beginning to undergo puberty, but their natural urges are lambasted by their parents as marks of the Devil. Thus, when truly evil things begin to happen, the eyes of the parents (and the blame) immediately fall upon them. There is a good argument that this film is basically about growing up in a religious household and trying to break free, but The Witch is so well-crafted that its but one of many interpretations that could be made about it. And how many horror films in the last fifteen years can you really say something like that about?

     Next up on this list is Light’s Out, which is both a unique horror film in its execution and sort of a companion piece to 2014’s The Babadook in its themes (though this conclusion is a bit more… problematic). In both, the mother character is haunted by some sort of supernatural creature that feeds on negative emotions. In The Babadook, the titular creature is a manifestation of the mother’s grief, while in Lights Out the creature Diana is a manifestation of the mother’s depression. While creating monsters out of real life psychological conditions is nothing new in horror, the way Lights Out managed to put this trope into play is quite genius. The viewer isn’t exactly sure what Diana is until the end, and has to piece things together through stray bits of dialogue that aren’t focused on much. While it’s not as intelligent as The Babadook, this is still something that modern horror stories need in order to stay relevant and interesting.

     As I discussed in my review, Lights Out also brings back an element of horror films that have been missing for me for quite some time: actual tension. The scene I always talk to people about to illustrate this comes from John Carpenter’s slasher masterpiece, Halloween: the scene is in the Myers house, where Laurie believes that Michael is down for the count. Unbeknownst to her (but known to us, as the camera is zoomed out far enough), Michael is not dead, and he slowly rises from the ground and approaches her again. This is what true dread is, where we see something coming that the characters do not, and I’ll include a more recent example of this from It Follows to further illustrate the point. I talked about how Lights Out does this in my review, but I can’t stress enough how happy I am that this film eschewed jump scares for the most part, as I am getting sick and tired of that garbage showing up in horror movies.

     Don’t Breathe manages to combine the best elements of The Witch’s craft and the best of modern horror films, giving us great direction, an interesting story, and good characters while also providing genuinely creepy moments and great suspense. While I prefer The Witch for being more original and intelligent, Don’t Breathe is right up there on my list of favorites for this year for most of the same reasons. The struggle between the kids and the blind man is compelling because there is no real villain here (at first), and the audience can side with whoever they want and justify it. That’s a very interesting twist that most films wouldn’t have the guts to have, even though the set-up is a very traditional horror film. I’ve discussed this in my review so I won’t repeat it here, but I was very impressed with it and if you haven’t seen it you really should.

     Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not really a fan of horror movies. They’re very repetitive, the characters make dumb decisions, and no real story can be had because they need to have sequels. It’s because of this that I have been so impressed with this recent crop of indie horror, which finally puts something other than simple greed and franchise opportunities as the focus, like making a good movie. With Blair Witch, the franchise that nearly kicked off the found footage trend a decade earlier than it did (and annoyed the crap out of me), on the horizon, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that this trend stays. I mean, what could possibly be coming up that could ruin it, ri…

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