Psycho, The Shining and all the Saw movies are all defining movies from their respective decades. But what caused the drastic change in story and horror content? Was it the development of technology to make gore scenes more gorey, or are there new things to be afraid of?
“Horror movies reflect our culture and our society’s beliefs,” English teacher Sabrina Beasley said. “Back in the ’50s, you had fear of nuclear war, [and] you had fear of the unknown, which is why you had so many aliens landing on the planet. [In] the ’90s, people were afraid of being kidnapped and murdered, which is why you had so many slasher films. Nowadays, the movies are either really really gross for entertainment effect, or they’re very frightening in terms of psychological fright.”
The top horror movies of the 2010s include The Conjuring, The Babadook and It Follows. All the movies share one quality in particular: an unknown monster. Fear of the unknown describes this particular era of horror.
“Horror movies thrive on the unknown parts,” junior Hannah Yule said. “My mom gets scared easily, and I tell her, ‘The scariest part of the movie is the sound.’ So if you go through the whole movie with your ears covered, it won’t be as scary. But, if you went through the whole movie with your eyes covered, it would be terrifying. The ambience, the sound and the music and who’s directing it all work together to make you scared out of your mind.”
Technology, such as Computer Generated Imaging [CGI], has also made an impact on the horror genre. More realistic effects can be achieved without actors spending hours putting on makeup.
“[Horror has gotten] better in the gore category, because they have more access to CGI,” senior Sam Watson said. “You can actually have arms ripped off, bit off, sliced off you can actually see someone get sliced in half.”
In Beasley’s opinion, gore is unnecessary when it’s only included “for gore’s sake.”
“I think the movies nowadays, again it depends on the director you’re watching, but I think it has crossed over the line to ridiculous,” Beasley said. “Gore for gore’s sake. ‘Hey, we can have someone cut their arm off? Let’s show it.’ To me, that’s not real horror. Real horror is thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, someone’s about to cut off my limb.’ I think we’ve gone for shock value. I think we’ve compromised our ability to truly scare one another for our ability to shock one another.”
Quickly developing technology and a changing demographic will lead to a new era of horror. It is unclear whether the horror genre will backtrack and continue remaking classics or begin a new, undefined decade.
“I think we’re backtracking,” Yule said. “There was the gorey period with the Saw movies and they’re coming out with Jigsaw. You know there’s going to be a bunch of movies after that, and so there’s going to be a new gore period. I hope that it goes back to the unknown stuff, because that’s what gets me.”
As shown in the past, what society is afraid of defines a decade of horror.
“In the ‘90s it was camping, sleeping, hanging out with friends and those horror movies reflected that,” Watson said. “I’m really excited to see what this next generation of horror does.”
– By Madison Clark
