Why do audiences embrace horror films with such fervor and devotion? Probably for the same reason people patiently stand in line to ride a roller coaster at an amusement park or flock to a neighborhood haunted house as Halloween approaches. It’s likely due to the fear factor or, more particularly, the human compulsion to experience the adrenaline surge triggered by being frightened — like the fight-or-fight response, although in controlled circumstances. Whatever the biochemical result, it may explain the proliferation of scary movies on release schedules. Of late, there is usually at least one coming out a week — and that’s not even counting the regular rollout of ultraviolent, stunt-jammed action movies. The gap between a scare and a thrill is not that vast.
It’s evident that economics play a part in the barrage of creep shows. The budgets are not particularly massive, bringing profits more in reach. You don’t need a big star to sell one of these fright-fests, even if certain name actors will deign to do horror when concept, script, and director click for them. In the past few months alone, studios and distributors have unleashed a steady stream of supernatural and/or slasher-style exercises in murder and mayhem. Whereas the overall quality may vary with such a considerable number of offerings, they seem to have broad appeal — and quite a few of the following 2024 releases are decent of kind.
Fear factoring
Longlegs spotlights a malevolent shape-shifting maniac (Nicolas Cage, naturally — or unnaturally) who compels innocents in small-town America to do his fiendish bidding, while Cuckoo flies to a resort in the German Alps, where nature itself might be unleashing something deadly. A cursed curio comes alive for the purpose of deadly revenge in Oddity; an actor (portrayed by a slumming Russell Crowe) must confront demonic forces while shooting a movie in The Exorcism. In a Violent Nature finds an invulnerable, deformed death-dealer rising from a woodland grave to torment college kids on a camping trip; and in Starve Acre a mythic avatar of evil is reborn in contemporary rural England. Any of the above has the potential to launch that boon to film-industry accountants: a franchise.
Somewhat more plausible parades of creative slaughter suggest true-crime dramas even as they lean into familiar tropes. Standouts among them are Strange Darling (a remorseless serial killer stalks victims in the Pacific Northwest); MaXXXine, the third installment in director Ti West’s X trilogy starring actress Mia Goth (in this case, bloody slayings bedevil a porn star seeking a legit career in 1980s Hollywood); and Blink Twice (a profligate tech billionaire and his friends host a party on his private island with unexpectedly shocking consequences). And coming to theaters shortly will be Speak No Evil — an American-made remake of Danish filmmaker Christian Tafdrup’s utterly chilling 2022 movie of the same name — an absolutely terrifying examination of the awful, yet believable events that occur after two families meet while on vacation.
The spectrum of elevated horror
Movies such as the original version of Speak No Evil and director-screenwriter Ari Aster’s nightmarish family saga Hereditary are illustrations of the idea that overt violence and viscera are not crucial to generating truly effective onscreen terror. As exemplified by Speak No Evil and Hereditary, a profound sense of dread that’s fueled by complex emotional circumstances and builds to climactic, perhaps inevitable tragedy is a far more sophisticated way to generate distress in a viewer than a flood of blood. Pundits have coined a label for this brand of motion picture, even those entries that get a bit on the grisly side: elevated horror. There is diversity to that subgenre, which includes the paranormal (It Follows), monsters (The Babadook), and psychodrama (Get Out). In an encouraging sign, proponents of elevated horror have found a measure of box-office success.
There are obviously disturbing aspects to the popularity of horror movies — specifically, the ones that appear to be more interested in finding new ways to dispatch hapless victims than in telling a compelling story. It’s hard to endorse a production wherein imaginative killing is the be-all and end-all. Violence for its own sake isn’t so much a scary thing as it is a lazy thing, which is why the stuff of elevated horror is so much more welcome than lowbrow, gratuitously gruesome entries from the scream brigade. None of the above addresses the grotesque, hulking creature in the room: the fact that a good-sized chunk of the public is numb enough to the brutal doings depicted with such visual aplomb by special-effects wizards that they snatch up millions of tickets to virtually experience what they would run away from in real life.
New horror movies are being cranked out and consumed, whether it’s for the adrenaline rush or as a consequence of an arguably sociopathic lack of empathy. The audience is shrieking with glee — and is eager to shriek again. When push comes to stab, the bottom line assures more gore to come.
