'Elevated Horror' never existed
killer right
Yeah, I said it, elevated horror never existed, I’ll even go further and say it’s not a real thing. This is a big debate in the horror world and genre world in general, but any true film watcher, especially one’s who have been watching horror before the last 10 years. I always see new horror fans lead with this conversation, or ones who just started watching ‘real’ films. In my genre film/television classes, we would always debate this. And I noticed that where the sides split was between when my classmates started watching horror or shows/films outside of age-appropriate themes(animation, Disney, Nick, etc). Our professors also pointed this out.
Night of the Living Dead(1968)
Heralded as one of the greatest horror films, Night of the Living Dead has inspired the majority of the horror films we see today. Be that from the twist, the themes it discusses, the storytelling aspect, or just in general, the zombies. If you don’t believe me, here’s what the Criterion Collection states “Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is a great story of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time.” There you have it. A film in the 1960s that changed and defined the horror genre as what we know it today. If you’ve never seen Night of the Living Dead because I don’t know you hate culture, then let me do a quick run-down for you. An outbreak of zombies traps a group of strangers in a farmhouse as they wait it out. Throughout the night, some of the strangers want to leave, but the others stop them. A fight ensues between and in the end, only one of the strangers ends up surviving the night. As the man leaves the house and sees the cops and civilians that are killing off the zombies, he calls for them, waving his arms around madly. In the end, the cops and civilians mistake him for a zombie and shoot him down. Here’s the kicker: the man who survives just to get shot at the end was a Black man. Obviously, I wasn’t around at the time, but that was a twist that shocked the world. The same feeling we had when Chris from Get Out(2017) survived in the end, just to see police lights, our hearts dropped. A lot of social commentary from the casting choices and to the ending was at play.
You might be asking where I'm going with this, well, this film showed what we think is ‘elevated horror’ or modern horror, but in the late 60s. These themes are still being used, and using horror to discuss social commentary isn’t a new thing. In fact, some would argue the whole point of horror is to discuss social issues/themes.
I’m not here to discuss the birth of horror, but just a tidbit of some info to help you see my reasoning.
Horror, at least in America, started with Monsters as a way to discuss topics that they struggled with, such as queerness, race, sexuality, gender, and more. It was a way to delve into the human body and mind without it being so obvious to the audience.
I would also like to point out that german expressionism was a big influence on horror; “emerg[ing] simultaneously in various cities across Germany as a response to a widespread anxiety about humanity’s increasingly discordant relationship with the world and accompanying lost feelings of authenticity and spirituality."Over time this continued before we had Night of the Living Dead(1968) there was Pyscho(1960) and before that The Thing From Another World(1951), and before that Cat People(1942), I could go on and on but one’s thing for certain these films brought something new, talked about social issues, all while disguised as just a good film as well.
You see the point I’m making.
Horror is elevation.
There is no new elevated horror, it’s always been elevated. That’s why horror has been one of the oldest and surviving genres before film or television; horror was explored in literature. It always irritates me when someone who just started watching films(specifically horror) talks about this. It’s like they're ignoring the whole point of why the genre was even invented.
Horror is a genre of storytelling intended to scare, shock, and thrill its audience. Horror can be interpreted in many different ways, but there is often a central villain, monster, or threat that is often a reflection of the fears being experienced by society at the time. This person or creature is called the “other,” a term that refers to someone that is feared because they are different or misunderstood. This is also why the horror genre has changed so much over the years. As culture and fears change, so does horror.Why is this?
I’m going to explain my reasoning on why I think this is, take it how you want, but it’s an observation.
Somewhere down the history of horror, slashers were introduced to the genre. At first, they were seen as this newfound societal fear. The fear of being a babysitter, teen parties, teen victims, killer, revenge backstory, isolated settings, high body count, final girl, and most importantly, the goryness in the kill.
With this rise dominating the horror genre, coupled with the rise of the internet, marketing, and franchise. Horror started to get sloppy, douchy, and overly saturated with sexual undertones. Be that no one’s fault but society, as now fear has been replaced with over brutalization, specifically on women’s bodies. Just like in the 1940s, horror began to drop not because of the decline in fear but because of the decline of film. That’s not to say there weren’t bangers being pushed out during this time, it’s just now we were overly saturated with the same type of slashes and franchises. Long were the days of one-off movies, great storytelling, and accessing the fear of today’s world.
But like every great messiah, there is an awakening, and we have been in that awakening.
Slashers have been toned down, franchises have become a big deal, and horror is back to the way it was.
Honorable Mentions:
Immaculate(2024); discussion of religion, prolife, agency, feminism
Missing(2023); the harm from technology, security/privacy, screenlife, and domestic violence
Master(2022); discussion of old money, tradition, institutional racism, microaggressions, black excellence
Before I end this rant with anything else, I’d like to point out that even though horror is seeing fears in an elevated lens. Sometimes it can be scary, gory, and senseless. Things are scary in the real world, and they don’t always make sense, so why does it matter? Think of it this way, there are serial killers in the world, I don’t want to or care to understand why they do it, but I know they just do. The scary aspect is ‘they just do,’ not the ‘why’.
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