This past year and decade plus have produced some memorable horror classics and the genre on the whole seems to be heading in the right direction. Join Commander Shipp, Ollie, Vartan, and Logan for their thoughts on the genre, where it’s been, where is currently and where it can go.
Editor’s Note:
State Of…is a brand new series launching this month that will cover different industries or topics and give you a break down of what we think is going on. Sometimes this could cover a trend that’s been happening over a decade or more and sometimes it may be more granular and timely like the current state of streaming services. After we’ve covered a bunch, we’ll definitely go back and make some comparisons (if we made predictions) to previous episodes to see what we got right or wrong.
–Commander Shipp
The State of Horror…2010-ish to Now
Okay saying 2010 is maybe a misnomer, I gave the writers a wide range with this topic, but most of the movies we referenced were past this time and I mostly said the decade when referring to the current state of horror. So what follows are two conversations on that thread: the video chat I did with Ollie and Vartan and a text chat with Logan. I hope you enjoy and if you have thoughts, please comment here or discuss with us over on the Discord channel.
Video Chat with Ollie and Vartan
Discussion with Logan
The following has been condensed and/or edited for clarity:
Commander Shipp: Howdy Logan, as one of our resident horror writer and fans on the website, I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on the topic: what is the state of horror today? What do you initially think about? (edited)
Logan Roden: I think it’s in a really good place lately. We’ve had some really outstanding horror directors pop up over the last few years, and the stories and effects are usually amazing in general.
CS: Any directors and movies in particular that come to mind?
LR: Mike Flanagan and Jordan Peele for sure. Pretty much everything they’ve come out with has been absolutely spectacular. Other than their movies and shows, there’s been some standout crazy violent movies like Ready or Not and The Sadness. There’s even been quite a few really good slow burns, which aren’t normally my cup of tea, like Night House and No One Gets Out Alive.
CS: That’s very true, Peele has continued to elevate his craft with each film he’s crafted. Nope especially intrigues me because it’s the least scary of the trio, but certainly no less impactful, and it’s such a love letter to cinematography through and through
LR: Absolutely! The visuals were so stunning, and I was just as enraptured as I was with the Get Out and Us.
CS: Can you believe Peele and his cinematographer created a new technique just for that film and shot the night scenes during the day?
LR: Well, I know this isn’t the first time someone has shot scenes day for night. For example, 28 Weeks Later. Did Peele go about it differently then that team did?
CS: Apparently it’s some sort of infrared technique? It allowed them to reduce the amount of work in post and obviously the result was pretty spectacular on screen. Can’t wait to hear the details on how they did it.
CS: So you’ve covered a lot of TV horror for us, with the American Horror Story series, it also seems like we’ve had an increase in horror shows overall with Bates Hotel and Hannibal
LR: Yes, and to circle back to Flanagan, this is where he really shines. Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass were all insanely good. The themes and plot twists and emotional moments in all of these left a lasting impression. Not to mention the outstanding filmmaking in episode six of Hill House. I haven’t had time to check out Midnight Club just yet, but it’s high in my list.
CS: And I think the cool thing about episodic horror is that it allows for some breather episodes or ones where you can explore mythos in a way that you couldn’t do in a single movie. So you get these extremely tense episodes where the fear factor and jump scares are ratcheted up to 11 and then more cerebral ones to enjoy the creepy factor
LR: Definitely, that’s something Flanagan really excels at in his shows.
CS: I think sometime really cool to see are that lower budget horror film still make a ton of financial sense for streamers and major studios, like Parker Finn’s success turning his short film Laura Doesn’t Sleep into the hit Smile or even Barbarian, X or Pearl’s relatively low budgets and doing modestly well.
LR: Absolutely! I haven’t gotten to Smile just yet, but the others were very solid horror films that everyone is talking about, and I’m sure it helped the budget to keep them set in only a few locations.
CS: Thanks so much for this chat, I’m looking forward to what we’ll get going into 2023.