Horror - The Underappreciated Genre

The Horror Film is often disregarded. Overlooked. It’s seen as mindless entertainment with no real meaning behind it. And while it is true that there is some mindless horror out there, others have true meaning towards them. A great example of this is a movie such as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), where the premise of the movie was to represent the mistrust of the Red Scare during the Cold War, similar to the 1956 and 1973 versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

However, the Horror Genre is synonymous for having multiple Sub-Genres. Some of these include the Slasher (With films such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Supernatural (Paranormal Activity and Poltergeist). Even B-Movie Horror is regularly celebrated, with movies that are “So bad they’re good” receiving praise (such as Killer Klowns From Outer Space and Leprechaun).

However, I find the Slasher Sub-Genre of Horror to be the most appealing of all the Sub-Genres. Movies like Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street have had a profound cultural impact on the world of cinema. Characters such as Micheal Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Kruger have become some of the most popular characters in all of cinema. The Slasher Sub-Genre hit its peak in the mid-’80s. At this point, the tropes hadn’t been worn out and the premises of the movies were still interesting. As time went on, the tropes became staler. Some of these tropes were the silent stalking killer and the “final girl”. A final girl is usually defined as a female protagonist who would usually beat the killer by the end of the film. This would be characters like Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Laurie Strode (Halloween) and Sidney Prescott (Scream). Interestingly enough, A Nightmare on Elm Street broke these tropes by having a Killer with a personality and by having the first “final boy” in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. The premises of the movies also became more outlandish with ridiculous premises (such as Jason X, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare).

However, there have been more recent attempts of Slasher movies that accomplish the goals set out by the earlier classics. A movie like Terrifier (2017) was a gruesome slasher following Art The Clown as he stalks and murders people on Halloween Night. Sound familiar? There isn’t much in the way of a story, as each scene is basically either set up for a kill, or the execution of a kill itself. The practical effects of the film are sublime and it genuinely instills terror. I believe that the film accomplished exactly what it set out to do - scare the audience with gruesome and grotesque violence.

Similarly, the phenomenal Cabin in the Woods was a movie described as a “loving hate letter” to the Horror Film by director Joss Whedon. The movie isn’t a straight Horror, in fact, it’s more of a comedy with horror elements. But I believe it’s worth a mention as it comments on all the ridiculous Horror tropes and pokes fun at them (for example how characters are always splitting up in dangerous situations and how they drop weapons after using them once). In fact, the entire movie is a metaphor for the state of the horror film - the old Gods (the audience) needs to see a senseless murder and violence (the horror film) with specific characters/ tropes (final girl, sex, gore) and if those things aren’t met they destroy the world (give the movie bad reviews and make it a failure). It’s quite an ingenious movie and definitely worth a watch, especially with all the Horror movie Easter Eggs.