The Modern Horror Renaissance

 


The horror genre has had a strenuous run throughout the decades. It is, of course, going to be a niche genre by design. Everyone can enjoy a good comedy but not everyone resonates with seeing someone get cut in half with a chainsaw. Horror was a staple genre of film in the 1920s with the likes of Universal Studios' classic monster movies and Murnau's Nosferatu, and it had a notable resurgence in the 1970s with Halloween and the rise of the Slasher subgenre, but after Scream in the 90s the horror genre as a whole sort of became niche again. Sure, there have been some big franchises like the Conjuring or Saw, but neither of those had quite the same mass appeal some something like Star Wars or Titanic or what have you.

That is, of course, until very recently. It all began in 2017 with a film called It. It set several box office records, but most notably it set the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for an R-rated horror film. The previous record holder was Paranormal Activity 3 from 2011. While that film got mediocre reception from audiences and critics, It garnered quite positive reviews from both ends and ushered in a new age of horror films that are not only popular but incredibly well-made. Earlier that same year was the incredibly profound but not quite as mass-appealing Jordan Peele film Get Out, which seems to have reminded filmmakers that movies can be huge events while also speaking to the audience in subtle and intelligent ways.

Just the following year was A-24's masterpiece Hereditary, followed the next year by Midsommar, also from A-24. Since then we've gotten films like Nope, X, The Invisible Man, The Black Phone, Scream (2022), and Hellraiser (2022). All of these movies were not only fantastic but fantastically successful, which feels like a distinction that needed to be made with horror movies of the 2000s. 

Of course, there are still films that are being made that are very niche, Malignant, Terrifier 2, or very bad, Texas Chainsaw (2022), the recent Halloween films, but the late 2010s and especially the 2020s have ushered in a new age, a renaissance of blockbuster horror.

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