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Reality is scarier than fiction: Why 'horror' is the most loved film genre today

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Gautam Chintamani
Gautam ChintamaniFeb 03, 2019 | 15:46

Reality is scarier than fiction: Why 'horror' is the most loved film genre today

An infographic doing the rounds on social media shows different genres of films popular between 1910 and 2018 — what strikes you the most here is the sheer increase in the number of horror films over time.

While comedy has largely maintained itself since the mid-1940s, fantasy has done the same since the mid-1990s. Action has seen a decrease post-1990, and the musical, western and war genres have almost hit rock bottom. The crime genre movie, too, has been dipping. It’s intriguing to see how both the sci-fi and thriller genres have seen an upward swing — but nothing comes close to the spike horror films have witnessed across these decades.

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The manner in which horror films have gone from being largely genre entities to be recognised amongst some of the most prestigious mainstream works of art can be attributed to many factors.

One transformative push was the advent of the digital platform — where literally anyone with a digital camera could make a film.

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El Mariachi showed independent films on a budget could find a global market. Then, The Blair Witch Project happened. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In 1992, Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi was shot on a budget of US$ 7,225 and sent shockwaves across the world. Even though it was filmed on 16 mm, it proved that a feature-length film made on a shoestring budget could also find a global market.

A few years later, when something similar happened with The Blair Witch Project (1999), which was made on a budget of US$ 60,000 and ended up grossing over US$ 250 million, it not only blazed the trail for independent filmmakers, but also gave horror a much-needed shot in the arm.

Between 1930 — the year from when the talkie started to replace silent films — and the 1950s, horror never got mainstream recognition, either in Hollywood or India. The 1950s were a period where Hollywood was more interested in sci-fi and there were several films about aliens, space adventures and scientific wonders and blunders, as opposed to classical horror.

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Off-beat horror films in Bollywood enjoyed mainstream attention only in the 1960s. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In Hindi films, this period saw the eerie Madhumati (1958), but it was not until the success of Bees Saal Baad (1962), followed by the success of Woh Kaun Thi (1964), Anita (1967) and Gumnaam (1965) that the genre enjoyed mainstream attention.

The 1960s also two evolutionary horror films — Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) — that became the benchmark for horror in Hollywood. The late 1970s revived the horror film with the Halloween series. In the 1980s, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) created a special market for the genre and with Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) the genre became a full-fledged market unto itself.

In order to get an idea of the kind of exponential increase horror has undergone in the last few years, one needs to see the spike in the annual production of the genre.

In 1990, there were 229 horror movies, 358 in 2000 — by 2006, there were nearly 874 horror films produced in Hollywood alone.

The low cost of production for most horror films, when compared to a Lord of the Rings or any of the Transformers films, made it a very attractive business proposition. In fact, it’s the only genre where the lower the production value, the greater the product’s charm.

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Paranormal Activity paved the path for a very different kind of horror film. (Source: YouTube screengrab)

Take, for instance, Paranormal Activity (2007), where a significant part of the film plays out on a video camera that a young couple set up to record any paranormal activity that occurs while they sleep. The independent film was made on a budget of US$ 15,000 and acquired by Paramount/DreamWorks for US$ 350,000 — and ended up earning nearly US$ 193 million worldwide.

Today, we are in the golden age of horror films.

In 2017, Jordan Peele’s Get Out won great critical acclaim for the cutting commentary on racial dynamics in the United States that it infused within its narrative, which otherwise could have been considered a typical genre film. The film made over US $100 million at the box office and also got mainstream acceptance unlike most horror films — it notched up a bevvy of Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

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Get Out helped the genre’s ability to seep itself in social commentary. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Peele’s film also turned around the genre’s ability to seep itself in social commentary, as seen in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which, set during the Cold War, used aliens as an allegory for Communists, or Rosemary’s Baby, that chillingly spoke about the threats of assault faced by women every single day.

As a genre, horror flourished the most when it mixed realism and the fantastical. Last year, Hereditary (2018) was not a standard horror film because it could scare but its psychological and emotional depth made it a family tragedy curdled into a nightmare. The ability of the genre post-Get Out to segue between the real and the bizarre makes themes such as alternative reality (The Man in the High Castle) and even climate change (Annihilation) ready fodder for horror.

This alchemy has been its great achievement.

In the present day, when reality as it is can be a scary thought, no wonder horror has it so good.

Last updated: February 03, 2019 | 15:52
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