With Hollywood favouring franchise fare, horror films have become the last bastion of inventive film-making, producing a new generation of auteurs in the process
Every week at my local multiplex, there is a new horror film. If it’s not a reboot (I Know What You Did Last Summer) or sequel (Final Destination Bloodlines), it’s a prequel (The First Omen; A Quiet Place: Day One), the return of a beloved gothic icon (Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale; Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein), or a slasher movie (Dangerous Animals) in which the psycho killer’s weapon of choice is not blades, but sharks. Or it’s a thrilling, deliriously inventive dispatch from one of a new wave of horror auteurs shaking up the cinematic zeitgeist: Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, say, or Zach Cregger’s Weapons.
By playing with metaphor, imagery and narrative, horror has always addressed hard truths about death, decay and the human condition that mainstream productions tend to shy away from as too disgusting, embarrassing or distressing. In an era when thrillers, romcoms and action films are unwilling to rock the boat lest they upset risk-averse studios and streaming services, horror films are uniquely equipped to tackle the hot-button issues of our times: migration (His House); mental health (Smile 2); toxic masculinity (The Invisible Man); artificial intelligence (M3gan); cults (Midsommar); zealotry (Heretic); gender dysphoria (I Saw the TV Glow); conspiracy theories (Broadcast Signal Intrusion); Zoom meetings (Host); pandemics (The Sadness); ecology (In the Earth); politics (The Purge); dementia (Relic); pregnancy and motherhood (Huesera: The Bone Woman; Mother’s Baby) and – an ever-popular theme in the horrorsphere – bereavement (The Babadook; Hereditary; Talk to Me; Bring Her Back and so on).