Horror

It wasn’t long ago that the genre of horror was emerging from the film industry with some of the most innovative and original horror flicks that were scaring even the most tolerant of people. Even though it was quite fresh in the 60s and 70s, the majority of audiences were ready and intrigued to meet these ominous villains and messy killings and there were even cases of participants having to leave the cinema or throwing up at stomach churning scenes from movies like ‘The Silence of the Lambs ‘(1991) or ‘The Thing’ (1982). Unfortunately, this level of novelty and resonating fear has been lost in the recent decades, due to the detrimental rise of teen slashers and ‘torture-porn’.

I’m trying to be impartial here but it’s a little difficult when I’ve grown up in the era where classic horror films that have rocked society are being recycled, but instead of being renovated into a gleaming new product they’re somehow being churned into trash. This discourages me, since as someone interested in psychology, I saw how some of the supreme horrors were subconsciously tapping into our deepest fears and teetering on the edge of our pool of moral limits (while occasionally dipping a toe or two in). And now the whole concept of subtlety or suspense has been crushed by the weight of gore, jump scares and a whole bunch of objectified women. Yes, I know, some people really want to see that but we really don’t need 400 of ‘em. Let me give you an example; ‘Alien’ (1979) was one of the best horror movies around (and still is if you ask me) and this was because of some fundamental elements: there was a core use of suspense, lots of dark lighting and an obscure creature that was never seen in its entirety. The whole time we were trying to figure out its biology, its weakness, what does it even look like? Jump scares should be used like salt, in pinches.

Now let’s talk numbers. Many people will disregard a careless tally up of jump scares as a valid representation of success but let’s have a look at the payoff in the first week shall we? (Numbers don’t mean everything) In the current decade, top grossing movies in the box office are making around £60 - £80 million, excluding some extremely successful choices like 2017’s ‘Get Out’ which made an astonishing £90.7 million. If we then look at the 70s selection of blockbusters, ‘Alien’ made £70 million (about £325 million AI – After inflation), ‘The Amityville Horror’ (1979) made £76 million and a classic slasher (‘Halloween’ in 1978) only made £39 million (£205 million AI).

When I was debating what to watch one Saturday night, something struck me; there was a sheer lack of modern horror movies that sprung to mind and sometimes you have to take a break from the classics. So of course, I opted for the only other beverage that would quench my thirst for horror… illegally downloading the newest one from a franchise I loved. This led me to search for the Alien: Covenant movie and so my movie night began…

The first hour or so was well thought out; I already started to fall for the main protagonist as soon as she hit the screen, however, the rest of the crew didn’t fare so well in my book. There was a large volume of members and they were all good-to-excellent actors, but they all lacked an amount of depth of character and I really had no attachment to any of them. Plus the fact that the first captain died before anything happened. The captain that took over (Christopher Oram played by Billy Crudup) was a complete tool who was capable of nothing besides self-pity, and I can barely remember any of the other members. Granted, the ‘villain’ and ‘sidekick’ in all this exceeded my expectations. David and Walter (both played by Michael Fassbender) had all kinds of depth to them - although it got a little weird at times. Besides all the let downs in character development and any kind of emotional depth, the plot couldn’t really be faulted, I mean the plot was already in stone it was just up to the director (Ridley Scott) to ensure that it was portrayed beautifully and artistically like its predecessors. Clearly that didn’t go to plan, now did it Ridley? Instead we got a jumbled slap in the face of unnecessary gore and unbelievably disrespectful CGI. That’s right, the fundamental aspect of the Alien franchise that really shone out above the rest, was the subtlety. The suspense and horror was dangled in front of you throughout every movie, apart from the co-starring creatures like Face-huggers or Trilobites, the Xenomorphs were forever a mystery. You didn’t see them in daylight; their overall structure was still obscure and that’s what kept them oh so ominous. In this latest instalment however, there was an alien gleaming in the sunlight, riding on a helicopter… its self-explanatory really.

In conclusion I think it’s clear to see that horror isn’t what it used to be; in fact the genre has been uprooting itself since the 2000’s, although, this could all be a mid-life crisis since the uprising of Marvel movies and obscure indie films. (a threat that has forced Horror to come out of its reclusive state and really take cinema audiences by storm in the 21st century). My heart might break at the proposition of losing the old tenacity of my dear friend, but if I hadn’t been watching horror movies since I was 6 with, my clearly unorthodox father - then I’m sure I would’ve missed out on the opportunity to expose myself to such feats of greatness in movie-making.

Please, let’s all take a moment to remember how good we had it. From our introductions to serial murderers, alien infestation and psychological thrills, we had a good run but it’s time to break away from our inhibitions and let the B movie trash run wild.

Rest in peace - Horror (1970-2000)