Opinion Resurgence of horror films reflects anxiety of the times

In April, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners used the classic trope of vampirism to tell what would appear to be a familiar cinematic theme: The White man’s exploitation of Black communities. Only Coogler chose to do it unusually. He bet big on the big screen in the age of OTT (the film was shot on 70 mm film) and told the story of the power imbalance through horror. The film grossed over $350 million and became the latest rendition of “elevated horror” — films featuring supernatural antagonists and signature jump scares along with subtext that highlights social and political faultlines.

You only have to turn to Zach Cregger’s Weapons, which tells the story of an America struggling with unchecked gun violence, Danny and Michael Philippou’s Bring Her Back, on childhood abuse, or, in India, films like Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight, Rahul Sadasivan’s Bramayugam, and the Stree series to know that horror is the new romance. In a world wracked by war, climate change and unprecedented technological churn, horror pushes the audience to the depths of darkness and danger to viscerally experience the trials of the time — rollback of hard-won rights; deepening exclusion and divisive politics. In this context, these films offer release, connection and recognition.

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Contrary to popular imagination of the genre being merely about contrived scenarios and blood and gore, the subversive storytelling of the current crop of films pushes the envelope on creativity. Often, in horror, this is achieved at significantly lower budgets than mainstream big-tent films. For example, The Blair Witch Project (1999) — shot in eight days with a budget of $60,000 — went on to break box-office records and forever change how horror films are made. Given the creative lull that has plagued film industries across the world in the last few years, they would do well to take this moment and run with it — and away from the ghosts of uninspired cinema.