Autumn, admittedly, is not my favourite season, nor is Halloween my favourite holiday. I suppose the one thing that gives me grace when it comes to October, something that validates not wanting to carve pumpkins or experiment with seasonal flavours of spiced latte, is the fact that I sincerely enjoy sitting down to watch a horror movie.
This October, I have made my way through several scary movies, with Sinners and Get Out being my recent favourites. However, I have noticed that there is a prominent aversion to the horror genre among my friends and family, which made me wonder: is this opinion shared generally, or just in my own small circle?
YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
Horror doesn’t need to be just blood and jumpscares, and it doesn’t have to conform to your last movie or read. Like other genres, horror of course has clues that tell you which category it is placed in, but also like other genres, these lines can be stretched and contorted.
Most people are familiar with the iconic slasher horror, with it being most notable for plot points featuring girls being chased around by masked men, groups splitting up right before someone is killed, and lots of blood which inevitably hikes the rating up to an 18. Beside slasher horror sits psychological horror, body horror, aliens, creature features… But what about feminist horror which fosters films like Jennifer’s Body, Carrie, or, unexpectedly, Alien? This sub-genre is defined by the emphasis on bodily autonomy, and the reclamation of it through both physical and monstrous manifestations, as well as the exploration of patriarchal control.
Another sub-genre that goes unrecognised is black horror. This is a sub-genre which is typically attributed to its themes of systemic racism, displacement, and the black experience as a whole. Jordan Peele’s Get Out reflects on modern micro-aggressions, and even the real-life (awkward) conversations about Obama’s presidency that Peele was subjected to when talking to his girlfriend’s parents. Considering the fact that Jordan Peele actually left comedy to debut this 2017 film shows that he had something to say, that it was not just simple horror meant to scare people, but to highlight real issues that are scary.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
It isn’t just the themes or motivations within movies that give us information, but also the date at which they were produced, and the society they were shown to that can give us clues. Threads (1984) isn’t classed as a horror film, but is described by people who saw it at the time as the “most disturbing movie ever made.” Threads follows the story of a woman who is separated from her lover following the destruction of a NATO base near their town of Sheffield, with the area turning into a post-apocalyptic fallout. This movie debuted to a society with heightened anxiety over the Cold War and nuclear powers, providing an important political commentary and effective anti-war stance.
And so, it is important not to shy away from the horror genre because it, more often than not, can provide an insight into the cultural attitudes and shifts within a society, whether that is the past, present, or future. Horror is an excellent genre that filmmakers use to show meaning because it is arguably the easiest genre to elicit emotion, hence why it should be appreciated all year round, and not just when the leaves begin to fall.
After all, who goes to a horror movie not expecting to jump into a stranger’s arms or to throw popcorn everywhere?