A Renaissance in Horror

Over the last couple of years, there has been a significant shift in the quality of horror films released in a standard year. While I'm not too much of a horror fan myself, sometimes even I can't shake the desire for a good scare, or a morbid thirst to be disturbed. Typically, horror films are released wide every few weeks, often they are critically panned, scoring relatively low on both rotten tomatoes and cinemascore compared to their competition. However this trend has decreased dramatically, 2016 alone saw the release of close to a dozen horror films that contradicted this history. Why is this the case? Has the greater audience demand for quality horror outweighed the box office sucsess in studio eyes, or is there something deeper going on? Lets dive a little deeper and discuss.

Before we discuss the rise to prominence the horror genre has enjoyed, it may be best to discuss its fall from grace after the 1980s. After John Carpenter sparked the horror genre with new classics like The Thing and Halloween, the horror genre seemed to dry in quality whereas the quantity never seemed to change. Horror is a cheep genre, it doesn't require the stuntwork and spectacle that action does, nor does it require expensive sets or high paid actors. Horror is a genre of small returns and even smaller investments and its worked well for the genre. Studios like Blumhouse have modeled their entire production around the nature of horror as a low cost high returns genre. However, due to the low cost of investment and consistent quantity of horror movies, many turn out nothing more than cheep scares and tired genre cliches. A low budget does not mean a movie will lack in quantity, many times the opposite is true, but you would have to be blind not to notice the correlation.

Many site the turning point of modern horror to be 2013s The Conjuring, James Wan's critical and commercial success.The Conjuring unlike typical horror had a modest budget, strong acting taletnt and and a competent director at helm. It saw massive returns, over 300million$ worldwide, and outstanding critical praise with an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Conjuring was by no means the only horror movie in years to receive critical praise, nor was it the first to make as much money as it did, but now looking back it would have seemed to be the perfect storm of both.

In the years following more horror movies were released capitalizing trying The Conjuring's success. In 2014 we got It Follows(97%RT) and The Babadook(98%RT), in 2015 The Witch(91%) was released at US film festivals. Last year saw the most concentrated release of quality horror movies in years; 10 Cloverfield Lane(91%RT), The Conjuring 2(80%RT), Light Out (76%RT), Don't Breath(87%) and Ouija: Origin of Evil(83%RT) all scored "certifiably fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. Each enjoyed relative commercial success in the domestic box office, Don't Breath in particular was #1 for three weeks in a row.

It's clear that there has been a escalated shift in the horror genre. In just three month 2017 has already seen the resale of two horror pictures that dominated the box office, those being Spilt and Get Out which has a remarkable 99% on rotten tomatoes. I keep bringing up the rotten tomatoes score but I believe they do matter. There seems to be a correlation between higher box office returns and critical praise in the box office return in horror more so than any other genre. Regardless of my thoughts or analysis, I hope this trend continues. Any good movie has the potential to elevate its respective genre, hopes here that we only see it go up.