Is Horror Dead?

**as posted on Wyrdstuff**

The murmuring started when Grindhouse took a dive at the box office. Horror (at least the current wave) was over.

But the more prudent among us weren't going to play the alarmist game. One film can falter for many reasons. Grindhouse had a lot going against it (long running time, Easter weekend, limited premise).

Not to mention, everyone was in the horror biz. Movies. TV. Comics. The market was oversaturated to say the least. Even I couldn't look at another zombie thing. And I love zombies. My best friend is a zombie.

Now Hostel: Part II has opened at #6 for its first weekend. $8.75 million. Below estimates and the first film's surprising take.

Listen... you can hear those murmurings again (the morbid buggers). Is horror dead this time?

There are many reasons why Hostel: Part II could have stumbled. There was more than enough competition in theaters (Pirates 3, Ocean's 13, Knocked Up etc.). People are still debating the appeal of what some has dubbed "torture porn". It's also a sequel. Sequels rarely make as much as the original.

Hostel: Part II is also a horror film (please hold your "No, duhs!"). Despite the growing respectability over the last few years, horror is still an acquired taste for many. Most people don't get its appeal. Sure, they like to be scared, but usually in an escapist way.

Eli Roth and his partners in splatter make their brand of horror for horror fans. They are fans themselves and were disappointed at all the PG-13 fare that was passing itself as the real stuff. Horror, for them, should be visceral. It should hit you in the gut. Below the belt. Anywhere it can leave a mark.

Horror should scar you. It should stay with you long after you leave the theater. Think of it as adrenaline residue. As far back as Psycho, people knew that film was effective horror when people stayed clear of showers (and it was horror no matter what snooty cinephiles want to believe).

Jaws... the water. Texas Chainsaw... redneck territory. Halloween... the suburbs. Hostel... well, hostels. The Eastern European ones anyway.

The current splatter films scarred as well as scared. Initially. Now, as with anything, filmmakers have gone back to the gore well too many times and without enough variety.

We can blame Hollywood for this. Horror films were a dream come true for the studios. For once they had a formula for box office success. Horror films didn't need to cost much. They didn't need stars. Their fan base was loyal and willing to sit through utter shit on the off chance something good would pop up.

Low cost = bigger returns

But, as the new wave of horror grew fat, the budgets bloated as well. There was nothing wrong with Grindhouse as far as level of gore or its filmmaking in general. The thing cost over $60 million, though. The built in fans came out for Grindhouse no problem, but at $60 million a film needs to reach beyond the die hards.

That's a problem for horror, though. As I said, most people don't understand the appeal of horror... especially gore. What made Wolf Creek, Saw, and the first Hostel so successful (from a business stand point) was that they were made for essentially indie budgets. They only needed to last past the first weekend and champagne was popped. That pop made others curious. They checked these films out, saw they were actually more than guignol and, what do you know, more champagne. Pink with running blood.

Audiences had never experienced horror turned up to 11. Whatsmore, these films were smart. Characters still went off alone when a killer was on the loose, but they were more fleshed out than in the 70s. Then Joe Bob Briggs' phrase "spam in a cabin" could refer to the IQ of horror movie victims as well as what was left of them after the machete.

Sequels (and remakes) is what studios are offering as horror these days. Do they scare? Mostly. In a roller coaster kind of way. But audiences and their tastes know when they're being served meatloaf again. They'll only eat it so many times before giving sushi a try.

I was actually shocked that Eli Roth chose Hostel: Part II as his next film. He'd already been there. Already done that. Same with Rob Zombie. The Devil's Rejects was an entirely different kind of film than House of 1,000 Corpses (despite Rejects essentially being a sequel. Remaking Halloween, though, doesn't seem to be a stretch on par with what Zombie enjoys, however. (Though, to be fair, Zombie's Halloween is clearly a different take on the subject matter. If anyone can re-invent Michael Myers, I have faith that Zombie is that person. We'll see soon enough.)

Sequels, by their very nature, fall into one up-manship (the same but more of it). One up-manship can only carry a film so far, however, and in horror one usually outdoes oneself with blood.

Spraying blood is easy. Making it count for something is a little more difficult (and in horror it should always count for something). The gross out is perfectly acceptable. People (even the uninitiated) expect it. What they don't expect is something that gets under your skin. Most people don't think horror films are clever enough to do this. That's why, when they do (like The Exorcist, The Hills Have Eyes or Dawn of the Dead) they last forever.

Now this is easier said than done. I wish there was an easy method to getting under people's skin. For awhile, visceral gore was doing the trick. Now people are hip to it. More effort is required.

I'm not advocating a return to denatured horror films. Horror is nothing without its teeth. To paraphrase Clive Barker, it must break taboos. But, if Grindhouse and Hostel: Part II are symptoms of something more malignant, horror needs to shake things up again.

Is horror dead? Never. Not in a million years. People like to be scared. They like to face their own mortality. The dark side. The abyss. Whatever lurks beyond our ken sporting a chainsaw, tentacles or fangs. By doing so, we know we're alive. And, in the theater, it's a lot safer than doing it for real.

But nouveau horror filmmakers do need to live up to their promise a little more. They are horror's ambassadors. The reason horror was crossing over was the talent and audacity on display in their films. It brought outsiders into the dark where they were rewarded for their bravery with something more than Karo syrup and latex bits. As were we fans.