21st Century Horror: Where is it going?

[SirGutsalot]

When we think back to the classic horror movies of the 80's and 90's and then think about what we are producing today in books, movies and of course comics - are we heading in a good direction from a literary point of view?
Is it getting better or worse?
How far is too far or will censoring bring in a whole lot of stories that are too afraid to push the envelope?

Doing a horror comic myself, I'd be very interested to see what you think on this matter.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

Honestly, I don't think things are getting better or worse. The horror genre has always been hit and miss. I know horror films the best, so I'll talk about that. For every horror classic that's come out over the years, there's been about ten crappy ones at least. The classics live on as staples in the genre, while the crappy ones get dug up once in a while to be made fun of.

As for your bottom question, that all depends on the story you want to tell and what sort of content would be appropriate for what you're setting up. Would a horrifying scene work more if it's blatantly shown or if it's left to the imagination? That's entirely up to you and what kind of horror you're setting up. It all comes down to impact. Go as far as necessary.

[rowanfresh]

Has anybody read The Last Days Of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp? Brilliant modern horror about a writer obsessed with figuring out a spooky youtube video, really recommend it to see how good millennial horror can be when done right.

[OccasionalNightmares]

I think it's important to look at how horror movies, and horror media in general, reflect the fears of those producing them. The movies that fail are the ones that don't match up with society's fears. Any successful horror movies play off of the most basic subconscious fears of the society they're released in - monster movies in the 30s and 40s played off fear of "The other", Kaiju movies in the 50s played off fear of the atomic age, zombie movies in the 50s and 60s played off the fear of people that look just like us but suddenly aren't following all of our rules, primarily due to the civil rights movement, etc etc.

So you have to wonder what movies are being successful right now, and how that coincides with society's fears. I think we can see a rapid change in genre over just a few years, from the 2000s to now we've gone through the zombie revival but now they're extremely brutal, the SAW torture craze, Paranormal Activity's unseen force craze, and a dramatic amount more. I think this shows that society's fears aren't as simple as they used to be, probably because of the internet. People are no longer listening to just what the government and big news are feeding them - to be afraid of immigrants, or of the black people, or of the soviets' bombs. Now people are afraid of a lot of things - they're afraid of the government, they're afraid of society collapsing, they're afraid of losing control, and a number of other things.

The horror comic that I write, Stalker, I write by consciously taking into mind what I, and people like me, are afraid of. Personally, I'm afraid of the police state, I'm afraid of fear mongering by the media as well as it's result in droves of people lashing out against people who don't deserve it. That's reflected in my comic, and it'll only succeed if society agrees with those fears. But I suggest that when writing horror, to write about what scares you, even if society might not immediately agree with you.

Is your comic uploaded yet? I'd love to see it, you should link it. To answer your question of, is horror getting better or worse - I don't think either is possible. Horror can only succeed by emulating society - to get better it'd have to predict it and show something even scarier than what we're afraid of, AKA The thing we'll be afraid of next, which is generally impossible. To get worse, it'd have to play on what we're already no longer afraid of, in which case it wont get any attention. We may not like the way horror is going, any individual saying "The old horror movies are scarier!", but that can be chalked up to our fears simply not evolving with the rest of society. Wait about 10 years and the whole scene will be vastly different, and we may like it more then.

[NickRowler]

I feel now there is a raise of the Creepypastas (internet urban legions). There are sites similar to Fanfiction.net where people post their creepypastas and Youtube allows the stories to be spread.

For films, I feel like too many get caught up with the concept of the jump scare. Quiet suspense tends to be so much scarier. I also feel the concept of zombies and zombie-like creatures have been done to death.

[indagold]

Well outside of movies making schlock because people get scared if someone boos at them getting popular, horror schlock has been around forever. Even beloved mainstream horror from the 80s was schlock, especially given the high saturation of slasher films.

[Rhombik]

are we heading in a good direction from a literary point of view?

I'd say there is still a lot of Young Adult horror fiction but it's maybe less popular than 30 years ago when say Stephen King was writing more classic horror stories.

I think a lot of current horror fiction actually mixes genre. So you get Twilight (which I've never read but I understand it's a horror- romance mix), Anno Dracula (horror-comedy mix) and Westworld, Jurassic Park (horror, sci-fi mix).

Is it getting better or worse?

This really depends what kind of horror you like. If you don't like zombie, robot, alien invasion stuff then chances are you won't like a lot of the blockbuster films at the moment. As somebody said earlier, art deals with conflict in society and at a personal level.

Currently immigration and civil rights for minorities are coming back to the surface so we're seeing a lot of the "good" zombie, robot, alien stuff like "Westword", "Warm Bodies", "Orphan Black" and "District 9". Basically, what seems "other" and dangerous is not so unlike us and maybe we are the bad guys. I expect we'll see more and more of this.

How far is too far or will censoring bring in a whole lot of stories that are too afraid to push the envelope?

If you mean violence, I think a good writer, film maker or comic artist doesn't need to worry about censorship. It's more about what you don't see and have to imagine.

[AdrenalineShots]

Some really good points. The thing about censorship is something that's been going around in my mind recently - is there an onus on a creator to not present ideas / scenes that could end up in copycat actions... I recently had a scene that I was going to create which is based on something I've discussed in real life with people as something that could happen, and marvelled at how easy it would be to actually pull off, to which most people agreed. It would make a really cool scene however I felt uncomfortable with the concept of my "visualising" it may actually put the idea in others heads and hence make it happening more likely. It was for a horror / "real world" serial killer drama that I'm developing... mostly I work in the realms of fantasy / monsters so thankfully it doesn't come up frequently for me personally but it did stop and make me think. Overall even if it meant losing a powerful / cool scene I think all things being equal I probably wouldn't include a scene that I felt could be utilised in a "real world" setting, but then again maybe I am wrong and a hopelessly soft hearted cautious type. I think I'd rather 100 times over be relatively unknown as a creator than be widely known and have led to my ideas being mis-used. Of course the caveat to it all is that no-one should mis-use anything and anyone doing so was probably likely planning on doing something similar anyway. Of course, there is always the tension of being too cautious and ending up creating things are nothing but insipid...