Penny Dreadful SFX's high priestess of horror
Our resident horror expert looks back at the genre trends of 2018…
MIND MATTERS
Last year talk turned to “elevated horror” once again – basically a cheeky way for people who think they don’t like horror to admit to liking genre movies. It’s not new, but one of the big focuses of 2018 horror was movies with mental health issues at the heart. Grief stricken family trauma flick Hereditary was at the forefront with Toni Collette’s performance as a mother dealing with the worst kind of inheritance holding it all together. Meanwhile Matt Holness’s Possum was a weird, creepy tale of past horror manifesting via a hideous puppet. Unsane looked more literally at a woman who was previously stalked questioning her sanity, while even the remake of Halloween had a thread about PTSD. The horror may come from within but that doesn’t mean it’s not made real on the big screen in these smart and highly recommended scarers.
FILMING THE UNFILMABLE
Both Alex Garland’s Annihilation and Susanne Bier’s Bird Box are based on books that could have been called “unfilmable”. Both are high concept, non-linear and ambiguous, and both adaps were ambitious and bold. It’s also notable that both attached A-list casts as well as top tier directors. While Annihilation was a well loved sci-fi horror crossover, Bird Box – which sees Sandra Bullock struggling to look after two kids in a world full of monsters who drive you to suicide if you catch a glance of them – lost something in translation. It does feel like something of a companion piece to the excellent A Quiet Place (Bird Box could be subtitled “A Dark Place”, as inhabitants of this world must wear blindfolds if they venture outside) – and both films pit parents against killer creatures.
REMAKES AND REBOOTS REBORN
In the heyday of remake-fever another do-over of an old ’70s or ’80s classic would have been a dirty word (well done all for not talking about that Friday The 13th remake we all agreed to ignore some years back, BTW…). This year though, remakes unexpectedly got credible with Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria and David Gordon Green’s Halloween suddenly seeming legit. On the small screen, no one moaned about Mike Flanagan’s Netflix adaptation of The Haunting Of Hill House either – not a remake as such but a retelling of Shirley Jackson’s classic ghost story which has already been made into The Haunting (twice). With news that Jordan Peele will be co-writing and producing a “spiritual sequel” to Candyman with up-and-comer Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) attached to direct, it looks like revisits won’t be disappearing but instead be taken a bit more seriously.
SCHLOCKING OFF
Could it be that horror fans are being taken more seriously and better served overall? Big critical flops of the year include The Nun, The Meg, Slenderman, Winchester and Truth Or Dare. While these all made money (the first two especially) I get a sense filmmakers could be paying more attention to what audiences actually respond to rather than churning out crap for a quick buck. Having said that, The Meg 2 is inevitable and Annabelle 3, The Crooked Man and The Conjuring 3 – all part of the universe of The Nun – are on their way so maybe I’m being optimistic.
UNDEAD AGAIN
However sick I might think I am of zombies, filmmakers keep finding fresh ways to explore resurrected corpses. The joyful Anna And The Apocalypse was a zombie Christmas high school musical comedy, while Overlord brought a fun WWII schlock vibe to the undead. One Cut Of The Dead from Japan was a lowbudget zombie movie about low-budget zombie movie-making, while wistful and moving Cargo saw Martin Freeman struggling with the living dead in the Australian Outback. With Zombieland 2 and a sequel to Korean Train To Busan rushing your way next year, the genre is clearly still full of life.