This year has proven to be an interesting one for film. I have two main observations right off the bat–the rise of movies based on existing IPs/franchises (as well as a brief discussion of “Barbenheimer”), and a welcomed resurgence in the horror genre. 

Don’t you just love a good, straight-to-the-point-style high school thesis statement? You’re welcome. Now, read on…

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(NOTE: the article ended up being way too long so I had to split it into two parts, check out part 2 for the franchise movie discussion. I didn’t want to ruin my beautifully crafted thesis so that’s why it’s still here. Thanks for bearing with me!)

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There have already been a pretty significant number of horror movies released this year, and they’ve been decent enough for someone as bitter and distrustful of current pop culture opinions as me to have them on my radar. And 2023 isn’t even over yet…I mean, we still have Saw X coming out in a few days. Honestly, the entire Saw franchise deserves its own thinkpiece, but that’ll be for another time. Anyway, not only have I been actually paying attention to what’s coming out, a lot of these releases have been…good…which is crazy because horror movies actually have this amazing reputation of consistently being bad. Cheesy, corny, lame, not scary, bad writing, bad acting…it’s become so commonplace that it’s a definitive part of the meta now. If you’ve seen any horror movie made in the last 10 years or so–no matter how big or small the budget–there’s a likely chance that it wasn’t the greatest. No shade to the creatives working hard to bring us these films–horror is a really tough genre to write for–but man, the late 90s/early aughts had some bangers. We saw the rise and continuation of some killer (pun intended) franchises like Saw (2004) (of course), Final Destination (2000), Scream (1996), and other classics like The Ring (2002), The Blair Witch Project (1999), and Ginger Snaps (2000). I guess it’s kind of debatable whether these movies are “good” or not because the writing and acting isn’t always stellar, but that’s what makes horror such a tricky genre to write about from a critical perspective. And, at the end of the day, taste in film is subjective, so you can choose to disregard and/or disagree with everything I’m about to say. 

These movies were box-office successes and definitely have cult status within the horror movie community to this day. After about 2009 or so…there’s a significant drop-off in quality. We were getting a lot of sequels, prequels, and everything in between, but nothing of great significance. It wasn’t ALL bad, obviously I’m generalising here, but you get the point. Definitely a valley, but as it usually goes in the world of pop culture, a peak is never far off…and I would say the last year has been a peak. So far, we’ve had releases like Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid and Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, and the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie is coming out next month, so tap in, FNAF bros. In terms of established film franchises, this year rocked–we’ve been blessed with new Scream, Evil Dead, Exorcist, and, of course, Saw coming up. And they didn’t totally suck. In the past years, these franchise continuation movies haven’t been the best, but from what I’ve seen so far, they’ve actually been pretty decent. I saw the new Scream movie earlier this year with my friends who had never seen any of the previous films in the franchise before, but after seeing this new one, they expressed interest in seeing the other movies, which is a win!

So…why this sudden spike in quality?

I’m not entirely sure, like I mentioned before, I think we’re just entering a peak period for horror movies. For all we know, next year might SUCK. 

Also…what even is the criteria for “good” horror?  

Let me try to spell it out for you as best I can with a list that is partially objective, partially entirely my own opinion:

• DECENT to GOOD SFX
  • To stand out as a Good horror movie, the film needs to feature effects that are well done, i.e. not cheesy (if effects are necessary in the first place, which they typically are). They need to be believable, and sometimes that’s more difficult to pull off with smaller budgets, but not always! Skinamarink (2022) is a great example of a lower budget film that still manages to be scary without crazy sfx. This goes for costumes and makeup, too, by the way. BONUS POINTS if a film features good practical effects!!!
• SUSPENSE IS PALPABLE
  • Suspense creates fear, and that is the goal of good horror–to give you a good spook! Even if it’s only included in a brief sequence, suspense is one the key players in the horror genre. Now, I must make it known that I am not a fan of Spielberg’s movies in general, but I can absolutely acknowledge that he is good at creating suspenseful sequences; the first beach sequence in Jaws (1975) and the kitchen raptor sequence from Jurassic Park (1993). Both pretty iconic, and both pretty good examples of suspense-building in cinema. BONUS POINTS for slow burn suspense…that’s good stuff (see Black Christmas (1974) or The Thing (1982)). 
• KILLER (haha) SOUNDSCAPE
  • Nothing builds atmosphere better than well-timed sound effects and appropriate music and/or ambient sounds. Some of the most effectively scary and disturbing films rely heavily on their scores. The Exorcist (1973) and Halloween (1978) are some great examples here.
• WELL-WRITTEN SCRIPT AND SUPERB ACTING
  • Yeah, no, these are totally optional, actually. Get a five-year-old to write your screenplay, for all I care.
• *REMEMBER*: The main goal is to BE SCARY! Following the very credible and foolproof list above will totally guarantee a successful scary movie!!

That basically wraps up my thoughts on the current horror filmscape–things are great right now, but I don’t think it’ll last. But hey, if you’re in the mood to get spooked, I recommend taking a look at some of the scary movies of this year!