What's in the Future for Horror, Particularly in Comics?
Horror as a genre is something I've loved for a long time now and I'm very passionate about it. I wanted to asked a question that doesn't really have a sure answer, at least not for another few years anyway. Where will horror be years from now is not a question with an answer but I can definitely make a good estimated guess through personal opinion, findings and research and not just research about the future but research on how horror has changed through the years and what made it change or what were the popular forms. Now we know the first major breakthrough in horror comics would be the rise of EC comics with suspense stories and dark comics like Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. Capitalizing on the un-explored market of horror comics, EC was successful in bringing horror to the mainstream, these stories were quite shocking and way too dark for the kids that were reading them, this led to the Comics Code Authority, a seal of approval that would be printed on comics that were "Safe for children" It was in fact very hard for anything remotely dark to get a Comic Code authority seal of approval so this resulted in horror comics being looked down on for years to come and I think it's one of the reasons that horror is typecast as schlock these days. If there's one thing we can learn from EC comics is that people like scary stories and shock factor and I believe horror is one of the most effective ways to get a response from a person, anyone can be scared or grossed out and there was definatly a market for it that needed to be filled.
One of the next big things to affect the horror market was slasher films and I believe the classic Halloween directed by John Carpenter was the film to really light up the scene, a cheap to make and totally unexpected masterwork rocked the theaters and making this kind of movie with so little was a big deal. So why was it so popular? Because of the suspense, the violence or even just the little bit of nudity? It seemed to be a winning formular, there were a few other good slashers made before Halloween but non had quite the same impact. So begins the other companies capitalizing on the success, Friday the 13th was made simply because Halloween was popular and guess what, it was also a massive success, using almost identical rules, the masked killer, plenty of death and girls. Of course Friday the 13th added a lot more gore and sexual attention than Halloween to attract more of a crowd and it sure did worked, the sequel began production immediately. The Halloween sequel even added more death and women. This framework would work for a very long time and hasn't really died down all that much really, of course the boom was in the 80's with more huge slashers like A Nightmare on Elm Street but the last Friday the 13th was in 2009 and there's another movie on the way now and even a TV series since that's a huge market at the moment too. Yes slashers do not rule the horror cinema scene as much any more but why, it's not like people stopped liking sex appeal and the macabre. Of course not but there's a lie that has dominated the horror market for the past few years that has been really effective at making audience thinking they are scared, known as jump scares, a build up and a sudden loud noise were effective in the slasher movies so when a new wave of horror movies come out filled with young in-shape college girls and piles of jump scares, people rushed into the cinema to see them. Where as jump scares are very effective and get the job done, it's only tricking the audience to thinking they were scared. A lot of movies use these scares a lot and a lot of them are fake, there's not even a ghost or monster there half the time but because the audience laugh at themselves and feel embarrassed they've established feelings and because of that, think they've enjoyed the movie, not to say all these movies suck, they can be used right but when they take next to nothing to make and people always go to see them, film companies almost always more than double their budget so why not shoot them out, they did the same thing with slashers. A good example I was given on Twitter was that the movie Annabelle was produced with a $6.5 million budget and made $257 million at the box office.
Now because of these movies there was a lack of intelligent horror movies and the ones that were generally impressive or creepy were over looked and hard to advertise. This is why we don't see them very often. But I think for the past few years, smart horror has started to make a come back in a small but important way. Fans who are really into horror or people who are starting to get into it start to want something more and I've had people express to me on Twitter that they want more independent horror or well developed horror in cinema and the horror fans on Tumblr are obsessed with the great horrors that have been coming out for the past few years like The Babadook, It Follows and The Evil Dead remake. These movies have been overshadowed by cinemas themselves, when I went to go see It Follows I looked online for the times, at the bottom of the current movies being shown was It Follows with a very small amount of showings and this was on the day it came out, every other movie that had already been out for a little while were above It Follows with more showings and at the top of the list under "Cineworld recommends" was The Boy Next Door, the typical kind of horror I was just complaining about, a movie with such little effort put into it that they hired Jennifer Lopez to play an English teacher and can you guess why? Because people think she's attractive, oh and the male lead has his shirt off in the movie.
Now reading horror comics and researching the big names I've noticed the most popular are comics like Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Nailbiter and Harrow County are all well executed, interesting and being a comic, have to rely on aggressive visuals and good writing. So I personally think that horror fans calling out for great horror are seeking just that in comics. Horror comics are a great way to produce genuine effective horror, it's not as simple as just jump scaring people and using women. The people who work on horror in comics, especially people at companies like Dark Horse clearly love horror and have a passion to produce effective comics and this is where I believe horror fans should get their fix and they should activity support these comics and maybe it'll effect the horror of the future.
So using my personal opinion, what I've interpreted from research and what I've heard on social media, where do I think horror will be in a few years from now? Personally I think cheap and lazy horror will still be big in the cinema for a long time to come but I truly believe and honestly really hope that these great underrated horror movie producers will start to creep more and more into the mainstream and eventually at least share the tickets with the less intriguing horror movies since there seems to be such a big outcry for these movies right now on social media. I believe horror comics will stay as good if not become better at effective horror, people only with enough care and interest are going to go pick up comics and invest time and money into them so it's the place to be for horror right now and it's the place you'll want to watch for new talent and horror enthusiasts who want to produce fantastic content.
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