Horror: In the Head or On the Screen?

Horror in itself is fairly broad. What may be horrifying to one person may be laughable to the next. This comes up a lot with movies such as the Exorcist, which haunted viewers to the bone in the 70s and is now somewhat irrelevant to the majority of common folk today with its outdated practical effects. However, The Exorcist still has a following for people that appreciate its true horror, those that still consider it to be the scariest movie of all time when viewed through more cultural context at the time. With LSD and marijuana infiltrating the mainstream, religion was losing its luster with the youth, sparking fear toward possibilities of demonic possession for many parents and friends alike. The true horror lied in its application to reality. This horror constantly evolves as long as its audience is there to respect its subject matter enough to evolve their viewing of it themselves.

In a time where jump scares and cheap PG-13 cash grabs take precedence in the genre, movies such as the bizarrely sunny, open-for-interpretation Midsommar have trouble resonating with fans who want a "horror" movie. Is Midsommar "horror" and if so, what made it horrifying? There was no demon. There was no conventionally ominous atmosphere. When revealed by director Ari Aster as a "breakup" movie, it may seem to many as a just, a somewhat unsettling drama.

As many people become desensitized to a genre that would ironically benefit the least from tropes, because horror is all about audience subversion, the genre is in a place of redefining itself.

Looking at examples of horror that have held up the best over time, I like to look at Stanley Kubrick's obviously iconic "The Shining." Described by film critic Chris Stuckmann as "the gift that keeps on giving," the film, and the book for that matter, can be peeled back to reveal more terror and theories for what seems to be an eternity. All of this is done with a character study of isolation, addiction and the human psyche at large. Jump scares were nonexistent and atmosphere was conveyed more so through what was going on than the atmosphere itself. Effects were kept to a minimum but used when needed.

Horror often lies in the unimaginable and the mysterious, and to this day, no one can be truly certain that they have "figured out" The Shining. Each watch gives more time for the viewer to ruminate on the spontaneity of insanity and the curse that all of us seem to believe we are stuck with—our minds. The ability to "shine" and feel a paranormal presence is ever present in this story and is more time-proof than timeless as there is a feeling that horror and dread is always in the air. It made me realize that evil is an energy that has and will continue to exist in the abstract realm of existence, waiting to be interacted with. When that symbiotic relationship is established, there is no limit for the extremities and terror that our mind is capable of discovering. The terror comes from the inability to piece together what makes it so scary. This feeling of unsettling over scary horror is prevalent in another Ari Aster masterpiece, Hereditary. Taking cues from psychological thrillers such as Silence of the Lambs, the horror movies that take a "between the ears" approach age the best. our minds don't evolve. Humans are biologically identical to how they they were 200,000 years ago. The same world and mind that ignited Edgar Allan Poe's darkest imagination is still available to us. There is horror in purely existing, and the best books and movies come from that existential dread.

So, what do y'all think? Is the slasher still a viable median of horror today, or does our modern, mental-health conscious world need something substantial to make us feel fear?