The first film I saw before quarantine was Autumn de Wilde’s Emma (my second viewing), a visual feast that I would come to again and again, and the first film I saw out of quarantine was James Wan’s Malignant, a visual feast of a different nature. Between the two visits is a no man’s land. By the point of Malignant’s release, I was starved for entertainment, those recliner seats at AMC, theater popcorn, large blue icees, sticky bathroom floors.
I needed the whole experience, I could not stand another bad Netflix movie or Emma (now owned) for the 500th time, so, still quite earlier into AMC’s reopening, I braved COVID to see Malignant (masked, of course). I was one of three other guests. Nicole had not even told us about heartbreak, yet.
I was willing to die to see Malignant, and I still stand by that statement because it taught me a valuable lesson, one that I have been coming back to — everything doesn’t have to be so damn complicated all the time; art can just be for shits and giggles.
Unlike the 2010s, what I call the A24 Effect, full of slow, existential dread, and ominous scores that focused more on mood and character development than plot, much of the horror of this new decade has been about having fun, in the sickest sense of the word. Our minds and bodies crave the ridiculous, the ultra stylized, the nostalgic, the cosmic, anywhere but inside the milieu of this decade’s start.
We don’t have time to be introspective or melancholic. We want to party! And there is nothing wrong with that.
I think the two films that best encompass this idea are Malignant and this year’s Barbarian. Both have crazed plots that descend farther into the implausible, but every choice, no matter how weird, is a choice. I think some viewers go into these films without knowing this, that these are filmmakers who are here to play. They understand that you are going to laugh or have a little too much fun, but that is the point.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Ari Aster and Jordan Peele and the rest of ‘em, but there is something to be said about a director who isn’t afraid to create something without easily discernible social commentary.
When I say this list of films is bad, I don’t mean exactly that. I mean that they are very unlike the “prestige horror” of the last decade. The films are less concerned with messages and just want you to have fun while still being impressive works.
Another thing of note is that most of them are also prequels/sequels or homages to previous works or decades (we love nostalgia!): Orphan: First Kill and Prey as prequels while The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a sequel, and films like The Black Phone and X are original works set in the late 70s.
I want to make myself clear: fun and analysis are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes analysis is fun! As you can probably tell from this series, I love both. I only wish to point out an ongoing trend in horror that is more concerned with tropes and derivative works than creating ominous, lonely journeys into the human psyche. There is always room for both, but for right now, I am enjoying the sunnier side to abject horror.
Orphan: First Kill (2022)
Prey (2022)
The Black Phone (2021)
Barbarian (2022)
There's Someone Inside Your House (2021)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
X (2022)
Malignant (2021)