Horror Movies: The Next Step

What will be the next step in the evolution of the horror movie? There are any number of permutations of the horror genre available for movie lovers to indulge in right now, ranging from your average slasher to your full-blown gore epics, psychological thrillers to twitching torture p*rn. All of these things exist under the umbrella of horror, but the actual definitions of the term are always changing.

As with any form of genre cinema, production companies are always looking for the next step, the next idea that will draw in an audience, and hopefully have them coming back for more. Hell, I have half a dozen ideas for movies myself, as do most genre fans, but it is the task of the production companies and directors themselves to seek out projects that will
define the next age of horror.

The shifting tides of any kind of cinema do tend to go hand in hand with culture as a wider concept, with modern concerns depicted onscreen so that we can get a fresh perspective on them, granted, with horror, things are pushed to the maximum, but it still rings true.

Horror is the realization that our worst nightmares are coming true, and done well, those cinematic visions can be overwhelmingly powerful. But what shape will the next step in horror movies take?

Personally I would imagine that we will be seeing a fair few more medical/science based horror flicks in the years to come, along the lines of Splice and The Human Centipede. The science based horror film is a strong route to take to help a film be taken seriously by non-genre fans who would normally be turned off by a run-of-the-mill slasher or yet another remake of a classic.

Really though, the next generation of horror films and the direction they take will be decided by YOU – the people with big dreams and small budgets that are reading this. Horror is a genre where the fans really do keep it going.

It is those people that grow to become filmmakers, writers, artists and more. So ultimately the question can only be answered by you yourselves. Don’t let this thrilling genre fade and die. Ensure that it rises again and again, immortal and unstoppable.

Dear readers and aspiring filmmakers: Go on, scare the hell out of us.

I dare you.