Horror Movie Trends and 'Torture Porn'

It is easy to see why movie studios make horror movies; it is the one genre where the star is not the actor or the actress, but instead is the guy wearing the mask and the amount of blood he spills. They save money on getting star power and there is always a built-in audience for the genre, practically guaranteeing a return. However, because it is an easy genre to produce, horror movies run into another problem - unoriginality.

Looking at the past decade helps to decipher a pattern. A horror movie comes along, takes off at the box office, and a hundred other (rushed) films that are eerily similar appear at your local theater. Let's take a look at the trends:

THE REBIRTH OF THE SLASHER: In late 1996, Wes Craven's Scream came along and became an unbelievable success for its budget ($14 million to make and returning over $100 million in theater tickets alone). No matter that the movie was satirizing slasher films themselves, Scream ended up revitalizing the genre, characterized by a silent killer wearing a mask who stalks and kills teenagers. Imitations like I Know What You Did Last Summer surfaced almost immediately.

THE PG-13 GHOST MOVIE: M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense became a phenomenon built on the word-of-mouth of millions of viewers discussing (and ruining) the ending for millions of others. The film's success (almost $300 million in theaters) ensured that the next few years would consist of horror movies that were mostly PG-13 to reach a wider audience.

TECHNOLOGY HORROR / JAPANESE REMAKES: In the middle of such a frantic digital age, it's no doubt the horror films pick up the newest technology as fodder. The remake from a Japanese film, The Ring (2002) became another widespread phenomenon. While still half-existing in the PG-13 Ghost Movie genre, The Ring fueled a horror movie exploration of all things technology as well as a surge of remakes from Japanese horror films. The Grudge was a product of this trend.

ZOMBIE MOVIES: Horror trends seem to run in circles, picking up old genres and injecting them with better production value. The come-back of the zombie genre is no different. Danny Boyle's excellent 28 Days Later (2002) may be one of the best of the new group, but films like Resident Evil, the Dawn of the Dead remake, and George A. Romero's Land of the Dead proved that flesh-eaters could still bring in green. We can also attach the brilliant parody Shaun of the Dead to this movement.

TORTURE HORROR / EXTREME R-RATED HORROR: This is the genre that has dominated most recently. The highly original Saw (2004) might have been the offender to spark this trend. Saw proved that there was still an audience for the R-rated horror film - as long as it was willing to go the extremes. While new franchises such as Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes were born out of this time period, the new copy-cats forgot to incorporate the originality that made the first Saw film so engaging.

The torture horror genre, or "torture porn" as some detractors like to call it, often includes everyday people thrown into situations of slow, intense pain in the most creative/bloody ways possible. It makes sense why this genre came to exist; if moviegoers will only pay to see R-rated horror that takes it to the most extreme, what's more extreme than torture?

The two most recent Final Destination films, while not having to do with torture, succeeded in this era because of its intense amount of onscreen gore. In these last few years, subtlety has not been a desirable quality. Countless debates on the morality of Americans going to see such blood-soaked 'trash' have sprung up. Do horror movies reflect the current culture? Do violent movies succeed in violent times? Discussions like these were all over the news recently.

Critics of extreme horror films may be pleased to know that the current trend seems to be dying. The Hills Have Eyes II and Hostel: Part II both received only fractions of their original's success. Aside from the Saw series, film fans seem to be bored with the genre. However, the death of an old trend only means that the birth of a new trend is somewhere around the corner. Sometime soon a new horror movie will be released that will become an explosive success. It will be a movie that either revitalized an old genre or brought something completely original to the mix. Whatever kind of movie it is, let's hope we like it - it will be the only kind of horror movie we will see for years after.