The horror genre is more often than not brushed off as one that supplies little more than an adrenaline rush for thrill seekers, much like a fairground ride. In the same vein as comedy movies, the depth and nuance that can be found are overlooked - it is a genre that is famously ignored during every awards season.
What I find so intriguing about horror films is their ability – when executed well – to analyse the human psyche in extreme scenarios. In the most adverse of situations, through some movie magic, one can experience how a person may operate at their physical and psychological limits. This has resulted in some of cinema’s all-time greats: The Shining, Let The Right One In, The Silence of the Lambs, the list goes on…
Of course, as with all other modes of art, themes change with time, and this is just as true for horror films when you get to their bare bones. A recent US survey found that the horror genre is the second most popular after comedy among Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2003). With a young market to cater for, a new thematic constant has emerged: modern solitude.
Solitude has been a popular topic of exploration throughout movie history, and of course in horrors. In Erasurehead, Henry’s inability to connect with the world around him leads to forceful relationships that are destined for destruction. The deep space isolation of the Nostromo crew in Alien leads to paranoia and the abandonment of one another as they are slowly hunted down by a demonic creature. Rosemary Woodhouse is driven towards madness as she is pushed away from others when coming to believe the child growing inside her is not of this world, in Rosemary’s Baby.
The overriding commentary of these types of horror films, to me, is a response to the individualistic ideology pushed so heavily in Western capitalism throughout the 20th century. This notion of prioritising yourself over the collective in order to succeed in a meritocratic system may benefit the few that can climb the ladder, but for everyone else a frightening position is taken up. Not only is one failing to ‘move up’ so to speak, but they are failing to pursue real human connections.
Plenty has been written on this idea, but I now want to turn to how this theme has morphed in the modern age, with the largest impact being the evolution of technology. As social media has become the focal means of communication for most young people, a new form of loneliness has emerged, one that is often hard to articulate due to its deceptiveness.
One of my favourite horror movies in recent time – Bodies Bodies Bodies – tackles this idea with satirical brilliance. In this slasher flick, a group of rich twenty-somethings throw a party and play a murder mystery game that goes horribly wrong, as each guest starts to get violently picked off. As the group are trying to pin down the killer, the house’s power goes out and with it, their internet connection.
Soon enough, a lack of WiFi proves to lead to a breakdown in relations between the friends; as they have come to rely so much on online communication, they are unable to confide in one another face-to-face, as their buzzword-filled rapport mimics how they would chat over text. Ultimately, the shiny Instagram personas who are introduced at the beginning prove too superficial, and die alongside the power cut - of course a metaphor for the state of social media, but also marking the deaths of most of the characters once the sheer isolation of this idea takes hold.
Spree provides another example of the ironic disconnection that an addiction to social media creates. In it, a rideshare driver livestreams himself going on a murderous rampage of passengers, in an attempt for online stardom. All of driver Kurt’s despicable actions are repackaged into shocking content, a means to an end for online entertainment.
From start to finish, despite his sociable profession, Kurt remains isolated from all of those around him, choosing only to interact with anonymous online viewers. His real-world interactions only matter in their online value, here taken to the absolute extreme. While the social commentary on show in Spree may not be the most ground-breaking, it’s exciting to see new writing that feels in touch with Gen Z’s relationship to the online arena.
Some modern horrors are less on-the-nose and dissect technological developments in a more general way as they relate to isolation. Titane is a body horror trip of a movie from one of the most exciting new names on the scene, Julia Ducournau, and follows loner-turned-serial-killer Adrien, as the fallout of her murderous escapade takes her on a journey of self-discovery and reflection.
Adrien has a titanium plate implant in her head following a car accident as a child, with this metamorphosis acting as a metaphor for her inability to connect with others. Instead, she finds solace in a relationship with her car, the same type of object that caused her isolation and which she can relate to through her own robotic nature. While she eventually manages to bond with a despondent firefighter mourning his missing son, this only builds as Adrien battles to overcome the adversity which a so-called technological innovation has brought upon her.
This contradictory relationship between the rise of technology and the decline in socialisation is a concurrent theme across the board. In M3GAN, the grieving hole of a girl who's lost both her parents is filled by an animatronic-intelligent doll which, in an attempt to please and protect her, destroys everything and everyone around her. Meanwhile, the dystopian anthology series Black Mirror places this idea at the heart of each episode as characters struggle to navigate worlds where technological supremacy dominates their lives and relationships.
Whether in a more obvious or subtle delivery, it's clear that this new mode of solitude is a principal fear and source of anxiety for Gen Z - while it is experienced by most, it is a form of social operation that has moulded the adolescence of those who can't think back to a time before smartphones and social media. The new wave of horror movies this has triggered – for a movie buff such as myself – is very welcome, from sharp satires to gross-out shockers.
Take note, though, as the themes reflected on screen are all too real, and can feel far more terrifying without the jump scares and gore. With the exponential rise of AI, and the ever-evolving algorithmic strength of our day-to-day apps, the chokehold of big tech on our collective mental health grows tighter and tighter. Changes have to be made before Black Mirror starts to look less like sci-fi and more like a reality show.
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