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60 THE RETURN OF INTELLIGENT HORROR Cerebral horror movies like Us, Midsommar, Hereditary and The Witch have thrived both critically and commercially in recent years. Thomas Hobbs speaks to a selection of contemporary horror filmmakers to try to understand why intelligent horror, which goes well beyond terrifying psychos in ski masks, is succeeding in 2019 61 here was a time in the not too character becoming convinced that her distant past when the horror unborn baby is urging her to kill strangers. films that cleaned up at the box Amid the dark age of Trump, Brexit and office were more rooted in tor- global warming, Lowe believes these kind of ture porn than actual character unconventional horror stories are ironically development. Basically, if you providing a much-needed dose of escapism. created a sadistic bogeyman who could in- “People want to escape more and more into Tventively kill horny teenagers and return fairy tales and quirky stories because, in a for five sequels, then you’d probably hit funny kind of way, this kind of horror is a lot gold as a filmmaker. easier to take in than the real world.” Yet over recent years there’s been a no- But for David Jenkins, the Editor of film ticeable shift to more considered stories. magazine Little White Lies, there’s a more Thoughtful horror films like Jordan Peele’s practical reason for the box office success Get Out (winner of an Oscar in 2018 for of this so-called more intelligent breed Best Original Screenplay, no less) and Us, Jen- of horror movies. “Horror is a genre that nifer Kent’s The Babadook, Robert Eggers’ works best in a communal, cinema setting,” The Witch, and Ari Aster’s Hereditary and he says. “It’s like taking a ride on the ghost Midsommar, have each been commercial and train – you have to physically go there to get critical successes, generating existential fear the full effect. Cinema now is about looking by exploring emotionally complex themes for hooks to draw people to the multiplex, such as grief, identity, race, toxic masculinity and horror – intelligent or otherwise – is and the breakdown of the family unit. still able to tick that box.” According to Alice Lowe, one of Britain’s There’s no denying that the pure spec- leading horror auteurs, it’s now easier to get tacle of horror is helping get bums on seats. more thoughtful horror stories like these But this doesn’t fully explain why horror green lit by a studio. “As horror filmmakers, films like Jordan Peele’s Get Out, which is we now have more freedom to be thought- rooted in social commentary and capable ful,” she says. “Before you were told to dumb of inspiring thousands of Reddit threads down your ideas for horror audiences, but speculating on its hidden meanings, are now it’s like ‘the weirder and more complex, connecting with audiences so deeply. the better’. Torture porn is easily dispos- For a more pessimistic Jenkins, a lot of able, but the more cerebral horror films like it is just clever marketing spin. “This new Hereditary are something people can debate wave of ‘intelligent horror’, or so-called afterwards online. They have a longer shelf ‘elevated horror’, is connected to the fact life as audiences want something they can that these films are receiving world pre- really think about. Horrors that are satirical mieres at top-tier film festivals rather than will always stay relevant for longer.” genre festivals. They’re being contextualised Lowe has been responsible for two of this against new world/indie cinema rather than decade’s most thoughtful horror films. She just horror, so the message from the mak- co-wrote 2012 horror comedy Sightseers, a ers and the programmers is that these films prescient look at how Britain’s widening somehow sit above the rest of the genre.” class divide has the potential to turn dead- However, according to Irish film director ly, as a working class couple spontaneously Lee Cronin, who directed dread-inducing decide to go on a killing spree while on a The Hole in the Ground, an atmospheric camper van holiday. It’s a film she describes 2019 horror about a woman convinced her as “Bonnie and Clyde for mingers!” Lowe child has been swapped for an evil duplicate, also directed 2016’s Prevenge. It explores the popularity of the current wave of intel- the horror of women losing control of their ligent horrors in the mainstream is being bodies, with Lowe’s heavily pregnant lead driven by a lot of sociopolitical factors. b 62 PREVIOUS SPREAD: Still from Us, directed by Jordan Peele. Image courtesy Universal Pictures THIS SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Still from Prevenge, directed by Alice Lowe; still from Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster. Image courtesy A24; still from A Dark Song, directed by Liam Gavin; stills from The Hole in the Ground, directed by Lee Cronin; and still from Sightseers, whose screenplay was co-written by Alice Lowe 63 “The world is having an identity crisis scare and the idea of brainless gore has right now,” he explains. “It feels like you been pushed to its limits, and audienc- don’t even really know the person sleeping es are in dire need of something that’s in your house as they could be radicalised more thoughtful and complex. Yet he overnight, and that’s created this real anx- also believes “horror moves in cycles”, iety. Films like The Hole in the Ground, and that as studios back more and more or Jordan Peele’s Us, both explore the idea intelligent horror stories, there will be an of people suddenly changing or having inevitable proliferation and audiences will sinister alter egos, and I think this speaks become bored, subsequently reverting directly to some of our biggest fears. You back towards simpler stories grounded in don’t need to spill a load of blood to get nudity and violence. attention, you just need to reflect what’s Cronin, who is in full agreement, adds: keeping people up at night.” “We should enjoy this wave while it lasts as British director Liam Gavin, responsible something else will almost certainly shift for 2016’s A Dark Song, an atmospheric hor- the paradigm again.” ror about a fragile woman who has to work Lowe, however, insists there has been with an exploitative male occultist to try to at least one permanent shift, with horror contact her dead son, believes there are paral- now less dependent on endless sequels and lels between 2019 and the 1970s, an era where generating gimmicky characters that will cerebral horror movies like Don’t Look Now become future Halloween costumes. This, thrived. For many critics, the 1970s were the she insists, is “incredibly encouraging” for golden age of horror, and Gavin senses we the next generation of horror filmmakers. could be headed for another. “There is a cult of personality in horror “The 1970s were this politically unstable right now. You don’t have to necessarily time, with class struggle and identity poli- make a sequel as your name as a director is tics. People felt they were losing control over enough to sell a project. You don’t need to their minds and bodies, and that’s reflected make a Halloween 12 or Saw 9, people want in the stories of films like The Exorcist. It to see a director like Jordan Peele or Ari was a very fractured society back then, and it Aster’s standalone vision.” is now too, and that political climate tends to But if the business of horror has become result in really brilliant horror films.” less gimmicky, its gender politics are still Gavin believes the shift we’re seeing in dire need of change. As a female in a gen- right now is primarily because the jump re dominated by male filmmakers, Lowe says the return of the so-called horror au- teur is still far too rooted in masculinity. Moving forward, she hopes to address this “It’s great the by writing female characters that are less driven by genre clichés. She concludes: horror auteur “I want my characters to be more eccen- tric and harder to pigeon-hole. We need is a thing again, more women playing anti-heroes, as they tend to get cast as virginal roles, which are but it’s still far really forgettable. “It’s great that the horror auteur is a too male. Who thing again, but it’s still far too male. Who is the female Ari Aster? Or the female is the female Hitchcock? Women still don’t get to make as many horror films as men, and that des- Ari Aster?” perately needs to change.” 1 64 FACING PAGE: Stills from Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster. Images courtesy A24 THIS PAGE: Stills from Us, directed by Jordan Peele. Images courtesy Universal Pictures Thomas Hobbs is a freelance writer for titles including Vice, The Guardian and Dazed; @thobbsjourno 65.