Saturday, September 15, 2012

Modern Horror

I’ve noticed that the horror genre has changed over the last few years. The classic tropes highlighted and derived by the Scream trilogy are still there, but there’s a new genre.

Oddly enough, the plot to these movies closely resemble any episode of Scooby-Doo.

It begins with white people trying to unravel a mystery by investigating a ridiculous hypothesis, ie.: ”The house is haunted.” This usually involves using credible means, such as conducting interviews with locals and experts, and filming in hopes of capturing supernatural activity. Their suppositions, however, are batshit insane, and hence they don’t really believe in them at first. Then, after gathering more evidence, they gradually become more convinced, as does the audience. Despite their new outlook, they don’t bother with the necessary precautions a rational human being would, ie.: “Hey, this house is haunted, maybe I should get the fuck out.” They’ll continue to stay the course even if they don’t want to. Up until this point, the spookiness has really just been a series of random events that can easily be brushed off or forgotten. Then, something big and scary will happen, and then the fate of the people involved is left in question.

This theme is true for a lot of the, “Found Video,” movies out there, like the Blair With Project and all the Paranormal Activity movies that followed it. Its made its way onto the internet as well with the Slenderman videos on youtube.

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