What Scares Us Now: The Horror Movie Boom
"The Conjuring," a surprise hit this summer, is an old-fashioned demon-in-the-house story, almost charming compared with the grisly torture films of the recent past. There is a terrifying antique doll, hovering ghost-hands that clap, and self-slamming doors, but nary a meat hook in sight, or even much blood. Its R-rating is just for being scary.
Which isn't to say movie gore is dead. In this year's "Evil Dead," a remake of the 1981 cabin-in-the-woods film, one woman bisects her tongue with a blade, another saws off her arm with an electric carving knife.
Horror-Film Remakes
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Sissy Spacek as the original 'Carrie,' covered in pig's blood, in the 1976 Brian De Palma classic. Everett Collection
Somewhere in between on the carnage meter is the just-released "Carrie," director Kimberly Peirce's remake of the 1976 Brian De Palma classic, adapted from the Stephen King novel. This year also brought "Mama," about two little girls raised in an isolated cabin by a malevolent mommy-ghoul. "The Purge" and "You're Next" slyly take on home-invasion attacks. "Insidious: Chapter 2" continues the disturbing tale of a family that can't shake unexplained household horrors no matter where they move.
Almost any way you slice it, horror is surging. On television, AMC's "The Walking Dead" broke several records when it premiered to 16.1 million viewers in its fourth season this fall. FX's "American Horror Story" continues to build.
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Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) A haunted-house story, turned possession story, turned something even weirder. It all happens to a happy family that could be ours. FilmDistrict
Low-budget movies and their sequels which used to look cheesy are now more realistic—and profitable. In a year when big-budget films have crashed noisily, "The Conjuring" was made for only $20 million and grossed more than $300 million world-wide. "Insidious: Chapter 2," made for about $5 million, has grossed $81 million in North America. It had more ticket revenue than any other movie in September.
Horror films so far this year have taken in $495.7 million at the box office, 52% more than at the same point last year. That comes after 2012 was 21% higher than 2011, according to media measurement firm Rentrak.
Chloë Grace Moretz, center, in the title role of 'Carrie,' flanked by Annabelle the antique doll in 'The Conjuring,' left, and Jane Levy as Mia in 'The Evil Dead' Illustration by Tim Gabor
Amid the remakes and revivals, horror filmmakers are confronted with a question: What's scary now? After years of films exploring dismemberment, torture, and human centipedes, what can still shock audiences? Horror is about fear of the unknown, and audiences have learned the language of horror cinema almost too well. We know what's coming when city folk arrive in a backwoods town. We've seen the fleeting shadows on walls, the ghastly face that flashes in the medicine-cabinet mirror and all the other shockers punctuated by screeching bursts of sound, known as "jump scares"—like the hand that reaches from the grave in the original "Carrie." The audience jumps.
"It's like a bad joke that's been around too long. You don't want to be the one to tell it," says Wes Craven, the director-writer behind the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series among others. "Like the guy who goes to a dark door, and then turns his back to it and calls out somebody's name. And you wait three seconds, and you know the jump is coming through the door. You can't do that. But you can do that if you don't have the jump at the door, and they go into another room and sit down, and the chair falls through the floor into hell."
Filmmakers agree that what makes movies like "The Conjuring," "Insidious" and "Carrie" frightening aren't the jumps or gross-outs. It's our attachment to the characters, our vicarious fear of what's happening to them.
"I mean, look, hanging people from meat hooks is scary," says Ms. Peirce, the "Carrie" director. "The problem is you're gonna run out of road after a while. You can go to excess gore and a level of pornography with violence, or you can make the characters people that the audience care about." Stephen King has said: "Love creates horror."
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Paranormal Activity (2009) Almost nothing scary happens for most of the amateur-video movie. It's the 'almost' that's terrifying. Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
Scaring is caring. That comes down to old-fashioned storytelling, making characters sympathetic and real. Audiences want to relate to them. But the audience, too, has changed: It's more female.
"The audience that drives these movies is women under 25," says Jason Blum, whose production company Blumhouse has thrived on micro-budget horror with the "Paranormal Activity" and "Insidious" movies. "I'm not talking about 'Twilight.' I'm talking about 'The Conjuring' or 'Insidious'—really scary movies."
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The new "Carrie" brings its story into the video era. The mean girls who taunt Carrie White in the locker room record her humiliation with camera phones and upload it to the Web. The "Evil Dead" remake adds a contemporary twist too. Rather than arriving at the isolated cabin to party, a group of young adults assemble to help their friend Mia kick a heroin addiction. Of course, they inadvertently summon demons, but here their friend's nightmarish behavior and visions are chalked up to the DTs.
It isn't that today's horror films have abandoned classic scares. Filmmakers have needed to raise their game in almost every sense to sell the scares to a more experienced horror audience. Compared with the classic slasher flicks of the 1980s, today's horror films have subtler scripts, less campy acting, better cinematography, and more intense sound. Low-budget movies don't need to look so low-budget anymore, unless they do it on purpose, presenting their tales as amateur footage that makes us feel as if the victims experiencing paranormal terrors could be us. Gory effects have advanced. Even low-budget actors these days are gorgeous.
In the original "The Evil Dead," which Sam Raimi wrote and directed at age 21, dopey teenagers recite corny lines, then get killed. The remake, gory as ever, features more refined dialogue. "I know I look like roadkill," Mia jokes when her brother arrives. "No, you look beautiful, as always," he says. "And you're a charming liar, as always," Mia says.
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The Exorcist (1973) To director William Friedkin it was about good beating evil. For most, it was the terror of a little girl speaking in the devil's voice. Everett Collection
Moviemakers have mastered the art of making the mundane terrifying, using little details to make situations feel natural before they get supernatural. "Insidious" finds fright in a baby monitor, which can be an implement of torment for parents even when working properly. It becomes especially unsettling when it transmits a whispering demonic voice.
In "The Conjuring," Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston move their family into a new house on a sunny day. The peppy Zombies song "Time of the Season" plays as they haul boxes and joke around. It's fun.
Soon, the daughters play a hide-and-seek game and accidentally dislodge a wall panel inside a closet, and the dad gripes: "Alright, what did we break now?!" He sees that behind the wall is a hidden staircase to a cellar, lights a match and heads down for a look. There is nothing really new here, but we're sure wishing he didn't do that.
James Wan, the film's director, who also started the "Saw" franchise in 2004, says: "I take something familiar, and I take it up a notch, and supernatural forces start to intervene and I play with them."
Even Eli Roth, who directed "Hostel" and is known for so-called torture porn, says it isn't about the gore. "If you just repel people with violence, people are gonna go 'what's the point?'" he says. "But if you can engage them in a story that gets their blood pumping and gets them screaming, that's the goal. The horror movies that really catch fire tap into a fear that everyone is feeling but no one is articulating."
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Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Brutal and gross, it offered audiences release that subtler horror films denied. Everett Collection
Horror films have striven to feel disturbingly real for decades. Many, from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) to "The Conjuring," have been "based on a true story." Low-budget filming techniques— hand-held cameras and documentary styles —came along to make scenes feel truer and more unsettling. Mr. Craven had worked on documentaries but never a feature film before making the brutal "The Last House on the Left."
It's no wonder horror movie clichés have created a fertile market for parody. The "Scary Movie" franchise, whose fifth installment premiered in April, has grossed an astonishing $896 million world-wide. "Hellbenders," released last week, takes a whack at exorcism movies.
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Mama (2013) Odd children have been horror movie staples. Feral children raised by a vengeful ghoul take it up a notch. Universal Pictures
Well-worn horror tropes also have provided a laundry list of gimmicks filmmakers need to work around—or use to misdirect audiences anew.
"It's just a catalog in your mind of things you've seen and maybe have been so successful that they've been imitated time and time again, each time by somebody on a lower budget and with less talent," says Mr. Craven, who made "Scream" in 1986.
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World War Z (2013) Playing to fears of a world out of control, the zombie flick has become the highest grossing horror movie in 30 years. Paramount Pictures
What's scary now? How about real life? Zombie dramas like "World War Z" and "The Walking Dead" play to multiple modern fears: escalating global violence, disease outbreak, our fears of losing our own minds as we age. "World War Z," whose giant budget was a glaring exception, is the top-grossing horror movie in the U.S. of the past 30 years, according to IMDb. "The Purge" flicks at fears about our safety in an age of unexpected real-life terror.
Mr. Roth's first film, "Cabin Fever" (2002), had young folks at a rural cabin succumbing to a flesh-eating disease rather than demons. His "Hostel" was about obnoxious Americans who tour Europe seeking women to exploit but end up having their own bodies sold into a torture-for-sport ring. Mr. Roth's forthcoming film, "The Green Inferno," is about trendy eco-activists who travel to Peru to save a dying tribe but end up as victims of cannibals. Turns out the natives were just hungry. ("The irony is, I love to travel," Mr. Roth says about his films.)
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The Purge (2013): A morality play about America's haves and have-nots and our fears of one another. Universal Pictures
"It goes back to Grimm's fairy tales, about children's fears of the world," Mr. Roth says. "I think horror movies are fairy tales for adults. You can't sit there at your job and scream. You have to put on a brave face and carry on. But in a movie theater, for the next two hours, you are allowed to be terrified." WSJ