Horror films have become a rare source of reliable box office success in the uncertain world of COVID cinema. Recent horror movies have been more accessible to wider audiences, with original projects and legacy sequels gaining popularity over remakes or convoluted mythologies.
Today, with the improvement of special effects and the rise of streaming services, horror films have become more accessible, creative, and realistic. There are fewer taboos and restrictions and contemporary themes to explore, such as social media, global conspiracies, artificial intelligence, and pandemics.
From 2021 to 2022 the share of horror movies represented in the 100 most in-demand films of the year increased by 36%, reaching the highest share for the genre in four years. In 2022, horror got back to its 2019 pre-pandemic baseline, when movies such as “Us” and “Glass” generated outstanding demand in the U.S.
“One reason that horror movies are so popular right now is that the world is going through, and has been going through the last couple years, a lot of drastic changes and scary things,” Coltan Scrivner, the research scientist behind this study, says.
The reason why the horror genre is growing popular amongst this generation is that it accurately anticipates and showcases themes that these young adults are interested in.
How Modern Horror Movies Value CONCEPT Over Character
Why is Gen Z the unhappiest generation?
What Haidt does get right is that Gen Z has faced unprecedented challenges and novel social dynamics. This is a generation who is coming of age in an era of mass shootings in schools, a global pandemic, and turbocharged political turmoil. These things will invariably take their toll on young people, and all people.
One brain imaging study found that watching horror movies activates threat-response brain regions such as the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and insula as if the danger were real. After this rush, many people experience an elevated mood.
Desire for Legitimacy. The most salient reason that horror likely transitioned to be less scary is due to the politics of the film industry, and the desire to become more respected within the community.
While Universal created its icons of horror during the era of black-and-white film, the peak of horror movies in the '80s gave us new icons that to this day live on in popular culture.
Just a few years after the first filmmakers emerged in the mid-1890s, Mellies created “Le Manoir du Diable,” sometimes known in English as “The Haunted Castle” or “ The House of the Devil,” in 1896, and it is widely believed to be the first horror movie.
We know that most people say they enjoy horror, but there's still a sizeable chunk of the population — somewhere between a quarter and a third — who say they don't like the stuff (Clasen et al., 2020).
As of October 2022, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of adults aged 30 to 44 surveyed in the United States said they either liked or loved the horror movie genre. The average age of horror audiences are younger than the overall moviegoing crowd (27% younger for paranormal and 5% for sci-fi).
As of October 2022, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of adults aged 30 to 44 surveyed in the United States said they either liked or loved the horror movie genre. Among respondents aged 18 to 29, that share was 10 percentage points lower, at 54 percent.
One reason we consume horror is to experience stimulation. Exposure to terrifying acts, or even the anticipation of those acts, can stimulate us — both mentally and physically — in opposing ways: negatively (in the form of fear or anxiety) or positively (in the form of excitement or joy).
From 2021 to 2022 the share of horror movies represented in the 100 most in-demand films of the year increased by +36%, reaching the highest share for the genre in the past 4 years.
Mainstream horror genre films haven't gone away at all. You still have films like Saw, The Unborn, The Uninvited, Halloween 2, Piranha, and a slew of others that get released annually. Some of these films actually turn out to be good horror movies that obtain an avid fan base and do extremely well.
If we experience high levels of fright, seeing a scary movie just isn't worth it. “Negative emotions are stored in the amygdala, [which] in contrast to positive emotions are particularly resistant to being extinguished,” Sparks says.
In conclusion, when you sit down to watch a horror film, take note of the way it makes you feel and whether it has an impact on how well you sleep – if you find that it increases your anxiety and makes it difficult for you to get a good night's rest, next time it might be a good idea to consider watching something less ...
Different types of psychopathy are related to horror movie preference as well as things like violent sports (and an aversion to romance, pop music and non-violent sports). However, you don't need to be a psychopath to enjoy horror cinema.
Studies have shown that horror can help us with grief, anxiety, depression, and a number of other disorders. For someone experiencing a deep loss or processing trauma, it becomes less about the deaths and more about the survivor.
In general, though, Analysts' combination of Intuitive Energy and Thinking Nature is ideal for enjoying scary movies. Intuitive personality types love to look for hidden meaning and tend to let their imagination run wild, and horror films stimulate those impulses in a way no other genre can.
Researchers say there's evidence Gen Z's mental health struggles are different. Compared with older generations today, the Gallup-WFF study said members of Gen Z are much more likely to report experiencing negative emotions such as stress, anxiety and loneliness.
Gen Z's obsession with time is apparent all over the internet: there are countless “5 to 9” videos with millions of views, along with headlines that claim Gen Zers demand a workday free from the constraints of the eight-hour window that has largely defined office work for the last century, or to make life their full- ...
Generation Z (Gen Z) is currently between 10 and 25 years old, born between 1997 and 2012, and research suggests that they are the most anxious generation to date.
