The 2010s: An Analysis in Horror Movies
From Garbage to Greatness: did horror movies save themselves in the past decade?
By: Keaton Marcus
It’s Spooky Season and I’ve forgotten to do the most critical thing: write about horror films! For the years since I could start watching them, the genre has been a magical, albeit flawed experience. There’s plenty of cash-grabbing, cheaply-made garbage out there, and my job today is to tell readers if the 2010s is really the best decade for horror. Many argue that horror began as one of the worst genres in cinema, and has climbed its way back out of the hole to become the best it could be in the 2010s. There were plenty of good frights in the decade, such as The Witch, Hereditary, Midsommar, and more A24 hits. We even got a surprisingly fantastic The Invisible Man reboot this year, which made a whole lot of profit as well. However, it wasn’t all glory as The Conjuring franchise took a dive while focusing on their iconic creepy doll, and we got countless of boring flicks full of stupid twists, characters and the dreadful jump scares.
We head back to the year 2010, who brought us the first fright of the decade with Daybreakers, a modern-day vampire movie that scored mixed-to-positive reviews and grossed 51.4 million on a 20M cost. Not bad for a January horror movie, huh? Don’t worry, I won’t go through every film each month, just the highlights. Moving on, February brought us a reboot of The Wolfman, which was a huge bomb, failing with the critics and earning 139.7 million globally on a massive budget of 150M. We didn’t get our next one until the end of April with the tired remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which holds a scathing 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it was a hit in the box office, grossing over 115 million on a relatively cheap cost. If you want to consider it apart of the genre, Predators released on July 9th to the tune of 64% on RT, and it ended with some decent profit, amassing over 127.2 million dollars. At the end of Summer, Piranha 3D released to shockingly positive reception, earning 83.1 million on a 24M budget. So far, 2010 doesn’t have a bad track record. There’s been nothing incredible, but the year gave us a few hits at least.
Wait, never mind, Hollywood needs to keep milking some found-footage money started from the classic Blair Witch Project with The Last Exorcism. But the year surprises us once more, giving us a solidly-crafted, atmospheric thrill ride that made 69x its budget. Ah shucks, we still need to sit through Resident Evil: Afterlife, a painfully edited film that made over 300 million bucks somehow. What is wrong with the world? We’ll skip along till nearly Halloween, which is when Paranormal Activity 2 took the box office by storm despite receiving mixed reviews, grossing 177 million on the minuscule budget of 3 million. As if we didn’t have enough sequels trying to steal our money, the Saw series closed out with a whimper, releasing The Final Chapter to lukewarm reception and less cash than its predecessors. Now I won’t go into as much detail as I did there for 2010, but overall, it was a pretty successful year for the genre, especially box office wise. With the critics, it wasn’t especially horrible either, and the average rating for the biggest ones ended at 48%. Mediocre, but not necessarily terrible as some folks might think.
In 2011, there were plenty of terrible ones, such as The Rite, The Roommate, Sanctum, Scream 4, Priest, Final Destination 5, a Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark remake, Shark Night 3D, Apollo 18 and many more that made a profit at the box office despite being pieces of absolute trash. There’s a trend of unnecessary reboots, sequels, and standalone that just want to take your money. The terrifying thing is, we keep seeing these god-awful movies, and Hollywood keeps making them. It’s simple, skip them! There were also a few fun rides like Insidious, Fright Night and Contagion before you have to make it through a deeply disappointing, and unnecessary The Thing reboot that luckily bombed because of its expensive budget. Hollywood continued to shove crap in our faces, surprised us with a solid third Paranormal Activity flick, James Wan’s claim to fame, and a half-decent remake of a classic, and gave us a mixed bag of a year for the genre. There were filmmakers that actually tried to give audiences some spine-tingling chills, and others who wanted profit. Unfortunately, you’re going to see a slew of those throughout the rest of the decade.
2012 milks us some more right at the beginning with The Devil Inside, which tried to make some more cash from the found-footage empire, and despite being a total shitshow, it somehow made more than 100 million dollars. Why did you make this ugly, scare-less, poorly-acted crap and dump it on us? Why? There were plenty of others at similar quality that made a whole lot of money, like Underworld Awakening, Silent House, Chernobyl Diaries, Possession, RE: Retribution, House of the End of the Street, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (what?). Then, below all of those, was the PG-13, sanitized, fake, jump-scare laden The Apparition, which thankfully bombed. There were also a few hidden gems such as the delightfully hilarious and bloody The Cabin in the Woods, the ambitious and mature animated film ParaNorman and the earned, visually-impressive Prometheus. Putting the year on a platter, it looks similar, a couple nice breaks in something chock-full of clogged shit.
After the disaster that was 2012, we hope to start a nice, fresh new year with 2013. Alas, the Texas Chainsaw reboot is here to haunt us, a disastrous remake that, of course, made 47 million dollars. As if this wasn’t a wobbly start, 2013 also gave us A Haunted House, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Dark Skies, The Last Exorcism 2, Scary Movie V, Insidious: Chapter 2, and Carrie. Readers may think this year was just more of the same, but we also received the excellent and terrifying The Conjuring, World War Z, the hidden gem You’re Next, the highly-underrated, uncommonly creepy The Purge, and a respectable Evil Dead remake. The decade is slightly improving by the year, but it’s still in the dog house in terms of garbage that shouldn’t be making this much profit.
Go away, found-footage movies. Huh, I guess my message didn’t get out clear enough, because Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was released. It still makes Paramount some extra cash because of its small budget, but the sequels keep making less and less. Hurray, I guess. 2014 also plagued us with Devil’s Due, I, Frankenstein (yep, that’s a thing), A Haunted House 2, The Quiet Ones, Deliver Us from Evil, and the disappointingly generic, soul-sucking The Purge: Anarchy. If that wasn’t enough, Annabelle gave us the money-sucking prequel to The Conjuring and made over a quarter of one billion dollars. It was one of the most frustrating, boring, dumb movies of the year with a distinct lack of actual scares. Oh, a Ouija movie actually happened as well. Sure, we got Oculus, but 2014 was a huge step back for the genre as we head into the halfway mark.
January strikes again with The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, a visually impressive, but dull, tension-less ride that somehow tricked us into seeing it. The Boy Next Door was an awful film as well, and starred Jennifer Lopez as an English teacher. How does that casting choice even happen? The Lazarus Effect gave us more watered-down PG-13 scares, and shoved some cheap jumps in our faces, we received a tired, shopworn Poltergeist update, and the Insidious franchise ditched James Wan and gave us another mediocre sequel. 2015 was another sheer disappointment in terms of horror, and its only redemptions in the genre lied with a decent M. Night Shyamalan flick called The Visit, a fun and mindless Goosebumps adaptation, and a so-so Krampus film. Those three weren’t even “good”, per-say, just a bit of relief in the waves of madness.
2016 began with a whimper, kicking off with the Natalie Dormer-starring The Forest, which squandered her dual roles in a supernatural borefest that came off as a bit exploitative, to be frank. The creepy-doll genre produced The Boy as well, which was middling at best, providing a few effective scares. It also gave audiences a pedestrian plot coupled with an unsatisfying twist ending. Of course, what follows is The Darkness, a lazily written, tension free ghost story that somehow had Kevin Bacon star in it. Fear not, however, because we also received three horror masterpieces. First, the original, slow-burning, tension-filled The Witch, which gave us a promising directorial debut for Robert Eggers. Secondly, 10 Cloverfield Lane gave us the rare sequel that expanded on the story while staying faithful to its excellent predecessor, and improving on it. Thirdly, and lastly, The Conjuring 2 ended one of the best films of the entire year, packed with superb performances, compelling family drama and above all: horrifying scares. James Wan, you’re my savior.
Otherwise in the tumultuous year, The Purge: Election Year confirmed that the studio wasn’t actually trying to make a good franchise, more focused on stealing cash. The Shallows was a surprisingly solid fright fest, despite being constricted by its PG-13 limits. Lights Out was another delightful summer stunner, full of atmospheric tension-building, and uncommonly effective jump scares. Perhaps finalizing this year as the greatest one in my analysis at the moment was Don’t Breathe, a total sleeper hit that smashed open the box office in its opening weekend on top. For the remainder, the Blair Witch reboot was a reasonably fun yarn with a gratifying final ten minutes, Ouija: Origin of Evil astonished us all who watched its ill-fated predecessor fail in mediocrity, and delivered a perfectly enjoyable ride. Shut In went mostly unnoticed, fortunately, but was still an utter disaster to those who saw it, and Incarnate was another late-year bellyflop. Overall, though, horror started to become a genre recognized as real to cinephiles, and studios began to make a higher percentage of worthy installments.
We’re actually coming close to ending this analysis, and at least from my perspective, the genre is getting better by the sentence. If you want to consider it a horror movie, 2017 spits its first one out with Underworld: Blood Wars, a lowest common denominator action fantasy ride with little to no thrills. Back to back with that was The Bye-Bye Man, another terrible addition to a non-existent franchise that I like to call the Bullshit Horror for Toddlers saga. Who knew M. Night Shyamalan would have another massive comeback with Split, which provided thrills, chills, and a total showcase for James McAvoy to show off his acting skills. What both comes as bad and good news is Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. No, the movie still sucked, but at least it’s “The Final Chapter”. Who comes up with these names? The Rings reboot, and A Cure for Wellness both shat the bed in terms of quality, but then something magnificent occurred. Jordan Peele’s Get Out was released, and to this day it’s one of my favorite horror movies, and one of my most prized films in general. An emotionally resonant social commentary as well as a hilarious, frightening ride that keeps you hooked from start to finish. Way to go, 2017!
Ignoring The Belko Experiment, and the Alien rip-off Life ,and Phoenix Forgotten, something I actually want to write about comes along: Alien: Covenant. The two newest franchise installments, Prometheus, and this, have gotten plenty of hate over the years. However, both of them, especially Covenant, provide more than enough close-quarters space terror, and another round of dazzling visual effects. It Comes at Night continued this little hot streak, and gave us a criminally underrated, eerily realistic creature feature. Disregarding Wish Upon, Annabelle: Creation was an stunningly worthy follow-up to one of the biggest let-downs of 2014, a decent, entertaining 2 hours. Lightning then struck, something incredible happened: IT was released. Grossing over 700 million dollars at the box office, and absolutely defying expectations after the cringe-worthy 90s adaptation of the masterful novel, this is why I still review movies. Gorgeously-filmed, well-acted by its cast of child actors (and, of course, Pennywise), and nearly heartbreaking emotionally, this provides both the terrors and beauty of adolescence, overcoming its lack of concrete CGI.
Mother! was considered terrible my some audiences, and a masterpiece by others, a movie that divided moviegoers around the world. It bombed at the box office despite receiving a Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it wasn’t a bad time. On the contrary, it was a brutally-realized horror/thriller/drama hybrid with fine performances led by Jennifer Lawrence. If you can get Friend Request and the pointless, embarrassing Flatliners remake, Happy Death Day was a sleeper hit that gave us a refreshing blend of horror and comedy while poking fun at the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day. Of course Tyler Perry had to ruin that bit of fresh air with Boo! 2 (who was asking for that?). Additionally, The Snowman then butchered an acclaimed novel, and a talented cast. Jigsaw closed out the year for the genre by trying to bring the Saw franchise back together (and failed miserably.
Is it me or did Stephen King and a first-time director save 2017? Anyway, moving on, studios throw out some meaningless flicks in the beginning of 2018. Insidious: The Last Key wearily attempted to breathe fresh air into a tired series by bringing back Lin Shaye, and just screwed up everything instead, and Winchester squandered a few talented actors in a meaningless “based on a true story” marketing ploy. Then February gave us some uncommon relief with Annihilation, further establishing Natalie Portman as the queen of acting, and Alex Garland as the king of slow sci-fi movies with a touch of horror. The Strangers: Prey at Night might be trying to get some more cash out of us, but it was still quite the ride, providing us with enough thrills to earn its place. Unsane was a box office flop, but a darn good one, making smart use of its intriguing, terrifying premise, and John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place was a fantastic movie with some expected logic issues.
After Avengers: Infinity War broke some records for being another mediocre comic-book movie, Ari Aster shook the world with his controversial horror flick Hereditary, which sparked outrage after Toni Collette wasn’t recognized by voters as an Oscar-worthy performance. The First Purge then further brought the once smart, creepy and well-acted franchise down the drain by butchering its one solid landing. Of course Unfriended was considered a minor hit, so we got The Dark Web, a PG-13 horror movie disguised as an R-rated one, but failing to put on its big boy pants. Moreover, some genius thought it was a nice idea to make a Slender Man feature-length movie, exploiting a tragedy for profits. The once proud Conjuring universe then spat out another jump-scare filled, flat-out snooze fest of an affair: The Nun. This villain was an excellent addition to The Conjuring 2, and should have made a banging origin story, but she was more of a glorified cameo. Hollywood being the absolute jerk-offs they are decided to reboot The Predator, ending up losing cash, and most of the fanbase while they were at it.
Hell Fest was trying to be another Happy Death Day-type success, and instead puttered out in a film jam-packed with cheap scares and stupid teen characters. Can we even bring Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween into the picture? Let’s ignore that one, and for good reason, because you won’t regret what comes next. I went into watching 2018’s Halloween remake with relatively low expectations due to the slew of awful sequels, but it blew any previously conceived worries away. Jamie Lee Curtis is back and better than ever, Michael Myers is actually a worthy villain again, and it’s a gleefully violent, well-acted slasher movie overall. Furthermore, The Possession of Hannah Grace finally closed out the year at an all-time low.
It’s time for the final year: 2019. The last 365 days before the dumpster fire 2020 was, the finale of the cherished decade, and my analysis here today. Hilariously, January gave us the rare mediocre horror movie with Escape Room, which had enough creative elements and puzzles to it, keeping the film from being a total failure. Perhaps most frustratingly, Shyamalan closed out his trilogy with Glass, which gave us standout performances from Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy, but ultimately failed to hand viewers a satisfying conclusion. The Prodigy tried to be another one of those “disguised as an R-rated” movies, and worked as a reasonable entry to the “creepy kid” genre, but didn’t try anything special. Happy Death Day 2U was middling at its best, not nearly as good as its surprisingly clever predecessor, disappointing at the box office for good reason.
I’ll admit it, 2019 was definitely a mixed bag for the genre. Hollywood still hasn’t quite stopped throwing jump-scare laden, low-budget horror movies in our faces for some blood money, but they’ve also improved a great deal. Us was supposedly a terrifying sequel from Jordan Peele with an Oscar-worthy, dual performance from Lupita Nyong’o, Stephen King’s Pet Semetary wasn’t too bad, Brightburn was an uncommonly original film with a fantastic premise, Child’s Play was remade successfully, and Annabelle Comes Home is still better than the first movie. Nevertheless, the real masterpiece of the year was Ari Aster’s second movie, Midsommar.
It’s a film that has such subtle tension and scares that it blends so well as a relationship drama with admittedly horrifying elements. Aster continues to exploit what makes audiences tick, and does so effectively with plenty of disturbing imagery and gore. The filming locations, cinematography and cast are all fantastic, coupled with characters that feel relatable from the start. Florence Pugh gives her career-best performance in a stunning, star-making turn that feels raw, and the scares are all deserved. Midsommar is easily my favorite film of the decade, and in my top five of all time. Speaking of A24 movies, Robert Eggers blessed us with his sophomore movie, The Lighthouse. His movie brilliantly tells a simple tale of two men going completely bonkers in a lighthouse overtime with a black and white, powerfully-acted film that greatly benefits from the chemistry of its two leads. Still, no Oscar nominations. Oh, that’s right…The Academy Awards have forgotten about the genre.
In conclusion, I haven’t covered absolutely everything, but definitely the highlights of good and bad for each year leading up to 2020. My research has proven that while horror is still far from the greatest genre, it continuously gets better with every year with some setbacks. Eventually, Hollywood will realize their wrongdoings (hopefully), and scary movie fans will get consistent hits for them to enjoy. In a future where no Bullshit Horror for Toddlers exists, I’ll know why I put myself through hours upon hours of garbage.