Thehorrorcommunity has taken to social media to express their complaints overWmagazine’s"The Year Horror Went Highbrow"by Maxine Wally. The article is about how the popularity of horror movies has increased substantially over the past couple of years. The main issue people are having with the article is its very first paragraph.
“Horror films had a tough few decades. From the 1980s until recently, movies featuring a murderous doll, a ghostly presence, or a creepy neighbor with a taste for revenge had been mostly relegated to the realm of C-list actors, ham-fisted dialogue, and predictable plots. Now the genre is a cultural force to be reckoned with. Thanks to a mix of box-office hits with crossover appeal, prestige projects with top-tier directors and major stars, and creatively ambitious indies, horror movies have become essential communal experiences that spark important conversations while delivering a whole lot of fun.”
As it goes on, the article does acknowledge horror movies from the ’70s and ’80s that have become classics.Rosemary’s Baby,The Exorcist,The Shining, andA Nightmare on Elm Street. However, people are taking “mostly relegated” to mean those films are exceptions in a genre that otherwise isn’t very worthwhile. Showing a similar snobbery to the reason whyBarbarianwriter/director Zach Cregger dislikes the term “elevated horror.”
“I feel like the term ‘elevated horror’ is for people who don’t know much about horror. It’s for people who see horror as some inferior genre. Like, ‘I don’t like horror, but I like elevated horror. I like Hereditary and Get Out. By the way, I worship Hereditary and Get Out. But I also worship Evil Dead II because it’s a fantastic movie. I don’t care where we land on the spectrum of horror versus ‘elevated horror’ because I just think that term is useless,” said Cregger in an interview with Discussing Film.
RELATED:Barbarian Director Zach Cregger Says ‘Elevated Horror’ is a ‘Useless’ Term
The Responses That The Article Has Received
Barbara Crampton, a scream queen who has and continues to work on multiple projects in the horror genre,wroteon Twitter that Wally’s article was “very insulting” and that it was “very disappointing to see this mistaken - take.” Kyra Gardner, director ofLiving With Chucky, likewise wrote that labeling ‘80s horror actor’s as C-list is “terribly mistaken” given the number of them who have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards.
However, there has also been a bit of a backlash to the backlash, with some people condemning personal attacks on Wally for the article she’s written. Meagan Navarro, the Head Critic and Chief Content Creator for Bloody Disgusting, posted on Twitter that she was “of the mind that horror doesn’t need defending,” especially with “dogpiling.” John Squires, the Editor in Chief at Bloody Disgusting, agreed with Navarro, writing that once people start “flat out bullying a person,” it’s hard to stay on board a “reasonable sentiment.”
“For sure. No one deserves vitriol. Except evil people. And writing an article that doesn’t get all the facts right or consist of copious research doesn’t make a person evil,” wrote Tyler Doupe’, a staff writer for Dread Central and Managing Editor for Wicked Horror TV.
As a society that has become more aware of the effects of toxic fandom and internet bullying, perhaps the takeaway from “The Year Horror Went Highbrow” is that if you read something you don’t like, keep your criticisms of a piece respectful. Journalists could also take it as a lesson in researching and checking unconscious bias. Just because you might not think something’s good, it doesn’t necessarily mean that others share the same opinion.
