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Like many other genres, horror has many facets and covers many styles, stories and approaches. But while the Hollywood pendulum is swinging one way — favoring franchise reboots and superhero mashups — the swings and misses are getting more and more noticeable, and the rumblings in the horror community are growing. Like Marvel and DC unrest, horror is experiencing its own sort of franchise fatigue. But what’s the antidote to big-budget burnouts?
Of course, familiar and big stories will always have a home. But if one trend has been exacerbated over the past few years, it’s that large studios are often out of touch and that the smaller, “unexpected” movies find more of a following than high-budget, so-called safe bets. For horror, this is nothing new. In fact, this is familiar territory. And just as in decades before, low-budget films are leading the way.
Recent Horror Franchise Disappointments
While some franchises have seen ongoing success (namely the Scream series), the majority opinion is that certain mainstays are being too drawn out, watering down once-original ideas into disappointing reboots, such as the whimpering reception to Halloween Ends. Even sacred source material from horror legends, such as this year’s Firestarter remake, failed to do much more than bore and disappoint. When one returns to the same well too many times, it eventually runs dry.
But there is also a cloud of fear in Hollywood, with financial stress controlling decisions more and more. Big studios have become less willing to take uncalculated risks on entirely new ideas, preferring the perceived safety and stability of IP. For better or worse, there’s supposed security in rebooting and building off stories and characters that are already beloved. Except that’s no longer working out as well as it used to. And even though larger studios are taking notice, they are traditionally very slow to pivot and react — and remain scared of gambling on weirder, more niche stories. But that is exactly where appetites lie right now, and that is where low-budget and micro-budget horror films come in.
Why Low-Budget Horror Is the Answer – and a Historical Trendsetter
The social media age has had an indelible effect on pop culture. With so many more ideas freely available, the notion of one or two big things that overarch and define a generation or an era is dying out. Instead, everything from fashion to music to movies has gotten more niche. Now, the only way to guarantee a failure is to try to please everyone — going too broad to attract everyone at once only ends up appealing to no one. Big studios are not in the position to go narrow, and they never were.
Low-budget and independent horror films have the freedom to get weird and to make a statement. They also have the benefit of not going up against red tape and years-long production processes, so their releases are more timely and more in the moment when it comes to having something current to say. They are also typically made by horror fans and members of the genre fan community, so they’re actually dialed into what audiences want to see.
2022’s Terrifier 2 has, to date, made millions on a $250K budget and is kicking off a renewed resurgence of interest in hardcore gore. After years of “the ghost is trauma” tropes, it’s tapped into baseline, surface-level fun horror again. But it’s hardly the first low-budget film to predict future trends. 1968’s Night of the Living Dead ushered in an era of zombie mayhem on a $114K budget, while The Blair Witch singlehandedly invented the found footage genre for $60,000 in 1999. And in 1974, a golden era of slasher films was heralded by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for $140K.
Low-Budget Horror Releases to Look Forward to
Although 2023 has plenty of franchise mainstay entries on the horizon, the genre is poised at an interesting crossroads. While studios fall back on their old ways of pushing familiar faces, indie and lower-budget filmmakers are putting out some fascinating ideas. Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink, premiering in January 2023, has been making unsettling waves in the film circuit for its return to indescribable, slow-burn, Lynchian horror. For a new horror generation raised on Creepypastas and the lore of The Backrooms, liminal and surreal horror is a natural want — but not one the major studios will be focusing on.
Larry Fessenden’s Blackout may make its 2023 debut, ushering in a new Monsterverse with a good old-fashioned werewolf flick. Even the most hotly anticipated franchise installment, Evil Dead Rise, is a continuation of what was once a low-budget cult favorite series. As fans look to these low-budget darlings for trend forecasting, they can expect to see more films falling into two camps: pure, old-fashioned fun with fewer metaphors than in recent films and chaotic, eerie, primal and atmospheric horror. And in another decade, perhaps the big box office release will follow suit.
To see this trend continue, the Shudder-acquired Skinamarink premieres in theaters Jan.13.
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