Vampires have been huge the last several years. Zombies are enormous right now. The Walking Dead came on the seen with a totally kick-ass episode on Halloween night, and took the nation by storm. Audiences were blown away. Can't get enough. Why?
I have a theory. I don't know if it's half-baked, but it's my theory none-the-less.
We've been hit with some pretty frightening, gut-wrenching things in the last almost decade or so. 911, Katrina, the recession, insert-your-disaster-of-choice-here. Putting it in an incredibly simplified way, I think people are trying to deal with trying to pick up the pieces.
Blood suckers? Zombies? Disaster movies? They deal with apocalyptic scenarios where people have to learn how to survive and navigate terrifying terrain into the unknown. They have to pick up the pieces and start from scratch in a new, frightening world.
Sound familiar? Thought so. I think we're punch drunk. Stunned and still somewhat dazed from dealing with so much shit. I think these stories are metaphors for what we've been dealing with in this quickly changing world. A creeping dread and the alarming feeling that we can't quite keep up. And when is the other shoe going to drop, anyway? Right?
But also, watching and reading about these extreme survival, good-against-evil scenarios helps us to feel better about our own situations. At least we don't have flesh eating zombies after us, right? Yeah. Life is sweet.
Art imitates life, right? Or is that too simplistic? I don't know. But I do know that horror is making a huge come back. What do you think?
2 comments:
I think it is coming back and you are right on your ideas. Scary movies is coming back and they seem to becoming more frigtening too. But I find after watching so many of them and being able to watch them from a very young age because of a very cool aunt I dont get scared as easily from watching scary movies.
Jeanie, you need to watch The Walking Dead if you want to get scared. It is SO creepy. Very well done.
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