"Overlord" Wednesday, "Suspiria" last week ... If the horror film has always existed, the genre has never been so commercially well.
Last month, Halloween , the umpteenth version of the saga launched by John Carpenter in 1978, offered a record-breaking North American box office. Last year, This adaptation of Stephen King's novel (the second part of which will be released in September 2019), had signed the biggest score in history (287 million
in the United States, 614 worldwide) in horror. A few months earlier, Get Out had become a phenomenon across the Atlantic.
Hollywood is scary, it's not new. In 1968, Rosemary's Baby , of Roman Polanski, had renewed the genre, injecting the supernatural into everyday life. Five years later, The Exorcist , a huge success, proved that the public was ready to confront evil.
Follow The Curse, Amityville and the emergence of an independent scene "pre-geek" with titles like M Chainsaw ass or Friday 13. And key figures such as Freddy Krueger.
The end of the millennium and the beginning of the following renewed the horror, both in its treatment (the movie in the film with the Scream saga , the torture in Saw and its aftermath) and in its form (the fake documentary with The project Blair Witch and his ersatz).
A political message
In recent years, the genre, while maintaining its primary purpose (to startle), takes a political and social turn. The American Nightmare series evokes an overtly violent society, which, according to its producer Jason Blum, echoes America's Donald Trump.
With Get Out , director Jordan Peele exploits fear and delivers a message about racism across the Atlantic. In a more indirect way, one can see in the strength released by Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween a response to the #MeToo movement.
What is most astonishing is the exponential commercial power of horror which, by definition, is not addressed to all viewers. Since 2013, the episodes of the saga Conjuring have filled the rooms. The latest, The Nun , has not escaped the rule.
France is also gambling with regularly millionaire productions. A shadow on the blackboard: the three-colored directors are rarely rewarded for their efforts. Recently, Pascal Laugier's Ghostland or Julia Ducournau's Grave have found their audience abroad more than in their home country.
If, for its part, Hollywood continues to bet on this genre is that it costs little (ten to fifty times less than the big budget movies of major studios) and sometimes reports very big. The only formula that matters.
"We are witnessing a new golden age of horror in the cinema"
Thibaut Bertrand, co-director of the documentary Make Horror Great Again !, describes this phenomenon.
Why now sign a documentary about American horror cinema?
Originally, we wanted to talk about the success story of producer Jason Blum, whose company, Blumhouse, specializes in the genre. We expanded the subject because we felt like we were witnessing a new golden age of horror, with the huge success of Ça .
How do you explain this renewal?
The emergence of production boxes, which are dedicated to the genre and associated with major studios, partly explains this craze. There is an awareness that horror movies can be quality. In the documentary, Joe Dante (director of Gremlins ), tells that the genre was a bit shameful in his day.
Today, there is a generation of filmmakers who are passionate, for whom the horror allows to tell personal stories. They were bottle-fed to Romero and Carpenter. Andres Muschietti, who signed Ça , says he was looking at Halloween at 7 years old. The Trump period is also reacting. American Nightmare 4 refers to it. Get Out has benefited from this environment even though its director, Jordan Peele, explains that he wrote it under the Obama era. He was surprised that, under the pretext that a black President had been elected, there was no longer any talk of racism.
In your documentary, Jason Blum says he's horror-like French independent cinema ...
It leaves a great artistic freedom to the directors, who, in return, agree to be paid to the minimum union. Their incomes are indexed to the revenues of works. We can say that he makes the author's film commercially.
Horror seems to be culturally consumed by many ...
With superheroes, this is the only genre that brings people to theaters, because we want to share it. Jason Blum has just created a television division but, so far, he was only cinema releases.
Can the commercial success of the genre make him lose his soul?
The sequel of That, in 2019, could be considered as the first "blockbuster" (production with very big budget) of the horror. The more money you invest, the more you seek to please at any cost. Even if Hollywood comes to pervert the genre, it will be reborn through the eyes of new filmmakers.
Thibaut Bertrand co-directed, with Benjamin Clavel, Make Horror Great Again ! , broadcast by Canal + . The documentary is available in replay on MyCanal.