PREFACE: As with most things I will post on this blog, I began writing this piece without truly knowing where my thoughts would lead me. Thus, the occasional incoherence is symptomatic of this more or less free-form essay.

There is a new cycle of horror cinema that deserves critical attention: what I have decided to unimaginatively call the New American Horror Film. This statement is at least partially ironic. I share little love for this trend, as it has systematically assaulted the American horror film with a suspicious stylistic convergence that blends various articulations of realism with what I suppose we could call ‘traditional formalism’. In other words, although the ambiguous rationale of this new trend may not pass this writer’s contention of what constitutes an effective or even serviceable horror film, there is nonetheless many fascinating aspects about this new, ostensibly undefined trend in horror cinema.

By the “New American Horror Film,” I am of course referring to films such as Sinister, Insidious (and its sequel) and The Conjuring. I would also like subsume last year’s Silent House in this category, although contextually the premise of that bizarre and mostly unsuccessful experiment in cinematic realism was conceived outside of the American film industry.[1] Regardless, these four films typify this new trend of realism and explicit fiction that, for me, seems to establish itself outside of the postmodern horror cycle by recycling its primary feature – the first person narrative. Despite this, the New American Horror Film is not at all anti-postmodern, but in fact re-articulates the same ideological stance that the postmodern horror cycle took on the issue of spectatorship. But perhaps the biggest difference between the postmodern cycle and this new as-of-yet unspecified cycle seems to be the use of realism not as artifice but as something...different.

Allow me to unpack what I have just stated. The postmodern horror cycle irrupted on screens in the 1990s. Most scholars on the subject corroborate that Scream serves as the genesis of the postmodern trend. However, I would like to emphasize the role that films such as The Blair Witch Project played in this cycle, particularly how its aesthetical and industrial declaration of realism engendered a precarious anxiety as to the project’s ontological status. The realism suggested by the conceptual contours of the found footage form was destabilizing enough; the use of ancillary texts like websites proved to be even more provocative.[2] Regardless, I discuss The Blair Witch Project here because it essentially popularised the found footage form of horror cinema.[3] Thus, we can posit the horror-mock-documentary (my preferable term for this subgenre) as exemplifying the late period of the postmodern horror cycle.

For this writer, the defining characteristic of the late postmodern horror cycle is the use of realism as artifice. While other ‘found footage’ horror films have unsuccessfully emulated the style that made The Blair Witch Project such a great piece of horror filmmaking, they nonetheless demonstrate the postmodern horror film’s endless flirtation with the eulogy. In this sense, the horror film’s trajectory was ending. The horror genre reached an apex, and that apex was this eulogistic realism.[4]

This new American horror cycle emerges at this juncture. I cannot specify the exact film where this trend (or ‘blend’, I should say) first emerged, but it is clear at the very least that we are now entering – or have already entered – a new phase of the horror genre.

Three of the films I mentioned earlier when I attempted to define this trend were directed by James Wan. Wan has become something of an auteur-de-force (pardon the pun) in horror cinema. His Saw epitomized and perhaps even popularised the torture porn subgenre in North America. His next two films, one of which I have not seen, was significantly weaker and more or less forgettable.[5] His next three films after that are of particular interest. I do not recall much about Insidious. I recall it being a rather goofy take. At the very least, it was nice to receive some insight on what Carol Anne Freeling might have seen when she was sucked into the possessed television set in Poltergeist. I will however discuss its sequel, which I have just seen, as I feel it merits significant critical attention.

Perhaps more relevant is Sinister, a film that shares a similar atmospheric build-up to James Wan’s more paranormally-inclined films. In this film, Ethan Hawke finds a box of old Super8 films that evince gruesome murders.[6] The first person ‘shot’ only articulates realism within the diegesis. The footage, then, does not necessarily constitute artifice to the audience. Sinister nonetheless relies on the ‘realism’ of this footage to elicit the internal horror of its contents. As a spectator, I was drawn to the Super8 footage, despite its fictional proclivity, because of this sense of realism. One might argue that the Ethan Hawke character’s fascination with the footage emulates our own obsession with violent, disturbing imagery. In this sense, the subtext of the film is not entirely different than that of The Blair Witch Project or Grave Encounters. It’s a strange of mutation of postmodernism that nonetheless proves that the early eulogy was unsolicited.

If Sinister’s blending of realism and explicit fiction is too noticeable, than the more recent films The Conjuring and Insidious: Chapter 2 propose a more experimental vacillation between the two. The Conjuring is anachronistic in this sense. The film takes place in 1971, and thus the documentary footage shown at the beginning of the film (which is situated diegetically) should appear imperfect. However, the ‘film footage’ is indistinguishable from the average digital shot. This speaks to the clumsiness of the blending of realism and fiction in The Conjuring. Again, the footage here operates as a commentary on the passive, uncritical viewer.[7] Following the fascinating film of the Warrens’ paranormal investigations, the entire audience raises their hands. My memory of this scene is hazy, but I do not recall any questions regarding the film’s authenticity. I invite you to correct me if I’m mistaken here.

I would now like to move on to the most fascinating text I’ve encountered in this cycle thus far: Insidious Chapter 2. This film perhaps most explicitly blends realism with traditional formalism. It so frequently oscillates between the two styles that, even in scenes where there are digital cameras present, it is difficult to determine which of the two it is trying to emulate.[8] For the record, there are shots that are clearly produced from the diegetic cameras. However, when all characters are in view, the cinematography retains the frantic, uncontrolled style that is often associated with cinema verité.

Indeed, the film’s editing also reflects a kind of realism, although it is much different than what is evoked through cinematography. The editing is also frantic and often discontinuous. Discontinuity editing is positioned as the counter-hegemony of editing practices, often used by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard. This is where my admittedly preliminary argument takes a turn on the subjective – or subjectively experiential – side of things. In conjunction with the cinema verité style shots, the discontinuity editing seems to imply or evoke symmetry with documentary aesthetic. In other words (and this occurred to me while watching this film only a few hours ago), the film is trying to emulate the paranormal investigation show. It remains to be seen whether or not this experiment in oscillating between composed, statically framed shots and frantic, uncontrollable pseudo-documentary shots suggests anything profound beyond inaugurating a new trend in horror cinema. At this juncture, I’m not so sure it is a new trend inasmuch as it is a mutation of the already established postmodern horror cycle.

I suppose that’s an entirely different kind of ‘anxiety’.

Postscript: I have not discussed “Silent House,” but I feel that its industrial context complicates what I’ve written here and also universalizes this trend outside of the North American horror film. As you can see, I’m already moving away from what I’ve written here. Ah well, food for thought!

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[1] The film is a remake of a Uruguayan horror film released in 2010. The original was also falsely marketed under the single shot novelty.

[2] My current research has brought to light the simultaneous independence and unification of the so-called paratexts that make up The Blair Witch Project. Paradoxically, these ‘paratexts’ – such as the website, the book A Dossier, or the televised mock-documentary The Curse of the Blair Witch – may operate under the guise of paratexts, but rather than merely supplying information about the film (i.e. plot synopses, etc.), these texts exist to expand and further the narrative. In this sense, these texts that supply information can act independent of the central film but are also crucial to the overall experience of The Blair Witch Project.

[3] The term ‘found footage’ is problematic in this context. The underlying assumption of this term necessitates that the exhibited footage would have to have been lost at some point. Despite this nomenclatural issue, the ‘found footage’ term has crept its way into the cinematic vernacular. No amount of my academic diarrhoea can mitigate that.

[4] In this sense, not only did the postmodern horror film eulogize the horror genre, it also eulogized itself! The meager efforts of no-trick-pony Oren Peli particularized the industry’s cynecism. The studio behind Paranormal Activity removed the crucial experiential aspect of The Blair Witch Project.  But I suppose you can’t emulate the same hoax twice.

[5] I’m referring to Dead Silence.

[6] As opposed to the non-gruesome variety of murder.

[7] This is the films’ position; not mine.

[8] I would like to argue that this is implicitly remarking on the anxieties stemming from the digitalized image’s disruption of photography’s perceived indexicality. But I would like to cogitate on this notion a bit more.