The Midnight Man is a horror film inspired by a creepypasta. I went into that idea a little bit yesterday, but it’s essentially urban legends created online. Some might be inspired by real events, or preexisting urban legends/myths, but they gain their popularity online. There’s a fascinating discussion to be had about fair use and Internet phenomena, but this is not the time; I wish it was, but it’s not.
We’re at an interesting time in horror. The genre has always been a profitable mainstay for studios. The films do not have to cost much money or even be particularly good to turn a strong profit at the box office. Now, it seems easier than ever to launch a horror franchise. From Insidious pounding out haunted house/object sequel after haunted house/object sequel to The Purge spinning off into a television series after four films, films made on a shoestring budget are quickly turning into the new horror mainstays.
For his second feature length film, writer/director/editor Trey Edward Shults shifts genres but sticks with the same subject matter as his breakout critical hit Krisha. It Comes at Night sees different people with different perspectives on a past trauma forced to come together in the same house and coexist despite their differences. Where the family in Krisha gets to leave after the party, the families in It Comes at Night have nowhere else to go.
From the opening credits sequence, you know you’re in for something authentically 70s with Terrifier. The whole film is set up like the sequel to a slasher that never existed. We see a blurry news report on an old tube television describing a massacre by Art the Clown the previous year. A reporter is interviewing the only survivor, a woman who is now severely disfigured from the injuries she sustained. The camera pans out to reveal that the person watching the broadcast is the killer clown, loading up a trash bag full of customized weapons and slapping on the greasepaint for another night of terror.
Terrifier is an old-fashioned slasher that knows its history. From the grainy filter and slightly desaturated film stock to the unnatural pink and blue lighting that lurks in the corners, writer/director Damien Leone’s film is a labor of love. Even the oldest gags can seem brutal and terrifying when wielded with precision and passion.
There are times where I need to take a step back and remind myself how what we watch influences how we respond to films. What seems novel or innovative to someone who doesn’t watch a lot of horror can seem tired or even poorly done to someone who watches a lot of horror. Horror has the added element of the crowd mentality. When you see a horror film with a group of people, the reaction of a few can really influence how you respond to a film. It only takes a few live screams or seeing other people jump out of their seats for you to start to feel a similar sense of dread or even fear.
Hereditary is one of the latest horror films to gain a notorious reputation out of the Sundance Film Festival. Sundance always has a healthy horror programming block and the right combination of acting, style, and subject matter can really help make a small horror film a big hit. Many of the kooky critical darlings you’ve heard of had their US premieres at Sundance: Teeth, The Babadook, The Witch, Mandy, Revenge, It Follows, etc. Just as a general rule, this kind of Sundance horror tends to come in two molds: harrowing family horror or shocking concept with dark humor. Hereditary tries to straddle both without really committing to either concept.
