How Horror Makes Itself Ungovernable

Horror—with all its gory, upsetting complexity—makes for an uneasy product.

by RS Benedict // Illustration by Sam Hindman

The geeks have won, we are told. Geek culture—comic books, video games, sci-fi, fantasy—is mainstream now, squeezing out mysteries, dramas, and period pieces at the box office.

But that victory has brought with it a dreary ossification. Most of these geek movies are sequels, reboots and adaptations of intellectual properties decades old. Superman first appeared in comics in 1938. The Star Wars franchise debuted over forty years ago. Even the most recent juggernaut, the Harry Potter series, came into print while Bill Clinton was still in office.

With intellectual property laws as they are, entertainment media conglomerates (particularly Disney) retain a stranglehold on these cultural touchstones long after their creators have died, long after the hands that made them have rotted down to the bone. Disney paraded the digital corpses of Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing in Rogue One; we should not be surprised if we see the computer-generated ghost of Maggie Smith awarding points to Gryffindor thirty years from now while the actress molders in her grave.

This bland necromancy persists because it is profitable. Disney learned its formula a long time ago: take something meaningful like folklore or history and grind down its rough edges, remove any moral ambiguity, and drain its blood like a virgin brought before Elizabeth Bathory. This is, after all, the company whose Epcot Center gives guests a simulated version of France without tits or tobacco.

The mainstreaming of geek culture is artistic gentrification, a way for moneyed interests to wrest control of culture from the creatives who built it. 

This is nothing to be celebrated. This is not victory. The mainstreaming of geek culture is artistic gentrification, a way for moneyed interests to wrest control of culture from the creatives who built it and crowd out any voice with something new or subversive to say. Sci-fi, which once gave us visions of the future, and fantasy, which once nurtured our imaginations, have been hijacked to sell imperialism and soda pop. The invaders have won; our loved ones have been replaced by pod people.

Only one speculative genre has managed to escape the Disneyfication process and retain something resembling a soul: horror.

One reason for this is purely financial: a horror movie can be made on a modest budget and turn a healthy profit. That means studios are more comfortable investing in a new director, a new screenwriter, or a new story. Hereditary made $80 million on a $10 million budget; The VVitch cost only $4 million and grossed $40 million worldwide. Since the filmmaker is almost guaranteed to make money for the studio, there’s more room to take creative risks. 

In horror, filmmakers don’t have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to maximize ticket sales or worry about preserving the sanctity of an established corporate IP, so they can do whatever they want with their characters. As a result, horror has quickly become the only mainstream film genre with room for experimental filmmakers and arthaus sensibilities.

But that’s not the only reason.

Horror, like comedy, is a genre defined not only by its aesthetics or its subject matter, but by the emotions it is meant to evoke. Horror is supposed to horrify us. It is supposed to be scary, and grotesque, and disturbing, and upsetting, and transgressive. It is supposed to unsettle us. It is supposed to make us feel bad. If it does not do these things, it fails. It’s bad horror—or maybe it’s not horror at all, but supernatural adventure.

Disney products are not supposed to horrify. They must not upset us. They must not transgress. They must not disturb. Clean, inoffensive, safe horror—ghosts harmlessly shouting “Boo!” until a happy ending occurs—might scare very young children, but to frighten anyone over the age of ten a film must violate taboos. It must draw blood. How could a studio ever make a sanitized big-budget movie about incest or cannibalism or matricide? How could a company that photoshops the cigarettes out of Walt Disney’s hands ever make us feel truly unsafe?

How could a company that photoshops the cigarettes out of Walt Disney’s hands ever make us feel truly unsafe?

Imagine if Disney purchased the 1970s folk horror classic The Wicker Man and tried to turn it into a franchise, with sequels and prequels and an extended universe.

The film’s portrayal of sexuality—maidens dancing naked over a fire, open-air orgies, children studying phallic fertility rituals, the landlord’s daughter crooning a seductive song through the wall of Sgt. Howie’s bedroom—all of that must go, first of all. Disney does not tolerate sex—it’s not family-friendly, and besides, censorship boards in more conservative regions of the world might ban the movie if it’s too racy. There is no sex in the recent Star Wars sequels; superheroes’ perfect bodies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe exist only to exert violence upon the enemy, not to experience pleasure. The film’s portrayal of faith—of an irritating, impotent Christian zealot, of gleeful sensuous Pagans—must be excised as well, for fear of alienating religious conservatives in the audience. Then there is the ending. Blockbuster movies cannot risk a downcast finale, unless it’s followed up by another installment with a triumphant conclusion.

And what about the most important aspect of franchising: merchandise? Christopher Lee’s swaggering Lord Summerisle was charismatic and attractive, but he’s not cuddly enough to become the next Baby Yoda, reborn endlessly as plushies and McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. And what, exactly, would a Sgt. Howie action figure do? Pray? Moralize? Catch fire? He has no gimmicky custom weapons that toy companies can make plastic replicas of. His character design—a standard police uniform—isn’t distinct enough for mass-produced Halloween costumes.

So what’s left? In The Wicker Man II: Return to Summerisle, there would be maypole dances and songs with lyrics about the vague joys of farming and community and little else. Maybe the landlord’s daughter falls in love with the policeman and helps him escape. Maybe the burning wicker man, now empty after the policeman has escaped it with his talking animal friends, collapses on Lord Summerisle, so that the villain can die through divine retribution, so that the hero need not stain his hands with the blood of his enemy.

Audiences might be entertained by this. But they won’t be frightened. It’s not horror. Audiences seeking the adrenaline rush that only fear can bring will go elsewhere, and take their money with them.

And so the machine cannot swallow horror, cannot digest it, cannot assimilate it. Horror retains its freedom by being too disgusting. As the anarchist principle goes, horror makes itself ungovernable, and thus it remains free.

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