The Future of Horror is Low-Budget, Young, and Very Online

There is no feeling comparable to leaving a theater after a good horror movie. A slight chill hangs in the air while you walk to your car, even in the summer heat. A dreadful thought lingers in the back of your mind that what you watched on screen — no matter how fantastical the scares seem or how stupid the characters’ actions are — could happen to you too. The thrill is terrifying yet intoxicating, beckoning you to the theater every time a new film piques your morbid interest. 

In recent years, that feeling of fear has been propped up by a new generation of filmmakers who share a few common denominators on their resumes. These storytellers are young, have  backgrounds in online content creation, and are all working on relatively shoestring budgets. So far, that combination of youth, new media experience, and thriftiness has been exactly what horror needs to reclaim its status as cinema’s most consistent genre.