The rise of ‘smart’ low-budget horror

A new wave of low-budget “smart” horror movies is challenging the studio behemoths with a recipe that swaps gratuitous gore and elaborate special effects for good old-fashioned suspense.
“Don’t Breathe,” which is due for release next week on the back of widespread acclaim, is hoping to emulate the success of “The Babadook,” “It Follows” and a series of other creepy hits made on a shoestring.
While they lack the marketing muscle of the summer tentpoles, these films often become word-of-mouth hits, gathering momentum as reviewers praise their uncompromising refusal to rely on the usual horror tropes.

“Mainstream horror these days is really all about whatever’s clever — a new twist on an old story, or one hell of a trailer,” Jeff Bock, of film industry research firm Exhibitor Relations, told AFP.
“As we’ve seen lately, ‘smart’ horror films are in vogue right now,” he said, adding however that there would always be excitement when “a horror icon is revived for one more hunt.”
“It Follows” (2014), a thematically rich modern slasher that takes its cue from the 1980s output of masters like Wes Craven and John Carpenter, is often cited as the jewel in the crown of horror’s new wave.
Its director David Robert Mitchell was acclaimed for weaving the cliche of teenagers menaced by a malevolent supernatural force into that rarest of things — a scary movie that drips with subtext and not just blood.
One of its leads, Daniel Zovatto, also stars in Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe,” which hits cinemas on Friday and is the director’s second feature after the 2013 remake of horror classic “Evil Dead.”
Made on a budget of just $10 million, “Don’t Breathe” follows a trio of friends who break into the house of a blind recluse, confident of an easy pay day, only to find themselves in a terrifying life-or-death struggle.
“At the time when we first showed the movie people had no idea what it was about. There was no trailer, there was nothing,” says Zovatto, a 25-year-old Costa Rican actor last seen in AMC’s zombie show “Fear the Walking Dead.”
“Don’t Breathe” is unusual in that there are very few jump scares — a staple of the teen slasher end of the horror genre — and those that do feature feel like they’ve been earned.

Source: Arab News