Perpetually Snubbed
Why the underdog horror genre deserves more recognition from the Academy
I’ll be the first to admit it: I’m more than a little biased in my love for horror. After a rocky start, watching horror films eventually became one of my favorite father-daughter bonding activities.
When I was a kid, 6 to be exact, my dad picked me up from dance class and told me over dinner that a movie he wanted to watch was coming on TV that night. He asked me if we could watch it when we got home while we waited for my mom, and not knowing anything about the movie, I said yes to what I thought would be a fun addition to our normal weekly post-dance class hangout time. But I was sorely mistaken — that movie was Stephen King’s Rose Red.
“What kind of a parent would let their 6-year-old watch a Stephen King movie?!”
Mine, obviously. And he’s the best dad in the world, but all good parents make mistakes.
As you can imagine, this did not go over well. After witnessing one person get hanged and another get their fingers chopped off with my 6-year-old eyeballs, I was a nervous basket case until about 1 in the morning when my mom finally demanded I tell her what was wrong. Under pressure, I snitched on my dad. My mom then called his house phone at 1 in the morning to chew him out, and she ended up letting me stay home from school the next day.
Though that night was long and dreadful, a part of me felt super cool knowing that I’d gotten to watch an R-rated movie when most of my friends weren’t allowed to view anything past PG. I may or may not have told other Catholic school kids all about it. (My apologies to those parents.)
Three years later, at age 9, my dad took me to see Signs in the theater. I’m amazed that my mom allowed this after the Rose Red debacle of 1999. Although the concept of aliens shook me to my very core, I couldn’t stop talking about it when I got home. I was amazed by how the family came together to use their perceived weaknesses as strengths against an alien race that sought their demise. Much to my mom’s dismay, this was a turning point: it was at the tender age of 9 that I started to form opinions on what constituted a good movie, and it has a lot to do with the things that keep us up at night.
Rose Red was the first movie in my conscious memory to make me feel real, visceral feelings of dread, nervousness, and being watched. In fact, it was the first movie in my conscious memory to make me feel real, visceral feelings of anything. Though 6-year-old me was traumatized by Rose Red, 9-year-old me felt alive after Signs. The anxiety almost felt like a natural, important part of being human. It was an experience I began and never ceased to crave. To this day, nothing in cinema makes me feel more alive than a good horror film and an actor’s ability to convey our most primal emotion: fear.
The first and only horror film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture was Silence of the Lambs, which was released in 1991 — two years before this horror lover was born. The genre as a whole has received little awards buzz since then. In recent years, however, horror has made an incredible resurgence as a genre that speaks on politics, social issues, mental health, and family struggles. This resurgence pairs beautifully with the open and unabashed discussion we’re becoming less afraid to have on these topics. The reality is that, for many, these topics have real-life terrifying implications and consequences that deserve to be addressed, and the horror genre is doing it.
Between rollbacks on women’s healthcare rights, racial bias in the police force, and the stigmatization of mental health medication, many of us have lived our own versions of horror films. Many of us have felt real, visceral fear. Fear for our health, fear for our lives, fear for our sanity. True flight, fight, or freeze responses to our world. Directors like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster bring these very real fears to the big screen to make us consider these realities. Their films make us uncomfortable for a reason. And they, along with the stunningly haunting yet relatable performances of their casts, deserve way more recognition for doing so than they’ve gotten.
The Academy can have a seat. I’ll handle it.
Get Out: 2017
Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Daniel Kaluuya), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director
Wins: Best Original Screenplay
Director: Jordan Peele
Get Out was only the 6th horror film ever to be nominated for Best Picture. The film thankfully got its share of nominations, but only went home with one win. It’s no secret that Jordan Peele’s breakout horror film deserved more. An incredibly chilling social commentary on caucasian co-opting of Black talent and culture, Get Out left audiences talking for months about the film’s implications and the remarkable vision of its director, Jordan Peele. Jordan Peele, whom we all recognized as a comedian prior to Get Out, is a multifaceted artist with much wisdom to share. His directorial debut, led by the immensely talented Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, forced audiences to confront their own prejudices and sit with the discomfort of knowing that society still has a long way to go in dismantling institutionalized racism and white privilege.
Hereditary: 2018
Oscar Nominations: None
Director: Ari Aster
Ari Aster’s directorial debut brews a rare breed of discomfort and dread from deep within its viewers. Despite receiving a plethora of other awards, Hereditary received no Oscar nominations, particularly leaving fans of Toni Collette and her eerily wonderful performance disappointed. Toni Collette’s performance as Annie, a grieving mother with a history of mental illness in her family, should’ve been enough alone to garner Oscar attention. Hereditary is much more than a supernatural horror film, though. It is a raw exposé on the grim realities of grief and untreated mental illness and how they can add pressure to already precarious family relations. And despite the movie’s absolutely wild resolution, it is full of tender moments that anyone who has ever experienced family strain and loss can relate to.
Midsommar: 2019
Oscar Nominations: None
Director: Ari Aster
A year after Hereditary was shamefully overlooked by the Academy, Ari Aster released his next masterpiece: Midsommar. Despite being brutal and bloodthirsty, Midsommar has been lovingly dubbed the best breakup movie ever (link contains spoilers). Florence Pugh beautifully portrays Dani, a vulnerable soul clinging to her last shred of familiarity after facing immense tragedy, even though that familiarity no longer serves her in any way. Timely and telling, her performance reminds us all to shed disrespect and mistreatment from our lives. This film is about trauma, loyalty, poisonous tradition, and ultimate betrayal, which we get to study along with Christian (Jack Reynor) and Josh (William Jackson Harper) as they compose their theses through acid trips. As if the talent and artistry weren’t enough to deserve attention from the Academy, Midsommar accomplishes the near-impossible by creating a world of horror in broad daylight throughout the majority of the film.
Us: 2019
Oscar Nominations: None
Director: Jordan Peele
I wish I could say I’m surprised that the Academy completely ignored one of 2019's greatest films and the inspiration for my Halloween costume. Jordan Peele’s Us, starring the stellar Lupita Nyong’o as both Adelaide and Red, received endless Academy awards buzz following its release last March to no avail. There is no denying that Lupita Nyong’o deserved a nomination for Best Actress, though Best Picture and any number of technical nominations were also well deserved. Us represents a sinister cognitive dissonance, our society’s sometimes shocking ability to block out real suffering in favor of superficial nonsense that does nothing substantial for marginalized populations. It forces us to confront our own rose-colored perceptions of reality when they’re challenged by the pain that’s present in the shadows. The concept of evil doppelgängers is as timeless as it is terrifying, and Jordan Peele’s Tethered serve as a reminder that sometimes, to see what’s wrong with the world, we need only look in the mirror. It’s us. There’s nothing scarier — or more telling — than that.
A good film is one you walk away from with something you didn’t have before. These incredible modern takes on the horror genre present us with an all-too-often ignored opportunity to learn new things about our very nature as humans. We can learn what makes us flee, what makes us fight, and what makes us freeze. We can learn to embrace harsh truths. We can learn to face our inner demons. We can learn to think outside the box, even though what’s outside the box isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
If the Academy’s implicit bias against horror films is based on the fact that they’re scary, unsettling, and sometimes bloody, I’ve got news for them — so is life. We can’t just hide under the bed to escape that. The thing about fear is that, sooner or later, it demands to be faced.
