Not Quite Horror, Not Quite Thriller — The New Film Genre That Gets Under Your Skin
A new genre is emerging that is part horror, part thriller, part social commentary — and it gets under your skin in ways no slasher ever could.
I have seen hundreds of horror movies. Not much scares me anymore — although I owe a special shoutout to Undertone for truly freaking me out recently. More recently, I find that the most unsettling films tend to be the more realistic ones, those that tackle truly disturbing facets of our current culture.
There has been a niche movement in the horror and psychological thriller world lately that focuses on modern Internet culture, social media, loneliness, and a deep descent into the most horrifying elements of our contemporary world. These aren’t mainstream blockbuster movies making millions at the box office, but an independent and artistic movement being led by millennial filmmakers who grew up with the Internet and have lived with its horrors. They are part horror, part thriller. and part social commentary. At times they lean into dark comedy/satire as well. They have become a true collage of themes and styles, subverting traditional genre norms to create their own niche. I find them all fascinating and terrifying, and I sense this is a trend we will see more of in the coming years.
I am talking about movies like Lurker, CAM, Red Rooms, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Spree, Influencer, and most recently a new film called Our Hero, Balthazar — which inspired this article. Even TV shows are in on this trend, like the incredible miniseries Adolescence. They take the distraught and confused people dealing with these online epidemics and tell absolutely bone-chilling stories. The Internet is this vast, never-ending, ever-expanding part of our world. It is completely out of control and past the point of no return. And with that comes some deeply upsetting stuff. It happens in the real world, and these movies reflect the fears we all have about these types of people.
Now, there have always been movies about what crazy people will do when driven by society — American Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and Deliverance all come to mind. They tend to focus more on the victims, showing us the monster to scare us by putting audiences in the victim’s mindset. It is the common angle for most horror films. We could be the victim, we imagine how they must feel. But this new niche flips that on its head. This new wave of horror is not about watching a monster, its about watching someone become one from their own point of view. These films all get very introspective, almost first-person in a way. They are much closer to things like Taxi Driver, Nightcrawler, and Joker than traditional horror.
Red Rooms touches on deep true crime obsession, the dark web, and a world where humanity’s worst actions are broadcast online for all to see. Spree tackles streamers and the need for constant attention that is always creating a higher, and more unhinged, bar for people to reach. Lurker is all about the depths to which people will stoop for celebrity and notoriety in a digital world. Our Hero, Balthazar tackles an even deeper rabbit hole, touching on incel culture, mass murder in America, and the desperation for love in our increasingly isolated world. All of these films focus on the sickness spreading throughout culture — a world where more kids want to be influencers and streamers than athletes or movie stars. Internet fame is the new currency, one-upping others is the way ahead, and that is a scary place to be.
It makes total sense why this new wave is shaping up. Horror and thrillers focus on the fears we deal with every day. It’s why there was a rise in the torture-porn genre after 9/11 and during the “War on Terror”. There was a generation dealing with having seen some of the most horrific things imaginable play out on live TV. It traumatized people. It is the same reason we had films like The Deer Hunter, Rambo, and Taxi Driver after Vietnam, and films like Godzilla, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Manchurian Candidate in the post-WWII, Cold War era. Horror and psychological thrillers are a direct reflection of the fears of the current society, and they always will be. When society is in a good place, horror movies can take a back seat. But when we are going through something, there is always an explosion of these types of films.
I expect more movies from this new wave in the coming years. It is morbid, but there are people live streaming mass murder every year. Horrible wars are happening all over the world, and we are watching missiles hit civilians on social media apps every day. We have become desensitized to the sheer volume of violence and death we see on our phones in the 24/7/365 news cycle we live in.
The media needs clicks, and violence brings the attention. I am as guilty as the rest of us — I can’t avoid it even when I try, and it legitimately makes me upset on a daily basis. Luckily, I feel pretty stable and live a good life, but I can absolutely see what happens to people in less stable situations, or those carrying emotional trauma that this type of media will feed on. The current media ecosystem catches the eye of unstable people who want notoriety, want a community, and want to be seen — it’s a recipe for disaster.
Creative people are translating their fears to screen, and there is an entire generation of younger filmmakers who have grown up with this specific trauma. Our parents grew up worried about serial killers in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Their parents grew up worried about nuclear attacks in the ‘50s and ‘60s. We all grew up worrying about being killed in public spaces by maniacs who fell down the Internet and social media rabbit hole. It feels more real to me, being of that generation, and it is genuinely shaking me every time I see one of these films in a way that traditional horror dealing with the supernatural, the occult, or masked killers simply cannot. I love the traditional horror genre to death, but this new wave of films is what is really keeping me up at night.
Holy shit! I think you described me and my filmmaking?? I have literally been told this about my last short films! I thought I had made some kind of mistake. So weird. Thanks for this! Really..