2019, the end of the decade. The past few years have given us hope on the state of horror. Not only were we getting some long-awaited films, but we got films that reinvigorated our love for the genre. TV, games, books, projects, and more all came out of the woodwork this year, and horror fans are here for it!
This year, we saw the 80s revival trend hit a high point, both in culture and media. It’s fitting, considering people who grew up in the 80s are now major media consumers and makers. This trend has shown itself mainly in movies and TV, with Stranger Things Season 3 and American Horror Story: 1984. And it didn’t just stop with movies set in the 80s; many remakes from that decade were made, including Creepshow, Child’s Play, and Pet Sematary. Are You Afraid of the Dark didn’t technically start until 1990, but I’ll include it in the nostalgia category anyway; one of my favorite shows growing up got a miniseries revival this year, returning to Nickelodeon for the Halloween season — perfect timing!
Retro filming aside, 2019 was rampant with heavy hitters. We saw our favorite series’ returns (IT: Chapter 2, Annabelle Comes Home, Happy Death Day 2 U). Beautiful but dreadful elevated pieces (The Lighthouse, Midsommar). Fast action, raw films (Crawl, Ready or Not). And movies that we didn’t know we needed in our lives (Haunt, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Rabid). Usually, we see trends ramp up towards the middle of the decade and start to fizzle out in the next, and it looks to be the same for movies, trend or not. The mid-teens brought us a sort of renaissance of horror that continues on today with many more hits than misses.
As we look at our past year, and the past decade too, we have good times and bad times. 2019 saw the unfortunate passing of beloved actor Sid Haig, an especially sad one because he was the first actor I met at a horror convention. Rutger Hauer and Lorraine Warren (of real-life Conjuring fame) also passed on to the big Silver Screen in the sky. We saw box office bombs in 3 From Hell, Hell House LLC 3, and Zombieland: Double Tap. Goes to show that sometimes sequels are fantastic, but when enough time has passed, they lose their luster.
But we also got an announcement for a new Universal Park with a section possibly dedicated to Universal Monsters. Scares That Care Charity Weekend has grown so much that it expanded its reach to a second convention (twice a year instead of once). Terrifier 2 was fan-funded in a matter of a few days, by an amazing 430 percent!
2019 wasn’t all moving media though; we also fed our minds with words in a book (or favorites inspired by them). Curious enough, comic and pop culture geniuses like Jordan Peele, Chris Rock and Good Mythical Morning‘s Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal wrote (or continued to write) their way into horror with Us, a Saw spinoff, and book “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek.” It seems the teens have stolen talent from other genres and helped spread horror to those not normally into it — major plus! Joe Hill, son of horror legend Stephen King, continued to fill in his father’s footsteps with NOS4A2 making its way onto Shudder, In The Tall Grass onto Netflix, and “Full Throttle” short stories into bookstores.
We can’t forget about gaming. Blair Witch, Resident Evil 2, Five Nights at Freddy’s VR: Help Wanted, and about a million other games rose to the top of streamer sites and Steam wish lists. It’s plain and simple, horror is easy to make, and it’s super easy to sell.
December 2019 not only marks the end of the year, it marks the end of the decade. That’s a big leap into the 21st Century’s “Roaring 20s.” But I think it’s a good leaping point for a few reasons. Firstly, we’re on a winning streak with fantastic movies. Yes, there are duds, but for the most part we have a great selection. Second, we learned about a few projects in the making that give us more access to the horrors we crave year-round. And we learned an important lesson: the audience has influence, now more than ever. Crowd-funding is huge and through it we can create some killer content. We choose what trends we want to see, what trends we are tired of, and how faithful we want to be to original content. We have a voice in horror, one that is starting to dominate media.
And with that, cheers to a fantastic year in horror. Let’s bring on the new year!
For a full list of 2019 horror movies, see the 2019 Horror Wiki List.
What were your favorite horror moments of 2019? Leave us a comment and let us know!
