The Economics of Terror (or 4 Reasons Lower Budgets = Bigger Scares)

*Don't worry, no spoilers for 10 Cloverfield Lane.*

Seeing 10 Cloverfield Lane over the weekend, a thought popped into my head; the past few years have been a renaissance of horror. Then a second thought popped into my head; I should start a metal band called Renaissance of Horror. But seriously, there have been so many consistently released horror movies that are really good. I'm not talking about The Purge: Oligarchy or Insidious: Chapter 7. Instead, I'm referring to movies like The Witch, The Babadook, and It Follows,

So what separates the latter from the former? Obviously, the former are sequels, which by their very nature are derivative of another film. But after over 100 years of movie making, everything is just an accumulation of derivation (also a great band name), so I'm not sure I agree that a sequel can't be as good as it's predecessor. Instead, I think the sequels are cursed by confidence. More literally, I'm saying that as the result of their predecessors success, sequels are invested in more heavily, and that's what kills them. It's the same reason that large budget comedies generally don't work. This may seem counter intuitive, as a larger budget for an action movie gives us objectively superior sequels like Spider-man 2 or The Winter Soldier. What makes horror and comedy movies different?

1. Horror and Comedy are the Same Genre

On the surface, horror and comedy couldn't seem more different. One's goal is to terrify, and the other's is to amuse. Yet for some reason, horror-comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Cabin in the Woods are beloved by fans of both genres. Other than the obvious reason that people aren't one dimensional beings and are capable of liking multiple genres, this is because the horror and comedy genre are essentially built off the same emotional reaction: surprise.

Let's compare two "pure" films from each genre; The Exorcist and Bridesmaids. One is about satan possessing a child and torturing her family, and the other is about preparing for a wedding. They couldn't be more different, right? Except that the most iconic moments from each movie involve projectile vomiting. Puke is effective in both genre's because it's gross, but also because the source of the expulsion is shocking; a little girl or a group of women shopping for dresses.

Scares and jokes follow essentially the same setup-punchline formula. The setup acts as the rules of the universe. So if your setup is: two muffins are in an oven, one turns to the other and says, "Is it hot in here?" the universe you've established is muffins are sentient and can talk to each other. This makes the punchline: the other muffin says "Oh my God! A talking muffin!" a surprise, because it violates the expected rules of the established universe. Also, explaining jokes is a great way to make them funnier.

It Follows is a movie that is all about an amazing setup. "Something's following you, it can look like any person, and it's going to kill you." This establishes a universe where every person could be about to kill the protagonist. There's an unbelievable sense of discomfort for the entire rest of the movie, and puts the audience on the edge of their seat, waiting for the punchline. Now that we've established horror and comedy to be the same genre, we can figure out why spending more money on them isn't a good thing.

2. The Biggest Surprises are Free

A blockbuster is based on satisfying expectations. This isn't to say blockbusters are easier films to make, just that they have a different struggle. Ben Affleck has spoken at length about the ridiculous amount of pressure being placed on Batman v. Superman to meet expectations of the fans. Most often, these expectations can be met with well choreographed fight scenes, or spectacular set-pieces, both of which drastically increase budgets. But horror movies are successful when they defy expectations, and that's something that is virtually free.

For example, let's look at franchise-spawning Paranormal Activity. To be clear, I'm talking about the original movie from 2009, not the sequels that constantly increased budgets and added some really weird lore (I think it's about witches that hate cameras....?). The biggest critique of the original is "omg nothing even happened" but that's the point. Paranormal Activity created an entire genre that forced the audience to look for the smallest changes, acclimating them to the demon's games, then slowly escalating them through the movie. When the original came out, this shattered the previous formula that relied on a steady stream of predictable scares, and instead focused on building up to one truly satisfying scare. Then they remade the movie 5 times in 6 years and were surprised audiences weren't surprised.

The absolute worst idea they ever had was without a doubt The Ghost Dimension. All of the advertising was focused on the idea of "seeing the ghosts". Before audiences had to imagine what it looked like, and therefore thought of their own scariest demon. But The Ghost Dimension said, "nope, the demon just looks like Venom from Spider-man 3, but worse". This spits in the face of the original movie, in which clues were dropped throughout the movie, but it was never overtly shown. Hoof tracks in the hallway, a claw-like scratch on one of the characters, and the faint outline under a bedsheet were all we had to go on. But no, I guess Venom-lite is better.

The idea that less is more has been taught over and over in movies, but for some reason it's a lesson that's impossible to learn. Steven Spielberg's Jaws accidentally learned the lesson when they couldn't use the shark because it wasn't working. Instead, they had to get creative, and used inventive camera-work, and deliberate withholding to instill the audience with fear. Every one of the awful sequels has a drastic increase in the amount of time the shark is shown. Instead of a suspenseful finale where the shark could be anywhere below the boat, it's just "there's the shark, shoot it, that didn't work, shoot it more" and it devolves into a guy shooting an immortal shark until it just dies because reasons. Oh, that's my next point!

3. Small Budgets Force Horror Movies to Stay Horror Movies

Act 3 is a notorious white whale for many authors. It's the culmination of the entire piece, and has to capture the spirit of the work, stay true to the beginning, and leave the audience excited for more. Or you could just change the movie entirely and blow your budget on an expensive CG mess that has little to do tonally or literally with the rest of the movie.

Freddy v. Jason isn't really a good movie to begin with. It's fun enough, but the whole thing reeks of corporate opportunity. However, it really starts to stink in the last act when Freddy and Jason are actually fighting. Here are two characters that have been described as forces of nature; immortal beings toying with helpless mortals. That's what makes their individual stories interesting, because they're essentially Teens v. Gods. So obviously watching God v. God should be spectacular, right?

Nope. It turns into a Tex Avery cartoon. There are no really stakes, considering both Freddy and Jason can endure seemingly endless amounts of mutilation from each other. Jason got impaled? Whatever. Freddy got hit by a mine cart? No big deal. Despite how utterly ineffective this fight is, it looks like a huge portion of the budget was placed on creating this elaborate episode of Itchy and Scratchy.

Freddy v. Jason is far from the only offender. So many horror movies throw out the genre in the third act for some weird action sequence. This is an option because so many studios think increased production translates to increased stakes. But think of the scariest horror movie finales, and you'll notice they all stay fairly grounded.

John Carpenter's Halloween is an excellent example. Michael Myers spends the first two acts of the movie stalking teenagers, and ends the movie stalking teenagers. Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't build an Iron Man suit and fight him off. He just gets shot, and falls out a window. Then he's gone, and you don't know where he is; exactly what made him scary through the rest of the movie. Unfortunately it also meant that he was still alive for some uninspired sequels, which leads me to my final point.

4. A Smaller Paycheck Keeps People Hungry

Looking at all the examples of quality horror, each came from a director who had something to prove. John Carpenter wasn't a household name because he directed Assault on Precinct 13, Stephen Spielberg had a handful of TV movies under his belt before Jaws, and Oren Peli allegedly spent most of Paranormal Activity's 15,000 budget buying furniture for his house (which was where the movie was shot). There's a hunger in new artists that pushes them to make something great.

This goes beyond horror movies, or even movies in general. It's the reason so many musicians debut albums are their best. An artist's first work is a reflection on their entire life up until that point. They pour their soul into it, with the full knowledge that one successful piece has the potential to catapult them to success and one failure can break them before they begin. Also, they work for peanuts.

Smaller budgets attract people hungrier for work, and these people have something to prove. Horror movies are historically low-budget affairs, which is why so many directors, actors, and writers start off in the horror genre. It's a safe creative environment, generally free from clashes of ego and inhibitions from those taking themselves too seriously. It really shouldn't be a surprise that so many struggling artists gravitate to horror. Coming up with a new way to surprise an audience is a brutal creative endeavor. Once again, there's 100 years of movies leading up to any new release, and it's the creator's goal to reinvent. But if you can come up with a new way to tell your story, audiences won't be able to ignore it.