The End of the Icon
Making a horror film nowadays is pretty easy. Grab some buddies, a digital camera, some knives, and a lot of red liquid and you’ve got yourself the ingredients for a new low budget scary movie. Throw in some over-thought death traps and a puppet and you might as well have made the next SAW entry. Cult status awaits you. To become the new face of horror though? That seems a little more tricky, and it doesn’t matter if you make your film for $50 or $50 million. To create an icon is almost impossible in today’s horror genre, whether it be because the competition is too watered down with remakes and sequels of yesterday’s icons or the collective imagination of the filmmaking industry has completely shut down, maybe never to return.
The classic horror movie icons have all seen their fair share of re-imaginings, remakes, and sequels. They are the basis of all the movie monsters that have followed in their footsteps. They’ve been ripped off, made fun of, and honoured yet barely touched when it comes to the tragedy (and quality) of their character’s storyline. Modern icons relied more on cool looks, fancy weapons, and the biggest death count. Make no doubt about it though, every one of these evil bastards’ (old and new) iconic prowess can be traced back to three things – 1) Portrayal: The wrong actor can turn a horror film into a unintentional comedy. 2) The Right Look: Whether it be the right mask or the perfect trench coat, your baddies must look cool before being cool, and 3) A Reason: We want to know why the slumber party is targeted for slaughter. It makes us feel better.
Without iconic horror villains there can be no iconic horror heroes. They might not be as important to the genre but when Hollywood gets it right we are left with memorable, less disfigured, alternatives to the darkness. They help us sleep better knowing they exist, they give us hope when there’s no more room in hell, and they kick all sorts of ass. As much as I’m waiting for the next horrific monster to take the horror community by the balls and scare me into unconsciousness – I can’t wait to see who the crazy mother-fucker is to take him down.
Maybe it’s the booze talking but I’ve almost given up hope for a new savior. In the eighties I couldn’t go more than a couple years without finding another horrible role model that taught me it was okay to kill teenagers, as long as they were having promiscuous sex (this got me in a shitload of trouble when I was a kid). It’s hard to replace the Freddys and Jasons of the world and it’s implausible to think you can top the effect of Dracula or Frankenstein for a desensitized audience. Sadly, this is exactly what most filmmakers are thinking too.