It seems like every year, there are certain films that get lobbied with a ton of hyperbole for the sake of getting a bigger audience. Everyone wants to have the funniest or most shocking film. It's an inevitable thing that could make or break a film in the marketing department. However, there's one phrase that has become sort of a nuisance. It seems like for the past few years, a handful of horror films have been lobbied with the phrase "The scariest movie ever made." It's really a tough nut to crack, as all film is by nature subjective. However, seeing this status stuck onto director Adam Wingard's upcoming The Woods has caused me to want to come forward and admit one thing: I think that being the scariest movie ever made is a bit of an overrated title and says absolutely nothing about the movie at hand. There needs to be a better way to market these movies.
Over the past few years, there has been a handful of films that have been labeled "the scariest" by a variety of outlets. To name just a few, there was: The Babadook, It Follows, and earlier this year with The Witch. I understand that all films need some sort of hook in order to appeal to a mass audience, especially for indie horror films that have no name recognition or any substantial marketability. However, it sets a certain barometer that is inevitably going to attract a certain backlash. Anyone who has seen these movies will be aware of the immediate backlash that the films aren't scary in the traditional sense with jump scares and supernatural threats. In fact, the very idea of being scared is itself a subjective piece of fodder that is impossible to properly assess.
I do not hold any grudge against The Woods. To be honest, I was a fan of Wingard's You're Next and enjoyed his work in VHS. I respect any director who can make a good film regardless of its genre, and I've been meaning to check out his other films. However, I don't know that the trailer for The Woods is necessarily doing anything to grab my attention. For starters, the choice to have a cover of The Police's "Every Breath You Take" is unfortunately on the nose due to angelic covers of pop tunes being overused in recent years. That isn't to say that the images underneath don't intrigue, but I'm always of the school that as useful as pull quotes can be, the more hyperbolic ones tend to serve more as a crutch than a useful tool. Check out the trailer:
This could more be a general issue with me in regards to horror. It is not my most preferred genre. However, I don't hold much animosity to seeing anything that's well made. In fact, I applaud the recent output of art house horror that looks good. I'm talking about the films that I was lukewarm on, like It Follows and The Babadook. Despite being generally underwhelmed by the scares, I come away with a certain appreciation for the films from a production and story standpoint. If anything, these films embody an innovation in horror that I encourage as I have to sit through nonsensical trailers for upcoming cheap flicks that all have the same "scary" gimmicks such as The Boy. In that regards, having quotes commending the production are useful, but to elevate one's production over another is going to set expectations too high.
In fact, the argument can easily be made going back to silent films. In the 1920's, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was considered a horror film due to Lon Chaney being grotesque. It's a low bar for what passes as a monster, and carried over into many of the pre-Universal Horror scares. Despite this, the film is a quaint drama about religious guilt and barely features Chaney's Quasimodo in any form that would be considered terrifying by today's standards. Horror is very much a piece of its time, choosing to move in on the fears of audiences as it relates to the real world. Frankenstein and Dracula were the 1930's version of this, and soon monster movies began to take over as the premiere victors in the "Scariest movie" race. While they are great in their own respects, they are just as quaint because of what came after.
The fact is that there's always been scary horror films, and there's no correct answer. The general consensus tends to favor The Exorcist and John Carpenter's original Halloween as the films that have withstood the test of time. Even The Exorcist's director William Friedkin gave his personal two cents by calling The Babadook "The scariest movie ever." In fairness, that is one man's opinion, and his status as making an iconic horror movie elevates it just a little. However, the comparison points are not as good. Even Quentin Tarantino took It Follows to task for being innovative, but lacking certain elements as to being the scariest movie out there.
There's certain expectations that one has when going in for chills. If you're into the traditional sense of horror, the payoff comes more in action than story. In fact, it's arguably a deterrent to films like The Babadook and It Follows. However, it's generally why the genre continues to thrive on low budget works. Next to action films, audiences tend to prefer jump scares to deep thought usually. It is why The Witch, despite being my favorite film of 2016 thus far, didn't click with audiences. Yes, it was tonally horrifying, but audiences weren't wanting that. They wanted something more visceral and lively. Despite being violent and bleak, the film failed to intrigue to standards with jump scares and a shock-a-minute direction. It's generally why at best it's one of the more divisive horror films to be labeled as "the scariest movie." If one appreciates the craft and subtext, The Witch is rich with terror. If you want the surface level scares, it becomes disappointing.
I know that selling a film in today's market is impossible, but I do think that labeling your film as "the scariest movie" inevitably will lead to problems. There will be a backlash to those set in their ways who call The Exorcist the scariest movie. It may make for great competitive discussion, but I do think that it hurts the initial reputation to place it above close to 100 years of cinematic history. You can call it terrifying and unnerving all you want, but be careful on dishing anything higher. It's not because I don't believe that it's scary, but that it might cause problems later on. The Witch is unfortunately a recent victim of that. Whether or not it could've done well without the hyperbole is up for debate. However, I think that we should remain skeptical for any film that calls itself the best of any emotion. Cinema is subjective, and horror doesn't tickle everyone the same way. I for one liked most of the films listed, but I wouldn't say they scared me. That's the difficulty, as it places too much emphasis on one field of craft over the big picture.
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