WI: Horror films becomes a box-office staple

[Caravels of Portugal]

The horror genre is considered the black sheep of the pantheon of Hollywood genres. Films of that genre ended up as marginalized second-rate B-movies done with low budgets and sub-par talent. Those films were filled with cheesy special effects and hammy acting. Due to the Production Code, many films had to stray from dark, taboo and trangressive themes as well with showing of graphic violence and other scares.

The perception of the genre continues today. Horror films are underrepresented in the Academy Awards compared to science fiction and fantasy. Many major stars do not get roles in horror because of the lack of recognition and career potential. Most films of this genre are critically derided by film critics and reviewers.

On the other hand, science fiction, fantasy, thriller and action films dominate the box office. They have lavish budgets and great special effects compared to horror films. The genre films attract a worldwide audience and capable of creating a built-in audience. The films are heavily promoted with fanfare and merchandise.

What if the horror film genre became a box-office draw?

The PoD of the alternate timeline starts when Hollywood executives, producers and investors got interested with the horror genre because of the box-office success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws and William Friedkin's The Exorcist. At the same time, George Lucas puts the script of Star Wars in hiatus because he was going to assist Francis Ford Coppola in the filming of Apocalypse Now due to set and production difficulties plaguing it.

Soon, with the realization of the box-office draw of horror films to the audience, the film studios jump into producing big-budget horror film with major stars and directors attached. In this timeline, the big-budget horror films are attractive to be summer entertainment, receives merchandise, filled with major actors and A-list directors, lucrative box office returns and good critical reviews.

What would the cinematic landscape and pop culture be drastically altered if big-budget horror films became a box-office staple?

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

This belongs in future history - Jordan Peele is about to blow it wide open.

 

[Caravels of Portugal]

This belongs in future history - Jordan Peele is about to blow it wide open.

Actually, the PoD is in the 70s.

 

[overoceans]

Can you imagine a world in which Gen Xers, instead of hauling out their old Light Sabres to entertain the kids on Halloween, haul out their plastic replicas of Regan's Bloody Crucifix?

And if you can't, that might go some way to explaining the challenges of this OP. Horror films are culturally marginalized for a reason: compared to other genres, they're less adadptable to all tastes and moods.

But FWIW, Stanley Kubrick's film of The Shining does more or less fit the scenario and timeline you're looking at(big budget, post-1977). Even though the director was from an earlier generation than Coppola, Lucas etc, it still very much jived with the mood of the era. So if there's any film that could have given rise to a Hegemony Of Horror at the box office, it would have been that, but it's influence on the cinematic arts has been rather limited. (Though lots of horror films like to copy its stand-alone imagery.)

Ken Russell's Altered States would be another example, but it's influence has been even more neligibile than The Shining's.

 

[X_X]

Yeah sadly there's still this insistence that horror writers are "deranged freaks" obsessed with gore. We harshly judge quiet, good lads peacefully clicking away upon their typewriters while not batting an eye towards politicians who want to bomb foreigners. Maybe that's the real horror found in all this.

 

[Caravels of Portugal]

Can you imagine a world in which Gen Xers, instead of hauling out their old Light Sabres to entertain the kids on Halloween, haul out their plastic replicas of Regan's Bloody Crucifix?

Actually, I found this to be a rather amusing thought of using a toy based on R-rated film instead of a PG-rated film. Mostly not the sensitive types of merchandise like plastic replicas of Reagan's Bloody Cross or any replicas of religious items, rather costumes, Halloween props and other acceptable merchandise. Curiously though, there was once a time where it is acceptable to make kids' merchandise based on R-rated or horror franchises:

Xenomorph Kenner figure (Alien)

Jaws merchandise:

I can't go any further without violating the three images per day limit.

In this timeline there is major difference in pop culture and entertainment in this timeline.

1. In the OTL, Jurassic Park plays out like a blockbuster science fiction adventure film and it is directed by Steven Spielberg. In the ATL, Jurassic Park is a blockbuster science fiction horror film that is much, much gorier similar to the book and directed by Steven Spielberg.
2. In the OTL, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie was critically derided as crude, poorly made film, aimed at its unconvincing special effects and heavy inappropriateness. Originally supposed to be a horror film, the Topps pressured the crew to retool in success of children's fantasy films. In the ATL, it is a horror film as it supposed to be with the GPK given much sinister and nastier characterizations compared to their card counterparts.
3. In the ATL, George Lucas unsuccessfully tries to pitch Star Wars after being heavily exhausted assisting Francis Ford Coppola in the production of Apocalypse Now. Pitying him, 20th Century Fox assigns him as director in The Call of Cthulhu based on the novella of the same name by HP Lovecraft and gave him a budget of 10 million dollars. In the production of the film, George Lucas was inspired by old science fiction films and horror films that he watched as a child, as a result, became a basis for the tone. The finished film stars Mark Hamill and a few unknown stars plus a score by John Williams. The film is released in competition with Universal's The Thing in 1982. Call of Cthulhu grosses 770.4 million dollars in box office and receives glowing critical reviews praising its special effects, acting and suspense.
4. In the ATL, Major and independent film studios fight in intensive bidding wars to obtain film rights for horror, thriller, crime and sci-fi/fantasy suspense novels that have a built-in audience and can be blockbusters.
5. In the ATL, Marvel and DC comics publish horror comics to cash in the craze for horror, thriller, crime and SF suspense.
6. In the ATL, a fad that lasted between early 80s to the early 2000s involving kids' merchandise based on the films popular at the time. Merchandise like The Color Out of Space-themed Silly Putty, action figures based on Alien, Predator and Terminator, kid-friendly replicas of Jason's hockey mask and Freddy's gloves, posable Cthulhu figurines, werewolf plushies, dolls based on Chucky, Halloween costumes based on villains and monster and all sorts of merchandise. The fad ended after a massive backlash by concerned parents who knew how violent and scary the films based on.

This is the taste on how the Hegemony of Horror timeline is like.

 

[tallthinkev]

They have been in the past, just look at the films Hammer made.

 

[Sam R.]

Wake in Fright acts as a break through existential / environmental horror film. Rambo is then appreciated as a horror film. Horror films are expected to portray critical social problems through the protagonist as high drama social art house. Teenage sex comedy is rapidly derided as pseudo porn and [rolls dice] romance films take over the B sex thriller role through the moral tale slut counter lead character. By the end of the 1980s horrors like Bladerunner or Die Hard fundamentally situated male sexuality and power as a fundamentally horrific threat to the self and others but inescapable.

Scorsese’s decision to shoot Last Temptation of Christ as a modern horror broke boundaries leading to horrors such as Oedepus Rex or King Lear being regularly screened. The decision of western directors to fund the Kurosawa horror Ran is perhaps significant, after the realisation that Kurosawa had been playing with horror in throne of blood.


Horror finally became mainstream with the sickening ourobouros of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead cracking the can on Pomo self referential horror; and Eastwood’s cross genre historical horror set in the west Unforgiveable.

Audiences expect at least one major horror a year filled with blood across the stage or the clinical self destruction of a man who seems himself too evil to live. Horror had reenvigorated a love of the Greeks and Shakespeare as sources but also the deep introspection into how the fates lift us high to cast us down, or, in the case of the atrocious 1980s racial horror “Trading Places” cast us down to lift us high. We are as genitals to the gods, they toy with us for their pleasure.

 

[Caravels of Portugal]

Wake in Fright acts as a break through existential / environmental horror film. Rambo is then appreciated as a horror film. Horror films are expected to portray critical social problems through the protagonist as high drama social art house. Teenage sex comedy is rapidly derided as pseudo porn and [rolls dice] romance films take over the B sex thriller role through the moral tale slut counter lead character. By the end of the 1980s horrors like Bladerunner or Die Hard fundamentally situated male sexuality and power as a fundamentally horrific threat to the self and others but inescapable.

Scorsese’s decision to shoot Last Temptation of Christ as a modern horror broke boundaries leading to horrors such as Oedepus Rex or King Lear being regularly screened. The decision of western directors to fund the Kurosawa horror Ran is perhaps significant, after the realisation that Kurosawa had been playing with horror in throne of blood.


Horror finally became mainstream with the sickening ourobouros of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead cracking the can on Pomo self referential horror; and Eastwood’s cross genre historical horror set in the west Unforgiveable.

Audiences expect at least one major horror a year filled with blood across the stage or the clinical self destruction of a man who seems himself too evil to live. Horror had reenvigorated a love of the Greeks and Shakespeare as sources but also the deep introspection into how the fates lift us high to cast us down, or, in the case of the atrocious 1980s racial horror “Trading Places” cast us down to lift us high. We are as genitals to the gods, they toy with us for their pleasure.

So what's the point of this flowery paragraphs?

 

[Sam R.]

All of these films have elements of horror, often through tragedy par proper tragedy. Four are technical tragedies in the Aristotelian sense.

Horror as low art is due to the emphasis on teenage sex horror

 

[Kermode]

Horror films are never going to be the tentpole films for one simple reason: most people don't like to be scared. The place horror films have now— where they're not ubiquitous but still mainstream, where many horror films and characters are accepted parts of the pop cultural stew, where the occasional film is a crossover success— is really the best-case scenario for the genre without redefining what a "horror film" is to begin with (as Sam R. says above).

You make the comparison to other 'genre' films (fantasy, sci-fi, action) in the OP, but the key difference is that they trade in positive emotions— wonder, spectacle and adrenaline. They're escapist fantasies for people who want to forget about the world for a few hours; in contrast, horror films depict the the bleakest parts of the world. There's just not an appetite for that sort of thing amongst the general public on a continuous basis.

 

[Aloha]

This belongs in future history - Jordan Peele is about to blow it wide open.

Or is he?

 

[overoceans]

Horror films are never going to be the tentpole films for one simple reason: most people don't like to be scared. The place horror films have now— where they're not ubiquitous but still mainstream, where many horror films and characters are accepted parts of the pop cultural stew, where the occasional film is a crossover success— is really the best-case scenario for the genre without redefining what a "horror film" is to begin with (as Sam R. says above).

You make the comparison to other 'genre' films (fantasy, sci-fi, action) in the OP, but the key difference is that they trade in positive emotions— wonder, spectacle and adrenaline. They're escapist fantasies for people who want to forget about the world for a few hours; in contrast, horror films depict the the bleakest parts of the world. There's just not an appetite for that sort of thing amongst the general public on a continuous basis.

I would basically agree with this, and I don't neccessarily see the characterization of horror contained in the analysis as derisive. In fact, you could probably say the same thing about romantic comedies, on the other end of the emotional spectrum. Looking at a list of Best Picture Oscars since 1970, I don't see a lot of films that would be considered unqualified romantic comedies(though a few do have some romance). Possibly because, as with being frightened, people have a limited tolerance for films that exploit the giddy feeling of being whisked off your feet by that special someone.

(For the record, I am a fan of both horror and rom-com, but tend to be rather selective in my choice of films, especially with contemporary horror, which I think has REALLY exhausted itself creatively as of late. Even Hereditary, hailed as a revival of the Thinking Man's Horror of the 1970s, was kinda derivative. Not that it didn't spook me out in a few places.)

 

[overoceans]

Caravels:

Great find at #6! One thing I will observe about the 1970s is that there did seem to be a lot of kids my age(born in the late 60s) who talked about having seen films that were at least "Adult"-rated(which in my province meant you could see it, but accomopanied by an adult). Maybe they had seen them on TV, with an older brother, or were just BSing(probably a combination of all three), but in any case, yeah, a lot of them would probably have thought it was cool to own the merchandise.

 

[unclepatrick]

Caravels:

Great find at #6! One thing I will observe about the 1970s is that there did seem to be a lot of kids my age(born in the late 60s) who talked about having seen films that were at least "Adult"-rated(which in my province meant you could see it, but accomopanied by an adult). Maybe they had seen them on TV, with an older brother, or were just BSing(probably a combination of all three), but in any case, yeah, a lot of them would probably have thought it was cool to own the merchandise.

My friends and I use to sneak into a Local Theater and watch Horror Films that we were not old enough to purchase Tickets for.
I did that with Dawn of the Dead and Latter with Scanners.

 

[overoceans]

My friends and I use to sneak into a Local Theater and watch Horror Films that we were not old enough to purchase Tickets for.
I did that with Dawn of the Dead and Latter with Scanners.

Heh. I was such a geek(in the original sense of the word) that when my parents took me to see Oh God!, which was rated Adult for some reason, I actually started crying in the car.

Mind you, at the time, I probably would have wanted to watch any horror film that came on TV(and would have been forbidden to do so), but something about having my parents take me to an Adult movie just seemed very disorienting.

 

[overoceans]

Scanners.

Cronenberg is a perfect example of why it would be very difficult for horror films, even ones helmed by the most sklled and creative of craftsmen, to attain the degree of hegemony requested by the OP.

I remember hearing something about a horse's head in The Godfather, and asking my dad(born in the 1930s) what that was all about, and he told me about how some guy who didn't do what the mafia wanted got his favorite horse's head placed in his bed.

Can you imagine if I had asked my dad about the dream sequence in The Fly? "Oh sure, son, a woman has sex with a guy who's half-fly, and decides to have an abortion after dreaming that she gives birth to a giant maggot."

Nah, just don't see it. By contrast, my dad was a guy who absolutely LOVED Star Wars and Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and even found Close Encounters interesting. Pretty sure he wouldn't have enjoyed Alien, though. The fact of the matter is, the sci-fi and fantasy blockbusters had a better hold on popular sentiments than horror could ever attain.

 

[overoceans]

On the other hand...

This is a movie that was somewhat more accessible to a family audience, and stayed away from morally twisted themes, in favour of a straight-ahead, old-school ghost story, albeit one delivered with hair-raising state-of-the-art special effects. I also seem to recall a body count of zero, and, with the exception of one gory hallucination, no extended scenes of harm to humans.

Maybe find a way to get more films like that made. Though I have to assume that if the studios saw any money in the trend, it would have continued.

 

[Ashley Pomeroy]

This is strangely familiar - you made essentially the same thread here six months ago:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-make-big-budget-horror-movies-possible.456758/

And the counterarguments are the same - family-friendly non-bloody non-scary horror is difficult to pull off.

 

[overoceans]

family-friendly non-bloody non-scary horror is difficult to pull off.

The Watcher In The Woods

Disney's early 80s attempt at pulling off family-friendly horror. I remember the posters in the theatres included dire warnings, from the Disney corporation itself, informing parents how frightening it was, and urging them to pre-screen the movie for their kids. I guess that's one way to multiply the number of viewers per household.

It bombed, obviously, but apparently warranted a TV re-make a couple of years back.