Over the past few years, the biggest challenge, horror film makers have faced is tackling with the advancement in technology while writing their stories.
Classic horror movies are still well loved and movies set in bygone eras are cherished because they expose a world where the things we take for granted are nonexistent.
If we move to a new house, we rely on recommendations from people on whether or not that area is safe or if the house has any hidden damages.
When we buy an antique we verify the buyer and the item being sold to us.
All this is achievable and accessible to us through the internet which makes verification convenient to us, but it is this facility that creates problems for writers who want to write a believable and terrifying story.
Which is why I wonder if more and more filmmakers prefer setting their stories in an era where Facebook and Google didn't exist yet.
I went on a horror movie binge a couple of weeks back and watched movies that have cleverly incorporated social media into their stories and others which were set in another decade.
All I could think of was that while two of the movie makers managed to write a believable contemporary horror story, others were not so adept.
For example, I highly dislike the idea of cellphones running out of battery or losing network signal. Unless the characters were texting for two days straight or playing candy crush for hours straight, there was no way that their battery could die that quickly.
And when you meet someone new, a mysterious stranger wandering in the middle of the night near the house you just moved into, who doesn't check out their new friend on Facebook? Or any other social media site?
It is our addiction to these sites that make us want to stay connected.
One of the movies I watched was 'Robert'- a movie reminiscent of the cult classic 'Chucky' franchise. Watching the movie reminded me how disappointed I was with the way 'Annabelle' turned out. So much potential and all wasted by showing close up shots of a doll that didn't even give a clichéd blink or maniacal grib at the end.
Chucky on the other hand, moved, talked and was genuinely a creepy doll.
All we get to see of Robert is his legs as he runs about to supposedly terrorize people.
At that time I wondered what the movie would be like had it been set in present times. The mother would take a selfie with the weird doll and post it on Facebook. Minutes later, one of her friends would send her a link of creepy possessed dolls. The mother would have tossed the doll in the garbage or set it on fire...end of story.
The problem with the movie was actually the wooden lead actress who whined more and freaked out less over the mysterious happenings around her house.
'We are still here' was set in a different time where computers probably didn't exist. A middle-aged couple who have just lost their teenage son in a car accident, believe that their son is trying to make contact with them at their new home. Little do they know the dark town secret hiding in the basement of their new home.
How would have technology solved the couple's problems? A quick search on Google would have revealed people avoiding entering a mysterious town because the citizens were aloof or that one house was always on market. Perhaps the couple would even post a pic on Facebook or and someone would have told them about the house's previous owners who mysteriously disappeared.
There probably would even be a nosey journalist who would want to cover an exclusive story on the town's secret that would no longer be a secret.
Then I watched 'Unfriended' and 'i-Lived'.
Both movies had current themes and I especially enjoyed the way 'Unfriended' was executed.
Being stalked online is terrifying , what is even more scary is being stalked by yrh ghost of a former friend that was bullied into killing herself. The whole movie was shot through webcams- a revolutionary idea that modern family utilized in one of their well acclaimed episodes.
We get to see the protagonist type, listen to her favorite music and video chat with her friends. One by one, the six friends start to mysteriously die, but before they do, they learn the truth about their friends and most of all- betrayal.
The movie felt believable and most importantly, relatable because we all come across bullying and people's obsession with posting humiliating videos. Apart from that, what scares us is that it is so easy for someone to hack your account and pry into your personal life- showing the dangers and drawbacks on technology.
The next was 'i-Lived' a movie whose main premise was on an app that controls peoples' lives. The protagonist thibks little of it at first and even gives it a substandard review on his site. It is when things mysteriously start working out for our out-of-luck hero that he becomes obsessed with the app that bears the name of the movie. What he doesn't realize at that time is that he had unwittingly made a deal with the devil... literally.
How he tries to cope with the side effects of his deals, is what the movie is about.
While watching these movies, I keep a lookout for plot holes. What important part did the movie maker leave out? Not much, except I keep wondering why high school kids don't inform their parents about strange happenings. And why aren't the parents more invested in theti childrens' lives especially when a traumatic event like losing a best friend has occurred.
It's not easy creating relevant horror tales that will spook the audience, which is why its but surprising when more and more horror films are either mindless slasher movies or supernatural ones set in a pre-computers era.
All I can take from these movies, as a writer, is to take this as a challenge and write a story that can be scary, have major creepy scenes during the day and not be crippled by technology.
My obsession with the horror genre continues....
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