We are witnessing a new wave of horror films, with Sinners, Bring Her Back, and Talk To Me as few of the successful horror films of late.
As a certified scaredy cat, I hate all things horror. The first horror film I watched was Annabelle (2014) when I was 10, because my sister tricked me by telling me it was an animated film.
And let me tell you — that creepy ass doll was my nightmare for the next 6 years of my life. And due to this, horror to me was a genre filled with scary looking ghosts, jumpscares, incredibly loud and eerie background music with no actual story to it — just ghosts deciding to haunt random (white) people in big suburban houses.
And this led to me avoiding all horror movies or even anything near it. In the process, I unknowingly skipped past all the great cinematic work that I found out about much later— Silence In The Lambs, The Sixth Sense, and The Babadook, for instance.
Cut to 2019 — when I dared to watch the iconic Ari Aster film, Midsommar, because my friend told me it was "not too scary." And that was when my world changed.
I am a sucker for deeper and hidden meanings in films and the use of symbolism, which Ari Aster nailed. Midsommar became the film that got me hooked to this once-hated genre.
The combination of unhealed trauma, grief, neglect and ritualistic horror was enticing to me. It took the best out of both worlds — psychology and horror — and gave us a layered and nuanced cult horror masterpiece (and the iconic Florence Pugh frown).
After seeing so many people who, like me, are easily scared but are exploring the magic of horror films, sharing their regrets online, it made me realise that there is a change in the way horror films are made, making it unmissable for even wimps like me.
I then took a deep dive into modern horror classics. Starting with Robert Egger's The Witch to Jordan Peele’s Get Out, the new crop of horror films has multiple layers of cultural and societal nuances, masterfully wrapped in stories that still make me clutch my blanket!
Recent movies are telling us that true horror is the world we are living in, making it scarier. Yet it is addictive.
Hereditary, Ari Aster's film which set this ball rolling, is a film that hits you in the gut and keeps you wide awake. The terror is not in the jumpscares, but in the raw, emotional chaos that is painfully real, but still has that supernatural feeling.
The lack of eerie music and the booming silence made it unsettling and terrifying - and that's what made it so unforgettable.
Don't get me wrong — classics like The Shining and Black Swan are etched in wood as true horror. But this new turn of the genre becoming mainstream is more exciting, with anti-horror fans gathering the courage to watch these films in theatres.
But why are these fans risking their sleep? Because of the majestic cinematography, emotional depth, and fresh perspectives that trump the spooky stuff.
Bring Her Back, the 2025 horror film by the same directors as Talk To Me is the perfect example of the above. Released on May 29th worldwide, people are already shook from the gory and painful depiction of grief and trauma.
The film follows a pair of siblings who encounter their foster mother in a terrifying ritual, set in an isolated home. The movie depicts the effects of unresolved trauma and grief. Tied with bloody visuals, creepy use of taxidermy, and squeamish sounds in the background — this film is THE embodiment of nuanced horror, making it scarier.
Monsters and ghosts are easy — it's the quiet trauma that keeps me up at night. With the lights on, duh.
