Shut Out: The Snubbing Of Horror Films During Award Seasons

When examining the diverse wealth of film genres on offer, the Horror genre always stands as the outlier. A divisive but also universally loved genre, horror films are an essential part of movie history and easily one of the most important cinematic genres. Whilst it might be a broad statement to throw out, examining the social, financial and aesthetic impact that horror movies have contributed throughout the past century highlights a prolific amount of substantial impact to surely point to horror being the backbone of cinema today.

Starting from the Universal monster series in the 1930’s, continuing to the box office juggernauts of the Blumhouse produced features, horror is a genre that is always adapting to the current cinematic landscape, able to capitalize on modern trends, exploit the latest film-making tools and the ability to procure large box office returns from low budgets. Despite this, the horror genre is generally not respected in a critical sense, whilst individual horror films may garner critical praise, it is quite rare nowadays that any horror films be given any type of significant awards attention, despite their continued prominence in the mainstream movie scene.

The Lack of Horror Nominees

Even though it can be argued that Whiplash is a horror film (especially to musicians), the last real horror film to receive any Oscar attention was Black Swan in 2010, a horror/psychological thriller hybrid, which heavily leaned on horror-inspired visuals to show Natalie Portman’s descent into mental anguish. So why is it that the Horror genre continues to be so easily dismissed?

It can be argued the often brutal and confronting material can turn most viewers away, but the craftsmanship and abilities shown in the best of these films should be seen in the same light as a well-made drama or romance film – the easy go-to targets come award season.  Titles that should see awards attention but are flat-out ignored this year include 10 Cloverfield Lane (John Goodman’s acting trumps most performances of 2016), The Witch and Green Room, films that not only elicited provocative reactions from their audiences, but feel more impactful and well-crafted than most films touted as the favorites this season.

Starting from its inception in 1929, outside of the works of Alfred Hitchc*ck (whose work traditionally falls under the category of thriller/suspense), it wasn’t until 1973 that the first true horror film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars – The Exorcist. After that nomination, the horror genre didn’t receive any attention again until 1991 when Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture, a film that much like Hitchc*ck’s work, leans more on the suspense/thriller side than straight-up horror.

With those statistics in hand, we can see just how undervalued the horror genre is when it comes to awards season – one usually filled with dramas, biopics and foreign cinema (the snubbing of the comedy genre deserves its own article, another responsive style of film that is severely underestimated). To look at why this happens, it’s much more than just pointing out great horror films from the past century and saying “This should be nominated because I enjoyed it”, because if that were so, The Manitou should’ve garnered an Oscar nomination due to my love for it. No, the shut-out of horror films during the dreaded awards season has a variety of reasons attached to it – audiences, distributors, content and more.

The Role of Award Shows

It’s no surprise that the movie award season is mainly a really great advertising tool for movie studios, the ability to garner ‘prestige’ and high levels of organic advertising as their prospective titles are toted around the various award ceremonies, with more being added every year due to the amount of press they generate for their respective companies. With high profile studios (Miramax, Fox, Universal etc.) having the ability to designate large amounts of money to fund these awards campaigns, it usually leaves smaller and more niche titles struggling to find any attention outside of their initial financial and critical success.

Another predictable factor into award winning films is their content, an element so obvious that the term ‘Oscar Bait’ has entered film critic terminology, an easy term to throw out when a film deals with controversial or socially relevant issues. La La Land, this year’s big award winner, is accused of being Oscar Bait due to its positive and hopeful depiction of Hollywood – a movie which romanticizes the American film industry as a rewarding and important business. This universally acceptable theme is one not usually found within the best of horror films (Starry Eyes says the opposite actually), as they usually explore more existential and mystifying prospects, even th ough they are usually unfairly dismissed as violent pieces of art with zero thematic value. The typical award voter will tend to go with the perceived favorite, usually due to the lack of awards screeners/screenings for alternative films and the wave of hype surrounding the award favorites. Why vote for The Witch when your peers are just going to go with Moonlight or La La Land? This is why the lack of huge awards campaigns for films sheds them of any chances of winning.

The Idea of the “Horror Film”

Outside of the basic financial reasons that limit most horror films (as there’s plenty of studio horror films that are shut out), the biggest reason for their continued snubbing is due to its place within pop culture and the public perception of a “horror film”. To best define a horror film, it’s essentially a really complex math problem. A riddle, or an equation, that must be solved, where a character or characters are given a particular set of rules/objectives and must defeat them in order to survive or triumph. Laurie Strode must defeat Michael Myers. Father Karras must save Regan before it’s too late. The kids must solve whatever the Bye Bye Man does and so on.

There is a high level of intelligence to the best of horror cinema, as the ability to draw an audience to engage with a particular atmosphere, or fear certain characters, takes an advanced film-making ability that is quite hard to master. Instead of being viewed as that, the public perception of horror films at the moment is – blood, guts, rape, nudity, a series of provocative images that perpetuate a cycle of toxic violence and reckless anarchy within our society. Whilst that might sound extreme, the subject matter of most horror movies doesn’t exactly help this cause, but this is not a bad thing, it’s just interacting with the material at a surface level.

Horror cinema is at its best when it is most provocative. Much like comedy, the best of horror can be seen when it’s getting a physical or emotional reaction from an audience – even if it is laughing out of relief or humor, these reactions are achieved by perfecting a sense of tone, characters, narrative and other technical aspects that make movies tick.

The problem is that, instead of getting a reaction via some great gags or impactful drama, horror relies on the extreme, which does sadly make its targeted audience a lot more niche than the common drama. It is true that some filmmakers do go extreme for the sake of it, cheaply grabbing the audiences attention with some horrific imagery or misanthropic story-telling without any narrative or thematic depth to back it up, but these titles are generally ignored due to being bad films.

The general perception of horror has been distorted by those unwilling to critically engage with them, as its use of visuals and horrifying nightmares as one of pure thematic intention by the filmmaker, as opposed to the filmmaker trying to make a statement through the use of arresting visuals. To put it basically, audiences can find themselves misinterpreting a director’s intended message, believing that because a movie uses decadence and violence, that the director themselves endorses those actions without irony.

Thus, mainstream outlets, especially those that drive the awards season, cannot reward these films with high caliber awards due to the risk of offending those that do not understand or ignore the deeper messages that they are trying to communicate. Instead of encouraging or endorsing violent and gruesome behavior, horror films usually act as a deterrent towards anti-social behavior and a release for those looking to indulge in illegal activities. A murder on-screen doesn’t mean that the director enjoys death or sees it in a favorable light, it’s just that it is a popular go-to action on-screen to incite an emotion out of an audience, or to provide context, or narrative point in the particular story being told. It’s not until mainstream journalism chooses to highlight this side of horror cinema, that the general perception of horror films will continue to be misinterpreted and viewed negatively, hurting their award season chances.

The Rise of VOD Cinema

The digital age has seen a rise in cinematic output, due to practically everyone having a camera in their pocket, anyone can virtually make a film if they want to. This has seen an immense rise in the amount of movies being created every year, with an exceptional rise in the action and horror genres. These two genres have always thrived in the low-budget, independent circles, due to not having to rely on performances or narrative to succeed, but just some basic action and horror beats to make them watchable for their intended target audience.

This large quantity of horror films does make the good ones hard to stand out, as the market is currently drowning in a sea of derivatives, low budget schlock and lousy imitators. The most well received horror films nowadays are usually independently produced, without the mainstream appeal to attract the typical award season voter.

The slow death of the theatrical experience has been replaced with a large array of VOD services, a new type of cinematic watching that most established film academies (especially the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) do not want to validate yet, in order to force audiences into continuing to go to the local cinemas to watch a film, as opposed to their laptops.

With Amazon and Netflix now producing original content for the VOD market, (Hush was an original horror production made by Netflix last year), one of these titles is bound to succeed in the award season anytime soon. Some may argue that Beasts of No Nation came close, but the lack of significant awards attention highlights the snubbing of VOD material in award season circles.

Conclusion

With every year, there’s a selection of horror movies that we fall in love with, with the understated knowledge they will garner absolutely no awards attention from high profile and mainstream ceremonies. Horror movies are usually treated as trash and without merit, representing an unhinged side of cinema that allows filmmakers and audiences to indulge in a variety of sexual and violent pleasures – something we horror viewers know simply isn’t the complete truth. Mix this with the general idea of the award ceremonies themselves – introducing a false sense of generosity and prestige for an industry whilst it pats itself on the back for the world to see and  ignoring the rise of VOD productions in favor for celebrating the theatrical experience.

Simply put, voters do not want to give the image to the public that they validate the violence and grim tone that is usually attached to the horror genre. A vote for Don’t Breathe or The Witch sitting alongside Moonlight and La La Land would be perceived as a lowering of the bar, meaning that any ‘lesser class’ of film could sit aside these ‘prestigious’ pictures of importance.

This isn’t actually the case, as I believe those films are just as well-crafted and engaging as the supposed best pictures of the year, it’s just that the general public and award season voters have a problem with accepting the horror genre, seeing it as disposable as the popcorn you eat in the cinema. Not until studios choose to see the value of horror cinema in a technical sense, not a financially or controversial one, that we’ll see the greater appreciation for this important genre.

Why do think horror films usually get ignored come awards season? Tell us what you thought in the comments below!