For example, in the wake of the Red Scare and McCarthyism came films about alien invasions and pod people; the consumerist age of the eighties saw films rebelling against traditional values and presenting a much darker view of youth – the vicious comedy Heathers (1988) being a prime example; the computer age led to a wave of films exploring the meaning of free will, existentialism, and our own obsolescence.
Turning to movies in times of crisis is a common means of processing traumatic events and, equally, films will tend to engage with contemporary concerns. After all, isn’t the symbiotic relationship between entertainment and current events one of the most potent influences on culture? Here, STARBURST explores how movies engaged with times of dramatic social revolution and crisis at three historical junctures: the rise of horror movies after World War I, the popularity of monster features in the early years of the Cold War, and the rise of the superhero film after the September 11th attacks.
Learning from these trends, what then can we anticipate from movies once the Covid-19 pandemic is behind us? What film genre will proliferate, and will the movie industry opt for escapism or will it embrace the fears and anxieties that gripped the world?
“The Cosmic Vampire That Has Sucked the Blood of Millions”
– Albin Grau, dir. Nosferatu.
The War, Death, and Mutilated Bodies in Horror Cinema
This story is from the July 2020 edition of Starburst Magazine.
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This story is from the July 2020 edition of Starburst Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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