If there’s one thing horror fans and filmmakers love to do, it’s compare notes on their favourite facets of the genre. About movies, about influences, about giant creepy-crawlies. And most of all, about the different driving trends of the many eras; what we were scared of, and how that bled so openly into the defining genre cinema of the time. From the atomic fallout of the 1950s and the creature features that followed, to the rise of exploitation, and the real-world killers behind the eventual slasher boom of the ’80s, it’s the subtext that an entire community is built on.
So there’s something particularly warm and comforting about Sarah Appleton and Phillip Escott’s similarly-tinged doc Generation Terror, which seeks to unravel the real-world fears behind the particularly grisly output of the 2000s. An era often characterised by iffy remakes and gnarly extremity which made for arguably the most violent run in horror history. And one that’s not always been so favoured critically, making for a very welcome spotlight.
Is the film itself anything new, or particularly ground-breaking? Not really, dealing entirely in locked-off talking heads and glossy montages of clips from fairly obvious, popular releases. But the pair’s access here is the real appeal, clocking up an unbelievable roster of horror talent to reflect on the period, including a great deal of those who came to define it.
Where else are you going to see James Wong, Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick break down not just their era-defining first Final Destination, but the heavy debt it owes to The X-Files and the horror-focussed TV of the ’90s? Or be privy to Neil Marshall revelling in the discomfort of finishing his werewolf masterpiece Dog Soldiers, just as 9/11 changed the world forever? Rob and Sheri Moon Zombie even pop in for a brief case study on their sick, splatter hit House of 1000 Corpses, although promptly disappear before looking though any of their far more interesting ’00s follow-ups.
There’s nods to the British wave, J-horror and the New French Extremity too (Frontiers’ Xavier Gens is a very welcome regular voice), and even space for Srdjan Spasojevic to try his darnedest to defend his creatively bankrupt shocker A Serbian Film. But the focus is undoubtedly, and maybe understandably, on the America of it all. And although it’s commendable that the ‘torture porn’ box office hits of Saw and Hostel aren’t given too much focus – most likely due to an oddly limited amount of input from the key creative voices behind them – you can’t help but feel that there’s an awful lot missing here.
A foray into remakes completely ignores cult favourites like House of Wax, and the politically-fronted 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead. Ginger Snaps and other female-focussed (or even remotely queer) titles are avoided. Even [Rec], Paranormal Activity and the incredibly influential found-footage boom is totally tossed aside (although that was largely covered in the filmmakers’ previous doc The Found Footage Phenomenon). It’s understandable to omit a lot from a 90 minute film, but there are some seriously glaring omissions here that really impact the overall idea of what ’00s horror and ‘Generation Terror’ really was, painting a very limited image of a very varied decade.
Brief glimpses of newer voices, like Alice Lowe and Violation’s Madeleine Sims-Fewer are very exciting when they do happen, but they’re sadly few and far between. Lowe’s contribution alone here is cut to what is essentially a sentence, which makes one question the scope of the filmmakers’ vision and material, and how much has been culled.
Because rather than steer the film through a compelling journey, telling the story of arguably horror’s grisliest generation and occasionally indulging in one of the genre’s most beloved currencies, obscurity, Appleton and Escott very much fall at the mercy of their contributors here, and whatever it is they were interested in talking about on the day. It’s a smart edit, and the directors and their team are clearly fans of their subject, enjoying rare details and trying their best to linger on specific milestones. But the sum of these parts is much less a journey, and more a rough overview; a collection of genre lovers taking it in turns to talk broadly about the decade, and share random trivia about their work.
Which, although at times frustrating, does still very much have its place. The horror crowd it’ll most likely play to will already be privy to much of what’s here, but there is a certain amount of comfort in sitting down with the community’s most important and entertaining voices, and feeling their love and passion for something which unites a lot of people. Not exactly academic or likely to win any new fans, but an entertaining breeze through memories of a very different time in horror.
Generation Terror was screened as part of Pigeon Shrine FrightFest 2024.
