Every decade has its own staples of the horror genre, and with FrightFest’s Generation Terror, a documentary finally directly approaches my personal favorite periods of the 90s and 2000s. Often the 70s and 80s are viewed as a golden age in the genre, with the following two decades sadly overlooked. Directing duo Sarah Appleton and Phillip Escott, responsible for wonderful docs highlighting unsung trends in The Found Footage Phenomenon and The J-Horror Virus, return to make interesting observations about trends and reactions found as horror exploded into the 21st century. What’s your favorite scary movie? For millennials especially, there is a surefire guarantee that a clip from one or two of them will show up in Generation Terror.
For the most part, a series of talking heads serve as our narrators. Everyone from Joe Lynch to Rob Zombie and Sheri Moon Zombie to James Wong and Neil Marshall emerge to share their insights on the direction the genre took going into the 90s. By utilizing so many horror directors and creatives, the threads sewn between titles often allow for surprising takeaways, and an interesting array of frequently varying opinions. Stylish, choppy VHS-style credits adorned with a heavy metal sounding bent set the stage for a neat little dissection of the movies I grew up with. Whereas the 80s was full of fun, “flamboyant” horror, the 90s, at least in the first half of the decade, focused more on psychological, intellectual films instead. Debating between what is and is not considered to be a horror film seems like a moot point. As one interviewee points out, the titular Candyman in his respective movie remains unseen until more than fourty-five minutes into the runtime. Does this make it any less horror?
Big studios wanted to only stray in safe zones when it came to horror in the 90s, and in order to get something off the ground, creatives often had to use big, marketable stars to buoy their ideas. Maven Wes Craven, personally responsible for many of the greatest horror movies ever made, had to use Eddie Murphy for Vampire in Brooklyn, then return to the drawing board afterward. Some of these ideas I had never thought about before in the way they are framed, and this concept was certainly one of them. Another was in the remake craze of the mid-2000s, in the wake of 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Studios only wanted to remake classics, and if they were going to go ahead with the project anyway, would it not make more sense to jump on board with one’s own ideas rather than settle for a regurgitated product? Jeffrey Reddick, creator of Final Destination, points out that he only jumped at the chance to do another Day of the Dead for the chance to work again with director Steve Miner. These studio remakes allowed for all different types of voices and viewpoints to put a new imprint on a previous property. While many of them did not work, the ones that did are still fondly remembered to this day.
Generation Terror does not allow much breathing room in between titles, as it quickly jumps from one project to the next. Certainly, the influence of the larger ones spreads across multiple moments. It does feels noticeably less comprehensive than Appleton and Escott’s previous two documentaries, especially as it glazes over the post-Scream period full of imitators in a mere matter of minutes rather than covering any of the entries extensively. They leave barely a mention of the Scream sequels, or the popularity of such titles on the landscape of horror at large. This is without mentioning that quite a few details are extremely well-known amongst even the most casual fans, such as Scream‘s original title being Scary Movie, or the subgenre annoyingly dubbed “torture porn” arriving after the tragedy of September 11th. Then again, how many know about Final Destination‘s original ending or subsequent reshoots?
Despite some minor shortcomings, Generation Terror overflows with plenty of fascinating moments from individual filmmakers. I could listen to Rob Zombie and his wife talk about the production of House of 1000 Corpses forevermore, or Black Christmas remake director Glen Morgan dissecting his rather frank opinions about the Weinstein meddling that altered the very DNA of the movie he was trying to build. The latter in particular even brings up the utter confusion at the studio’s insistence to shoot extra footage for the trailers that would never be in the movie, a longtime fan annoyance. I would go to bat for that particular remake regardless, and the fact that both that 2006 romp and I Spit on Your Grave are highlighted for a surprising amount of time in the mix amongst the genre’s copious output over these two decades did make me happy. I guess I was not the only one to drag my family along Christmas morning to see some carnage in the theater…
At the very least, genre fans should be able to add a movie or two to their eternal watchlists worth checking out. A couple titles I had never heard of before (Grotesque), or have still evaded watching for fear of their content (Martyrs, A Serbian Film), so perhaps it may be time to mend a few blindspots. I may not have thought much about the so-called “millennium bug” in a number of years, but the horror titles developed in its wake left a mark on my young self, and the genre at large. I still have fond memories of seeing Feardotcom in a drive-in theatre, or gathering a group of pals to marvel at the nastiness of Hostel on opening weekend. Highlighting the horror of the 90s and 2000s is no small task—Generation Terror admirably compiles and condenses a time capsule that will be looked back on for years as a defining period for the genre.
Generation Terror screened at 2024’s FrightFest Film Festival.
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