How movies like ‘A Quiet Place’ and ‘Get Out’ are converting horror-phobes

This week, my boyfriend and I went to see A Quiet Place.  A normal idea for a date, I hear you say. Well, yes – unless you are a complete horror-phobe like me. I cannot deal with horror films. They scare the bejesus out of me. I hated sleepovers in my teen years. When I was forced to watch Paranormal Activity at a friend’s house, I did not sleep properly for two weeks. I am one of those people who is more scared of the paranormal and ghosts when I’m in the house on my own than the actual tangible risk of someone breaking in. You get the idea.

Related: The Haunting of Hill House is
the most frightening thing on Netflix

Although I couldn’t join in on the screaming/laughter sessions on girls’ nights-in, I never felt as if I was missing out by not being a horror movie buff. Scary movies in the cinema were about having a laugh with your mates, not admiring the cinematography and the character development. I stayed content in my sleeping bag of safety, never feeling the need to watch anything scary.

Lately, though, I’ve been coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just fine (sorry, not sorry for the Killers reference). With so much hype surrounding horror movies over the past year, I decided to bite the bullet in November and watch Get Out. I’d heard it was a triumph by first time director Jordan Peele – not to mention a great criticism of racism in modern-day America. Sounds amazing. I just had to get through the scary bits.

More than jump-scares

Well, readers, I loved Get Out. It was tense. It was funny. Every time I watched it I noticed something new and clever that improved it for me. It wasn’t the goriest or most traditionally ‘jumpy’ horror film, but it was tense and anxiety-inducing, and the ideas presented were unsettling. Normally, these factors would make me run for the hills. But I was so caught up in the story and the mastery of the filmmaking that I bypassed that – in fact, I embraced it.

The budding trend of masterfully-produced horror movies has grown recently. A lot of horror films that have been released in the last decade are now considered modern classics. 2014 saw the release of The Babadook; a film praised for its subject matter surrounding mental health and how trauma can affect a person’s mind. 2017 saw the massive success of films like It and Get Out. The success of these films is impacting the box office – 2017 was the biggest year for horror in the history of the US box office and Get Out earned a well-deserved Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Film buffs out there will know, these are not the first great quality horror movies ever made. Throughout history, we’ve (well, myself not included) enjoyed classics such as The Shining, The Exorcist, Psycho and more recently, The Blair Witch Project. These films sowed the seeds for the movies of today, and also achieved the impossible – converting the scaredy-cats of the world into fans.

A Quiet Place was a great watch. It was interesting to watch a cinema full of people be terrified while feeling like they couldn’t make a sound. The atmosphere of silence took over. John Krasinski did a brilliant job of creating that atmosphere, and Emily Blunt’s acting was phenomenal.

Look at me, reviewing a horror movie as if I actually like them.

But that’s because (shock, horror!) I do.

More like this:

• Four classic movies guaranteed to get you spooked before Halloween… click here.
• Eight brilliant ‘true crime’ documentaries you need to watch… click here.