Here’s Where the Future of Horror is Heading According to Contemporary Experts

David Dastmalchian on What Draws Him to a Horror Script

Here's where I'm at right now in the journey because it changes, right? I mean, I'm an old man now and I've been doing this thing for a minute and it keeps evolving. Evolving, and I keep learning and I keep growing. I hope I do until I'm bones. But I think that at the moment, the thing that intrigues and fascinates me the most is probably the boring answer. Maybe it's not boring, but it's the very heady answer of I have so many perplexing questions about this life at this moment. I thought at 49 I would've really figured stuff out. I really thought I would understand why I get so depressed, why I get so anxious over little weird things. Why is it so hard sometimes to wake up in the morning? Why am I so afraid of the things that I'm afraid of? And I think that through the lens of this genre, which is unfortunately, it's not that it can't be fun, right?

Fun can happen and you could still wrestle with and explore those questions. Right now, I'm just at this place where I'm staring at the universe around me being like, God, this doesn't get easier. And then when you go through a story where you have an incredible new iconic monster or entity or event, whatever it may be, nature horror, serial killer horror, supernatural Horror, slasher gore fest. To me, that's the thing that when someone sends me a project or we're starting to develop an idea with the company that I am running right now or I'm trying to create something, that's the thing that hooks me, gets me, gets me going. It gets me really revved up about the thought of jumping in on something and giving that energy to it.

Akela Cooper on What Got Her Into Horror

Honestly think I was born into horror because my parents watched everything with us. I do not have that: “Oh, I was X amount of age when I saw my first R-rated horror film,” my parents were watching R-rated horror films with us all the damn time. So I watched John Carpenter's The Thing with my dad, and at some point, I became self-aware enough to go, “Oh, he put on the movie with the dog.” So at a certain point, I'm going to have to get behind the couch for certain scenes. I know I'm going to have nightmares when I go to sleep, but my parents took us to see Aliens in theaters. I was sitting on my mom's lap. I saw Predator in theaters. I saw The Hidden in theaters. Those were the experiences that they wanted to share with us. And so my origin story, I guess, was from birth.

The Panel on the Future of Horror

Angel Melanson: The cycle has come back around and it's time for the stuff that I really, really champion and enjoy. And also to piggyback on that, I love to see just diverse characters like queer characters, and characters of color, and it has nothing to do with the story. They just happen to be there because they just exist in normal spaces. And I would like to see a little more of that. I feel like we're slowly getting there, but we need more of that.

Peter Kuplowsky: I feel like when Jordan Peel's Get Out came, it was great, but I also think that Hollywood learned the wrong lesson, which was like, oh, we all have to make these Get Out-style movies that have to be movies about that are very much with that discourse at the top of mind.

Akela Cooper: Yeah, it was like every time I would go out to pitch something that just happened to have a black lead being in a horror movie, the execs would politely listen to my pitch and they would go, but what is this saying? And I would be like, if this situation fucking sucks and is terrifying, they're like, no, no, on a deeper level, what is it saying? And they would be like them staring at me, me staring at them, and I'm like, I'm going to make you white executives say it. But yeah, it was always like, what is it saying about the black community is like, this fucking situation is terrifying. But yeah, no, it was push that any horror film that I had to do had to say something. And I hope that what clout I have from Malignant and Megan will help me in the future get those movies off the ground now.

David Dastmalchian: Right. I guess I'm yearning to see it. I love fantasy horror. I love good science fiction horror, but I'm a lifelong comic collector and I've collected horror comics for most of my life. But I do love the intersection between superhero mythologies and horror. And I'd like to see that explored more. It has been done and there are people doing it. I think that's really exciting. And I just think there's something about the way we're intersecting with technology, which you've done in a really cool way, but what I'm yearning for right now is the way we experience it. I feel like we're all on the brink of something. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's VR, I want a new experience for my horror and I think about this a lot. What does that look and feel like? Do we get William Castle on their asses? Is it just bringing in some kind of live element to the theatrical experience? Is that possible? Is there a way legally and financially to pull that off?

Stay tuned for more coverage of Comic-Con 2024 and further explorations into indie and studio horror filmmaking.