Each horror fan has their first time. For Henry Wong, it was watching Scream on a forbidden VHS tape at his grandparents’ home. As he remembers in his Esquire (Autumn 2025 version) characteristic, “you always remember your first time”. That second of illicit terror — hiding behind a cushion, half-laughing, half-terrified — is sort of a ceremony of passage.

For a few of us it was: The Omen, late at night time, the flickering glow of a second-hand tv, pulse racing as Gregory Peck realised simply who — or what — his adopted son actually was. That jolt of concern, that fascination with the unseen, by no means leaves you.

Right now, horror is having its revenge. It’s the style critics as soon as dismissed, now the one maintaining cinemas alive.

“Horror has emerged as cinema’s most bankable – and experimental – style.”
– Henry Wong, Esquire.

Horror on the Field Workplace: Blood Beats Capes

Hollywood is in a precarious state. The U.S. field workplace introduced in $8.72 billion in 2024 — a decent determine, however nonetheless trailing the $11 billion pre-pandemic peak. As soon as-reliable superhero franchises are faltering, streaming platforms proceed to erode theatrical dominance, and viewers tastes are more and more unpredictable. The trade is not wobbling — it’s balancing on a knife’s edge, uncertain whether or not the subsequent step results in revival or retreat.  But amid the uncertainty, horror stands tall. Terrifier 3, made for simply $2 million, grossed over $76 million worldwide. The Philippou brothers’ Discuss to Me (2022), a $4.5 million indie, soared to $92 million globally. These aren’t anomalies. Horror thrives on low budgets and excessive creativeness.

At Raindance, we’ve lengthy recognized that indie horror can break via the place shiny blockbusters fail. Christopher Nolan (Following) and Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace) each got here via our competition with movies steeped in ambiance and dread. Horror forces filmmakers to be ingenious, and audiences reward them.

FrightFest and the Rise of the British Horror Viewers

If Raindance is the place filmmakers minimize their enamel, FrightFest is the place horror audiences naked theirs. Each August in Leicester Sq., 1000’s collect for 5 days of blood-soaked premieres, cult classics, and conversations in darkish bars afterwards.

Alan Jones, co-founder of FrightFest, laughs when he talks in regards to the previous stereotype of horror followers as “fats blokes in zombie T-shirts”. He admits that when the competition began, it was “all males”. Now there’s a 50-50 gender stability. Right now’s horror viewers is various, educated, and hungry for brand spanking new tales.

“The horror fan, I believe, is essentially the most discerning of all.”
– Alan Jones, FrightFest (quoted in Esquire).

That’s why FrightFest thrives, and why the indie movies that display as a part of the Raindance Horror Strand — from psychological chillers to physique horror experiments and interactive survival adventures — have turn into a few of our most talked-about screenings.

So-Referred to as “Elevated” Horror

One of many extra irritating phrases to emerge within the final decade is “elevated horror”, used to explain a subgenre of horror movies that mix creative strategies and thematic depth with horror tropes to create a extra emotionally unsettling expertise, usually downplaying leap scares and gore in favour of atmospheric dread and complicated themes like trauma, societal points, and existential angst.  Wong contains The Witch (2015), Hereditary (2018), and Midsommar (2019) as examples of “elevated horror” — movies that critics latched onto praised for being someway “above” conventional style fare.

However as Wong reminds us:

“The designation is each snooty — it successfully appears to be like down upon all the things that has come earlier than — and deceptive: these latest movies’ tropes didn’t emerge from skinny air.”
– Henry Wong, Esquire.

At Raindance, we reject the hierarchy.

From Nosferatu (1922) to Rosemary’s Child (1968), from The Shining (1980) to Discuss to Me (2022), horror has at all times been each visceral and mental. What modified was not the movies, however the vital lens.

Horror as Social Mirror

Horror thrives as a result of it displays our anxieties. As Wong writes, “Whenever you’re writing a horror movie, you’re tapping into issues that actually hassle you.” That’s Danny Philippou talking about Deliver Her Again (2025), nevertheless it might be any filmmaker at any time.

Take into account:

• Evening of the Dwelling Lifeless (1968) and race relations.
• The Texas Chain Noticed Bloodbath (1974) and Vietnam-era disillusionment.
• Get Out (2017) and the horror of liberal racism.

British horror, too, has lengthy turned the mirror on ourselves. Movies like Kill Record (2011) and The Descent (2005) dissect social fractures via terror. Extra not too long ago, Prano Bailey-Bond’s Censor (2021) reframed the “video nasties” panic of the Nineteen Eighties right into a haunting meditation on reminiscence and repression.

Why Festivals Matter

Within the horror increase of the 2020s, festivals are frontline laboratories. Studios should gamble on The Nun II, nevertheless it’s the competition circuit that incubates the longer term.

FrightFest offers us the group — that camaraderie and inclusive, midnight vitality. Raindance gives the laboratory — the testing floor the place new horror visions are found, nurtured, and debated.

This summer time at Raindance, our Horror strand offered out quicker than virtually another part. Audiences wish to be shocked, to be unsettled, to be jolted out of complacency. And horror filmmakers — particularly these working exterior the studio system — are delivering.

The Science of Worry

One among Wong’s most intriguing references is to G. Neil Martin’s research “(Why) Do You Like Scary Films?” The conclusion? Horror followers are sensation seekers. They crave the build-up, the discharge, the unusual euphoria when suspense dissolves.

It’s no accident that horror is each communal and intimate. As critic Anna Bogutskaya notes in Wong’s piece:

“For individuals searching for out horror, there’s a component of security of watching with others… It’s an enormous room, it’s full of individuals, nobody’s going to get you.”
– Anna Bogutskaya (quoted in Esquire).

That’s why horror belongs in cinemas, not simply on streaming. And that’s why festivals — Raindance, FrightFest, Sitges — are important. We don’t simply watch; we shiver, chortle, and scream collectively.

Classes for Indie Filmmakers

For those who’re an rising filmmaker, horror is not only a style. It’s a launchpad. The Blair Witch Undertaking (1999) (manufacturing price range: $60,000; field workplace: $248 million) stays essentially the most well-known case, however the story repeats each decade.

Why? As a result of horror strips filmmaking to its necessities:

• Environment over results
• Suggestion over spectacle.
• Innovation over price range.

At Raindance, we encourage filmmakers to embrace this. Wish to get observed? Make a horror brief. Wish to take a look at your storytelling chops? Construct pressure in a single room. Wish to perceive viewers psychology? Watch once they chortle nervously earlier than the leap scare.

Horror’s Future Is More and more Feminine, Indie, and British

Alan Jones is true: the rise of feminine administrators has remodeled the panorama. Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) gave Demi Moore her greatest position in years. Within the U.Okay., Prano Bailey-Bond, Rose Glass, and Romola Garai are pushing horror into unusual and sensible new territory.

At Raindance, we’re proud to showcase this wave. Horror shouldn’t be a sideshow — it’s central to the way forward for cinema. And as audiences fracture, horror is the style that unites us.

Epilogue: Why We Want Horror

Writers, filmmakers, storytellers of any form could make a distinction.

On the Horror Writers Affiliation’s annual Bram Stoker Awards this yr, creator Kevin J. Wetmore advised the assembled authors and screenwriters:

“Horror individuals have a job and that job is to inform individuals, ‘You’ll be able to battle monsters’”.
– Kevin J. Wetmore

Once I programme horror for Raindance, I ask myself: what monsters can we presently concern? What are we afraid of now? Local weather collapse? AI? Political extremism? Gender-based violence? Horror is how we metabolise dread.
So, the subsequent time you disguise behind a pillow, bear in mind: concern is not only a response. It’s a survival mechanism. And in a faltering movie trade, it would simply be salvation. And we want you, a horror fan to attend this yr’s competition.

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