Chloe's Not Scared

Horror movies intrinsically have that pandemic feel— the anxiety, the isolation, the claustrophobia, the dread— confined to one or two locations with only a handful of characters. While other media filmed during the early part of the pandemic, such as Sam Levison’s two-person/one-room drama Malcolm & Marie, I argue that horror movies filmed during this time are less noticeably constrained by pandemic regulations, because of the nature of the genre. Knowing that these movies were created during the pandemic may shed a light on aspects of the film that you may have overlooked during your first watch. 

Old

M. Night Shyamalan is known for his original stories and final twists, but Old deviates from that a bit. For starters, the script is an existing intellectual property, based on a graphic novel, Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters. Old follows a bickering married couple (Vicky Krieps, Gael Garcia Bernal), who take their two young children on a vacation to a tropical resort. The resort manager arranges for the family to visit a private beach, along with another couple, their daughter and her grandmother. When they arrive at the beach, they see rapper Mid-Sized Sedan and a middle-aged couple. When tragedy strikes, the group realizes that one hour on the beach is approximately 2 years of rapidly aging. They begin to notice it first in the children, whose growth is more drastic than the adults. Different actors play the children growing up, with memorable performances from Alex Woolf (Hereditary, Pig), Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho) and Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects, Little Women). Can they escape the beach before each one of them dies?

While Old offers an entirely contemporary perspective and a relevant message on how time is fleeting, it feels very, well, old. Shyamalan has stated that he wanted to make a movie that called back to unnerving dread taking inspiration from Australian New Wave films (specifically Walkabout and Picnic at Hanging Rock which were both released in the 1970’s) and The Twilight Zone which ran through the early 1960’s. It is clear that the premise of the film would work excellently superimposed onto The Twilight Zone’s formula, and the disorienting shots of the cliffs shows that Shyamalan looked to the Australians to learn how to make the natural world scary. 

Host

Host is undoubtedly the quintessential COVID horror movie. Filmed entirely on Zoom for a relatively low budget, the film took inspiration from techno-horror films like Unfriended and Searching. But it wasn’t always planned as a feature. Director Rob Savage gained online recognition after filming a short version of the movie as a prank. When the short went viral, he decided to make a longer version.

The movie Host opens on a Zoom meeting of a few friends gathering to do a virtual seance. All characters have varying degrees of skepticism; Haley (Haley Bishop, Dawn of the Deaf), who organized the seance, cautions everyone to be nice to the medium, while Jemma (Jemma Moore, Doom: Annihilation) thinks the whole thing is a big joke. When the seance concludes with the medium’s call being dropped multiple times, strange things start happening in each characters’ respective apartments. The film does a great job at acknowledging the pandemic, while not allowing COVID take center stage. The cast shot the film in their own homes with characters sharing their own names, adding a level of intimacy to the production. 

Savage bought fishing wire and sent it to the actors, who could then rig their own effects and stunts. Because of this, the production harkens back to a time of 1980’s practical effects and prosthetics, even though the story is specifically mediated through modern technology. The film premiered on horror streaming service Shudder, which also featured one of my favorite documentaries In Search of Darkness, which contextualizes some of the best known 1980’s stunts and effects to date and their impact on modern horror. Host was a pandemic film that just worked and will undoubtedly be featured in horror film documentaries in years to come.

We Need To Do Something

We Need To Do Something premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released in theaters in September 2021, nearly a year after being filmed in secret on a soundstage in Michigan. Based on a short story with the same name by Max Booth III, Sean King O’Grady directs a small cast in this thriller/horror about a family seeking refuge from a tornado in their bathroom. Daughter Amy (played by Sierra McCormick in one of my favorite horror movies of recent, The Vast of Night) comes home from meeting with her girlfriend right before the storm hits her town. Her mother, Diane (Vinessa Shaw, Hocus Pocus), father Robert (Pat Healy, Bad Education) and brother Bobby (John James Cronin) are already waiting for her. When a tree hits their house and forces the family to seek shelter in the bathroom, they must battle several adversaries of the supernatural. 

While the script was not written to be a metaphor for the COVID-19 pandemic, it certainly feels that way as we watch four people try not to take up a lot of room, confined to their home during a natural disaster. As the story unfolds, Amy begins to wonder if she did something with her girlfriend to invoke the horror upon her family, reminding me of the guilt and anxiety about forgetting to wear a mask or engaging in risky behavior during the pandemic (you probably didn’t get someone sick, but what if?). Claustrophobia doesn’t only bring out physical discomfort but mental discomfort as well. 

Many horror movies filmed during the pandemic are either waiting to be released, picked up, or are still in production. Cast and crews have adapted the best they can to the production pods, mask-wearing, regular covid tests, and social distancing, but the anxiety and trauma from the virus still prevails. I am in no way celebrating the horrific tragedy of a worldwide pandemic, but considering our circumstances, it brings great comfort to know that art is still being created despite the wreckage of these past few years. I predict that future productions will rely heavily on ensemble casts, shorter filming schedules, and playing with constraints and claustrophobia of lockdowns within the script. 

Sources

M. Night Shyamalan reveals 5 movies that inspired Old to watch next – Polygon

M. Night Shyamalan and Alex Wolff detail the pandemic production of Old at Tribeca Festival | EW.com

Behind the scenes of ‘Host,’ a British horror film shot on Zoom | Datebook (sfchronicle.com)

‘We Need to Do Something’ Brings the Horror on a Family Sheltered in a Storm – Bloody Disgusting (bloody-disgusting.com)