SPENGLER, a.k.a. David Goldman, has an interesting piece at Asia Times about the proliferation of horror films. He writes:  

[W]hat accounts for the six-fold increase in the total number of horror films released since 1999? Subgenres such as erotic horror (mainly centered on vampires) and torture (the Saw series, for example) dig deep into the vulnerabilities of the adolescent psyche. Given the success of these films over the past 10 years, the number of Americans traumatizing themselves voluntarily is larger by an order of magnitude than it has ever been before.

There are any number of possible explanations for this phenomenon. What the bare facts show, however, is that moviegoers are now evincing a susceptibility to horror. People watch something in the theater because it resonates with something outside the theater. To see the cinematic representation of horrible things may be frightening, but the viewer knows that it is safe.

His point that this has to do with 9-11 and violence in the Muslim world does not seem plausible, but he also writes:

What produces monsters is not the sleep of reason but the absence of faith. God’s creation metaphorically banished the monsters from the world in the biblical creation story. If we cease to believe that God will rise up as of old and fight our fight, then we will reify the world’s evil in the guise of fictional monsters. That is the secret of our morbid fascination with the horror genre.

                                                                  — Comments —

Fitzgerald, who sent the link, writes:

Spengler’s analysis is excellent, but he ignores or misses the correlation between the re-emergence of the horror genre in cinema and “literature” and the sexual revolution of the late sixties. See E. Michael Jones book Monsters from the Id for an excellent treatment on this. The horrors of Vietnam, 9/11, torture, terrorism, etc.. has only deepened it.

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