Halloween is just around the corner, and with it comes the “official” unofficial end of spooky season for many though admittedly not for all. To be honest, it’s been a pretty good horror season. Yeah, reality still kind of sucks and is complicated as we navigate the real world terrors and obstacles. However, there were some great horror films, television series, books, and music created and released this year. Long awaited reboots and sequels were finally shown. New stories were told to great acclaim and reception. New voices and talents are being mentored and given opportunity to create such interesting perspectives on established classics and refreshingly novel ideas and tales. Frankly, this should not be that surprising for any horror fan.

The Horror genre has always been the vanguard of film to a certain degree. Micro-budget independent films have been the bread and butter of even the mainstream horror industry, so not surprising that in the modern dog-eat-dog ongoing battle of streaming services against network television against cable against the entirety of the internet many studios have shifted to making lower budget products, nor is it surprising that many of them have been horror or horror adjacent productions. Horror has birthed new methods of filmmaking and telling visual narratives with Found Footage and using multimedia through phone cameras, Zoom meetings, and other film methods. Of course, we’ve also seen the rise of more explicit social commentary and criticism in horror without losing the effects and impact that well developed and crafted storytelling can have.

This then begs the question: what comes next? Horror, like all art, is constantly evolving, growing, influencing, being influenced, and shifting. Art by definition needs to to survive; otherwise, it simply becomes a marker of its time to be, hopefully, fondly remembered and studied. So, what is the next big change for Horror? New subgenre? New filming techniques? A reimagining of classic stories for new audiences by new voices? Or something only a few have seen or heard?

Thus, I pose the question to you: what do you think the next big thing for Horror is?