There is no film genre that goes around in cycles as the horror genre. Whether it’s the Universal monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s, slashers of the 1970s or found-footage boom of the late 1990s/early 2000s, the genre is constantly coming back from the cinematic dead time and time again. The genre has received a huge boost recently, with movies like Terrifier 2, M3GAN and last weekend’s release of Cocaine Bear coming through strong at the box office. One of the next potential hit horror movies is a pretty grounded affair from Sony Pictures under the tile of Gnomes.
Yes, the little garden ornaments that watch regular people going about their day to day horticultural business are about it get nasty in big screen adaptation of a Dutch short movie. Deadline reported that Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy is reported to be working on the project with Ant-Man and the Wasp scribes Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari, but there is yet to be a director attached to the movie. With the movie being only in the early stages of development, there have been no indications as to whether the film will feature a big name cast or aim for a more unknown group of actors.
As far as horror prospects go, it may seem laughable to have small garden ornaments becoming a thing of nightmares, but as anyone with gnomophobia – yes, it does exist – would no doubt testify, there is a real “Toy Story” type question be asked of what do they do when you are not watching them? Plot death and destruction by the sound of it, and fans of the recent wave of horror movies will no doubt love every bloody second of it.
Why Are Horror Movies So Popular?
The horror genre is probably one of the most consistent for delivering huge waves of interest, followed by years of copy-cat, sub-par imitators and by the book sequels, until something comes along that is imaginative enough to start the cycle all over again. The simple principles of the genre are that many people like being scared, and the horror on screen can often distract people from those of the real world for a little while.
The main reason that horror can put out an endless stream of movies that find an audience is that everyone has a different sense of what is scary. From Lovecraftian nightmares, to clowns, to unseen tormentors and the fear of the unknown, the world of horror has so many dark avenues to creep down that it is hard to imagine there ever being a shortage of new ways to scare audiences and reap the returns at the box office.
Where exactly Gnomes will fit into the pantheon of recent horror movie successes is something that we will probably have a couple of year’s wait to find out. With many recent releases having proved their worth at the box office, and numerous other dark offerings to come this year, will Gnomes come up short in the battle of the horror icons or bury the competition?