Are horror movies getting scarier? Film historian Tom Doherty on an evolving genre

Brandeis Stories

Are horror movies getting scarier? Film historian Tom Doherty on an evolving genre

By Julian Cardillo '14
October 27, 2025

Ever wonder why audiences are perpetually driven to sit in a dark cinema and take in horrifying spectacles that push the envelope of what's creepy and grotesque? Are horror movies actually getting scarier, as some observers claim?

American studies professor Thomas Doherty is a film expert and a longtime admirer of scary movies. He even prepared a list of some of his favorite horror flicks to satisfy those who dare this spooky season.

Here, Doherty discusses the horror genre's evolution and its enduring popularity among moviegoers.

Have horror films become scarier?

I don't think the horror genre itself has changed at its core. It's always been the place we go to confront fears we usually don't want to articulate. It's the most psychological of genres. It deals with mortality and our deepest anxieties - mutilation, death, sexuality, maturity.

But in the past 20 years, it's gotten more explicit. There are really two types of horror films: the ones that truly try to scare you to your core and stay with you in a very visceral way, and the ones that are more about the fun of being frightened.

You can often tell which kind of film you're watching by the audience reaction. With some movies - "The Blair Witch Project" is a great example - you can feel the shift about 10 or 15 minutes in. The laughter stops. People get quiet and nervous. That's when a film really takes hold.

What makes horror such an enduring genre?

I think horror endures because it addresses what's unspoken and subterranean, which is why so many scary scenes take place in basements and attics.

I tell my students horror is unique in how it engages the spectator. You don't want to see what you want to see. When the girl in her nightgown hears a noise in the basement, the audience says, "Don't go down there!" - but also, "I hope she goes down there so we can find out what's happening."

That paradox is unique to horror.

These films' popularity among younger audiences also made them targets for censorship by the Motion Picture Association. How did the genre's rise influence movie ratings?

Concerns about horror's impact on children go way back. In the 1920s, the Payne Fund Studies examined how movies affected young people, especially horror films like "Frankenstein." They literally put wires under kids' beds to measure how much they tossed and turned after watching scary movies.

When horror films became too grotesque in the early 1930s, they faced censorship challenges. The Production Code of 1934 clamped down on explicit bloodletting and violence. Ironically, that made filmmakers more creative. They had to suggest horror rather than show it, which often made it more effective.

How did horror movies survive the censorship?

Through suggestion. A famous example is Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People," made on a small budget. There's a scene where a woman swims in a dark pool as shadows and growls surround her. You never see the creature because the costume looked ridiculous when they tried to film it. It turned out much scarier to leave it to the imagination.

Hitchcock understood this, too. He said he could never conjure anything as frightening as what's already in the audience's mind.

What about the artistry? For a long time, horror was seen as a subgenre, but modern horror films are both beautiful and terrifying.

That actually goes back to the 1920s as well, to German Expressionist cinema. Films like "Nosferatu," "Doctor Faustus," "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and Fritz Lang's "M and Metropolis." They were visually stunning and rooted in Gothic and Romantic traditions from Germany and England.

Later, the baby boomer generation of filmmakers - Spielberg, Lucas, Landis, Dante - realized horror could both scare and be artful. The best filmmakers today still understand that.

Horror films now come out year-round, not just around Halloween. Why?

It's always been a perennially popular genre with young people. In the 1950s, when Hollywood needed to bring in younger audiences, horror and sci-fi were reliable ways to do it. Science fiction tends to be sociological; horror is psychological.

Teenagers, especially, are confronting mortality and sexuality for the first time. Horror externalizes those taboos.