Minimalist horror is a funny little trend in the genre, using as little environment and setting as possible, terrifying us into believing that anything can happen even in the most innocent of scenarios. Does this method always work? Probably not, but even its failures are important because as far as horror has come as a medium (in terms of production quality and visual effects), even big-budgeted productions are starting to take advantage of the old adage “less is more”.
10 Cloverfield Lane
One of the early hits of 2016 is 10 Cloverfield Lane, a brilliant work of psychological horror which for the majority of its runtime involves little more than a small bunker, a young woman, two shady men and a shitload of bad vibes to construct a paranoid braintwister of a film. It’s true that its final moments devolve into a generic scifi actioner (as if to conclude any doubts whether this was truly a successor to Cloverfield), but most of us don’t think of 10 Cloverfield Lane that way. Most of us really see it as a 15 million dollar production consisting of John Goodman not only chewing the scenery for the majority of the film’s runtime, but swallowing the scenery whole.
The Blair Witch Project
I have a love-hate relationship with The Blair Witch Project, it’s not a masterpiece but it’s a seminal work of low-budget horror, allowing bigger studios to both understand and maximize the genre’s potential. This of course has resulted in a surplus of found footage horror films that have created even more tropes and cliches for the genre. This of course doesn’t take anything away from The Blair Witch Project, a film that eschews the out-and-out style of most American horror movies, and utilizes a realistic documentary-style and backyard Americana folklore to imply, resulting in some truly minimalist, effective low-budget horror.
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Buried
Clever lighting, a whole bunch of extreme close-ups and a completely game Ryan Reynolds highlight Buried, a film that not only personifies “minimalist horror” but takes it to another—subterranean—level. While some “thriller” bullet points in the film seem to be pulled from thin air and too many obvious emotional tactics are employed, Buried still deserves credit for being film that convinces us that 95 minutes with Ryan Reynolds in box is time well-spent, just don’t try convincing me to do it again.
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Cube
This little gem from the nineties (more like a cool-looking rock) has a premise that doesn’t suggest a minimalist horror, but it’s repetitive imagery (used to a deliciously maddening effect) is fodder for pure claustrophobic suspense and a biting showcase for economy in fimmaking. More importantly, the bulk of the film comes not from images alone but the characters who, while chosen to solve the cube’s puzzle, haven’t even begun solving the puzzle that their messed up lives have become. It’s like Saw, with characters that are just as annoying but a more confined, centralized story that’s ten-times smarter.
Duel
It’s easy to forget about Steven Spielberg’s Duel, seeing as his next two films (along with George Lucas’ colossal Star Wars) were destined to become the first real blockbusters of New Hollywood. Duel is Spielberg at his most skillfully contained and minimalist, a road movie involving an average joe being chased down a highway by an unseen truck-driving menace throughout its runtime. Jaws will go on to be acclaimed for it’s restraint, not allowing us to see the shark until a pivotal moment, but let’s not forget that Duel employed these same tricks and confined it to a narrow stretch of road.
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Open Water
Open Water proposes a terrifying scenario, what if your scuba diving party, due to a simple miscalculation, had left you behind? It’s an outrageous oversight, but this was a true story and Open Water is the hypothetical simulation of what may have happened to the couple. As its premise suggests, it’s literally a movie about two people floating out in the ocean. However as passions flare, dehydration sets in, and sharks begin to stalk the two of them, the result is a minimalist horror film which uses space, naked emotion and impending doom to drive up its scares.
Paranormal Activity
What happens in Paranormal Activity? It’s hard to say, not very much and a lot seem to be happening at the same time. Sorry for the paradox, but that alone seems to drive this haunted house mockumentary-style waiting game which builds its suspense on inactivity. The buried memories and dark secrets of this single-house setting seem to give the film more dimension, and for what it’s worth it seems to have revitalized the more contained variation of “found footage”, spawning its owned shared universe of sequels and spin-offs.
Red Eye
Minusing a few moments and a really lame climax, Red Eye has captured the last of Wes Craven cleverly utilizing high-risk tension in a small-scale setting. The film is compressed to the aisles and squished-in seats of a commercial flight. Craven makes perfect use of Cillian Murphy as a physically controlling terrorist interrogating a teary-eyed, but crafty, Rachel McAdams (in the seat next to him). The film plays on the isolated prison-like environment of the plane and while Craven probably relies a little too much on “lightness” in his story, there’s still a potent substratum here for space-limited terror and thrills.
The Reef
The Reef is like Open Water with less bickering, more urgency and higher-stakes (it also happens to be based on a true story). A ship capsizes at quite a distance but only miles from the nearest land. The five people on board know there are sharks in the water and must decide whether to wait on the vessel drifting further from land or risk possibly being attacked by sharks while swimming for shore. Like Open Water there is really no striking imagery here, but on top of the looming threat of sharks stalking them, there is always a vague hope that land is just out of reach, giving The Reef so much more to work with.
Unfriended
Perhaps Unfriended is a failure but its concept alone made it one of the most talked about horror movies in recent memory. A skype call involving a group of sophomoric teens, harbouring dark secrets, being stalked by an online ghost. It’s ludicrous but even its silliest moments show airs or potential here; psychology, internalization and privacy all ingredients to elucidate fear and horror, and while some may argue Unfriended doesn’t quite bring these elements into play as well as it wants, it reminds us why these are essential.
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