In the year 2026, I find myself here, at the edge of the horror film cliff, shaking with self-induced FOMO, preparing to jump. I have wandered the confusing no-man’s land of psychological thrillers, films that have probably scarred me more than any jump scare would, and yet every time i saw the “horror” attached to the film’s description, I quickly retreated, suddenly pulled a migraine out of my tiny purse and crawled back into my rom-com hole, knowing that even a quick look at the trailer will be followed by three to five rewatches of Legally Blonde, to get the horrifying sights of dark rooms out of my subconscious. But here I am now, looking at my movie list, and three out of five planned watches for the month are horror.

What have I become? I guess I finally decided to break free from the rest of the undereducated horror film deniers. Because it wasn’t just fear. I am ashamed to admit that, like many, I found the genre unnecessary and a moot point in my film education. I come to you now with a sea of regret. Horror is, unfortunately for my fragile mental health, the shit. And if I want to continue calling myself a lover of films, I must admit it is impossible not to indulge in occasional horror.

From a young age, I took great pleasure in slow and over-analytical consumption of films. Old ones, new ones, any genre, any style, any director (apart from the ones that have actively violated every human right possible and still somehow got work). My knowledge of horror, though, was limited to the movies I could handle without losing sleep: Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. Movies that were either thrillers masquerading as horror, or so full of 90s special effects that they have inadvertently aged into camp.

As I got older, I tried to get myself into the scary classics. I watched The Ring and read so much unnecessary lore, it made that diva crawling out of the TV look even scarier. I even indulged in supernatural horror films like The Conjuring and Sinister.

I am not going to lie, the nightmares from that Sinister spirit’s face were overwhelming. I had to sleep with the light on, clutching a stuffed animal, and, on one occasion, even call my mom in the middle of the night. I was twenty, but you know, we move. That is where my horror journey paused. I associated the genres with the creatures creeping from the nighttime shadows, so I said my goodbye and never looked back.

In recent years, I heard about films like Hereditary, A Quiet Place, and Barbarian, and thought they would be great to watch. But I was never brave enough to press play. The furthest I took my horror movie wheels out is to run them around the block with Get Out and Us. My love for Jordan Peele and Lupita Nyong’o melted the ice of horror movie-induced apathy for a couple of hours.

And to be honest, I did not feel like I was missing out on much. From what I have experienced, horror movies were mostly just scary faces, floating objects, and a weird, often dysfunctional family, very irresponsibly putting all their life savings into a very obviously haunted house in the middle of nowhere.

Then came The Substance. Whether you enjoyed the premise, were a bit unsettled by the gore, or found it slightly too on-the-nose to provide substantial (lol, sorry) commentary, you cannot deny its influence. This film revived Demi Moore’s career, catapulting her into new dimensions of fame and giving us the one fun character in an otherwise vapid Gucci campaign. It sparked a discussion, screaming the truths that people usually only whisper. And it did so at the right time. Women were fucking exhausted of subtext, of only having the critiques of the psychotic beauty standards they are subjected to being an afterthought of a larger, more “non-gender-specific” discussion. That exhaustion somehow found a perfect manifestation in a boob growing out of Demi Moore.

That wild rebellion did not last long, considering the Ozempic of it all, which took over the celebrity world almost immediately after the film’s release. Kinda felt like it had the opposite effect, only pushing the premise that was supposed to frighten the culture awake further. It was still a moment, though.

The world went crazy, so places like The Academy had to listen. It’s quite interesting that this was the film that finally broke the horror-movie bias the Oscars were infamous for, but at least it happened. Because, as much as I do not like the 2010s-era horror movies, I must admit there are some good ones, and definitely some actors (or more specifically, actresses, or more specifically, Toni Collette) who deserve their flowers for delivering heartbreakingly awesome performances.

Now I stand at the horror abyss, and I am forced to contemplate. Why did I give up on the genre altogether instead of just exercising caution as I pick my next watch? Was the fear really that overwhelming? A fear, by the way, that I find quite confusing. In real life, I am no stranger to supernatural occurrences, and they do not faze me in the slightest. I meet sleep paralysis demons like old friends, I visit places with truly horrifying energies and manage to put them out of my mind. I am very okay with blood, broken bones and any other gory shit that life throws at me. But put that on a screen with dimmed lighting and a menacing score, and I’m shivering like a wet puppy.

I began dipping my toes back in by rewatching classics like The Shining. But my true conversion happened with Weapons, a film that, at least for me, symbolised the beginning of that elusive “golden age of horror”. Amongst other things, Weapons made me realise one of my biggest beefs with the supernatural horror genre.

Turns out what I hated more than the jump scares and the looming presence of a dark entity was the faceless villains, whose motivation is to do demonic shit because they are demons. Of course, there are no redeeming qualities in the character of Aunt Gladys. She is, after all, supposed to be a metaphor for the violence the American gun-control (or lack thereof) system inflicts upon itself. But the creepy charisma with which Amy Madigan played her, and the calm that took over the screen as her villainous acts unfolded, inspired more admiration than fear.

The movie, while not big on scary faces, leaned heavily towards horror, and yet I did not lose sleep haunted by the frightening fragments I witnessed. Maybe my fear was just gone. Maybe now, after seeing the true horrors of the world, the unjust violence inflicted upon people in countries like Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Iran and Lebanon (& too many more to name), the wishes of greedy men destroying the lives of millions, after experiencing personal horrors, the ones not caused by demons and monsters, but by people, a scary face is not what will keep me up at night.

All of this isn’t to say that my hands are itching to press play on the supernatural horror movies that used to torment my dreams years ago. But I am way more open to exploring the types of horror that tell a story, ask questions, and do what a film should do: open your mind and pour in new ideas.

I might mess up the continuity a bit here, but I think it’s impossible to talk about the new age of horror and specifically about something dubbed “elevated horror” without mentioning A24. They have single-handedly brought some of the coolest horror and psychological thriller films of this decade to life. And a big part of the process seems to be backing a project with a clear point of view. Shock value for a longer-lasting mental image that reveals itself as a unique form of commentary upon closer examination.

So now, I jump. Next on my list: Obsession, where the horror of a woman’s loss of autonomy will surely exude repressed familiarity. Soon after comes Backrooms, a story with so much random lore that I could not forgive myself if I did not indulge and subsequently spend the next week scouring the depths of the internet for every reference and sub-reddit theory.

My relationship with horror will surely change more as time passes, such is the nature of this complex genre. But the day a movie will be the only thing scaring me in the dark, will probably be a good fucking day.