Boo who? Gen Z loves horror because real life has scared them plenty

"Obsession" is about a love curse gone wrong — and also about the red pill culture that Gen Z has to contend with. (Courtesy of Focus Features via CNN Newsource)

For those in Gen Z, life can be a bit of a monster — an uncertain economy, regular school shootings in the U.S., a global pandemic.

That’s why, with “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” they have twice recently been lured to the theater with the promise of made-for-them scares — a reminder of how hard but satisfying it can be when filmmakers dream up horrors for a generation stuck in a nightmare reality.

“The genre of horror has kind of shifted with Gen Z, where it’s exploring some darker real life concepts sometimes rather than just the gore and things like that,” Lauren Cook, a therapist and author of “Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide for Staying Afloat in Uncertain Times,” said.

“Obsession,” to be fair, has plenty of gore.

How can a plotline about a man (Michael Johnston) who wishes upon a magical toy branch for the unrequited love of his life (Indie Navarrette) to return his affections not involve some blood?

But the film, directed by 26-year-old YouTuber Curry Baker, also hits on deeper themes, including red pill culture that promotes the idea that men now live in a world that is systemically biased against them, calls for an end of feminism and longs for a return to what they perceive as traditional values.

There is also more than meets the eye in “Backrooms,” directed by Gen Z filmmaker Kane Parsons. The psychological horror film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor is about a furniture store owner who descends into his own heart of darkness in his shop. Inspired by Parsons’ YouTube series, it delves into themes of isolation, trauma and limiting possibilities, terms familiar to Gen Z.

“They enjoy the honesty that horror can bring. It’s not trying to sugarcoat things,” Cook said about Gen Z. “They can sit with that morbidity a little bit more than maybe previous generations have, where they want to plaster things and put a smile on it and I think that’s actually a strength.”

Those who were born roughly between 1997 to 2012 have had to wrestle with a lot of scary stuff.

The 2008 financial crisis served as an economic backdrop to their childhoods and a bleak job market, outlooked even bleaker thanks to AI, is their current reality. Then there were climate catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, the normalization of active shooter drills at their schools and a worldwide pandemic. It’s been a lot.

Hollywood still thinks they can put a fright into them and is doing so in a way that is resonating deeply with that generation of moviegoers, according to Kaitlyn Ruano, a 23-year-old high school teacher who analyzes movies and TV on her site The Drama Drive-In.

Every generation, she explained, seems to be defined by their own horror subgenre — from the slashers of the 70s to movies like “The Craft” that came out during the “Satanic panic” of the 80s and 90s.

“Moving into the 2000s, we had horror that almost seems more like action based. That’s where we had all the zombie movies and, in my opinion, I think it’s really reflective of the war on terror in America’s kind of militaristic environment there,” she said. “I think because Gen Z tends to be very focused on social issues, that’s kind of a defining factor of our generation that horror plays into that really well.”

The data bears that out.

According to a report published last year by market research firm Statista “out of all the age brackets, Gen Z consumers were the most likely to watch horror movies or TV shows, with a total of 91 per cent of them doing so.”

Cathy Boxall, global head of entertainment at advertising agency Dentsu, recently cited that report in a piece where she noted that the number represented “the highest share of any generation.”

“Horror is their third-favorite genre after comedy and action, and the numbers are accelerating: scary movies now account for 17% of North American ticket purchases, up from just 4% a decade ago,” Boxall wrote.

Studios are riding that wave to the bank.

According to A24, the studio behind “Backrooms,” Parsons is the youngest filmmaker in Hollywood history to release a film that finished No. 1 at the weekend box office after Gen Z helped it rake in about $80 million in North America and US$120 million worldwide during it’s opening weekend.

“Obsession,” backed by Focus Features and Blumhouse Productions, captured the No. 2 spot that weekend and has made close to $150 million since its debut on May 15 – an astronomical sum in light of the fact that the film only cost about $750,000 to make.

Both films success is in total harmony with Generation Z’s penchant for buzzy, curiosity-piquing content — see “Severance” as one example — that goes viral and brings audiences online to discuss.

“Because we live in an era that is so dictated by media and by our interactions with other people, I think I would argue Gen Z likes to be a little bit more analytical about things than most,” Ruano said. “I think Gen Z loves to overthink every single piece of content we come across. We were raised on think pieces and YouTube video essays.”

According to Ruano, her generation has to be strong in a world that is politically divisive, has its share of darkness and now has a new definition of “escapism.”

Gone are the days when nostalgic feel-good films like “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” brought her joy, she said, because that type of sunny storytelling can feel “a little bit insulting.”

“Watching shows from the nineties and the 2000s, where people would graduate and get an amazing job or an amazing internship and all these things, you watch it, it’s almost frustrating ‘cause you’re like, wow, was life really that easy back then?” she said. “ And look where we are now.”

By Lisa Respers France, CNN