Evolving Terrors: How The American Horror Genre Mirrors Societal Change and Audience Anxieties

This research project explores how the American Horror genre evolves to reflect the shifting anxieties of its audiences, transcending boundaries by tapping into the deepest fears and zeitgeist of each era. Analysing some of the genre’s original “slasher” films, as well as films released post-9/11, and now in the digital age, some of the questions this paper explores are: How does the genre cycle back to traditional conventions but place a spin on them? How did the genre tap into the 1970-1980 society’s severe ignorance concerning mental illness? In what ways did the traumatic events of 9/11 desensitise audiences to violence? Drawing from works such as Jacqueline Noll Zimmerman’s People Like Ourselves: Portrayals of Mental Illness in the Movies and Aaron Michael Kerner’s Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11: Horror, Exploitation, and the Cinema of Sensation, this paper seeks to reveal the American Horror genre’s exceptional ability to capture predominant social tensions and trauma, which helps the genre attract new consumers, maintain its loyal audience, and survive the test of time.