The strange, scary and uncertain events of 2020's Coronavirus quarantine have already created a new sub-genre of horror movies, which has already been dubbed "quar horror". This isn't the first time that a moment in history has birthed a new movie sub-genre. Quar horror feels especially terrifying because it's a period of fear and uncertainty that audiences are currently experiencing.
Quar horror is already gaining traction, namely with the movie Host. The horror movie is gaining praise because it found a way to combine traditional elements with horror with the new normal of 2020, staying at home all the time, relying on Zoom, and all the negative feelings surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic. It's so effective that the 56-minute Host has been called the best horror movie of 2020. Horror movies like Stay at Home and the upcoming Isolation are following this pattern as well.
Horror movies have utilized tools like Zoom and themes of loneliness and isolation before. When audiences saw those movies in the past, they only elicited hypothetical feelings. That strikes a different chord now, as audiences are currently experiencing these feelings firsthand.
How Quar Horror Will Change The Horror Genre
Cultural anxieties have previously given birth to a now well-known sub-genre of horror movies—the zombie movie. This genre of horror movies has technically been around for decades, but really started to pick up steam in the 1960s as films began to use the undead as a metaphor for deeper fears that lie within the culture. This sub-genre of horror movies tends to experience a resurgence in decades with one overarching event, movement or idea that causes fear and anxiety, such as the civil rights movement of the 1960s, communism in the 1980s and the fall of the World Trade Center in the early 2000s. The zombie movie has changed and adapted in each decade it experienced a resurgence, finding new and more effective ways to play on the fears of its audience.
Audiences can expect quar horror to evolve as well. The Coronavirus will likely be with the world in some way for the foreseeable future. Those initial feelings of fear, confusion, anger and sadness will linger for a long time. Thanks to 2011's Contagion, audiences are very familiar with outbreak movies. That was speculative—quar horror is based on a real shared experience. This new sub-genre has already brought about innovation in the way horror movies are filmed. But now, quar horror will bring about new ways that horror movies can frighten their audiences.