10 Great Movies That Accidentally Made Cinema Worse
6. The Babadook Sparked The Infuriating Debate About "Elevated Horror"
2014's The Babadook received rave reviews upon release for its expert collision of conventional horror tropes with a more psychological, character-driven component.
The Babadook's success sparked a trend of similarly inclined "artsy" horror films in the years that followed, such as The Witch, Get Out, Hereditary, Midsommar, The Lighthouse, Us, Saint Maud, and Relic, many of them released by A24.
This soon enough led to the term "elevated horror" being coined, a designation signifying horror films which supplemented more traditional horror movie elements with themes and ideas from dramas or art films.
And ever since the phrase first gained traction in the mid-2010s, horror fans have been locked in a fierce, exhausting debate about the term's merits (or lack thereof).
To many, it seems understandably condescending, to imply that any horror movie with a sliver of depth is placed on a pedestal above its genre brethren.
Beyond tarring the bulk of the genre with the same brush, it completely ignores the fact that "elevated horror" has existed for as long as horror has - there have always been psychological, visceral, experimental horror films.
The tiresome debate about the label was even amusingly lampooned in the most recent Scream film, where in its opening scene Tara (Jenna Ortega) clearly thinks herself a more refined type of horror fan because her favourite horror movie is The Babadook.
To be clear, artistically minded horror isn't the problem, but the by-product of its cult popularity in recent years is the schism it created among audiences who spend more time arguing about labels than, you know, watching the movies.