1. More Diversity
It sounds silly in this day and age for this point to be something we would love and actively want to see, but let's face facts: there just aren't a whole lot of people of colour in mainstream horror movies. There have been whole casts of white actors and actresses, heroes and villains and extras alike. That's not to say, however, that there haven't been any people of colour whatsoever in horror - from Kelly Rowland to Texas Battle to Jesse Williams to Brandy, we've had men and women of colour in mainstream horror movies, but sadly rarely a protagonist, or almost never a female one (in fact the only one we can think of is Halle Berry's Gothika and even then the role never acknowledged her background; the same applies for Sanaa Lathan's Lex in the AvP movie). Think about the great and wonderful final girls of horror film, the women who stand up and fight and become heroes - Ellen Ripley. Sarah Connor. Alice. Sally Hardesty. Laurie Strode. Clear Rivers. Elizabeth Shaw. They're all amazing and strong and powerful - and they're all white. I happen to think it's time that someone actively decides to go for a heroine of colour for a horror film - as the horror heroines of the 1970s started to become more active, it led to a more positive and feminist attitude to women in film in general, something that hopefully could work here. Women of colour have often been relegated to the best friend role - think Hallie in Scream 2, Karla in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Kia in Freddy vs Jason - and it's about time they got a chance to get top billing and centre stage in a horror setting. I'm not speaking as someone of colour or as a woman but that isn't the point - it should be pretty obvious that it's unfair as hell that a section of humanity is routinely ignored, pushed aside or barely acknowledged in one of the most popular and iconic genres of the modern media. The message these movies are sending out just isn't cool at all - the experiences and exposure of men and women of colour are incredibly important and deserve to be heard and seen, even if it's just in a horror movie about fighting ghosts or zombies. This isn't being controversial or taking on an accepting viewpoint - it's called being a human being. Besides, imagine Jessica Sula or Freema Agyeman fighting vampires. Gugu Mbatha-Raw or Lucy Liu as ass-kicking zombie killers or Jamie Chung or Samantha Logan or Dilshad Vadasaria battling demons and devils. It sounds awesome, doesn't it? More than that - it sounds, perhaps for the first time, fair. What would you like to see from the future of the horror genre? Share your thoughts below.