Editorials
[Editorial] A History of Horror at the Academy Awards
Being a fan of horror movies can be a remarkably thankless experience. Many people misunderstand or even actively dislike our appreciation of the darker side of film, with some simply considering the genre to be intrinsically inferior based on a few bad experiences. However, one of the least pleasant aspects of being a horror enthusiast is dealing with the inevitable snubbing of our favorite scary movies year after year when awards season comes around.
That’s not to say that we (or filmmakers) need validation from mainstream festivals and golden statuettes in order to respect the horror genre, but the yearly snubbing of amazing horror films is doing a disservice to the careers of the artists that make the genre worth watching in the first place. Some less-informed critics might argue that the reason horror movies remain absent from the spotlight is that ‘modern horror’ isn’t as good as it used to be, but anyone who’s kept up with the genre in the last few decades knows that these critics just haven’t been watching the right movies.
From the amazing performances in Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects to the flawless cinematography of David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows, you’ll have a hard time finding a single year without at least one Oscar-worthy horror film that didn’t get the recognition it deserved. There was, in fact, a time when the genre was more present at the most prestigious of awards ceremonies, even if most of the nominations were relegated to minor technical awards.
That’s why I’ve compiled this history of Horror at the Academy Awards, in an attempt to recall a time when Hollywood took our favorite genre a little more seriously. While there are a great many films from several genres that regularly get snubbed at the Oscars, there’s a certain stigma attached to the more gruesome productions out there, one that both audiences and critics might benefit from getting rid of.
At this point, it’s common knowledge that only two “pure” horror films have ever been nominated for a Best Picture award: William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs. Only the latter managed to actually nab the illusive statuette (not to mention the Best Actor, Actress, Director and Adapted Screenplay awards on that same evening), but the nominations alone were enough to attest to the seriousness of these films. While these run-ins with the Academy can be considered some of the genre’s crowning achievements, they’re far from the first time horror has left its mark on the event.
A face that only the Academy could love.
As far back as 1932, when the awards were still a private ceremony, Rouben Mamoulian’s adaptation of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde was already an Academy favorite, accumulating nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor in a Leading Role. While Mamoulian’s film only managed to win in that last category (and even then, tied with Kidor’s The Champ), it’s still largely considered to be the first horror film to garner mainstream attention during the awards season.
Sadly, the Motion Picture Production Code would soon deliver a serious blow to the horror genre, as the censors would routinely butcher scary movies in order to make them more palpable for Christian audiences, often with disastrous results. James Whale’s Frankenstein is a notable example of a film bogged down by censorship, with the state of Kansas memorably demanding that nearly half the film be cut in order to be distributed. All this moral hullaballoo contributed to the demonization of horror movies, which no doubt influenced Hollywood’s decision to keep them out of the awards ceremonies.
With a few exceptions in minor technical categories, it would be decades until the Academy would once again honor a horror movie. Thankfully, with the sudden rise of Hitchcock, scares became fashionable again, and his groundbreaking 1960 film, Psycho, was nominated in four categories: Best Actress, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Ultimately, the film didn’t win any of these nominations, but it was a return to form for the genre, proving in the public eye that horror could be so much more than just schlock and supposed anti-religious propaganda.
Hitchcock’s next film, The Birds, would receive a single nomination in the special effects category, and we would only see the Academy recognize another serious horror movie at the end of the Motion Picture Production Code, with Roman Polanski’s 1968 thriller, Rosemary’s Baby. Polanski’s film would go on to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning the former. It can be said that this ushered in a new era for horror movies, as they would receive much more positive mainstream attention in the years to come than they ever had before.
“What an excellent day for an Oscar.”
With movies like the aforementioned Exorcist, Spielberg’s Jaws, Brian De Palma’s Carrie, and Ridley Scott’s Alien, the 1970s cemented horror filmmakers as serious masters of the craft in the Academy’s eyes. So far, this is arguably the best decade of horror on nearly all fronts, and possibly the last time that the genre was rightly perceived as an equal. Nevertheless, these nominations helped further the career of many talented artists who are now considered Hollywood legends, and helped shape the landscape of everyone’s favorite decade of entertainment.
The 1980s started off well, with Rick Baker’s phenomenal work on John Landis’ American Werewolf in London being recognized with a nomination in the brand new Best Makeup category. In fact, the horror genre would soon become quite familiar with this category, as most of this decade’s nominated horror movies would end up winning that award. James Cameron’s Aliens would break the mold with its seven nominations and two technical wins, but Hollywood’s love affair with horror movies was dissipating.
Fortunately, the 1990s had quite a few notable wins and nominations, with Rob Reiner’s Misery starting the decade off on a good note, providing Kathy Bates with the coveted Best Actress award. This was soon followed by Silence of the Lambs’ historic win, but the line between thriller and horror was starting to blur, and the Academy had an obvious preference for the former rather than the latter. Strangely enough, it was a great period for vampire films, with Francis Ford Coppola’s peculiar adaptation, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, garnering four nominations (and one win), and Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire garnering two.
This was also the decade that introduced us to M. Night Shyamalan and his breakout feature, The Sixth Sense, which just so happened to be nominated in six categories. These included Best Editing, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay and even Best Picture. While this is a feat in and of itself, it also marks the last time that a conventional horror film would ever take home so many nominations. The worst part is that this was almost two decades ago!
I’m glad the we can go back to appreciating Shyamalan now!
Although some debate that Aronofsky’s Black Swan is the Academy’s last true horror sweetheart, that ultimately depends on your definition of a horror movie. Either way, that’s one hell of a gap between award-winning scary movies, so what happened? The 2000s may have initially been saturated with remakes and a few duds, but for every generic ghost story there was an artistically inspired production like Mary Harron’s American Psycho or even Ti West’s House of the Devil. That’s not even mentioning the amazing horror movies produced outside of the United States that could have easily populated the Best Foreign Picture category.
In these last couple of years alone, we’ve already been gifted with extraordinary cinematic gems like Robert Eggers’ The Witch and Fede Álvarez’s Hitchcockian Don’t Breathe, and there’s simply no excuse for these films not to be appreciated by the Academy. That being said, I’m well aware that the Oscars aren’t as important an event as the media makes them out to be, but it’s still disrespectful to exclude the countless men and women working in the horror genre from these events due to outdated notions that they only produce ‘B’ movies.
Of course, there’s a lot of politics going on behind the scenes at these awards ceremonies, so artistic merit isn’t the only thing to be considered. Nevertheless, we now live in a world where Suicide Squad has won more Oscars than most of our favorite horror movies, and you can’t fault someone for getting pissed off about that. In time, as more and more amazing horror films hit the big screen, perhaps we’ll get lucky and the Academy will realize the error in its ways. Until then, all we can do is support and enjoy our favorite genre until Hollywood respects it as much as we do.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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