The streaming era of horror is starting to wear me down.
With Halloween looming closer, both the Sarah Paulson-led “Hold Your Breath” and body-swap blast “It’s What’s Inside” debuted exclusively on Hulu and Netflix, respectively, this October — despite holding their world premieres at Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance. This furthers a recent trend of horror movies bypassing theaters altogether and getting sent straight to streaming — making a select few festival audiences some of the only people to experience these films on the big screen.
Although streaming services offer greater accessibility for viewers, I find the shift towards studios using them as a dumping ground for horror to be a bit concerning. With the commercial and cultural phenomenon of this summer’s “Longlegs” in mind, streaming only seems to curtail the relevancy that horror films can aspire to and render them merely as content rather than conversation starters.
One of the latest casualties of this horror streaming bubble is Gary Dauberman’s “Salem’s Lot” — a new adaptation of Stephen King’s chilling vampire novel of the same title. Originally set to come out in theaters in 2022, the film languished in post-production for nearly two years before being unceremoniously dispatched to Max earlier this month.
Having finally seen it for myself, I understand why it met this fate. Abysmally shot and devoid of any real emotional stakes, “Salem’s Lot” is a hollow imitation of its source material, one that pales in comparison to something like Andy Muschietti’s frightening yet imaginative take on “It” — another King classic.
Despite my disappointment, I wonder if my reaction to “Salem’s Lot” would be any different if I had watched it in a packed and responsive theater. Would I have had more fun viewing it with friends in that setting as opposed to streaming it at home by myself?
I had the same question regarding “Apartment 7A,” a prequel to “Rosemary’s Baby” that dropped on Paramount+ in September. While I wasn’t blown away by the film, I remember thinking its remarkable lead performance by Julia Garner and production design choices might have resonated more if I saw it theatrically.
Streaming has also reduced the sense of community that makes horror so important and personal to me. Even with film-related social media spaces like Letterboxd rising in popularity, reading reviews on there just doesn’t compare to spilling out of a packed Thursday night showing of a new horror flick and hearing people buzz about it.
I’m looking forward to having a theater experience like that when “Smile 2” — the sequel to Parker Finn’s extremely effective psychological nightmare — comes out this Friday. It is worth mentioning, however, that this film might have never existed if it weren’t for a welcome diversion from the streaming model.
Before it went on to gross $217 million globally, the first “Smile” was intended to be a Paramount Plus exclusive, and it only secured a theatrical run after a positive test screening. If “Smile” never got the chance to reach such tangible success, who knows if a sequel would have been greenlit in the first place?
As someone who is clearly too invested in this matter, I hope film studios give the horror genre opportunities to thrive theatrically instead of relegating it to streaming platforms. Whether I walk away unsettled or even unsatisfied, horror films will always feel more cathartic and powerful to me when I can share them with other people in the best circumstances possible: in theaters.
