‘Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror’ Comic-Con Panelists Predict the Four Biggest Upcoming Trends in Genre Filmmaking
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- The 'Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror' panel convened at San Diego Comic-Con on July 24, featuring actors Dan Stevens and Deborah Ann Woll, directors Zachary Wigon and Dave Boyle, and moderator Michael Lerman, with Rachel Walker as curator and producer.
- Deborah Ann Woll, who stars in Shudder's upcoming thriller 'The Cycle,' argued for genre-blending horror that shifts between psychological thriller, survivalist thriller, and creature feature, citing 'The Descent' as her template and saying scripts with that tonal flexibility made her 'have to do this.'
- Dave Boyle, director of SXSW audience award winner 'Never After Dark,' credited his action filmmaking background — including time working in Japan where scripts leave half the page blank for directors to draw in cuts — for preparing him to jump into horror.
- Dan Stevens, star of AMC series 'The Terror,' said horror mixed with humor is on the rise, pointing to directors like Zach Cregger and Curry Barker, and pushed back on producers who resist it: 'I'd like to bring some humor into this.' 'It's not a comedy.' 'I know it's not a comedy, but by bringing elements of humor, you bring in humanity.'
- Zachary Wigon, who helmed Bleecker Street's 'Victorian Psycho,' framed horror as 'a subgenre of mystery,' describing it as a patchwork quilt where disparate clues eventually resolve into one image.
- Michael Lerman moderated the discussion as co-founder and director of film programming at the genre-based Overlook Film Festival.
Why it matters: Stevens specifically named producer resistance to humor in horror as a real obstacle — 'it's sometimes a scary word when you mention that to producers' — making the unified prediction from four working genre directors (genre-blending, tonal mixing, humor infusion, mystery-style withholding) a signal that horror buyers still reflexively demanding single-tone scares may find their slates behind where the genre is heading.
