For over a decade, there was a stale session in the world of horror films. Perhaps when one of our own won the top prize at the Oscars in the early 90’s (Silence Of The Lambs, Best Picture 1991), studios and creators didn’t feel the hunger anymore to let the horror genre rip into its audiences. Sure, there were a few made to keep the heartbeat going, but all that was merely a break. Floating like a butterfly, and about to sting like a bee. Renaissance is defined as a rebirth, and the great European Renaissance during the 14-17th centuries features creators that took the old, and molded into a new and striking perspective. Starting near the front of this decade, we are witnessing creators in the horror community that are not only hungry after the horror drought of the 90’s, but are twisting the old into something new again…and are doing it with as much brutal vulgarity to get their point across.

Hints began in 1999 of a new uprising, with the throwback to Hammer Horror in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, and a spark in ghost stories with The Sixth Sense, Blair Witch Project, and Stir Of Echoes. While each of these left their marks, they only wet an appetite we had forgotten for our beloved genre, and left us craving more. The MPAA may have wounded how much horror can show for many years, but in the past few years, we have new creators bending their rules and finding shortcuts to still bring us the vicious gore that’s been sorely missed and merely hinted at. Rob Zombie is one of these men. House of 1000 Corpses was a project he had been working on during the late 90’s, that was intended as a throwback to the schlocky drive-in horror of the 70’s. While the film itself got butchered by the studios, the final product was still clear: nasty viciousness in horror was being brought back in demand, and Zombie’s frantic carnival way of displaying it was like putting on a new pair of glasses. There had been gorier movies, but none done in such a flashy, chaotic way. Dee Snider’s Strange land could be considered a precursor to Zombie’s film (hey, another rocker turned horror director!) but it never packed the insane chaos of Zombie’s Firefly clan. Zombie would then follow House Of 1000 Corpses with a sequel he had more creative control, The Devil’s Rejects. The film is different in style (less blacklights, better editing), has more vulgar violence (complete with useful cgi that doesn’t involve another world), and has the light shine of Zombie’s trio performers into now horror icon status (Baby, Captain Spaulding, Otis). It manages to be offensive, painful to watch, and is sticking with grime, yet by the end of the film (if you’ve let yourself into their world while watching), you find yourself rooting for this trio of killers to continue on. They become the beloved outlaws you’d find in spaghetti westerns of old. It was a daring direction to take with characters that we should be repulsed by.

Insanity was a theme reemerging in the genre during this time. Along with Zombie’s films on his Firefly clan, Bill Paxton made his directing debut with the brilliant Frailty. No, it wasn’t a gore driven film, but its paranoid violence was just as delicious. The story of a father claiming that god has given him a weapon to kill demons (an axe named Otis) and god gives him signs of who is a demon. Is what he claims true, or is this man just crazy? This is what his sons question during the movie, when their father gets them involved. This film by itself remains the high watermark of the decade (in this writer’s opinion anyway) with its crafty pacing and chilling work by Paxton (in front of and behind the camera). Alexandre Aja’s Haute Tension probably had the most controversial insanity plot, as some holes just don’t get explained leaving many confused. It is however, a thrilling tale of French splatter that is uncompromising in its punishment, and stays intriguing right up to the last second. It takes the slasher genre, and twists it around on its ear. May, by Lucky McKee, featured a misfit trying to live into society, but after too many misconceptions and rejections, she snaps and creates her own life-size doll of people who she thought should’ve been important in her life.

There is that small subgenre dubbed by critics as “torture porn” (a term not preferred by fans) began ushering in. It is a subgenre featuring people imprisoned in some form, and then tormented to death. Pretty simple concept, but it was unexpected to have this as its own genre suddenly appear. We can thank James Wan’s breakout hit, Saw (and its sequels) for this. Taking a dash of David Fincher’s Seven, the Saw series features people guilty of something and Jigsaw is letting them have the chance to live. If they get out of the trap he has laid out, they earned the will to live and lets them go. He acts as judge & jury, but never executioner. The series may be loosing steam (they have been churned out every year) but its sibling series by Eli Roth, Hostel gets more exploitive. Roth, like Zombie, is helping re-usher shameless nudity back into horror, combined with plenty of blood. Hostel takes the used concept of fish out of water, by having a group of sex craved travelers getting stuck in a secret society where people pay top dollar to perform grotesque killings on whom they choose. Hostel & Hostel 2 are virtually the same film, one had males carry the film, while the sequel had female leads, but Roth does show inventiveness with onscreen killings (I can’t recall a death quite like Lorna’s in Hostel II).

Other subgenres having been getting a resurgence. Vampires got to have The Forsaken, the Blade sequels, Underworld 1 & 2, and a fantastic 30 Days Of Night (a movie really bringing the monster back into vampires). Werewolves got a blip, but it still seems to be a subgenre that is hard to knock out of the park. Ginger Snaps & Dog Soldiers are still good landmarks for the subgenre, however. And we do have a remake of The Wolfman on the horizon with make-up master Rick Baker behind the FX. Neil Marshall’s Sophomore film after Dog Soldiers, The Descent, is a remarkable cave diving horror film that thrives on creature features, but uses claustrophic sets and lighting to his advantage to make it much more than just a creature feature. The Zombie genre is the most notable surge. 28 Days Later, having the same themes of the classic zombie while displaying something else other than undead, is the culprit for bringing it back to the throne. George Romero finally got his 4th Dead film green lit, Land Of The Dead, which was met warmly by critics. Delivering on fun gore, Romero also embraced CGI to add to it. The CG may or may not have been perfect, but it showed that Romero is still incredibly inventive with his walking corpses. The Zombie with its head hanging down is a perfect example of this. Shaun Of The Dead and Bubba Ho-Tep presented perfect marriages in comedy and horror using the undead as their suspect. Uwe Boll’s House Of The Dead also expressed some interesting ideas to help spark the zombie genre, by showing different phases of zombie rot (as well as different phases of speed) and trying to make it feel like its counterpart video game. Did it work all around? No, but he is showing himself as a pioneer of Roger Corman proportions in this subgenre. The real heavy hitter of the zombie sub genre could very well be the remake of Dawn Of The Dead. Well used CGI, one of the best opening credits of the decade of any genre, and while doesn’t have the stoic characters we loved in the original, we still believe and care for the ones we are given. While not original in the “running undead” concept (look at Dan O’Bannon’s Return Of The Living Dead or more recently Boll’s House Of The Dead), Zack Snyder’s view of his running zombies was a whole lot more threatening, and hope was be bleak.

Dawn Of The Dead brings me to the concept of The Remake. For the past several years, thanks to the financial success of the Americanized remake of The Ring, studios have been lapping up the idea of using remakes to make money. Sure, it’s something to complain about. There’s always a claim about a lack of creativity about them. But is there? Michael Bay set up a production company to do nothing but remakes, and unfortunately the most sterile remakes of what’s been made. However, they are consistently well produced and good looking. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre manages to be gross for grossness’s sake, while having some of the best cinematography in recent horror memory. The Amityville Horror managed to be an improvement on the original movie. The Grudge banked itself off of the success of The Ring, being a remake of an Asian horror film as well, and was financially successful for it. Alexandre Aja lended his slasher antics to a remake of The Hills Have Eyes, which proved to be more brilliantly disgusting than the original. Rob Zombie dared to remake John Carpenter’s original Halloween, and while never capturing what made the original creepy, Zombie still successfully gave his own voice and brutality into his version that makes it stand on its own. Who knew Michael Myers was a KISS fan? Many still complain about remakes being made, and while many are embarrassing, there is still the fact that during other decades of horror that were in a creative peak, many remakes were being made then. Most of the Hammer collection was based off of remakes of the old Universal films. Think of it as not a way of insulting or threatening our originals, think of it as a way of reminding us of the stuff we loved, thus allowing other’s creativity to spark and challenge it. It’s not always successful, but it can be.

Like Romero, another horror legend has recently made a comeback to the genre that made him king, and that’s Stephen King himself. After many years of attempting (successfully) in the dark drama circuit, King let two pieces of his material come to life in 2007 and became giants to the genre for the year, which was already doing pretty good. 1408 was a thrilling haunted hotel room story (and PG13 no less) that showcased John Cusack breaking down in arguably a career best for him. The Mist (helmed by familiar King adaptor, Frank Darabount) not only near perfectly adapted King’s legendary short story of a supermarket under siege by creatures that dwell in a mist that just won’t go away, but also took a piss all over the concept of a happy ending. Even King himself was jealous that he didn’t think of it first, marking that creative juices still flow with creators, even if they are adapting material.

There is still more on the horizon to look forward to. This renaissance is past its dawn and entering its day. Not everything can be original, but the decade is showing it is being creative with ideas or material that has already been there, and giving it a rebirth, showing the world that you can tell the same idea 100 different ways and it still seems fresh. Them & The Strangers are built on the same concept of home invasion in a isolated house, but both give very different vibes. I look forward to the both of them. There are more out there thriving on being inventive and creative, pushing the limits of what had come before. Viva La Horror Renaissance!