Let’s turn back the clock to revisit an underrated year in horror movies: 1999. It’s certainly a good time to put 1999 in perspective for its silver anniversary. In hindsight, this was a hinge year. Many old horror themes were getting swept away as new genre tropes emerged.
The nineties were a semi-desert for the genre. The slasher exploitation films that propelled the eighties was limping along, as Jason, Freddie, and Michael just seemed to run out of steam. The sustainability of a franchise outing every other year saw diminishing returns. The trends at the time were nursing off the success of Se7en and police procedural horror. Consider these offerings: The Bone Collector, Resurrection, and End of Days. The Indie scene was largely dormant, but things were about to change.
The two dominant movies from 1999 were about to change everything. The Blair Witch Project injected a steroid shock into independent horror filmmaking. The film which cost $60,000 and earned $248,000,000 worldwide proved that found-footage shaky cam authenticity can go a very long way. The film birthed an entirely new sub-genre, which just now seems to have lost some steam. Most importantly, it gave so many creators the permission to try feature filmmaking on a shoestring budget.
The Sixth Sense ushered in high-minded story-driven horror. Along with The Silence of the Lambs, from earlier in the decade, it proved you could make a serious dramatic horror movie that was character and plot forward and still make bank. Storytelling matters and there was clearly an appetite for quality plots.
Horror movies had been struggling to be scary. The old formulas had lost steam. Frankly, they had become boring. To find truly terrifying films, horror fans started to look across the Pacific for thrills. Also in keeping with the story-forward trends, look no further than Audition for how to create a movie that will make you want to run back up the theater aisle, if your legs can muster the strength to do so. The pure violence of Audition arrived late, but it left a scar on movie-goer memories. Japanese films like Ju-On (2000), Audition (1999), Dark Water (2002), Ringu (1998), and Cure (1997) inspired Western filmmakers to adapt or study this new wave of horror. It also inspired its Korean neighbors to develop into a horror powerhouse in their own right.
The impact of 1999 can be felt in our Top 500 Horror Movies of All Time rankings survey. These films made our list: The Nameless (466), Sleepy Hollow (275), The Ninth Gate (174), Ravenous (187), The Sixth Sense (76), Audition (55), and The Blair Witch Project (13)
Sure, there were still some half-baked sequels and remakes as there are every year. 1999 was particularly egregious with the trifecta of The Haunting, The House on Haunted Hill, and The Horror of Hell House… all produced by mid-major studios. You are forgiven if you got these films confused with each other. And, there were plenty of throw-away straight-to-DVD releases as well. Some things never change.
Let’s concentrate on the good stuff. Here is the Podcast Streamer for Episode 188: The Horror Movies of 1999 – A Retrospective.
This episode, Eric is joined by our friend of the podcast, Ian Parker who inspired this retrospective topic. If you are interested in participating in our podcast, please consider becoming a Patreon contributor!
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Here are the notable films of 1999: The Good, The Bad, and the Unwatchable
