LOL, ded! Horror is now smarter, funnier, more legit. Here’s what’s changed
Horror movies are picking fights with the patriarchy. Shows are leaving tired tropes back in the haveli and taking on new monsters. It's a spicy new playbook
Try not to scream. Horror is going through its own full-moon moment. Bollywood thankfully left its gloriously tacky Ramsay Brothers films and the Bhatts’ sleazy-scary specials behind for atmospheric thrills. Hollywood has given vampires a high-school update, got us to fear cheerleaders, dolls and robots. And with all the streaming networks, we’re wary of fast-growing mushrooms, slow-moving zombies, Korean nuns, anti-ageing drugs, and Japanese dudes who want to enlist us in group games.
The genre feels different. Horror stories have more meat, the shocks go beyond jump scares, the jokes are meta, there are very real concerns woven into the gory mix. Big studios are backing horror content, A-listers are signing up to slash or be slashed, the Oscars are finally paying attention. In Bollywood, horror-comedies are outgrossing boilerplate blockbusters and streaming shows are giving the genre room to slow down, linger, and get under your skin.
But even as it howls its way into the mainstream, horror is turning out to have a code of its own. Dim the lights and hold on to something. We’re shining the torch on the new rules of scare fare.
The first casualties
The old rule: Black characters, promiscuous women, that one guy cracking bad jokes – they’d all be the first to die. Also on the list: Anyone who said, “I’ll be right back”. In Bollywood, it was usually a side character: A corrupt priest, an adulterous man, a nosy cop.
The new rule: All kills have purpose. In Sinners (2025), a white KKK couple is the first victim. In Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) and Nope (2022), Black characters make it to the end. But films now rip your heart out early. A Quiet Place (2018) kills the Abbott family’s youngest child in the first scene; Midsommar (2019) begins with a murder-suicide. In Weapons (2025), a loving gay couple is Aunt Gladys’s first casualty. Meanwhile, in Bollywood’s female-led ghost scene, no man is safe (unless it’s a family-friendly horror-comedy like Stree).
The calling card
The old rule: Horror used to be cinema’s neglected stepchild. Creature features would be made on the cheap, with the same haunted havelis, creaky mansions, tacky effects, and implausible plots. The blood, torture, and semi-porn didn’t help its cred. After all, how many Raaz movies are too many Raaz movies?
The new rule: Being scared is a different kind of privilege now. Beau Is Afraid (2023) was so stylised, so smooth, half of us are still trying to decode it. Get Out got an Oscar nod for Best Original Screenplay; The Substance (2024) for Best Actress. “In Bollywood, Tumbbad (2018) is an exercise in what can be done with digital cinematography,” says Meheli Sen, professor of South Asian and Global Cinemas, Rutgers University. The rain alone deserves Best Supporting Actor. Plus, horror’s modest budgets mean huge profits. “Stree 2 (2024) is a hit also because it cost far less than star-driven tentpoles,” she adds.
The message
The old rule: Slashers punished teenagers for sex or drugs. The formula was conservative: Break the rules, die first.
The new rule: If you don’t follow the news, the news will follow you into a horror movie. Peele made racism the monster in Get Out. I Saw the TV Glow (2024) explored trans identity; Weapons (2025) took on school shootings. Bhediya (2022) howled about deforestation. “Real life is darker than horror,” says director Vishal Furia. “An actual old man exploiting a girl is unbearable to watch.” So, his film Chhorii 2 (2025) shows an ancient creature feeding on ritual offerings of young girls.
The real monster
The old rule: Villains had clear faces: Demons, ghosts, cursed tapes, masked slashers. They could be vanquished with holy water, or sunlight.
The new rule: The monster is within us. Smile (2022) turns untreated trauma into a contagious curse; No One Will Save You (2023) fuses alien invasion with social isolation. In Bollywood, Qala (2022) wraps maternal pressure and artistic insecurity in gothic hallucination. There’s no exorcism. You either face your demons or become them.
Give women their due
The old rule: Chudails had to be oversexual women who corrupted the good girls. Makeup artists worked overtime to make them appear monstrous: Wild hair, ashy skin, bulging red eyes. “In Veerana (1988), Jasmine, possessed by a witch, becomes a light-eyed siren who seduces and kills men,” says Sen. Female agency was so scary, it had to be demonised. Bipasha Basu’s Raaz era followed the same horny-spirit formula. In Bhoot (2003) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), at least the women’s pain was acknowledged; their demons, heeded.
The new rule: Tantriks are out, possessed women prefer to embrace their inner demons, thank you. In Roohi (2021), Janhvi Kapoor elopes with her possessed self. The demon — rotting skin, backward feet, and all — ended up protecting her from bride kidnapping. In Pari (2018) and Bulbbul (2020), female demons are less monsters, more survivors. Stree (2018), turns the monster into the main character. “All these years, women couldn’t step outside after dark. Now, North Indian men quake because of a feminine force,” says Sen. Stree 2 (2024) goes further — she protects the village from a sexist, headless monster. There’s room for queer spirits too. Laxmii (2020) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (2024) flirt with trans revenge.
The pace and the mood
The old rule: Jump scares were moneymakers. So the scripts got a heavy dusting of sudden shrieks. “In the ’80s, the Ramsay brothers literally had to throw a live cat into the frame,” says Sen.
The new rule: Slow burns do more damage. “In mainstream films, there’s room mostly for the main plot,” says Killer Soup writer Unaiza Merchant. “Series, with more runtime, allow nuance, subplots, sidetracks, and backstories.” Pari flips Kolkata from the usual bright yellow to blue-grey; Bulbbul is dominated by red, symbolising violence, sexuality, and power. Even horror-comedy comes with nuance. Sumit Arora, writer of Stree, says, “It’s the anticipation of the unknown that works.” The scene in which Vicky (Rajkummar Rao) walks down dark, deserted lanes, calling Stree, has no ghost, no jump scare. Yet it’s a fear every woman in the theatre knows, and for once, men feel it too.
The haunted house
The old rule: You knew something was up if the house was “too cheap”, or had a basement or everyone had to spend the night in a haveli or pass a foggy graveyard.
The new rule: Spirits follow you everywhere. Host (2020) turned a Zoom call into a séance. Smile stalked patients into therapy rooms. Indian ghosts have range too. Munjya (2024) taps into Konkan folklore; Bhediya explores Arunachal Pradesh’s forests and local myth. “Stories rooted in our folklore are more relatable,” says Furia. His film Chhorii (2021) is set in a sugarcane maze in rural Madhya Pradesh. “The maze is symbolic of the cult-like practices and rituals we’ve adopted over generations, such as female infanticide. We’re trapped in them.”
The comic relief
The old rule: Horror took itself seriously. The only laughs came from bad dubbing or camp — that’s why Purana Mandir (1984) never gets old.
The new rule: The humour is by design. In Weapons, when the principal, with a peeled-off face and gouged-out eyes, disrupts a basketball game, it’s both disturbing and meme-worthy. The Substance makes you want to hurl, even as you giggle at the grotesque Monstro Elisasue trying on an earring. In Stree 2, a severed head tries to bite a character’s bum off. Even when zombies invade, as they do in Go Goa Gone (2013), there’s time for slick comebacks.
The connections
The old rule: Every horror film ended neatly: Demon defeated, ghost avenged, house sold.
The new rule: Everything’s connected. X (2022), Pearl (2022), and MaXXXine (2024) form one twisted Mia Goth reincarnation saga. The Insidious (2010 to now) and Conjuring (2013 to now) franchises share cursed artifacts and demons. Stephen King’s novels inhabit one meta-horror world. In India, Maddock’s horror-comedy-verse links Stree, Bhediya, Munjya, and now Thamma. Even Maa (2025) and Shaitaan (2024) are tied together. “Studios prefer films that can build on existing IPs or grow into a franchise,” says Merchant. Why let ghosts rest when they can turn a profit?
From HT Brunch, October 25, 2025
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