Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a grueling yet masterful ode to Laura Palmer's humanity

CW: Discussions of abuse, sexaul assault, rape, and other heavy materials, as well as spoilers for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, ahead

My job is to know what to say about movies when I finish watching them, and yet I sat there speechless. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me left me so shattered I could only sit in silence on my living room couch. After digesting 29 hour-long episodes of Twin Peaks, I thought I was prepared for whatever this universe threw my way. Wrtier/director David Lynch, though, delivered a prequel motion picture that's intentionally and deftly distinct from what aired on ABC in the early 90s. The result is something I couldn't immediately formulate words to respond to. I just saw there, marinating in my tears, stewing in my melancholy, submerging myself in the artistry I'd just witnessed.

At the start of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, two FBI agents visit Deer Meadow, investigating the murder of Teresa Banks. A woman operating a diner only recounts Banks as a woman "who was always late for work" and addicted to cocaine, though she never saw Banks actually using the drug. Meanwhile, the local police make mocking jokes at the agents daring to actually care about what happened to this woman. Immediately, Lynch reinforces a tragic staple of reality. Whether they've been abused or murdered, women and girls are minimized and dehumanized. 

"What was she wearing?" 

"She was asking for it!" 

"She was always trouble."  

"If only she'd smiled more."

Venture into the comment section of any social media post about the wave of trans women murders in America in 2026 and you'll see people working overtime to say "this isn't a problem" and erase these horrors. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me opens with a half-hour of storytelling reaffirming this cruelty. A brief mid-movie cutaway to Twin Peaks characters Leo and Sheryl, the former of whom physically abuses the latter, reinforces that reality. After that prologue, Fire Walk With Me shifts focus to Laura Palmer's (Sheryl Lee) last seven days alive in the town of Twin Peaks. Lynch is dimensionalizing a woman who will soon endure all the posthumous cruelty women endure after their anguish.

I couldn't have prepared for how emotional seeing Twin Peaks and its denizens before Laura Palmer's murder would make me. It's like gazing at photos of a small town before a tornado capsizes it or the last photographs of people waving before they climbed aboard the Hindenburg. Here are snapshots of human beings whose lives will soon be upended. They can't imagine what's lying around the corner. While a nightmare lurks in wait for these townspeople, though, Palmer is already enduring a Hellish existence. Snorting drugs to get by in an average day and walking around her household terrified of running into Bob, Palmer's daily psychological turmoil is immeasurable. Only with her best friend Donna Hayward (Moira Kelly) does she find some fleeting peace.

The surrealism dominating Lynch's works gets dialed up in Fire Walk With Me compared to Twin Peaks, but those sequences exist alongside raw, almost observational depictions of Laura's day-to-day turmoil. The best example of this comes from a brutal scene depicting Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) tormenting his daughter over her "dirty fingernails." Told in wider shots with realistic lighting and neither any off-kilter editing nor heightened imagery, this entire exchange could've been lifted from a John Cassavetes directorial effort. The rawness radiating off the screen heartbreakingly communicates the grueling world Laura exists in. Even dinnertime is an opportunity for her to be cut down again by people who're seemingly supposed to protect her.

Living with psychological trauma makes for an unpredictable existence. One scent enters your nose, or some sound is heard in the distance, and suddenly you're at the mercy of your trauma, unable to escape it. Lynch and company demonstrate such empathy and thoughtfulness in realizing the fractured existence Laura Palmer navigates. They're restoring the nuance, dimensionality, and humanity to a woman who first appeared in Twin Peaks as a corpse.  A memory in the original show is here a person whose turmoil captured and broke my heart. Part of this masterful execution is in depicting her life through different filmmaking modes. The traumatic dinnertime scene is raw and stripped-down. 

Meanwhile, though, a later sequence involving Palmer and Donna at a disturbing party hosted by Jacques Renault deploys extremely heightened lighting. Everything's coated in blue and red hues, a sharp contrast to Fire Walk With Me's default color scheme for "everyday reality" scenes. To boot, everyone's dialogue is intentionally so distant and fuzzy that subtitles appear to clarify what they're saying. The specific surrealist visual and sonic qualities of this sequence are extremely well realized. Furthermore, they're tremendously effective in simulating the sensation of wandering through a nightmare (a fitting term for Palmer's sexual trauma and exploitation). These haunting qualities inform not just another evocative Fire Walk With Me sequence, but also accentuate the multi-faceted nature of this film's depiction of Laura Palmer's anguish. 

Her misery manifests in many ways, from grueling realistic dinnertime scenes to this Jacques Renault sequence, just as Palmer had so many layers to herself as a person.

Fire Walk With Me is a masterful demonstration of Lynch's offbeat and precisely realized filmmaking offering a window into a tortured person's soul. I was especially fascinated by inexplicable visuals providing a vivid encapsulation of psychological turmoil appearing anywhere. One of the most memorable instances of this comes when Palmer is loading up Meals on Wheels confections with her diner co-worker. The sun is shining. There's initially no ominous music on the soundtrack to indicate things are afoot. Suddenly, though, a woman and her masked son appear from the bushes, handing Palmer a framed painting. It doesn't matter if a day's visual cues suggest "harmony." These beings manifest at any time. 

So too does psychological torment or abuse from family members materialize on any given day. Fire Walk With Me's depiction of that reality is overflowing with unforgettable bravura. From its 30-minute opening prologue focusing on two new FBI agents (which establishes the wider world of hostility towards women) to the most audacious avant-garde imagery, this entire movie is a gutsy enterprise. Said production staunchly eschews giving audiences either what they want (like surface-level fan-service) or clear-cut answers. Laura Palmer rarely got closure in her life. So many survivors of sexual abuse or assorted traumas similarly persist without satisfying resolutions to their agony. A film like Fire Walk With Me about humanizing those perspectives shouldn't be any different.

Richly human intent has always lurked behind Lynch's phantasmagoric filmmaking. Eraserhead was about the anxieties of fatherhood. Blue Velvet delved into the depravity lurking beneath "clean-cut" America's suburbs. One of my personal favorites, Lost Highway, is a nightmarish descent into having no control over our own identities. Fire Walk With Me continues that tradition with aplomb. That achievement, though, heavily comes down to Sheryl Lee's lead performance as Laura Palmer. There are so many engrossing scenes in this production functioning as basically a demo reel for Lee's boundless chops.

That quiet moment where Palmer's talking to Donna about falling in space? While the camera gently zooms in on Palmer and Lee's dialogue delivery is quietly clipped with haunted torment? Mesmerizing. Lee's depiction of Palmer collapsing into bushes after seeing Bob in her room, meanwhile, had me blubbering in my apartment. There's an unflinching rawness to her acting here, particularly in her jagged breathing and her portrayal of Palmer repeating certain phrases to herself. Later Fire Walk With Me scenes depicting Palmer at her most psychologically distraught (like her laughing after witnessing a murder) are similarly shattering. 

One of those scenes depicts Laura talking to James and saying, "Your Laura disappeared." This sequence magnificently distills cinema as a unique art form where multiple artists converge to create something extraordinary no one person could accomplish. Sheryl Lee's performance is, of course, transfixing here. She's perfectly captured by camerawork from Lynch and cinematographer Ron Garcia. Accompanying this sublime acting and imagery, though, is Angelo Badalamenti's chilling score. For this sequence, Badalamenti deploys the familiar "Laura Palmer's Theme" from the Twin Peaks show. This time, though, it materializes in a slower, piano-only form. 

It's like I was hearing these notes for the first time given their sparse yet impactful manifestation here. This music cue emphasizes the momentousness of these three words leaving Laura's mouth as she bemoans how "even knows me. There are things about me...even Donna doesn't know me."

Every aspect of this scene and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me as a whole lends haunting insight into Laura Palmer. To boot, Angelo Badalamenti's recontextualization of recognizable artistry with its use of "Laura Palmer's Theme" is a microcosm of how Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me takes a pre-existing world and injects a new, shattering story into it. Christ, the final ten minutes alone, culminating in Palmer's death and, beforehand, also offering fragmented glimpses at Jacques raping Palmer, is downright grueling. Even here, though, Fire Walk With Me avoids lapsing into exploitative misery porn like Angelina Jolie's In The Land of Blood and Honey. 

Specific visual details from Lynch, Garcia, and editor Mary Sweeney underscore that Palmer's point of view is paramount here. Notice how in the heartbreaking train-set "I thought you always knew it was me" scene, Palmer is at the center of the frame, while so much of her explicit rape and murder is kept off-screen. The impact of these horrors is felt, but the emphasis remains on Palmer's psychology and how she processes the misery inflicted on her. This delicate balance is realized with such artistry and immense resonance that I was left scrambling for words yet blabbering about its mastery. There's a paradox that would fit right into both David Lynch's filmography and the world of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Steven Spielberg remains the blockbuster movie champ with Disclosure Day

NOTE: There are no major spoilers in this review, however, given how vague the Disclosure Day marketing campaign is, it’s worth noting this review does delve into specific character names and first-act plot points.

Disclosure Day begins immediately with fighting.

Steven Spielberg’s first* summer blockbuster since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull kicks off with point-of-view shots of some poor soul getting curb-stomped in a wrestling ring. The camera lingers on this skirmish long enough to feature the winning member of this match whipping out a folding chair to finish off his opponent. Who knew the director of Munich would ever channel the world of Cody Rhodes? That’s one of many surprises in store for Disclosure Day viewers, especially ones expecting a super typical wham-bam summertime thrill ride. Leave it to Spielberg to subvert expectations so superbly.

Nervously attending this wrestling match is Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor). Screenwriter David Koepp, channeling the Indiana Jones films, begins this man's explosive journey in media res. He's got some valuable information that's made him a target of the nefarious Wardex corporation (where he used to work) and its boss, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth). Kellner's basically a Julian Assange/Edward Snowden figure determined to leak valuable information about the existence of aliens that Wardex is hiding. Unfortunately, that means he's now on the run with his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson).

Over in Kansas City, Missouri, meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is trying her best to settle down into the city she and husband Jackson (Wyatt Russell) have recently moved to.  While performing her usual weather report at work, something strange happens to Fairchild. She begins speaking in a language nobody's heard before. It's not of this world. To boot, she's garnered some strange clairvoyant powers that make just looking at anybody a nightmare. Her and Kellner’s stories are about to unexpectedly intersect as Wardex targets them both.

As its marketing campaign has made apparent, Disclosure Day is a return to Spielberg's fascination with movies where aliens and human beings intersect. In execution, this filmmaker and Koepp also evoke one of this legend’s earliest works, The Sugarland Express, in being a Southern chase movie full of morally complex characters. To boot, the more contemplative and emotionally raw Disclosure Day elements hew this production closer to early 2000s Spielberg than Ready Player One. Thankfully, these disparate creative influences don’t render Disclosure Day a Spielberg clip show. Shadows of the past instead coalesce to make something excitingly new.

That idiosyncratic ambiance is partially established through supremely confident visual storytelling. Just look at an early sequence where Scanlon uses otherworldly tech to telepathically communicate with Jane. Spielberg, cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, and the scene's two actors are sublime in conveying immense tension and how Scanlon is controlling Jane through dialogue-free terms. Through this unintrusive communication of how this tech works, the sequence’s critical characterization details can take precedent. It’s a dazzling set piece where so many artists (including editor (editor Sarah Broshar) fuse their craftsmanship together to create something riveting.

Disclosure Day’s relatively intimate scope also ensures that the tremendous cast assembled actually get to flex their chops. This isn’t a MonsterVerse movie where countless acting legends appear merely to provide reaction shots to CG beings. Colin Firth, for instance, is a terrific choice for the central adversary, while Colman Domingo absolutely commands the screen anytime he shows up. Leading the ensemble is Emily Blunt delivering one of her greatest performances ever. After being underwhelmed by her Smashing Machine turn last October, it’s wonderful to watch Disclosure Day and remember she’s still got it. Blunt proves exceptionally entertaining depicting Fairchild in eccentric motor-mouthed mode (it never gets old watching her immediately pivot from speaking in a foreign langauge to acting like nothing just happened).

She’s also equally commendable portraying this character’s most achingly vulnerable moments. That accomplishment especially shines in a post-chase sequence segment where Fairchild’s terror over what just happened and her long-held fears about her own health collide. In past titles like The Girl on the Train, Blunt’s portrayal of outsized torment sometimes came off as caricatured. Here, her acting is so specific to Fairchild and discernibly heartbreaking. It’s a tremendously involving burst of acting encapsulating the outstanding artistry Blunt brings to this role.

Pausing your summer blockbuster so characters can have mental breakdowns isn’t common. However, Disclosure Day is far more interested in exploring how humans react to the unthinkable than dishing out parades of bullets. That exploration also includes heavy theological elements, particularly when it comes to Jane. Spielberg’s E.T. (which featured a poster harkening back to The Creation of Adam) has long been perceived as a spiritual story. For his latest alien movie, this director has made those elements more explicit text. This includes characters talking about how the existence of aliens could upend religion and referring to otherworldly visitors in terms reminiscent of how certain religious refer to angels or God.

Between the religious material, an emphasis on empathy’s importance, and a jam-packed plot, Koepp’s script does sometimes suffer from being overly crowded. One element that needed more specificity in its execution is the stories backdrop involving multiple countries (like Russia and North Korea) being on the brink of war. In other words, the human world is crumbling just as a game-changing revelation could be on the docket. Occasionally, this apocalyptic development materializes through people clamoring for all items in a convenience store. Other times, Disclosure Day’s wider world seems normal, with the looming World War III prospect getting lost in the shuffle.

This and other gripes (like the finale relying a bit too much on narration and dialogue) are, thankfully, outmatched by what Disclosure Day gets so right. This includes the various zippy and exciting set pieces, which get a lot of mileage out of supremely creative camerawork. Spielberg and Kamiński refuse to keep the camera static or boring when Disclosure Day characters are just chatting on the phone. Naturally, then, they deliver truly lively camerawork when it’s time for a car chase or a tense sequence involving railroad tracks. The latter segment certainly had me wincing in suspense more than once thanks to the polished and immersive visual details.

Delivering stellar tension and chase sequences alone would be enough to make Disclosure Day a winner. However, what makes it special is its dedication to more intimate impulses. This even means eschewing the standard summer blockbuster third act emphasizing gunfire and CG armies clashing with each other. Spielberg’s camera is far more interested in chronicling humans connecting, like Margaret Fairchild seeing and emotionally healing others, or Ian Kessler comforting Fairchild during her most vulnerable moments. The unhurried execution of these displays of people bonding mirrors Disclosure Day letting beautiful images linger on-screen without intrusive exposition or self-conscious quips. Disclosure Day isn’t worried about looking “cool.” This creative team just follows their own grandiose impulses, which results in plenty of confidently striking imagery

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a wish fulfillment story about a man who gets proven right (aliens DO exist!) and is chosen to party with otherworldly lifeforms. War of the Worlds was about powerlessness while navigating unthinkable real-world tragedies (namely 9/11). Disclosure Day, meanwhile, sees Spielberg and aliens uniting for a parable about theological ruminations, unity, and empathy. The quality and artistry of past Spielberg bangers persist, but there’s plenty of fresh joys to uncover here. For one thing, did Close Encounters of the Third Kind feature wrestlers smashing each other with folding chairs? I think not!

*= Yes, Ready Player One exists but that was released in March. The BFG dropped in July 2016, but that was a PG-rated family film that wasn’t evoking Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Movie Theaters Should Start Installing A Second IMAX Auditorium...Solely Dedicated to Cinema's Past

 

Last year, IMAX leadership like CEO Richard Gelfond and COO Giovanni Dolci sat down with Collider to talk about the future of this large screen format. A question they got related to  whether or not they would be adding a second IMAX screen to a Burbank AMC location. Gelfond immediately expressed disinterest in the idea of multiple IMAX screens.

“We don't love the concept of second screens,” Gelfond remarked, “Because when you don't have a big movie, what do you do with the second screen? So, no. It's not a focus of ours to do that.” Dolci also stepped in to remark that only specific, massive movie theater auditoriums could become IMAX screens. “It’s difficult to find a space for a second screen of equal geometry and quality,” Dolci explained, “We don't want to have a Tier A screen and a Tier B screen.”

Gelfond’s comments seemed a touch obtuse in regarding the reality of modern IMAX screenings. This is no longer February 2015, where there’s enough of a dearth of movies playing in IMAX screens that Focus can have exclusive dominance over these domiciles for an entire week. Over the April 12-18, 2025 week, for instance, The Amateur, Warfare, One to One: John and Yoko, and even the second Minecraft Movie weekend were all competing for a single IMAX auditorium at typical multiplexes. There’s demand for second IMAX screens from movie theaters and surely a typical multiplex (with 12+ screens) have one auditorium that could meet the size requirements of this brand.

However, I have a suggestion for how these second IMAX screens should be used. They shouldn’t exist just to provide even more opening weekend Mandalorian and Grogu screenings nor even overflow when there are tons of new IMAX releases (sorry to those April 2025 newbies that were scrambling for IMAX showtimes). IMAX should install a second screen in multiplexes dedicated to re-releases of old movies.

Create a Space For Older Cinema!

Repertory screenings have had a renaissance in the 2020s. Younger audiences especially have gravitated towards theatrical re-releases of movies ranging from Revenge of the Sith to Akira Kurosawa’s works to Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice.  There’s clearly a demand for these showings and IMAX has made sure to cash in on this phenomenon. In the last two years, more and more films have garnered limited IMAX re-releases, including Princess Mononoke, Speed Racer, The Shining, and Back to the Future. These have also scored solid box office, particularly a mighty lucrative December 2024 IMAX reissue of Interstellar. However, several of these (especially Speed Racer) reissues had to share screen space with new IMAX releases.

Thus, Speed Racer was only available on one of its two IMAX nights at 10:30 PM in some locations. Dedicating a second IMAX screen to older cinema would already be a boon just to rectifying this issue. More screen times could allow more audiences to experience pre-2020 cinema on the biggest canvases possible. Furthermore, IMAX is currently only doing movie re-releases every few months or so. They’re a sporadic presence simply because IMAX must defer to new releases for its screens.

A screen concentrated just on reissues could also solve this problem. No need to disrupt the Toy Story 5 or Supergirl IMAX showings. The IMAX re-releases will just be in their own auditorium elsewhere in the theater. Leaning on this route and the IMAX brand name could be a fitting means to a great end: a consistent stream of older films on the big screen. Each week, a new pre-2020 motion picture could start playing on the second IMAX screen. When RRR’s week of IMAX showings are done, audiences could witness Parasite or Her in IMAX for the following seven days.

The existence of The Shining, Princess Mononoke, and Back to the Future IMAX showings in 2025 also excitingly suggest that this second IMAX screen could house more than just 21st-century cinema. Imagine each year there being an opportunity to see (albeit for seven days) 2001: A Space Odyssey on an IMAX screen. Or Lawrence of Arabia! Or Singin’ in the Rain! The possibilities are endless, especially given that audiences aren't just showing up for new action-oriented blockbusters in theaters. In a summer where The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Backrooms are doing circles around a new Star Wars movie, there's clearly an appetite for all kinds of big screen cinema. Repretory IMAX screenings wouldn't need to just focus on superhero movies or punch-heavy features. There can be room for all kinds of movies, especially if there's a whole auditorium dedicated to pre-2020 titles.

Cinema's Past Is Vital And Deserves Respect 

Platforms like Letterboxd have heightened appreciation for older eras of cinema within current younger generations. A steady stream of IMAX reissues could provide those audiences a chance to witness these seminal projects in a glorious communal setting. As someone who saw Night of the Hunter on 35mm film at the Texas Theatre last year, its utter magic watching vintage cinema in the realm it debuted in. Hearing and recognizing everyone around you becoming invested in images from the 1950s is similarly glorious. Meanwhile, watching the original Star Wars in a massive college classroom with hundreds of other people in February 2020 remains one of my fondest memories of this decade. People were so invested in the film! 

I treasure platforms like the Criterion Channel or my local library system's avalanche of DVDs/Blu-Rays that allow me to watch motion pictures at home. Lord knows I wouldn't have been able to ever experience life-changing titles like The Devils or D.E.B.S., not to mention the various animated movies that instilled my love for cinema at a young age, without home video viewing. However, the joys of experiencing any kind of movie, old or new, in a theatrical setting are impossible to overstate. Having these projects consume your entire line of vision, your attention solely focused on these flickering images from decades past, makes for an extra absorbing experience. 

Plus, whether you've just watched Come and See or The Great Muppet Caper (both of which I've seen at the Texas Theatre), witnessing a very specific ambiance with strangers is downright magical. The recent deluge of IMAX reissues has shone a powerful spotlight on these and the countless other joys of seeing classics on the big screens. Implementing a second IMAX screen at movie theaters dedicated just to these screenings could further amplify the notoriety and accessibility of old movies theatrically.

Furthermore, limiting IMAX screens to just two auditoriums with very specific purposes (one dedicated to new cinema, the other focused on yesteryear's classics) would, ironically, help ward off further expansion of IMAX screens in movie theaters. We don't need every auditorium in multiplexes to be IMAX-sized or whatever IMAX pastiche your local theater chain has concocted. I didn't spend my showings of Obsession, Is God Is, and Blue Heron wondering the whole time "Ugh, if only these were in IMAX." They flourished beautifully on standard screens. Opening up a second IMAX screen that also has showtimes for new Marvel or Christopher Nolan features, though, might open up Pandora's Box. "If we have two auditoriums for new movies...why not three? Or four? Or..."

Meanwhile, restricting the new IMAX screens to just showing old movies firmly says that the buck stops here. There's no expansion of showtimes for new IMAX releases. We don't need that. Avengers: Endgame could shatter IMAX records with just one IMAX auditorium at theaters. Clearly, a solitary IMAX auditorium isn't inhibiting the box office grosses of movies. The only reason for multiple IMAX screens to exist in one theater would be to provide a space where cinema's history is always at arm's reach.

Of course, this piece should not be seen as bootlicking for the IMAX brand. Instead, let this be a paean to the wonders of seeing older movies in theaters. Such experiences aren't just constricted to IMAX auditoriums. Movie theaters across the country are doing God's work in putting vintage motion pictures of all types on the big screen. Allow me to highlight some tools one can use to find such locations:

For folks residing in the New York and San Francisco Bay Area, ScreenSlate always has up-to-date showtimes for repertory screenings.

My fellow Dallas film freaks! Dallas Film Now provides a handy guide to local vintage movie screenings at all kinds of locations, including the seminal Texas Theater.

For potential theaters in states across the country, head over to this page on 366 Weird Movies, which lists specialty theaters in all American states. Click on the links to these theaters and see what your nearest location is playing!

A second IMAX screen allowing year-round repertory showings would be really cool (especially for goobers like me who missed Speed Racer's two-night IMAX run in April). However, the joys of witnessing classic cinema theatrically can be found in so many amazing places, many of them homegrown theaters well worth your patronage. Let's all keep the positive momentum going for theatrical re-releases and continue embracing older cinema on the big screen!

2020s Horror Is Thriving Through Offering Stories With Inescapable Societal Scares

SPOILERS FOR OBSESSION, LONGLEGS, AND BACKROOMS AHEAD

Ten years ago, The Angry Birds Movie and Captain America: Civil War were dominating the domestic box office. Summer 2026, meanwhile, has closed out a spectacular May at the box office with audiences embracing warped R-rated horror. Movies costing under $15 million made outside the major studio system, like Backrooms and Obsession, have dominated multiplexes. No Marvel title kicking off the summer? No problem. Freaky Nikki is apparently what audiences want and need. Not even a new Star Wars title could hope to compete with these projects that gave younger audiences original and non-sequel stories that belonged to them.

Backrooms and Obsession don't just signal how much of a box office juggernaut horror has become in the 2020s. These two titles reflect a new aesthetic dominating this decade's horror scene that's deeply relevant to today's younger audiences. Speaking from experience, the specific challenges facing the under-35 crowd rarely leave this population's mind. We're always making memes or trading bleak barbs about how "I'll never afford a house!" or panic attacks stemming from financial hardships. Inevitably, art that speaks to these challenges is going to be more relevant and captivating to Millennials and Gen-Z audiences than The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Before appreciating how Backrooms, Obsession, Longlegs, and other 2020s horror hits speak to the inescapable societal woes facing younger people, though, we have to go back in time a bit. Specifically, we have to look back at the aesthetics of mainstream 2010s horror and how much it sharply contrasts with this new era of scary cinema.

Remember The 2010s? 

In the 2000s, the horror genre was largely dominated by remakes content to replay the hits of decades past. While some box office hits emerged during this time, largely, American horror garnered a reputation for just delivering worse versions of classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street or endless Saw sequels. As late as 2011, this genre only produced one movie (Paranormal Activity 3) that cleared $55+ million domestically. In just six years, though, this space was suddenly hopping again. Some of the year's biggest movies, namely Get Out and It, belonged to a domain that once seemed destined to only host Shark Night 3D. In the 2010s, the horror genre was "not dead, it's surely alive, living on the inside, roaring like a lion."

What kind of plots were driving this renaissance? Some of these titles inspiring the 2010s horror boom clearly paved the way for today's domination of indie horror. Chiefly, It Follows and The VVitch established that original and subversive scary films could leave an impact. Jordan Peele's first two masterpieces, Get Out and Us, delivered (among countless other virtues) distinctly modern recontextualizations of classic horror iconography (like slasher movie staples permeating Us). Some of the decade's biggest movies, though, were about preserving the status quo and protecting the nuclear family.

James Wan's The Conjuring films, specifically the mainline installments (spin-offs like The Nun and Annabelle: Creation differ a bit in this regard), each follow happy, unthreatening families who suddenly deal with demons plaguing their households. Only Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Wilson (Vera Farmiga) can set things right. They must save these households whose lives have been profoundly disrupted. At the end of these titles, the status quo is restored, the families are all smiling again (albeit all of them needing some serious therapy now). These period piece films focus on people, much like the leads of classic horror fare like Poltergeist or The Amityville Horror, who can afford homes dealing with the capsizing of their lives. If only those clapping demons would leave, everything would be fine.

The two It movies also follow this mold. That's a weird element given how Stephen King's It novel emphasizes that the "normal" world the Loser's Club members inhabit is rotten to the core. The town of Derry itself is sick and intertwined with Pennywise's carnage. That's why it's eventually destroyed once Pennywise is defeated. In other words, there's so much more wrong with this world than just one cosmic being posing as a toothy clown. 

Andy Muschietti's first It title hints at this element with fleeting elements like an adult Derry woman witnessing Billy's screams for help before abandoning him. However, the two films largely treat Pennywise as an abnormality whose cruelty isn't intertwined with Derry (the town no longer collapses when he's defeated) and isn't part of a larger cosmic mythology (thanks to the exclusion of Maturin the turtle). He's an anomaly whose defeat brings sunshine to Derry and psychological peace to the grown-up members of the Loser's Club. Take care of one "clown" and everything will be fine.

2010s horror tends to emphasize this storytelling approach, as seen by several other major movies from this decade, like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. 2018's A Quiet Place can also be seen as adhering to this concept as its central family engages in a classical rural lifestyle whose only problem is those damn aliens with really sensitive hearing. There are no man-made horrors to suggest greater terrors beyond these otherworldly creatures. Even The Purge: Election Year ended on a hopeful note suggesting that the proper presidential candidate could basically wipe out all the bad people that supported the Purge*. The scares in these films are ingrained in deviations from the norm rather than society's status quo itself.

Now, this storytelling approach isn't exclusive to the Conjuring or It movies dominating 2010s horror. 2010s superhero films especially leaned on the idea that adjustments to the status quo were problems rather than toxic status quos themselves. It's also a concept that permeates many different genres across various eras of cinema history. Furthermore, some of these titles subverted this standard, including 2018's The First Purge, which revealed that the Purge violence came down to the U.S. government hiring Klansman and racists to stir up violence. In other words, the scares and villainy were coming from systemic forces, not abnormalities in American society.

Get Out's prologue alone also subverted this norm with a terrifying sequence where LaKeith Stanfield's character is kidnapped in a ritzy neighborhood dominated by white homeowners. Many other movies (of all genres) would use this backdrop to suggest "safety" compared to the "scary" city. Instead, Get Out uses this backdrop to immediately establish that violence against Black bodies can happen anywhere. That subversiveness isn't rampant, though, in titles like It: Chapter Two and the Conjuring films, which deploy fantasies for viewers wherein disruptions to the status quo can be controlled. The transphobic villain of something like Insidious: Chapter Two further reinforces the troubling nature of this trend.

Just as the horror zeitgeist swung from remakes towards Conjuring/Insidious movies, so too would 2010s horror have to give way to something new in the following decade. Now we're in an age of Obsession, Backrooms, and Longlegs.

"No, No, No, No, No, NOOOO, Don't Do That!'

Early in Longlegs, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) and fellow FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) are sitting in a car in an upscale neighborhood. Pointing to one of these houses, Carter recalls how the people inside were oh so happy...until one member of the household went on a grisly killing spree. Writer/director Osgood Perkins, a man who randomly lost his mother in the 9/11 terror attacks, establishes here that Longlegs doesn't occupy a world where evil can be contained just in Ed and Lorraine's basement. Like Get Out's prologue, it's depicting the chilling reality that awfulness can happen anywhere.

Perkins imbues Longlegs with a persistent wintry chill and desolate aesthetic. This is a chilling realm where answers are elusive. Any conversation can turn bloody in the blink of an eye. Even the blocking in an asylum-set conversation between Harker and Carrie Anna Camera (Kiernan Shipka) is askew and unsettlingly off. Eerie off-kilterness is baked into this universe. Longlegs epitomizes a new era of horror where scares aren't abnormalities. They're not even the edgy, "look at me!" grim antics of the 2000s torturep orn era of horror. 

These films inhabit worlds where terror is soaked into their very DNA. There is no comforting status quo to return to. They're perfect for a generation constantly in touch with real-world horrors (like the Palestinian genocide, police brutality, or local hate crimes) at the touch of a button. Even the 1960s nightly broadcasts of Vietnam War horrors eventually had to wind down at 9:59 PM for the next batch of local programming. Instagram, TikTok, and the internet don't have those scheduling limits. Reminders of endless, often capitalism-informed horrors are at everyone's fingertips. Increased cognizance of the sheer scope of global injustice, inevitably, inspired a new age of horror where there is no comforting status quo to return to.

Obsession is a great case study of this. Baron "Bear" Bailey's (Michael Johnston) first scene in the film is him opening up his heart to...a waitress, standing in for his crush Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette). From the get-go, Bear is only using women around him, even complete strangers, as objects for his own use. Long before the fantastical One Wish Willow enters the equation, Bear is already chilling. Once Nikki is trapped by Bear's wish, she provides many unsettling moments rooted in iconic physicality (Navarrette really is amazing in this role). However, it's telling that the most frightening line of the film is Bear, upon hearing the real Nikki beg to be freed from this Hell, pouting and remarking, "is it really so bad to date me?" His feelings are still paramount even when another human being is suffering because of his actions.

This line is a direct extension of Bear's behavior in that diner-set prologue and all his pre-One Wish Willow actions. Take away the fantastical wish element and Bear is still terrifying. Obsession's world is just varying degrees of terrifying rather than perfectly tranquil until a hungry clown or nun-resembling demon shows up.

Similarly, Backrooms chronicles furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) having tormented lives long before they discover the titular isolated domain. Though the "real world" in Backrooms is one littered with orange-colored doors and bright blue walls, it's one where Clark is already wrapped up in a martyr complex, and Kline lives in the shadow of childhood trauma. The haunting, vacant sights in the Backrooms exacerbate and play on their memories. However, they don't suddenly upend cheerful lives. There's already terror and unease in this world (like Clark getting too aggressive in a role-play exercise with Kline) before the centerpiece of all those YouTube videos and creepypastas materializes.

Even Skinamarink is an extension of this phenomenon. Director Kyle Edward Ball's uber-low budget horror film chronicles a darkened house suddenly taken over by evil paranormal forces. There are no "safe" domiciles in this house. Nor can the child protaganists turn to their parents for help. This bleak exercise's methodical pace and quiet atmosphere imbue uncertainty-informed terror into even the most subdued images. It's a visual extension of young people never evading the economic hardships breathing down on them at all at times. 

As the film goes on, entities that could help the adolescent leads, like windows, vanish. This functions as a parallel for Baby Boomers and other older generations taking away a survivable climate or functioning economy from Millennial, Gen-Z, and Gen-Alpha denizens. Similarly, the intentionally fuzzy 140p imagery simulates the lack of clarity these younger souls have about their future. The crumbling towns housing Longlegs, Weapons, and Obsession's respective narratives have been distilled into one nightmare house for Skinamarink.

These films continue a long-standing trend in horror of chillingly depicting how our greatest scares lie in the everyday world. Night of the Living Dead, for instance, had a gut-punch ending hauntingly depicting that, for Black people, the only thing deadlier than zombies was white people with guns. John Carpenter's The Thing played on the "lone wolf" tendencies of classical masculinity to portray an all-male Arctic camp succumbing to paranoia and distrust once a shape-shifting alien lands in their midst. These guys couldn't trust each other in the best of circumstances. The worst of times only amplifies their problems. On and on the classic examples go. Longlegs, Obsession, and Backrooms play on this sterling legacy.

Something specific to at least the two films dominating May 2026's box office, though, is how they reflect the economic anguish of young people in the mid-2020s. Just making rent or finding any monetary stability provides endless nightmares for folks under 35. That reality wasn't quite reflected in the last era of horror cinema. The characters in 2010s horror fare (like those families disrupted by demons in the Conjuring movies) could afford homes. Meanwhile, Obsession's lead characters are poor twenty-something living in a run-down American town, struggling to get into any college. Part of what makes Obsession's world intrinsically scary from the get-go is the deeply realistic economic hopelessness permeating characters like Sarah Harper (Megan Lawless). 

Though a period piece in 1990, Backrooms also taps into this inescapable reality for Gen-Z folks. Amazing writer Michelle Kisner explained how Backrooms is relevant to young people far better than I ever could, so I'll just quote a Facebook post of hers:

Liminal horror is basically fear of purgatory, of the in-between. It’s unstable and unmoored, and possibly goes on for infinity. There’s actually a term for fear of infinity: apeirophobia. The human mind craves  closure and I think that’s the main existential horror at play in the Backrooms. The ambiguity around why it exists is what makes it scary. The fact that much of the Backrooms looks like an abandoned office building is purposeful, it’s endless work with no reward. Clark is trapped in a capitalism loop where no matter how hard he works he never gains any ground, he just gets older. That’s the fear; you don’t amount to anything then you die. The Backrooms are corrupted nostalgia, and every new level is a further abstraction of the one before it.

 

The *why* of the Backrooms does not matter. Gen Z horror is being stuck in a place where everything has already been sucked dry and there is no way out, only more doors that lead nowhere. They are just left with piles of useless junk.

Don't Fear The Reaper...Or Social Relevance

"Possibly [going] on for infinity" is an apt way to describe the aesthetics of this new age of horror films. Even the works of Zach Cregger are very much a part of this phenomenon. Barbarian, for instance, features a non-linear, expansive narrative reflecting how men who dehumanize women materialize in many forms across multiple decades. Weapons, meanwhile, immediately wrings immense horror out of the phenomenon of people seeking out a vulnerable scapegoat. Aunt Gladys's (Amy Madigan) wickedness causes those kids to vanish. However, the long-simmering hostility these townspeople had to Justin Gandy (Julia Garner) makes it clear that problems existed in this domain long before that fateful day at 2:17 AM when a bunch of third-graders vanished.

The horrors are everywhere. They are inescapable. They're as vast as either the Backrooms or a town's desire to blame vulnerable people (like innocent women or addicts) when things go haywire.

Granted, the 2010s approach to horror isn't dead. The Conjuring: Last Rites and its more finite vision of frights still made a killing at the box office in 2025. Horror, like any healthy genre, can sustain countless forms and aesthetics, justl ike how stage musicals can house Titanique and A Strange Loop. However, the immense popularity of these 2020s horror movies shows that entertaining frights can flourish within bleak aesthetics, working-class backdrops, and socially conscious narratives. Whether intentionally or not, these projects touch on vibrantly relevant material to Gen-Z and Millennial audiences. 

Chiefly, they're unafraid to tackle the horrors of everyday men or the lack of economic options for today's young people. Even period pieces Longlegs and Backrooms occupy dreary visions of America, encapsulating the dearth of opportunities afforded to these generations. We're all living in Clark's desolate furniture store or hoping for one college acceptance letter that might finally improve existence a touch. Just like 50s horror (such as Them!) reflected Atomic Age anxieties and the pervasiveness of 2000s torture horror helped normalize (and occasionally tried commenting on) America's use of torture in the Iraq War, these 2020s horror films navigate a late-capitalism tableau full of endless worries and men (not just in Barbarian and Obsession) feeling entitled to women's bodies. 

So often, today's folks under 35 (myself included) can feel like Dr. Kline wandering the Backrooms or Nikki crying out for help in her own body; lost, scared, and confronting a ceaseless void. The world is populated by obstacles as inexplicable as that Longlegs killer or whatever new room the Backrooms conjure up. Some of the most popular horror movies defining 2020s cinema reflect that status quo to chilling (and often absorbingly entertaining) effect.

* = Amusingly, 2021's The Forever Purge would somewhat retcon this by revealing that this lady POTUS didn't stay in office for long and soon things reverted to grisly Purge chaos.