New Times, New Entertainments
Changing audience demand led to horror films mutating from featuring traditional monsters to making monsters out of reality. First came true story horror, then personal relationship horror, then endless living in reality symbols horror.
Relating, audiences craved more.
The first TV/web new horror was broadcast as the nightly news, presenting the worst of the news every day (especially if there were great videos.) For half an hour you watched explosions and disasters interspersed with conspiracy stories and fake scandals (with as much gore as possible.) The news was fake and pundits delivered scary editorials.
Quickly joining that success was a horror series about work. Actors worked all day in offices, factories and fast food restaurants resembling hell: endless meaningless work with no toilet breaks. They were denied promotions, salaries never increased and shifts were 24/7.
Other horror series pictured lives as game shows. Some folks dealt with jumping difficult hurdles, others spent hours guessing trivial answers to trivial questions, others anticipated family members’ decisions and dealt with the resulting crisses. Other series had people living their lives on amusement park rides, some riding career roller coasters with steep drops and curves, others walking through haunted houses of regret, others riding the carousel of relationships where the horses kicked and cried ‘nay.’
Virtual reality shows were popular. In This Is Your Life you carefully walked through the mistakes in your life, constantly tripping. When it made viewers sick, they removed the goggles.
The new horror entertained millions who sought harmless escape from their lives. When they wearied of it, monsters returned.