Why do the Oscars still hate horror movies?
After a banner year for horror in 2022, it's frightening to think that the Academy will likely snub the genre again at next week's Oscar nominations
Film Features the Oscars
Horror films have never been better. They’ve also never been met with such consistent critical praise. So why do the Academy Awards still seem to hate the genre? Perhaps hate is too strong a word, but it is evident that the people who vote for the Oscars don’t respect horror in the same way they do every other type of film. Even as voting membership has changed in recent years, with more inclusive representation, there’s been little shift in terms of recognition for one of cinema’s boldest means of storytelling.
With the 2023 Oscar nominations less than a week away, it’s doubtful the Academy’s bias against horror will change, even though 2022 will be remembered as a historic year for the genre, with films such as X, Pearl, and Nope all earning strong notices from critics and fans while consistently driving some of the year’s best box office performances.
The lack of horror nominees in major Oscar categories has been an ongoing fact of life for the Academy, which has only nominated six horror films for Best Picture in the ceremony’s 94 years: The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Sixth Sense (1999), Black Swan (2010), and Get Out (2017), with Lambs being the only one to take home the gold statue, though its status as horror is consistently debated among audiences (it’s horror, folks).
Much of the Hollywood studio system as it exists today was built on horror. Universal’s classic monster movies shaped the studio and drove the genre film market for decades. Jaws ushered in the age of the blockbuster. Get Out brought horror audiences of color to the attention of the studios. And horror has been the main genre, outside of superhero movies, to attract audiences during the pandemic era of moviegoing. If anything, horror is the lifeblood of many studios. Surely that seems like something the industry should be celebrating more frequently and with little gold men.
Even though horror has never been confined to B-movies, there seems to be a wall built around the genre that prevents voters from thinking about it outside of drive-in features and the slasher films that Roger Ebert referred to as “dead teenager movies.” Sure, not even horror fans, are expecting Scream (2022) or Barbarian (2022) to earn Oscar nominations, good as they are. That’s why we have Fangoria’s Chainsaw Awards, and most fans are happy with that niche status.
But the genre is vast and horror is more than body counts and gallons of blood. Still, too often we see films like Jaws or Black Swan pushed into the category of thriller, despite tackling horror in the most primal sense. This isn’t helped by directors like William Friedkin, who claim their films aren’t horror. But if a Best Picture-nominated film about a girl being possessed by a demon and projectile vomiting isn’t horror then nothing is.
Decades of indifference, or worse
Outside of the aforementioned six films nominated for Best Picture, there have been more horror nominees than most people assume, largely within craft categories like Best Special Effects: The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Them! (1954) and The Birds (1963), Best Original Score: The Omen (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and Poltergeist (1982), Best Art Direction: Alien (1979), and Best Cinematography: Psycho (1960) and The Lighthouse (2019).
Actors have also garnered their share of nominations including Janet Leigh for Best Supporting Actress in Psycho (1960) and Sissy Spacek for Best Actress in Carrie (1976). And let’s not forget the Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Kathy Bates’ Best Actress trophy for Misery (1990).
Even if that sampling seems like a decent amount of honors, given the number of films nominated for an Academy Award, it’s crumbs. Obviously, the Academy is aware enough of the genre to sporadically cast the spotlight its way, but there still appears to be an overall perception that these films are slight, and don’t represent the best of the industry outside of innovations in hair, makeup, and visual effects.
For most of the Academy, horror isn’t looked at beyond what it can do for the types of films that voters find worthy. In other words, monster movie make-up is only as good as its ability to age an actor in next year’s tony biopic. For the most part there is a failure to recognize horror as being fundamentally about the human condition in the same way dramas and comedies are.
When Get Out was nominated in 2018 for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay, winning the latter, it seemed that a shift was on the horizon. Hollywood certainly took notice, greenlighting more original horror films, selling audiences on a social relevance that had always been there but not discussed as frequently by non-horror fans. But the Academy did little to capitalize on what had been a watershed moment for the genre.
Acknowledgement of the Academy’s bias against horror really began building, particularly on social media, when Toni Collette was denied a Best Actress nomination for her emotionally shattering performance in Hereditary (2018), a snub that led a number of film fans to question the validity of the Oscars.
A missed opportunity for cultural relevancy
The perceived slight against the genre only grew in the following years as Lupita Nyong’o, Florence Pugh, Elisabeth Moss, and Rebecca Hall were shut out of Oscar nominations for Us (2019), Midsommar (2019), The Invisible Man (2020), The Night House (2020), respectively. Despite easily giving some of the best performances of their respective years, they couldn’t rise above the safer choices for nominees.
While there were plenty of other categories those films deserved nominations in, and plenty of other horror films that also deserved recognition, those performances seemed like easy layups in terms of the awards conversation, ones that even non-horror fans could point to as exemplary.
As much as many of us hope it won’t be the case, there’s little chance Mia Goth and Keke Palmer will receive nominations for Pearl or Nope this year. Which is a shame, since these are easy layups that would help give the Oscars some cultural relevancy, even if the films failed to receive nominations in other categories. There is an emerging pattern of women giving some of the best performances of the year and being ignored because of the genre, one that has often been driven by women, creatively, performance-wise, and thematically.
Last year saw the highest percentage of female Academy voters at 33 percent. The idea of that being a superlative is, of course, laughable. One can’t help but wonder if a greater body of women in the Academy would lead to a shift in the number of horror nominees. An increase in women, along with a larger percentage of BIPOC and queer voters, would likely significantly change which films we see represented in each category. After all, it is so often minority audiences who stand side-by-side with fear, and who have so often been the unspoken champions of horror.
Ultimately, it less that the Academy hates horror, but rather remains ignorant of its power. It’s hard to nominate what you don’t watch, and hard to watch what you’ve already formed ill-advised and pre-conceived notions about. At its best, horror is about moving forward, processing fears, creating new ones, pushing boundaries, and defying expectations.
The Academy is concerned with looking backwards, at films that frequently subscribe to a certain kind of navel-gazing, and with few exceptions, revel in a familiarity that breeds the safety so craved by its primary membership. That’s not to say those films don’t also deserve recognition, because they do. Great works of art have been carved from the familiar. But in the unfamiliar, in the dark, we’re challenged. And that’s a scary thing. The Academy doesn’t hate horror but it is afraid of feeling afraid.
64 Comments
Lot to unpack here, but I’ll start with the observation that even among that short list of best picture nominees only one is a true horror film (Exorcist, obviously) and maaaaybe Sixth Sense and Get Out. Jaws and Silence are thrillers and Black Swan is a drama with a disturbed and unreliable narrator. I do agree that the acting categories should be fertile ground for nominees, though. Every year there are knockout performances in higher-brow horror films. But I’m not convinced more women Academy voters will translate into better recognition of horror in any category. I’ve always felt it was a slightly more male-leaning genre. More minorities makes sense though, as Get Out demonstrated how much of a chord can be struck.
. Jaws and Silence are thrillersHow in the world is this not horror:
Pretty standard man v nature film structure, just one that’s done to perfection. Tense, scary and/or gruesome don’t necessarily mean horror film – those elements are present in plenty of genres.
That’s certainly horrific, but so is the storming of the beaches of Normandy. Would that make Saving Private Ryan horror as well?
Jaws definitely has elements of horror, as demonstrated by the Quint devoured scene. But that doesn’t make it predominantly a horror movie, any more than any script with a few humorous moments in it is rendered a comedy.Granted, it’s a fine line with many exceptions, but very broadly horror movies tend to be distinguished from action and thrillers by having something of a supernatural element. If you wanted a Jaws movie (albeit a bad one) that fitted into the horror genre, it would be Jaws The Revenge, whereupon the shark resolves to swim the world’s oceans to track down and kill the Brody family wherever they may reside.
But that doesn’t make it predominantly a horror movie, any more than any script with a few humorous moments in it is rendered a comedy.Yeah, but it’s way more than just Quint being eaten. We’ve got people being devoured left and right, dismembered limbs sinking to the bottom of the ocean, we’ve got jump scares, and we’ve got an entire generation of people who refuse to go in the ocean because of the movie. How is that not horror?
When you boil the premise down to it’s basic elements, it’s a monster movie.
but very broadly horror movies tend to be distinguished from action and thrillers by having something of a supernatural element.So you’re saying that the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t a horror movie? There’s nothing supernatural in Cannibal Holocaust, the New York Ripper, or Tenebre – and those are VERY much horror. Sleepaway Camp, My Bloody Valentine, Pieces – I can think of a half dozen more slasher flicks without a supernatural element in them, but they’re all horror.Hell, before all the Halloween sequels established a supernatural back story, Michael Myers was just a human killer.
It’s obviously a spectrum and opinions will vary. Jaws is damn close to me, but not quite because again I view it as a man v nature struggle. Slasher films are, in that they are not police procedurals where Jason Vorhees is being pursued by the cops, but rather told mostly from the perspective of the people who are being hunted (and putting the audience in the room with them). It’s the vicarious experience – you see terrifying shit at the same time the pending victim does. Seven, for instance, is not a horror movie but has truly horrific elements. Otherwise I feel the term “horror” loses meaning. There are lots and lots of films that have gore and scares but don’t exist primarily to make you spend the running time looking through your fingers.
It’s not horror if you look at it from the sharks point of view. He just found this really fucking awesome buffet.
Thank you for that. The Exorcist is a horror movie, no question, and I would probably give Get Out straight up horror movie status too, but yeah, that’s it. Black Swan is a pretty straightforward drama with elements of horror, Jaws is an action movie, Silence is a psychological thriller, and Sixth Sense is basically a mystery/drama with I guess horror elements. And maybe this is one of the problems in a nutshell: “horror” as a genre is so ill-defined that there’s just not any consensus about what it actually is. Do movies like 1917, The Best Years Of Out Lives, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket fit in the horror genre for showing the horrors of war? Is Ordinary People a horror movie? I don’t think so, but I can also see how an argument could be made in every case.
Best Years of Our Lives is a great film, but it does not show “the horrors of war”. There is one character with injuries from the war, and it’s not depicted as a source of horror.
The “action” in Jaws takes up maybe five whole minutes of runtime. The whole rest of the movie is tension, tension, release, tension. This proportion is almost the definition of “thriller”. My definition of horror is that of a film where unreason triumphs, whether in a narrative or existential sense. So I do think some war films tread on that ground – I don’t know why people don’t talk more definitionally about Apocalypse Now, a film with incredibly strong horror elements, to name a boundary blurring example.
I think you’ve conflated horror vs. thriller somewhat. Horror films aim not just to create tension, but -fear- itself. That can be done either through visceral, or psychological means, and will use varying levels of direct action or lengthy pauses in terms of movie pacing.A thriller on the other hand, aims to keep the viewer always engaged and feel like you’re inserted in the narrative. Horror elements can be used, but never at the cost of pacing. There is usually a sense of continuous build up through the entire film.
I think you’ve conflated my two paragraphs somewhat (which is on me, I’m addressing two different ideas in someone else’s post, and I made no attempt to separate them other than a double space) – in the first I take issue with whether Jaws is an action movie or thriller, in the second I apply my personal rudimentary definition of horror to the poster’s wondering where war films fall in the horror spectrum. If you want to argue about my horror definition, I’m totally up for it, always willing to refine that idea. But no, I’m definitely not at any point addressing the line between horror and thriller in my post.
Yeah, the terrifying movie about a serial killer that wears someone’s face and another serial killer that eats people is totally not a horror movie
Is Silence of the Lambs really terrifying to you? It’s not to me at all. Having creepy things in a movie doesn’t make it horror. The focus is on Clarice solving the crime and her growth as a character, not on scaring the audience. It’s like Se7en in that regard. Also creepy and potentially scary for some people, but certainly not a horror movie.
Se7en is an interesting one, to be sure, as it would have only taken a few minor script adjustments to turn it from a ‘crime thriller’ to straight up horror.
Yeah. For me, it’s where the focus of the film is, as my earlier comment alluded to. Could easily shift the perspective and the music choices slightly and make a lot of thrillers horror.
Yeah, is No Country for Old Men a horror movie.Cause this is pretty fucking scary.And Jaws an Titanic are both boat rides with huge scary endings.
Yeah a dude wandering the countryside perforating peoples’ heads with a cattle bolt gun is pretty damn terrifying all right. But you know the answer to your question.
Here we’re getting into the problem that genre definitions are tricky and horror especially. Like the one commonality to all horror films is that they involve death in some way but that’s also true of Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Seventh Seal so it’s not a very useful definition.Not to mention movies can be multiple genres at once. Jaws is a hybrid of horror and action/adventure, Dawn of the Dead is horror/action/comedy, Bride of Frankenstein is just whatever the fuck James Whale wanted it to be and we’re along for the ride, etc.
For me, horror movies either need to deal in the supernatural / unreel (the ‘other’), or have characters driven by hate and evil (so slashers, etc). But, obviously there are grey areas like serial killer movies. For Jaws, I’d say that just because something is horrific, it’s not horror. The more horror elements in Jaws are the jump scares, and, mainly, the fact that there’s something a little ‘other’ about the shark (he doesn’t act like a normal shark).
That’s pretty much my criteria set as well. Halloween (the first one, anyway) and Texas Chainsaw don’t involve the supernatural or occult but are clearly made to terrify you first and foremost, with copious amounts of blood and gore involved.
Again, the ‘other-ness’ doesn’t have to be fully supernatural. It could be heightened reality (Halloween he survives being shot) or pushing boundaries of social norms (Chainsaw does this, Lambs with the cannibalism).
There are a lot of genres that the Academy seems to hate. Animation, comedy, horror, blockbusters, etc. Only three animated movies have ever been nominated for best picture, and the last time was in 2010. And when was the last time a comedy was nominated? If the movie isn’t a drama, especially a biographical or historical drama, the Oscars aren’t interested.
The most recent Best Picture winner was a comedy-drama (as was the much-hated Green Book and the somewhat less hated The Artist). Birdman won and was even less dramatic, Parasite combined comedy with thriller elements, and Everything Everywhere… is currently considered the most likely to win that at Gold Derby.
Genres in general are ignored, something the author of this piece should have known but seems ignorant of. Depending on how you stretch it, for example, only two SF films have ever won best picture.
two SF films have won best picture? which 2? shape of water and… around the world in 80 days?
I can’t think of ANY SF film that’s won. Shape of Water is clearly more fantasy by the end (though that’s getting into spoilers), and, uh, that’s it?
Letterboxd agrees.
And of those animated films nominated for Best Picture two of them were nominated after the category was expanded to up to ten films. Only Beauty and the Beast was nominated when it was a five film category.
There is still a prejudice that genre can’t be art and art can’t be genre. It has to be one or the other and genre is viewed as lesser.In movies “art” gets called “cinema,” in writing it gets labeled as “literature.” The clear lines between “art” and “genre” have been blurring for decades, if they ever even existed, but old prejudices die hard.
What’s funny is that a lot (maybe most!) of old classic works that are considered “art/literature” today were definitely considered “genre” in their time.
Um, not really. Care to name some you consider to support your claim?
The Godfather was a gangster flick in the tradition of a thousand mediocre crime potboilers since the 1930’s 2001: Space Odyssey was marketed and received as an “out of this world stoner sci-fi adventure”50 years from now, we’ll likely look at Jaws, The Shining, and Aliens as pure artistic achievements independent of the genre conventions of their time. Don’t get me started on 1984, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, The Divine Comedy, Macbeth, The Odyssey, Beowulf…
I mean the Godfather was very much made as NOT a typical gangster film, Coppola treated it as a story more about family and the immigrant story in America and so on, and indeed a lot of the marketing emphasized this because they were getting pushback both from Italian-American groups and the actual mafia about the film’s subject matter. (Notable fact: the word “mafia” is never said in the movie, and “cosa nostra” was in one draft of Vito’s final conversation with Michael but edited out.) 2001 was Kubrick really trying not to make anything like any sci-fi movie that had been made (he thought they had all been pretty shit) and marketing only got into the stoner stuff a while into its release.
No, I get that those two movies certainly defy their genres, and that their directors intended them to, but, while I was born in the 80’s so I can’t provide first-hand anecdotes, most contemporary reviews and press that I’ve seen solidly bucket them as “Gangster Movie” and “Sci-Fi Movie” genre pieces even while commenting (as Vincent Canby did in the Times) on how they transcend their genre in places.
Ivanhoe
And I’m pretty sure they only begrudgingly nominated Get Out because of the cultural moment at the time.
This is a super weak argument. Every year, in every category there are always “snubs” and they come from every genre. No one is hating on anyone, there are a combination of factors; from being outright overlooked, to having a really strong year of competition, to production companies not putting enough support behind trying to get the nomination, to name just a few, that lead to some unfortunate “snubs” is all. It is an imperfect system, with an imperfect process. That is all without getting into trying to define the genre and attribute movies into them. I would say that Parasite, your know, the Best Picture winner, can easily fit into the horror category.
I disagree about Parasite fitting into the horror rather than thriller mode. It’s about a family trying to con a richer family, somewhat like a heist movie. If the film had been from the POV of the rich family being betrayed by their employees, it would be closer to horror.
Thriller is a distinct sub category of horror. Thriller also exists in other genres as well. As a sub category, yes Parasite classifies as a horror suspense thrillerParasite, has the tension, the suspense, playful twists on sight and sound, the fear, not to mention the body horror aspects, which are not always required for a movie to be a horror. The film was about he horrors the main family had to go through at the hands of the upper class and societal divisions.
The film was about he horrors the main family had to go through at the hands of the upper class and societal divisions.That doesn’t make it a horror film though. By all accounts most people watching that movie would not consider that to be a horror film.
No, if thrillers exist outside of horror then it’s not a sub-category. Hitchcock was a master of the thriller, but his only horror movies are Psycho & The Birds.What “body horror” is in Parasite?
The film was about he horrors the main family had to go through at the hands of the upper class
What did the rich family do to the main family? They gave them jobs, even ones they had no qualifications for, the daughter is seduced by her tutor (the very thing his selection was supposed to avoid), and finally the head of the rich family is murdered by his chauffeur. The portrayal of the rich vs poorer families is downright reactionary:https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/06/the-gaslighting-of-parasite.html
I still don’t understand the argument that Parasite is a horror movie. I liked it, did not love it, and I dare say I might have enjoyed it a little more if it had, in fact, leaned into the horror genre.In any case, there are plenty of movies full of horrors that aren’t themselves horror movies. I was absolutely terrified watching Boy Erased.
I think a lot of this is just selection bias and category error and the fact that most horror movies, while fun and scary, simply aren’t very good in terms of the very specific criteria for artistic merit that the Academy voters are looking for.That said, Toni Collette’s performance in Hereditary should have won Best Actress and then they should have retired the award because she will never be surpassed.
Yeah, I feel like the elephant in the room when a bunch of horror fans bemoan the lack of critical awards for horror films is that most horror films aren’t good. Turns out when you’re optimizing for scares and blood, characters and plots become secondary. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good or great horror films, or that any other genre doesn’t have its fair share of dreck, but I don’t see a giant market for the equivalent of stuff like Hostel and Human Centipede outside horror.
Most movies generally are not good, I don’t think horror stands out in that regard, and we’re specifically talking about the horror movies that are quite good. Night of the Living Dead is at the very least on par with Oliver!
Yeah, most movies in general are not good or at least not great, but being good is less of a qualification for being financially successful or beloved in horror than in many other genres.
Well but wait your saying two things here.
I say many things! I contain multitudes!
with Lambs being the only one to take home the gold statue,Not just that one, it took the big five, which only a small number of films have done.
Get Out brought horror audiences of color to the attention of the studios
Get Out was broadly popular, and there had long been horror movies targeted at black audiences (less so for hispanic or asian audiences).
Acknowledgement of the Academy’s bias against horror really began
building, particularly on social media, when Toni Collette was denied a
Best Actress nomination for her emotionally shattering performance in
Hereditary (2018), a snub that led a number of film fans to question the
validity of the Oscars.
She’s great in that movie (and was excellent in The Sixth Sense earlier), but it’s not just the Academy. There are various precursor awards like those of the guilds as well as the BAFTAs, and they didn’t nominate Hereditary either.
one that has often been driven by women, creatively
It’s possible that female directors are found more in horror (because the genre supports lots of first-time directors making low-budget movies), but I’d really like to see data on it.
One can’t help but wonder if a greater body of women in the Academy would lead to a shift in the number of horror nominees.
Do you have any specific reason to expect this?
who have so often been the unspoken champions of horror.
Perhaps it’s because of that “unspoken”, but I don’t know what you’re referring to here. It’s possible that horror audiences are less white than average, but I’d really need to see data on that as well.
Ultimately, it less that the Academy hates horror, but rather remains
ignorant of its power. It’s hard to nominate what you don’t watch
The awards for the technical categories indicate that they do watch such films. I think the bigger issue is that people don’t bother voting for films they don’t think have a chance, which is why it will vary according to type of award.
The Academy is concerned with looking backwards
They do tend to nominate period pieces more often for Best Picture. At the same time, Ti West’s most recent horror films are also period pieces (and the first film I saw from him was set in the 80s). What are the most recent contemporary-set films from him, Spielberg, Tarantino, Anderson (Wes or Paul Thomas), del Toro, Chazelle, Russell, Branagh, Campion or Scorsese? Directors don’t seem to like making movies set in the smartphone era.
The other amazing thing about Silence is that it won big at the Oscars despite opening the previous February, which is basically asking to be forgotten about by awards season.
Idk about Keke Palmer but I think it’s valid to want to see Mia Goth nominated for Pearl. She was fantastic.
You’re doing this same article about comedy, right? And then short versions about sci-fi, romance, anything other than “I NEVER LEARNED HOW TO READ!!!!”
Does the Academy Awards need to represent all films more broadly? It’s an industry professional organization but it’s not the only one, and I’m not sure I agree with the notion that AMPAS or the awards have some obligation to force even-handed treatment of all genres and types of films. If you like horror movies, there are awards-granting bodies that focus on (or even just make a strong effort to be inclusive of) horror movies.I realize that the Oscars are the most “prestigious” award (although I struggle to understand why, given that every single ceremony is met with the same argument that the Oscars are out of touch), but that’s not a mandatory consideration. I used to love watching the Oscars every year, now I barely care, and that’s not because anything about them has changed; I just realized I don’t really find awards all that interesting. Films and insightful discussion of films are interesting. Awards are whipped cream.
Silence of the Lambs is a horror movie, you absolute psychopaths
I’d argue Silence of the Lambs is more thriller than horror. And by “argue” I mean type these two sentences then never come back.
Because modern Horror is really terrible. With the exception of Ari Aster movies, some of Jordan Peele movies, and Robert Eggers. Like seriously, Lighthouse should have gotten tons of awards in my opinion. But besides these directors trying for really great horror movies, they are seen as novelty lately. M3gan and Malignant being a huge indicators why no one takes horror seriously in the past few years. We have the almost double digit Scream using the same formula, Halloween Ends being a confusing mess, and while I love Prey, leaving out having Navajo being the native tounge they speak in the original cut was a huge missed opportunity. Does anyone seriously think Malignant can stand up to something like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Dune or even Top Gun Maverick?
Goddamn, I loved Malignant. It was clear from the start it wasn’t going to be a serious film, but it still managed to be fantastic.
Definitely not a film that would be in any Oscar contention, though.
I mean, you could probably write almost the same article and replace horror with comedy, action, animation. Oscar likes drama. They like subtext to be a little less sub and a little more in your face.
I am amused by the “thriller with elements of horror” thing. Exactly how many horror “elements” does a movie have to have before someone is allowed to call it horror? Why is it necessary to definitively categorize movies as one or the other? Surely horror is in the eye of the viewer.See also: debates regarding what constitutes “science fiction”. Is Get Out a science fiction movie in addition to being a horror movie? The procedure at the heart of the movie is pure science fiction.
Maybe if they spent more time navel-gazing or emo-wallowing?
“Why do the Oscars still hate horror movies?” Assuming this question is implying that Mr. Newby would like the Academy to embrace the genre, my response is, “Why?” and, “Be careful what you wish for.”- Horror has long been an outsider genre that trucks in transgressive images and messages. That’s part of the attraction for fans and the filmmakers themselves. What happens when the genre is embraced? You’ll either lose that transgressive edge, or more of the genre will steer into it’s worst tendencies to be extreme only for extremism’s sake.- While I don’t personally have an interest in the Oscars, I appreciate they can be game-changing awards for upcoming and overlooked people and projects. That said, making a movie with $1M budget that pulls in $20M box office is a huge blank check that can open just as many doors, if you’re smart about it. Instead of seeking the approval of this outdated institution, a talented filmmaker can earn the trust of hard-nosed producers who will give you creative leeway, if you’ve proven yourself bankable. – Because of the good ROI, horror (along with VoD action) is one of the few remaining modes of movie where you can essentially get anything greenlit. It’s a fertile ground for creative people with may struggle to get movies made in other genres. Sure, you wind up with some directors who feel compelled to show that they are more than just a “genre hack,” but that seems less common in recent years. And if that’s the price pay, one director leaving the genre for something more respectable just means a door opens for another one.- While actors don’t get the same benefit as filmmakers from a huge BO return on the investment, the genre’s lower barrier to entry means you’ve got more opportunities to be in a film, and have a bigger part. Most of these are going to be broader, less nuanced performances, but if you know how to take advantage of that, you’ve got a great calling card for your next audition.I’m all for under-appreciated work and artists getting better recognition and more opportunity. I just worry that the Academy comes with strings, and that we should all question the authority and influence it exerts in the race to win its highest awards.