Horror's plot thickens: are modern thrillers overcomplicating the scare?

Remember the rules? Don't have sex, don't drink, and for the love of all that is unholy, don't say “I’ll be right back.” That’s the 1996 Scream playbook, designed to stave off a slasher. Twenty years later, horror is less about simple survival and more about deciphering intricate, often nonsensical, narratives.

Is complexity killing the suspense?

The latest Netflix series, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, exemplifies this trend. The premise? A woman must marry her soulmate by sundown or face a terrifying, generational curse. The catch? The explanation is…well, a lot. The curse’s origins and mechanics are layered with metaphors and a plot so convoluted it feels less like a story and more like a logic puzzle designed by someone with a penchant for obscure rules. It’s a pattern mirrored across streaming platforms. HBO Max’s IT: Welcome to Derry introduced a mind-bending element to Pennywise’s lore – the ability to perceive past, present, and future simultaneously. A detail the showrunners admit they plan to explore further in future seasons. Meanwhile, MGM+’s From, drawing comparisons to Lost, traps its characters in a mysterious town with monstrous guardians, often introducing new questions with every answer.

This isn’t new. The trend toward increasingly labyrinthine plots has been simmering for years. Consider Barbarian, a recent indie hit that cleverly utilized a simple premise – a monster in a basement – to deliver genuine terror. Weapons, from the same director, twisted expectations with a witch reveal. Even Nope, with its crop-circle aliens, relied on unsettling ambiguity. Hereditary, Ari Aster’s masterpiece, built dread through atmosphere and unspoken lore rather than convoluted explanations.

The problem isn't complexity itself; it's the unnecessary obfuscation. Audiences crave scares, not deciphering elaborate, often contradictory, rules. The most effective horror often trusts the audience to fill in the gaps, to let the atmosphere and suggestion do the heavy lifting. The recent success of simpler, more direct horror films proves there’s a market for scares without the need for a flowchart. The Duffers, creators of Stranger Things, understand this tension; their own show frequently used visual cues to explain plot points, a tactic that enhances believability – because it acknowledges the audience's need for clarity.

The shift isn’t just on streaming. The increasing reliance on intricate plot twists risks sacrificing genuine fear for the sake of cleverness. The risk? The audience becomes less invested in the characters' fates and more frustrated with the narrative’s contortions. Audiences are not puzzle solvers; they are seeking to be unsettled.

The entertainment industry has a tendency to overcomplicate things. The result? A growing sense of fatigue. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the scariest things are the ones you can’t quite explain.

The current season of Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen offers a stark illustration: the curse transfers to the groom’s family if the bride leaves him at the altar. A solution, perhaps, but one that only adds another layer of baffling complication to an already bewildering narrative.