Why Aquatic Horror Movies Are SO Scary

Why Aquatic Horror Movies Are SO Scary

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Aquatic horror movies have been so effective for years because it preys off very natural fears of what lies beneath: the unknown, ancient, and deadly.

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Why Aquatic Horror Movies Are SO Scary

Horror is one of the most broad, all-encompassing genres of film in existence, and part of that is because fear, itself, is so versatile; aquatic horror has been around for generations and still manages to completely terrify audiences.

Horror, at its root, preys on fear so it’s only natural that aquatic horror is a lasting sub-genre because there’s so much to do with lakes, rivers, oceans that humans just don’t know about. Humans can send submarines to the ocean floor, explore shipwrecks and try to chart the seven seas, but it’s impossible to know absolutely everything. It’s that knowledge – the concept of the unknown being a constant no matter how far technology advances – that terrifies humans, and it’s in that knowledge that the base of aquatic horror is born. This has been successful – and profitable – even in the early days of Universal monsters with Creature From The Black Lagoon and other classic cinema.

William Eubank’s 2020 horror movie, Underwater, brought H.P. Lovecraft’s iconic monster Cthulhu to the big screen and gave cinema lovers a whole new reason to fear what lies beneath placid waves. The notion that there’s something out there – something nobody knows about – is only part of why the sub-genre has made such a firm impression on mankind’s psyche. That, plus variety, results in a whole lot of ground to cover and a lot of nuance that ensures that there will always be something to fear, as aquatic horror taps into the root of fear itself.

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Aquatic Horror Encompasses A Wide Variety Of Monsters

Why Aquatic Horror Movies Are SO Scary

Though many think of sharks and other apex predators, as featured in films like Spielberg’s 1975 classic, Jaws, aquatic horror extends much further beyond that. Though Jaws did, in many ways, bring the genre into the mainstream for mass consumption and is credited for the creation of the summer blockbuster. Others that have followed in Jaws’ footsteps include films like 2016’s The Shallows and 2018’s The Meg, but they are certainly not the only examples of creatures that exist here. Alligators, anacondas, octopi, and even killer whales in movies like Orca give a sampling of what this sub-genre is truly capable of showcasing with almost limitless range.

The most terrifying, however, are sometimes the creatures that extend beyond what mankind knows about; the mythical beasts, like Cthulhu, that are beyond human comprehension. These have been featured in films like 1989’s Leviathan, where the discovery of a Soviet shipwreck leads to a mining crew finding something much more terrible: an onboard mutagen doomed its crew and the film plays out in direct homage to films like Carpenter’s The Thing. With brilliant creature effects from the great Stan Winston, Leviathan adds a level of mystery and science to the horrors of undersea. Recently, Blumhouse’s Sweetheart saw a sole survivor on an island who ended up facing off with a strange creature who appeared to live in a hole in the bottom of the sea.

Aquatic Horror Preys On Fears Of Nature & The Unknown

Beyond the common elements of creature-forward terror in aquatic horror, the sub-genre preys upon a primal fear of the unknown by proving just how much humans don’t know about. This is a common trope in films like Underwater, The Deep, The Abyss, etc. Outside of that, though, comes a more distinct sense of survival horror capabilities that can be juxtaposed against this specific backdrop. In 2019, Alexandre Aja turned Crawl – a movie about alligators during a hurricane – into a home invasion horror movie. Films like Open Water show the visceral terror of humans who are stranded at sea without a raft or help, with sharks circling nearby. But the vastness of sea can be terrifying on its own, similar to how Gravity explored the cold emptiness of space. While not considered a horror movie, films like All Is Lost can speak to the terrors of being lost at sea, and aquatic horror plays on that fear – in every iteration – very well.

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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/aquatic-horror-movies-underwater-2020-scary-reason/

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