Horror movies are plentiful in 2024, and plenty bloody. The year has seen the release of films awash in blood, such as “Immaculate,” “The First Omen” and “The Strangers.” With Halloween on the way, bloody offerings are streaming, in theaters and running in marathons on cable.
Watch them, and you’ll likely notice that as the decades pass, the directors, writers and studio executives of these films seem to produce more and more on-screen blood, violence and gore. But why?
As a professor of horror studies, I explore the depths of the genre with my students – and for us to understand the evolution of blood in horror cinema, we first consider how films reflect their times.
