Don't Be So Dark
In post-Columbine Hollywood, the horror genre is up for grabs.
      by Sarah Kendzior

The cast of The Series Formerly Known As Fearsum.

I couldn't help it, I laughed. It was inevitable, really; from the moment I heard that simple word uttered, I knew I wouldn't be able to resist. And so, last week, it finally happened. Sitting on my living room on a Sunday night, drifting through the commercials interrupting Futurama, I was suddenly jolted into consciousness by that voice. You know that voice, don't you? The one that sounds like a cross between a monster truck relay announcer and a Diablo II barbarian? It was The Fox Guy. And boy, did he have something to tell me.

"From the makers of The Blair Witch Project," flashed the screen. "A brand-new series..." Cut to lots of footage in the woods, people running, a computer screen, Ethan Embry looking thoughtful. Scary stuff, no? But then, it happened: "FREAKYLINKS," the voice boomed rhythmically. "Coming this FALL. On FOX."

Freakylinks?

Scary stuff indeed. Or, at least, it could be, but I'll never really know as there is absolutely no way I will ever get around that title. Freakylinks. For the name of a website, as in www.freakylinks.com, the fictional site around which the series revolves, it's acceptable: goofy, sure, but the web's a goofy place where domain names are often chosen at the 11th hour. But for a television series? A horror series, lodged in that faithful nerds-stay-home Friday night Fox spot? This couldn't be. When I had originally heard about this show, it was called Fearsum, a title which, while evoking images of evil mathematicians -- or, my idea for a TV show, evil mathemagicians! -- still was thousands of decimal places above and beyond Freakylinks. What were they thinking?

Fortunately, I actually got to know the answer to this question. A couple of days after the title change, I was assigned to cover the series for Fangoria magazine. After practicing saying the title several times without giggling hysterically, I interviewed executive producers Gregg Hale (formerly of Blair Witch) and Tommy Thompson. First of all, I'd like to say these guys were both intelligent and friendly, and for all I know, the show itself is terrific. (I have not yet seen the pilot.) But as hesitant as I am to judge a series by its name, there was something said that unnerved me. After explaining that the title had been changed because "Fox felt like they'd had some rough times with dark titles like Harsh Realm and Millennium" (never mind the other similarity those two shows share), Thompson went on to illustrate why the new title, while not his choice, was indeed appropriate. "You come home on Friday, you're tired, it's the end of the week," he explained. "I think the last thing you want to sit down to is gloom and doom for an hour. But I don't think you mind sitting down to a scare with a smile."

"Run! It's the sequel!": Killing the horror genre in Scary Movie.

"Freakylinks: A Scare With a Smile." Picture The Fox Guy saying that. Now, try not to laugh -- or, for a greater challenge, try not to cry. For the horror genre, that once free and fertile terrain to explore all that is evil, frightening, and stars Lance Henriksen, is dying a slow death in the new millennium. In fact, the genre is ceasing to exist whatsoever: what we have now are parodies (Scream 3), parodies of parodies (Scary Movie), outright comedies (Psycho Beach Party, Little Nicky, The Little Vampire) mellow shades on "Touched by a Poltergeist" (The Others, Mysterious Ways), bravura FX sequences at the expense of story (The Hollow Man), or emotionless, toned-down slasher redux (Urban Legends, Cherry Falls, the endless Blair Witch knock-offs). This will go down as the year when The X-Files, once the scariest show on television, announced a spin-off comedy (The Lone Gunmen), after two years of light-hearted and bottom-barrel humor episodes like "Fight Club", "Rain King" and "Terms of Endearment." This is the year in which a parody of a parody of the horror genre out-grossed, by far, the few actual offerings in that genre, and made more than what some of the year's most notable horror films (Final Destination, Pitch Black, American Psycho) did combined.

This is the year which saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer virtually abandon its themes of teen alienation, suicide, lost love, and death for emotionally detached, grand-scale -- and yes, still very good, but quite different -- adventure. This is the year in which a mindless, nonsensical film like Scary Movie can show a penis penetrating a man's ear while the dark, intelligent and satirical American Psycho finds its relatively tame sex scene censored by the MPAA. It's the first year of the millennium, a year in which a show like Millennium is absolutely unthinkable. This is the year that proved it's not the substance of your story that's important -- what's important is that your story has no substance to speak of. This is post-Columbine Hollywood, whose censorship, conformity and hesitation have killed the horror genre. Welcome to your scare with a smile.

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