Coming this September from Ariel Powers-Schaub, Millennial Nasties: Analyzing a Decade of Brutal Horror Film Violence digs into the genre’s most reviled era to re-examine and contextualize Saw and the gruesome cinematic movement it inspired. Drawing on her own love of 2000s horror cinema, the midwestern writer and podcaster turns a critical but appreciative eye to dozens of English-language titles unleashed on unexpecting audiences in the wake of 9/11, analyzing what this decade of extreme horror had to say about living in America at the dawn of an uncertain millennium and how the movement’s effects continue to reverberate in contemporary horror cinema.
We sat down with Powers-Schaub to discuss her evolution as a writer, her love of the Saw franchise, and what she believes the millennial nasties can tell us about where the genre has been and where it’s going.
How did you get started writing?
I didn’t really find a community and start writing until lockdown. Ghouls Magazine was launching right around the time I was getting interested in writing about horror analysis, so the timing was just perfect. I wrote for them for three years until we had to close recently, which is a shame.
In that time, they let me do a lot of analysis on the Saw franchise, my favorite, and eventually I was like, “Well, I feel like maybe I’ll write a book about [that].” But as I started writing it, I was realizing I had a lot more to say about the decade as a whole and the other films that were influenced by Saw and the sequels. That’s what Millennial Nasties came out of.
With Millennial Nasties being your first book, how did you know where to start?
I was like, “How does one write a book? I have no idea.” [Laughs] I decided just to start writing and see what would happen and not tell anybody; if nothing came of it, I never had to admit to anything! When I had it maybe one-third of the way written, I felt like I had something.
I decided I really wanted to go with a traditional publisher if they would have me, because I wanted the support. I learned about Encyclopocalypse Publications through my friend, Janine Pipe [author of Sausages: The Making of Dog Soldiers], and she had a positive experience. I pitched to Encyclopocalypse with a few sample chapters, and they said yes. The day I got the email from them, I was like, “What? Really?”
Kind of a shock, right?
Yeah! You expect to collect some rejections along the way, and I was super prepared for that and thinking about who I could go to next. But kind of like the timing with Ghouls being such a good fit, it seems like Encyclopocalypse was a good fit at a good time, too. I think you do have to be strategic. There’s a lot of horror publishers out there, but not a lot of them do nonfiction, so you really have to think about who are you pitching to, and why, and have they ever published anything like yours. I did a lot of googling before I ever pitched.
It has been really positive with Encylopocalypse. I have felt every step of the way that they give me a lot of options and a lot of ideas, but the decisions are mine to make. They’ve said, “Here’s what we recommend,” or, “Here’s what we’ve done before. What do you think?” And then I decide. Which is perfect because I wouldn’t even know the sort of questions to ask to get started, but I still feel like I have the creative control you want as an author.
How did you structure Millennial Nasties?
It’s a book of horror analysis. It’s not behind the scenes, reviews, interviews, or making of. It’s my own personal analysis of 40 films from the 2000s. I couldn’t find that anywhere else, but these movies have a lot to offer. They have a lot to say. I ended up structuring it with some of the themes we saw throughout the decade. I touch on remakes, original slashers, vacations-gone-wrong, home invasion movies, the way that violence against women was portrayed during that time, etc.
Did you always love millennial horror?
I liked these movies when they came out, but I wasn’t their target market as a teenage girl. Then, as horror trends started to shift away, it became very uncool to say that you liked these movies. A phrase I heard so many times was, “Oh, yeah, I’m into horror but not all that torture porn stuff,” but I think you do need the time to be away from the time period, look back, and see it for what it was.
This year is the 20th anniversary of Saw, so we’ve had some time to look back and see what that decade did and didn’t do well, and how it influenced what came later. I think people are ready to talk about it!
What is it about Saw that makes it your favorite?
I love the original movie because of what it did and the way it made me feel. The ending absolutely blew my mind. I was like, “You can’t do that. How did they do this? How did they make a movie that made me feel this way?” I also love the series because it’s the most consistent franchise — it has a cohesive story and a continuing timeline.
Whether or not it works for you, they commit to a story, and they stick with it. It gives us a lot of time to get to know some of the main players and characters, giving us a lot to analyze. The Saw franchise is rich with stuff you can really deep dive into because it’s not just the same movie over and over again. It’s advancing this cat-and-mouse plot.
Also, I just love the way they look. I’m a sucker for that millennial nasty aesthetic, and the Saw franchise is that all day.
How do you personally define that aesthetic?
A lot of particularly colorful lighting or filters. Green and yellow, sickly colors. You’ll see this lighting throughout the films I cover in the book. It’s often gritty, and if it’s not actually low budget, it’s attempting to look that way. Very DIY-looking sets and a lot of texture. A lived-in, beatdown feel to them. I would say the violence is part of that too. It’s over the top, but it’s also pretty unrealistic most times. It’s sort of absurd, which gives you a little bit of distance from it.
This is a book about what you’ve termed Millennial Nasties, but do you cross over with New French Extremity at all?
I mainly cover movies from the United States, but also Canada and Australia. I wanted to focus on English language horror from this time because I feel like New French Extremity has had a lot of analysis, and I wasn’t sure there was anything I could add to it. Other countries were doing similar things at the time, egging each other on and encouraging each other. Still, it was specifically the English language films that were called torture porn and dismissed, that’s where I wanted to focus.
What else makes Millennial Nasties unique when compared with New French Extremity?
I think it’s important to acknowledge that New French Extremity was coming out of a political movement in France. My understanding is that it was a combination of the political climate and a reaction to the idea that, “Oh, French people only make artsy movies. They only make intellectual stuff.” French filmmakers saying, “We can do horror, too. We can do anything.” People outside of France tend to think of the country as a very beautiful, romantic place with no problems. Or at least that’s how it was sold. So French filmmakers said, “Let’s show you the horror of France.”
Political and global events also impacted the themes in Millennial Nasties for sure, but different ones, and most of them don’t have as much of an artistic cultural force behind them as the New French Extremity does. I feel like with New French Extremity, there is immediately a lot to say, whereas with Millennial Nasties, I think you have to dig a little deeper to find the meaning.
What connective tissue beneath the Millennial Nasties did you discover in digging deeper?
A big one is fear of the other. Some of that certainly comes from 9/11. I know that point has been talked about almost to death, but there are lots of reasons why people in the United States, in particular, felt like others were a threat to them. Some of those reasons were racist and xenophobic, and some of them maybe were rooted in some truth.
That fear comes through in the vacations gone wrong movies, or the idea of somebody invading your home, slashers, the Wrong Turn franchise, and fear of people in our own backyard. The films that were being remade at the time also touched on fear of the other. I would say that’s a big connecting theme throughout: “I don’t know where I feel safe.” It was like, “I don’t feel safe abroad. I don’t feel safe in my country. I don’t feel safe in my home. I don’t feel safe outside of my home. Where can I find safety?”
What do the Millennial Nasties have to say about gender? Can you speak on your approach to this topic as a female-identifying writer?
I am a feminist, and it is impossible to remove that from my writing. So, even if I’m not writing about feminism specifically, I will always have that running in the background. I think these movies have, perhaps accidentally, a lot to say about gender. There certainly are points in my book where I’m talking about gender specifically, sometimes in the movie and sometimes in real life. For example, the “See Paris Die Campaign” for House of Wax. I will never be able to remove some of my personal perspectives from my writing, but that’s a part of it.
How does violence against women in this movement compare with where horror is now?
I think the treatment of women in Millennial Nasties is more than just overt violence. I think about the move from second-wave feminism to third-wave feminism and coming out of the ‘90s feeling like, “Oh, we fixed all the bigotry, guys. Don’t worry. We don’t have any more of that here. In the 2000s, we can make these jokes, and you have to take them.”
In the Millennial Nasties, I think a lot is reflected about what women were supposed to take with no comment. And you couldn’t say you were a feminist. It was sort of like this post-feminism lie that we were told. I think the violence is pretty even throughout this movement. Men and women get it bad, but the other things happening to women in these movies are exhausting.
It’s all the stuff adjacent to the violence that’s worse.
I would say so. It’s hard to see where we are now and where we’re going because we’ve been getting such different horror in the last few years where it’s not as much about violence on screen and lots more representation of all different kinds of people and genders. I think there’s been more opportunity to ask, “How do you do representation in horror?” And it’ll be interesting to see where we go. Terrifier really did draw a line that gave people something to talk about in that regard, which is great. But I might need more time in this era to see how it shakes out.
Which portion of the book would you say you’re proudest of?
That’s really hard to decide! The Saw chapter was the hardest for me to write because I feel like I’m just too close to it. I was so worried about getting it right. So, I don’t know if I’m the proudest of it because I was the most worried about it. I’m really proud of “Punish the Bitches,” which examines the Black Christmas and Sorority Row remakes. I’m proud of “Single Trapped Female,” which looks at Captivity and P2. I really just am proud of the whole thing. And that’s not to say, “Oh, yeah, it’s perfect, and there’s nothing wrong.” But I wrote a whole book! That’s crazy. [Laughs]
What was the toughest part of writing this book?
For some reason, I found the Rob Zombie Halloween films harder to write about, and I don’t really know why. I think it’s because there is so much there to talk about, but it’s in comparison to the originals, and I wasn’t trying to do a compare and contrast. It was figuring out where it was appropriate to talk about the originals versus where to talk about the remakes. That took some time.
What does millennial horror have that’s missing from horror today in your opinion?
I like to see horror evolve and change over time. I think that’s good, and I think it’s good to try different things, but I do like to see stuff happen on screen. There are certainly excellent movies where the horror is in what you don’t see, but something I like about millennial horror is that you’re looking right at it and there is no option for you to look away. I think I’m just ready to see more of it on screen again. So, I don’t want to say it’s missing because there are incredible films that we’ve had that utilize that setup. But give me some more gore.
If somebody isn’t into millennial horror, hasn’t come around to it, or loved it forever like you have, why should horror fans care about Millennial Nasties?
Whether you love it, hate it, or are indifferent to it, it is an important part of horror history. Like ‘80s slashers, the post-Scream slasher boom, or what we’re doing right now with metaphorical horror, the Millennial Nasties were influenced by what came before, and they influenced what came later.
They had huge implications for how filmmakers dealt with the combination of straight to DVD, showing their film in theaters, and eventually streaming. They were coming out at a time when the internet was becoming more pervasive in homes, and it had to deal with this new technology in a way that films before it never had to. Even if you absolutely hate this kind of horror, placing it in the context of the history of the horror that you do love is a worthwhile thing to do.
What do you hope readers take away from your book?
If nothing else, I hope readers take away the idea that these films have something to offer and something to say. If you enjoy watching them just to watch them and turn your brain off, that’s also great. But there is more if you want to dig into it. And if you think these movies have nothing to offer, maybe you can find something in at least some of them. That would be the takeaway.
Millennial Nasties: Analyzing a Decade of Brutal Horror Film Violence is out September 17th, 2024 and is now available for pre-order from Encylopocalypse Publications and other retailers.
