Are Horror Films a Mirror Into America's Psyche?

April 24, 2006 — -- If you are looking to measure the country's zeitgeist, look no further than the latest film to climb atop the box office charts -- which these days is almost inevitably a horror flick.

Over the weekend, "Silent Hill" debuted at No. 1, for instance, raking in more than $20 million.

The star of "Cabin Fever" was a horrific flesh-eating virus that consumed its young actors, one by one. "Wolf Creek" is about three hitchhiking 20-somethings slaughtered by a serial killer. Critic Roger Ebert asked, "There is a role for violence in film, but what the h-- is the purpose of this sadistic celebration of pain and cruelty?"

"Hostel" featured its characters being tortured in excruciating detail in a Slovakian hotel. Its marketing campaign included news that the film was so horrifying that some people passed out during a preview screening. It has raked in $48 million domestically so far, and was just released on DVD this week in an even more explicit, uncut version.

By far, the current reigning horror champion is the "Saw" series, which features a killer forcing his victims to gruesomely mutilate themselves and each other trapped in a profoundly violent world where distinctions are blurred between victim and perpetrator.

The original "Saw" with its gruesomely simple title was produced for a little more than $1 million. It grossed $18 million on its first weekend alone. The film is deeply disturbing yet the two "Saw" films released so far have now done more than $250 million in business worldwide.

"I think the kind of horror that gets put out there really reflects, you know, the environment we are living in right now, which is a pretty scary one, you know?" said James Wan, co-author, producer and director of the "Saw" series.

"You don't know quite what could happen to us every step of the way. And I think a horror film is a way of expressing that up there on the screen, and it [is] almost like a cathartic way of like venting one's fear, basically."