Why More Horror Movies In 2020 Are PG-13
PG-13 horror continues to trend as January’s releases continue with The Turning and Gretel & Hansel, both of which received the lower rating.
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2020 horror movies have been going strong in the early months of the year with some major releases, but a noticeable trend has been carrying through with the majority: most share a PG-13 rating.
Though the first release of the year, The Grudge, was rated R, the ones to follow – and many that are yet to release – have been slapped with the lesser rating. Even toward the end of 2019, this trend continued with Blumhouse’s teen slasher, Black Christmas, being PG-13 despite both other iterations being rated R. The Kristen Stewart led Underwater was reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic 1979 sci-fi/horror classic, Alien, but pulled away from the truly visceral realms of terror instead of going for the gut.
While The Grudge was certainly the more harshly criticized of the two 2020 horror movies so far, one of the stronger facets of it was that it brought violence where supernatural horror typically does not. Director Nicolas Pesce might not have been able to fully capitalize on what worked with the franchise’s PG-13 counterparts, but he provided some disturbing imagery and violence that pushed boundaries in a genre that is slowly becoming known for sanitized scares and restraint.
2020’s Horror Movies Are Mostly PG-13, And More Are On The Way
A PG-13 rating does not immediately mean a horror movie will be less effective. The choice to aspire to a lesser rating is, often, for a chance at a wider (and younger) audience. However, not all horror sub-genres work well with a PG-13 rating. Supernatural and paranormal horror films can typically get away with a PG-13 rating without sacrificing anything that makes them effective. As they rely more on jump scares, they can be reasonably bloodless and still manage to terrify. Slasher films usually bank on blood and nudity, which is prominently featured in franchises like Friday the 13th. Though it could be argued that John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween was also bloodless, its restraint was part of the film’s overall tone, but the franchise has evolved with time. The 2018 Halloween showed more gore, brutality, and a completely uncaged Michael Myers, which was a smart decision.
While this isn’t to say that horror movies should all take note from the early and mid-2000s “torture porn” films like Saw and Hostel, the former franchise has been a long-running success for a reason. As a new decade gets underway, it’s interesting to see the tone that will be set, and is already being set by upcoming releases. The Turning, a supernatural horror film based on the Henry James novel, The Turn of the Screw, is from the Victorian era, despite the film being set in the ’90s. Its PG-13 rating is sensible, and the updated setting an intriguing take. Ari Aster’s 2019 folk horror, Midsommar, set a high bar, yet Gretel & Hansel, which appears to take a page from Aster and Robert Eggers (The Witch) adapts what is arguably one of the Brothers Grimm’s darkest fairy tales about a cannibalistic witch who preys on children and makes it PG-13.
Brahms: The Boy 2 got its expected rating, but being rated R has worked for franchises like Annabelle, so even though Brahms isn’t the traditional “haunted doll”, it might be worth considering. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island got a PG-13 rating, but appears like a slasher film with deep-seated, mysterious danger on a tropical island. Though the original TV series wasn’t horror, it posed a neat opportunity to resurrect the style of ’90s ensemble slashers like I Know What You Did Last Summer. Leigh Whannell’s take on The Invisible Man, also from Blumhouse, received an R rating for “strong bloody violence”, which works well with its story update that recreates the character as a violent sociopath. A Quiet Place 2 will likely get a PG-13 rating, though as of this writing, that has not been announced. 2020 horror movies will likely be a mix, but nowadays, the genre seems to target a wider audience instead of sticking with what might scare them the most.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/horror-movies-2020-pg13-rating-reason/