Take a stroll through any H&M or social media feed, and there is simply no arguing with the cold, hard truth that early 2000s styles are trending. For those of us who traversed this particular time period, especially in our formative youth years, it is a tough fact to reckon with. However, along with the resurgence of cargo pants, platform shoes, and acid-wash denim has been a renewed appreciation and revaluation of early 2000s horror films.
Once written off as soulless, visually unappealing or exploitative Torture Porn (gasp), a little bit of time and distance has shed new light on the broader cultural issues these films were exploring. While some are now opening their minds to this idea for the very first time, there are those who have been amplifying and vocalizing this fact for decades. One such advocate is writer, podcaster, and film critic Ariel Powers-Schaub.
A true believer in the cultural value of such films as SAW, HOSTEL, FINAL DESTINATION, HOUSE OF WAX, and more, Ariel Powers-Schaub has channeled her expertise, passion, and research into a new book, MILLENNIAL NASTIES: ANALYZING A DECADE OF BRUTAL HORROR FILM VIOLENCE. Encylopocalypse Publications will release the book in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and eBook on September 17th, 2024. Overflowing with insightful analysis, MILLENNIAL NASTIES looks past the blood and gore and cuts to the core of these often undervalued movies. Regardless of whether you’re an early 2000s fan or take a more skeptical stance on the Y2K era output, MILLENNIAL NASTIES provides plenty of thoughts and well-researched info to chew on.
I recently had the extreme privilege of sitting down with Ariel, where we chatted all about her new book, the brilliance of SAW, that nasty Torture Porn tag, and so much more.
TTM: Anyone who knows you or is familiar with your work knows how much you love this era of horror movies. What inspired you to take things to the next level and write a book about it?
Ariel Powers-Schaub: It grew over time. I started writing for Ghouls Magazine in 2021, and I pitched a piece about SAW because I got really into binging the SAW franchise over lockdown. I had a lot of thoughts about it and I was like, ‘Surely someone has written about this already,’ but I couldn’t find writing on a lot of what I wanted to think about. So I was like, ‘Well, I’ll just write it myself, and we’ll see where it goes.’
Then, I started actually writing horror analyses. I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll write a book about SAW,’ but the more I thought about it and started working on it, the more I felt like I had a lot more to say. Looking around for inspiration and things to kickstart my own thoughts, I could not find a lot written about these Millennial Nasties. There’s a lot written about New French Extremity, which is great, but that’s not really my area. There’s a lot of these movies that are looked down upon or dismissed and weren’t given a lot of critical analysis that I could find. There’s some for sure, but not a lot. So I was like, ‘Well, I want this book to exist, and I know what I want it to look like. So what if I just wrote it?’
TTM: I really love the term “Millennial Nasty” you came up with for this project. Can you define it for us and anyone who might not be familiar with it?
APS: It is new, and we're doing it now, guys. We're calling them Millennial Nasties. So everybody get on board. [laughs] You know, the term Torture Porn has its problems, right? And people don't want to say it. It's meant to be slung as an insult. Nobody wants to write in their bio.
I'm a huge fan of Torture Porn, and understandably so. It really isn't all-encompassing. A lot of the movies I wrote about in my book didn't really have a place. Some of them are slashers, but they're not the kind of slashers you think of when thinking of a slasher. And then, the remakes of the time had a really nasty feel to them. They could be put into other categories, but again, they were kind of their own thing.
I wanted to come up with a way to talk about English-language movies from the 2000s that were really bleak and violent, really of this era, and a term to encompass all of them at once without leaving any out. I brainstormed a lot of different ideas, but when I came up with Millennial Nasties, I was like, that's the right one.
TTM: There were several films I hadn't quite thought of in this way, but the way you explain it in the book makes so much sense. Several of which really seem to bridge the gap between the 90s and 2000s. Talk a little bit about that transition from the glossy 90s into what came next or some of the hallmarks of those early 2000s films that you can see.
APS: You're right. FINAL DESTINATION came out in 2000, and it is very slick and very glossy. But it's also quite nasty. Literal death itself is chasing teenagers for no reason other than its death’s design. That's a lot of darkness hidden under a nice sheen. And I think that there were a lot of things at the beginning of the decade and then again throughout that contributed to what we saw. I mean, 9/11's a big one that gets referenced a lot, and I do talk about that in my book, but I don't make it my whole focus, because I don't think it is. Looking around the world, I do think New French Extremity had an impact at the time. Japan at the same time as well. There was an era of really gory movies coming out of Japan at this time, and I think global cinema was sort of influencing each other and taking notes from each other.
And SAW did really well. SAW is not Torture Porn, but it does kickstart this movement of gritty, violent, quite bleak films, and it goes from there. I think a lot of it, too had to do with this is a time where DVDs are a lot more accessible and people have DVD players in their homes. Like, I remember getting our first DVD player in the year 2000.
Streaming's not really a thing yet, but Netflix DVD rental was. So suddenly, you have access to movies that you don't have access to at your corner store. The world kind of opened up. At the same time, a lot of directors are making straight-to-DVD movies to get around the MPAA.
So suddenly, you had a lot more accessible content on home video than we ever had before. You didn't have to try to go to the theater. Especially for younger viewers, I think that's how a lot of us got around it. We started to have the Internet in our homes at this time, too, which meant we could see real-life horror all the time.
The internet back then was the Wild West. I'm sure you remember, like me. It was a different time. And I think there was this hunger to see something like we could see so much real-life horror. We didn't want to quite match that in our entertainment, but we wanted our entertainment to have a little more teeth to it. I think all of these things swirling together made this particular soup that cooked all of the Millennial Nasties.
TTM: I’m glad you brought up the global aspect because your book really made me realize how many Millennial Nasties were coming out of Australia around this time. In your opinion, what is it that you think was shared between Australia and the US that they were both on this trend at this time?
APS: It is interesting. So the people who wrote and directed and dreamt up SAW were two Australian men. Then we got WOLF CREEK, THE LOVED ONES and HOUSE OF WAX was shot in Australia. I'm not Australian, so I can only speculate. I don't know if Australia calls itself Western, but it seems like it has a Westernized culture to me.
So, I think a lot of the things that were going on in American and Canadian culture at the time were probably also similar to the fears that were going on in Australia, too, if I had to guess. The fears of terrorism were very global, and the financial crisis was very global, so I would imagine we had a lot in common.
Australia just has incredible filmmakers. And so I think with the resources they have and the relationship they have with Hollywood, where we can share a lot of our resources back and forth, more Millennial Nasties came out of Australia than they did out of even, like, the UK and Europe at the time.
TTM: Tell us about your first time watching SAW and what it was that resonated with you so much. It's one of your favorite film franchises of all time, if not the favorite, right?
APS: Yeah, it is my favorite franchise, so it's kind of interesting. My favorite movie, and I promise I'll get back around to your question, but my favorite movie of all time is THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. I saw that in theaters when I was 12. There's a before and after in my life. That movie blew me away. I was like, ‘How can a film even do this, even be this?’
And then I had a similar feeling with SAW. I was getting that it clearly is inspired by SE7EN, and I figured there would be some kind of a reveal at the end, but in no way did I ever see it coming.
I don't see how you could at that point and the way the whole story is put together. Now that I've done more film criticism, I can see the holes, but when you're watching it for the first time, it just all hangs together perfectly, and it blew me away in a similar way to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, where there's a before-and-after in my life.
Later, I found out that James Wan and Leigh Whannelll were inspired by THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT when they were making SAW. So I was like, ‘Oh my God, there is this connection between these movies that means so much to me!’ So yeah, it was super impactful. I still enjoy it to this day. It's definitely a comfort watch, and I think it's the backbone of this whole era.
TTM: I wanted to pick your brain about something — when I think of Torture Porn, the first film I think of is HOSTEL, which is mostly people inflicting violence, versus SAW, where it's the traps. Is there something about what is literally inflicting the violence that maybe is a little bit of a buffer that has helped SAW have a little bit more longevity and kind of escape that Torture Porn tag?
APS: Absolutely. In the SAW films, you have to choose to inflict pain on yourself, and so there's a little bit of separation there for the audience. Even though it's a forced choice, it's a terrible choice. We can say, ‘Well, that person is doing that to stay alive.’ That puts us more on their side. Whereas in a movie like HOSTEL, we're not on the villain side. The villains are terrible.
We're also not really on the protagonist's side because the first two-thirds of the movie is telling us how much they suck. Really, the only thing you can want out of HOSTEL is the violence, whereas in SAW, you're rooting for them to get through the trap and survive.
I think the other thing that sort of saves SAW from that tag is the police procedural aspect. That is so much like our TV shows that people will watch with their moms in the evenings that I think it's hard to associate that with the Torture Porn moniker.
TTM: Films from this time period seem to be undergoing a bit of a reappraisal. Have you also noticed that? Is this, perhaps, just a result of time and distance?
APS: I think there's a hunger for it right now, which, lucky me that I could time the book I wanted to write with the time people wanted it. That was a coincidence. But I do feel like I see a lot more people out there now ready to say that they like these movies when, a long time ago, it wasn't cool to do that. I think part of it is just time. This year's the 20th anniversary of SAW, so like, that's a lot of time for us to be able to turn around and look back at the people who were teenagers when these movies came out. We're older now, and we have a little bit more perspective.
I also think it has to do with what came after. The 2010s, and even into the 2020s a bit, have very much been trauma horror, a little bit slower, showing you a little bit less. And that's a good thing. Every art always has to swing like a pendulum in whatever direction it needs to go culturally for a while. Things need to change. We did, like, the total opposite of Torture Porn for a while, doing movies like GET OUT, right? Super important, extremely good, scary horror movies with just a really different vibe. So now that we've done a decade-plus of that, people are a little tired of it. I'm a little tired of it.
I would love never to watch another grief allegory for like 10 years. So I think people are looking back and going, ‘What else was there? What else did I like before there was this?’ So I think the right amount of time, just a little distance and getting the trauma taste out of our mouth made us hungry for it again.
TTM: What has it been like working with Encyclopocalypse Publications on this book, and what has that process been like for you?
APS: They were so supportive. If I had to sum it up in a word, it would be supportive. I pitched to them because I know Janine Pipe, who wrote SAUSAGES: THE MAKING OF DOG SOLDIERS and had a positive experience. I just feel super supported by them, and it’s been a really positive process.
TTM: You’ve obviously been pretty focused on this past trend while writing the book, but do you have any predictions or speculations for what the next trend in horror will be? Is there anything that you think we might see define our current time period?
APS: I do have a prediction, and I hope I'm right because it's what I want, so we'll see. But I really hope we're going to have some more fun for a while. That could look a lot of different ways. I do think audiences are a little bit ready for more on-screen horror, so whether that be violence or monsters or whatever it is, like, I think EVIL DEAD RISE was a great example of that. People ate that up.
We're hopefully going to get a little bit away from being sad all the time and have a little bit more fun for a while. I think that's what's going to happen. I do think there's going to be a balance. It's not just going to be gore, gore, gore all the time on the screen, which is good. That means more options for more people, but I think we're going to be turning an eye towards like, how do we have fun again?
TTM: Final question — what is your favorite SAW trap and why?
APS: Mm-hmm, yes. It's the reverse bear trap. It is the reason the whole franchise exists. The short film that Wan and Whannell shot to get people interested in making the feature-length film is just the reverse bear trap scene. And it's Leigh Whannell in the trap himself. That is the short film they shopped around to get money to make the feature-length film and then eventually go on to do all the things they do.
So, it's really important because it's responsible for everything else that came later, and in the first movie, I think that scene is incredible. The reverse bear trap has a way of showing up throughout the whole franchise in critical moments that always just feel like Norm walking into the bar on CHEERS. I'm like, ‘Yay, it's here again!’ It's there with us throughout. It's super important at the beginning of the franchise and again at the end. I hope we never stop seeing the reverse bear trap.
MILLENNIAL NASTIES: ANALYZING A DECADE OF BRUTAL HORROR FILM VIOLENCE is now available for pre-order via Encylopocalypse Publications. It’s release date is September 17, 2024. To purchase or to learn more, click here.