“Horror in the 90s sucked!” It’s a phrase we have all heard. We may have even uttered it. While the 70s was a time for grimy experimentation that set the standards for decades to come, and the 80s were the heyday of franchise slashers, the 90s represented something completely different for horror fans. The slasher giants like Halloween and Friday the 13th were petering out and no new horror icons had risen to take their places. In the last few years of the decade, the slasher re-emerged via Scream and gave rise to the more clever, self-referencial horror cycle that carried us into the new millennium, but what about the years before that? Was horror truly the barren wasteland that so often gets moaned about?
No! No, it was not.
The 90s might have seen the deaths of Freddy, Jason and Michael, but it also saw the births of so many unique and inventive stories that made their mark on the horror landscape. David Weiner (In Search of Darkness I - III) is returning to deliver another horror doc packed with amazing films, exciting guests, and over 5 and a half hours of horror glee, celebrating the first five years of the 1990s.
Like every time I watch an In Search of Darkness doc, I checked the runtime and said, “I might be doing this in 2 sittings. It’s a long one, I'll take a break if I need to.” And then I proceeded to watch the whole thing in one go. It is truly magnificent to sit down, lose half your day, and come out remembering so many of your favorite movies, while also being given a list of new stuff to check out.
The format is the same as the prior films (because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it). This time around, the doc goes chronologically through each year of the decade, through 1994 (the rest will presumably be coming at us in a follow-up film). But all of the footage, the interviews, the fun recollections and the behind-the-scenes info that we know and love is present and accounted for.
The slasher series that were wrapping up (for the time being) are noted and discussed, like Freddy’s Dead and Jason Goes to Hell. But the film also shines a spotlight on smaller one-off films that were just as important and had an equally impressive footprint in horror cinema. Dead Alive, Nightbreed, Jacob’s Ladder and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are just a few of the titles that are examined and celebrated here. We also get a look at some of the smaller films that might not have had a giant cultural imprint at the time, but have been rediscovered in recent years and have found a new fan following, such as Popcorn and Frankenhooker.
And as always, Weiner has collected an incredible group of actors, directors, industry insiders, and all-around horror nerds to present and comment on these films. Heather Langenkamp, Ernest Dickerson, David Dastmalchian, Alex Winter, Mike Flanagan, and Akela Cooper are just a few of the people who come onscreen to present and discuss this array of movies. Films that they love just as much as we do. We get a lot of insightful commentary throughout, as well as stories from behind the scenes.
The doc also does a great job of highlighting a few of the culture touchpoints that were present through the 90s. The great Thriller vs Horror debate and how one invites critical praise while the other makes studios and awards juries cringe. The strong presence that horror had on television throughout the 90s, both in adult and children-centered programming. The transition away from practical effects when the industry began embracing the emergence of CGI and the effect that it had on films of the time. There is a lot that was happening in and around the industry that affected the films that were being made at the time, and taking a pause to look at each of these subjects really provides a lot of background information for the films that are being discussed.
It’s exciting to see this team take on the 90s. The 80s redefined the genre in a whole new way; it created lasting characters and franchises that fans adore to this day, it upped the bar for practical effects and shined a light on the immense level of artistry that goes into making horror films. The prior ISOD series celebrated a decade that we already know to be great. This entry is shining a light on a decade that really gets a bad rap. So many iconic films came out of the 90s, and we treat them as one-offs in a time period largely filled with sludge. In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994 does a great job at reframing this period of horror and showing the naysayers that there was a lot of great stuff coming out of horror cinema at this time, and maybe we have been giving too much attention to the lesser films when we should have been celebrating everything that worked.
Score: 5/5
Emily von Seele hails from Seattle, where it rains a lot, which gives her plenty of excuses to stay inside and watch movies. She has written for Bloody Disgusting, Daily Dead, the Women in Horror Annual and Grim Magazine, and is co-host of the Dead Ringers podcast. You can usually catch Emily on Twitter (@horrorellablog), where she has been known to gab excessively about movies and tweet adorable pics of her two cats - seriously, they are the cutest ever.
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