Oh, the horror! LA filmmakers turn to ‘mumblegore’

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A still from the home-invasion horror film “You’re Next.”

A number of young LA filmmakers are producing some low-budget horror films, spawning a new category dubbed “mumblegore.”

LA Weekly film critic Amy Nicholson wrote about these “micro-budget cerebral chillers that eschew cheap kills and studio interference” in this week’s cover story “The Mumblegore Revolution.” She says these filmmakers are expanding the definition of horror:

L.A.’s indie horror filmmakers are scared of a lot of traditional things: zombies, succubi, Satanists, sanity-scrambling TVs, haunted VHS tapes, killer bats, ghosts. But what scares them most are the small, wicked ways in which humans destroy each other. Under the surface of their films are everyday terrors: desperation, power, greed. Who needs monsters when you can make ordinary men act monstrous?

Nicholson spoke to KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis about the evolution of the horror genre.

Watch the trailers for some of these films:

Cheap Thrills

V/H/S

The Signal