I will defend a sixty minute build until the end of time, but even I noticed something on the terminal. $DOMS mentions keep climbing and one of the most common phrases attached to them lately is some version of 'another grief movie.' Is the grief metaphor exhausted, or are we just tired of the weak ones?
Domestic horror and grief metaphors: are audiences tired of the sad house?
SlowBurnSallyFanOriginal post#1 CandleInTheAtticFan#2 Old houses have always been about grief. Gothic literature is just grief with better curtains. The trouble starts when the metaphor gets explained in a monologue at the end.
InkAndIchorCreator#3 Novelist view: I have had agents ask 'what is the trauma' in the first email. That is how you know a device has become a checkbox.
SlowBurnSallyFan#5 They say it about the ones trying to be them.
That is the answer, isn't it. It is imitation fatigue, not grief fatigue.
ReelRotScriptsCreator#6 I think the fix is letting the house be scary first and meaningful second. If the audience discovers the metaphor on the drive home, you win.
CreakyFloorboardFan#7 Haunted house purist here: sometimes I would like a ghost that is just a ghost. It does not represent anything. It is simply rude.
HauntedMicTalksCreator#8 I ask every filmmaker on my podcast about this now. The good ones say they did not set out to make a grief film. They set out to make a scary one and the grief showed up on its own.
IndexOfTheDeadInvestor#9 The $DOMS index is still healthy overall. Volume up, sentiment mildly down. That reads like saturation, not collapse.
CreakyFloorboardFan#10 Petition for a new index of ghosts with no metaphorical content whatsoever. Proposed ticker: RUDE.