S3: E12 Inside the Mirror Room with Horror Author & Critic Luna Gray

So, oh, so speaking because you are a staff writer for iHarr, are there any trends in horror right now that really excite you?

Yeah, the return to analog horror, I think, is really interesting.

The fact that it looks like we're going backwards.

We're moving away from CGI when possible and back to tactile effects.

We're going for this analog, grainy film look over everything, which reminds me of my own childhood videos.

And we're getting a bigger push for independent films, which is kind of my old thing.

I love that so, so much.

Yes, yes.

I'm constantly on YouTube finding the next indie horror or whatever, submit it to the festival.

Yeah, no, that's amazing.

So for someone who's just discovering independent horror, what are they missing? Like, what is it about you think indie horror is like so horrifically magical is what I like to say.

Yeah.

Well, the easiest way I think for me to explain it is if the film is coming from a studio or a large studio, that studio wants to impress as many audiences as possible.

So they're going to throw a lot of different directions at you.

An indie film has the privilege of being hyper-focused on one thing, and they're not necessarily worried about large audiences.

They're trying to find their niche audience.

So you get really special films that way that would never make it through a studio.

Yeah, which is...

Oh, go ahead.

Sorry.

I also think that the push of what you just said, YouTube or the reason that's so successful right now is YouTube provides a unique environment where you upload a video and within minutes you have feedback.

Yeah.

You can't do that with a film.

No, you can't.

I mean, they have certain like studios, you know, they have certain focus groups, focus groups like that, but that doesn't represent like the entire population pretty much where YouTube, billions of people, you just go on there and find a indie horror film and it's just great.