Heretic 2024 Starring Hugh Grant
Heretic | A24

Let’s say you’re writing a horror movie. You put your protagonist in a situation with people who want to hurt them. The danger is mounting. There’s a question that, at some point, you will need to address. It’s an important question, and if you answer it inadequately, lots of viewers will stop suspending their disbelief. They’ll throw up their hands and shout through the screen at your characters, “Why don’t you just leave?”

Actually, there’s only a handful of ways to answer that question. You can trap your characters physically, like with weather. You can give them an objective they’re willing to risk their lives for. You can make it so they don’t know they’re in danger until it’s too late. But there’s another answer that’s become popular enough in recent years to inform some of 2024’s biggest horror films: they don’t leave because it would be rude.

It’s not a trope that works in every scenario. You need a protagonist who cares enough about social propriety to suppress their instincts, and a villain whose menace is subtle enough to be plausibly deniable. (It helps if the bad guy is charming.) But when done well, it resonates with viewers who can relate to such awkward social encounters—which is to say, all of us. The kind of encounter where you know you shouldn’t engage with this person, but you’re worried about how you’d look if you snubbed them. So you play by the rules of polite society, telling yourself that you shouldn’t judge, that everyone has something to offer, and that even if you have your differences, you can still learn from them.

When a gigantic canyon bisects the political landscape, one inevitable response is to try building bridges. The mainstream discourse is full of “come together” rhetoric, reminders that what unites us is greater than what divides us. In disputes, we are implored to take the high road.

Civility is not a universal value. Many oppressed people are uninterested in making friends with their oppressors, and when you believe your opponent is morally corrupt, to compromise is to legitimate their position. Unless both of you are committed to civility, it can be an invitation to be walked on.

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The horror genre has a genius for finding the tenderest part of any historical moment and jabbing at it. “What if you did everything right,” this year’s horror asks, “behaved like an upstanding, respectable citizen, and it brought you nothing but pain?”

In one of the films on this list, a victim asks their tormentor why they are doing it. The victimizer replies with another question, “Why do you let me?” 

Maybe it’s because of that uncertainty. If we play nice, it’s possible that nothing bad will happen. But if we disengage, we are certain to face social opprobrium—a fate, civil society teaches us, just as bad as death. Until we can unlearn that, the films on this list say, we’ll find ourselves ceding ground until we’re backed up to the edge of that canyon, teetering back because to push forward would be uncouth.

1 Speak No Evil Starring James McAvoy - 2024 Horror Films on Civility
Universal Pictures

Speak No Evil
Directed by James Watkins

A vacationing American family meets a British couple and their mute son. Charmed, and in need of social networks in their new home, they accept an invitation to visit their new friends in the English countryside. What starts as mild awkwardness builds to a violent crescendo.

The viewer is invited to reflect on when they themselves would have cut bait, and how many red flags they would have dismissed as mere cultural differences in boundary-setting.

2 Heretic - 2024 Horror Films on Civility
A24

Heretic
Directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods

Two Mormon missionaries visit the home of the garrulous, well-spoken Mr. Reed, intent on spreading the word of their faith. Instead, they find out Mr. Reed knows more about their religion than he lets on, is prepared to use their ingrained politeness against them, and has no intention of allowing them to leave.

People who say Heretic isn’t scary have never been cornered by a know-it-all boomer dude at a party before, and it shows.

3 The Front Room - 2024 Horror Films on Civility
A24

The Front Room
Directed by Max and Sam Eggers

Expectant mother Belinda finds out her husband Norman’s wealthy father has died, and has willed his entire estate to them on the condition that they let Norman’s stepmother Solange move in. Why would anyone be so heartless as to deny an infirm old woman a place to spend her last days?

Maybe because Solange is an abusive evangelical Christian, and Belinda is an anthropology professor specializing in comparative religion. Maybe because Belinda is Black and Solange wants a place of prominence on the mantelpiece for her Daughters of the Confederacy certificate. Or maybe because Solange is a calculating manipulator who wants to remake the house in her own image, turn her stepson against his wife, and might even have designs on the baby. Belinda sincerely wants to see the best in everyone, at the cost of becoming an unwitting doormat. By the time she and Norman finally stand up for themselves, it may be too late.

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The Front Room’s ending makes a clearer statement than any other film on this list about the need to stop bigotry from infecting yet another generation.

4 Somewhere Quiet - 2024 Horror Films on Civility
Vertical Entertainment

Somewhere Quiet
Directed by Olivia West Lloyd

Kidnapping victim Meg, who recently escaped from her captors, is trying to resume normal life with her husband Scott, who takes her to his rustic family home for the holidays. The isolated locale, Meg’s lingering trauma, and the strange behavior of Scott’s cousin Madelin lead her to suspect the people around her of not being truthful.

As most of the films on this list demonstrate, the civility trap is especially dangerous for women. In many social situations, a woman can either be nice and make herself a target, or speak up and be labeled hysterical. In Somewhere Quiet, the civility trap dovetails with the gaslighting narrative, and every microaggression Meg generously lets slide becomes another weapon in the villain’s emotional abuse arsenal.

5 Trim Season - 2024 Horror Films on Civility
Paper Street Pictures

Trim Season
Directed by Ariel Vida

Down-on-her-luck 20-something Emma accepts an offer of seasonal work trimming the product at a secluded northern California cannabis farm. Almost immediately, the secretive operation and peculiar bosses set off alarm bells, but Emma feels forced to suppress her self-preservation instincts for the sake of the job—a decision she may live to regret. I

t’s no accident that the last three films on this list center women of color, in otherwise all-white spaces, who face being ostracized if they dare to rock the boat. Difficulty standing up for herself is a key feature of Emma’s character, and caught between the occult peril of the weed farm and the dehumanizing grind of the labor landscape as she knows it, there seems to be no path forward without pain. 

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The horror films of 2024 know that standing up for yourself is not always simple. There are so many social forces, implicit values, and practical barriers arrayed between us, particularly those who are marginalized, and the basic act of self-advocacy. How far is too far? Your reputation, your comfort, your livelihood—how much are you prepared to sacrifice to protect the safety of yourself and your loved ones?

To avoid grappling with that question is to deny that there are people who are eager to use our politeness against us, and a cursory look at the world around you reveals how unrealistic—and dangerous—that assumption is.

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