The Legends of Hunters in Xing ‘an Mountains set a new record for domestic horror films.

Special feature of 1905 film network Since the online movie was launched on April 1, the platform broadcast volume has exceeded 150 million, and the accumulated account has been nearly 35 million, which is the fastest to break the box office record of 30 million online movies. Not only that, but the film scored 6.1 points in Douban, which proved an improvement of network power.

The data of this film are higher than the box office and the number of people watching the same kind of films recently released in the cinema, such as Lost in Love (March 5), Night Watch (March 12) and April 1.

At present, among the three films, only "Lost in Love" has barely passed the box office of 5 million. As for word-of-mouth, it is a long story. So far, the three films have not been divided on any platform, which also verifies the requirement that the number of people watching movies is insufficient.

In a certain period of time, domestic horror movies meet the audience almost every week. Various "disc immortals", "chopsticks immortals", "haunted houses" and "embroidered shoes" … … They all appear as keywords in film titles or posters.

　

From propaganda to film quality, they have a unified routine: poor posters, low-level Jump scare (a common routine in horror movies) as a preview, and rough special effects in content, and many films have also played a soft pornographic edge ball.

　

This kind of film once became synonymous with bad movies.But in fact, these films have been in a state of "barbaric growth" for a long time — — As long as the film can be released and the cinema is arranged at midnight, it will have box office income to some extent. Even many films can get tens of millions at the box office.

　

Judging from the current three works, this box office achievement seems to have become a thing of the past. Looking back at the market, fewer and fewer domestic horror movies appear in the cinema. Hengye Film, which started with "releasing horror films", still has two horror-type works with "Dark Side" in the list released last year. On the contrary, more domestic horror film makers are or have changed their tracks and moved towards online platforms.

　

So, where will the next stop of domestic horror movies be?

　

01

The cinema track is slowing down.

Like the online movie "The Legend of Xing ‘anling Hunter", the horror movie that caused a certain volume in the market may be in 2017, and it won 219 million box office by virtue of the IP effect.

There are fewer and fewer horror movies in cinemas, which is not easy for creators.

　

"It is very difficult to make horror movies in recent years. There are many factors in it. The creation itself is’ dancing with shackles’." Zhou, a producer who has produced and developed domestic horror films, said. It seems that in the eyes of the audience, most of these films are not expensive, and eventually millions or even tens of millions of box offices can also reap good benefits. "But in fact, they really don’t make money, and some may just return to their books."

　

Although the box office performance of the series has been the benchmark in this type of film, the producer has obviously slowed down. After three years, it was officially announced that Beijing 81 No.3 will be produced in the future.

According to Lin Chaoyang, deputy general manager of Hengye Film Group, this work has been developed for more than two years, and it is expected to be officially launched this year, and Wen Juan, the screenwriter and producer of the first film, will also return this time.

　

What can’t be avoided is that the first two works of this series, although supported by first-line actors such as,, and so on, have also achieved a total box office score of over 600 million, but the word-of-mouth is not as good as one, and even the Douban score has not exceeded 5 points.

Lin Chaoyang mentioned that when they were developing this series, they would definitely re-launch the past projects. For example, they have recently paid attention to the "Legend of Hunters in Xing ‘an Mountains" with satisfactory results. "They have done a good job in folk legends and gained a large audience in the early stage." And "Beijing 81" in the early days of publicity and marketing, is also to attract the audience.

Therefore, in "Capital 81 No.3", they will want to keep the elements of oriental horror, and make greater breakthroughs in form and psychological perception while inheriting the previous style. He also revealed that in the new plot, "the emotional core is still the place we need to focus on, especially how to perfectly package the emotional and human topics into a horrible shell."

　

In addition, the same is true of The Dark Side, which appears in the same unit of Hengye’s film list.

This producer film has also been developed. Lin Chaoyang emphasized that horror and thriller are only innovations and upgrades in the form of expression, and the expression of the core of the story is the main factor that can really capture more audiences. "Suspense movies have attracted more attention in China in the past two years, and they have also been influenced by this type of TV series, and the expectations of the audience have improved a lot, so it is also the direction of key development for us."

　

02

The online track is accelerating.

From 130 films in 2016 to 5 films at present, the number of domestic horror films appearing in the cinema is getting less and less, but on the contrary, the number of online media platforms is increasing.

　

Zhou told us that after 2017, their company’s creative track for domestic horror movies slowly shifted from cinema to online platform. "At that time, we also saw the upsurge of online movies, and the traffic of horror and thriller movies on the Internet was higher than that of cinema."

　

Our research shows that the audience of domestic horror movies is still mainly in the fourth-tier cities, such as the recently released Night Watch and Lost Love, and this audience largely corresponds to the users who love online movies.

There is no denying that the internet has given this kind of film more opportunities. As another IP of this type, Zhang Zhen Storytelling has realized the "translation" from cinema to network.

　

When the first film in the series was released, it was a stunt and produced, and finally the box office exceeded 20 million, but the word-of-mouth was extremely unsatisfactory. The two also said in the publicity that they plan to invest in 10 films in this series. But when the second film was released the following year, we found that both the producer and the creative team had nothing to do with the previous film, and the box office was only 4.4 million yuan.

When many people thought that this IP disappeared in the film and television circle, in 2019, it reappeared in front of the public in the form of online movies.

　

This time, the producer Sheng Shiwen and Tencent teamed up to create The Home of Zhang Zhen’s Storytelling, The Night of Zhang Zhen’s Storytelling and The Legend of Zhang Zhen’s Storytelling Face-washing Girl once a year since 2019. However, according to the data of Cat’s Eye Professional Edition, the performance and evaluation of these works on the platform are still not brilliant.

It can be seen that the network platform will not become a refuge for inferior works. On the contrary, the recent explosion of the online video "The Legend of Xing ‘anling Hunter" has been circled by high-quality word of mouth, which is better than many similar movies in the past, both in visual effects and script structure. Although the film takes the horror story as the starting point, it finally stays in the coexistence of man and nature, making the finishing touch for the story.

Many people said after reading it that this work is actually very suitable for developing into an online drama or a series of works. When we threw this question to the relevant creator, he said, "Maybe." If it is finally formed, it may bring another dimension of thinking to domestic horror films.

　

Lin Chaoyang also mentioned that online movies have greatly improved both in content and quality in recent years, and the investment in such works has provided a good opportunity for many new companies and directors.

03

What’s the next stop for domestic horror creators?

After the epidemic, many horror film production companies have been reshuffled, and most small companies have made transformations. Head companies like Hengye Film have long been diversified in genre development according to the changes in the market and the improvement of audience aesthetics.

　

The reason for this change is that, to a large extent, after the market optimization and upgrading, the audience’s requirements for movies are getting higher and higher. In the eyes of most viewers, domestic horror films are the representatives of bad films. Even on the ticket purchasing platform with higher acceptance, the scores of these films are concentrated below 6 points, and some of them are not even scored.

　

But China doesn’t mean that there is no brilliant horror film. From the beginning of the first horror film in the film history to the later films such as "The Scared House", these works are excellent works in any dimension. Not to mention those zombie movies in Hong Kong, some of them once became the shadow of everyone’s childhood. The novel "Double Pupils" has been borrowed from Chinese literature.

　

Horror film has become a kind of film type with low cost, which can realize "small and broad" without relying on stars. Seizing the souldirectorIn the past, it was based on two filmsRed dressLittle girlThe film, which gained a lot of attention from the management, had the opportunity to create the later "Witnesses Chasing the Murder".

　

Cases like Weihao Cheng are even more common in international film circles. Directors, directors and directors are all famous for their low-budget horror films, and finally they are favored by big manufacturers.

However, it cannot be ignored that the domestic production of horror films has always been at the bottom of the "contempt chain". When communicating with other young directors at the film festival, although most people were very interested in horror films, no one would take the initiative to express their willingness to shoot this type of film.

　

On the contrary, this element is "invading" other forms of entertainment.As a script killer,Detective chinatown.Beichen, one of the series of screenwriters, also told us that there are many restrictions on the creation of horror films, so we can do more in-depth creation in script killing and escape from the secret room. At the same time, this kind of entertainment that pays attention to immersion has also circled the horror film lovers in first-and second-tier cities. Therefore, when we asked him if this type of script could be filmed, he quickly gave a negative answer.

Movies will not be absolutely replaced by other entertainment products, but in the face of the development of current horror movies, creators also suffer from the limitations of theme and content, and now more tend to integrate the themes of films.

For example, what is common is the combination of suspense, horror and adventure that are similar to the elements. Ma Kai, director of "Evil", also said in an interview that he would try to combine horror movies with comedies when he created this kind of movies in the future.

Although domestic horror films are wary of ghosts and religious elements, they can still learn from folk stories or myths and legends. Of course, this is also the best way for this type of film at present. A while ago, the movie "Seizing the Soul" was released, which weakened the elements of terror and infinitely magnified the elements of suspense and crime.

　

Where is the next stop for domestic horror films?We believe that it will be the result of the continuous running-in and exploration of creators and audiences. They will not disappear into the cinema absolutely, nor will they allow poor quality works to develop wantonly on the network platform.