But in an age when our fears seem larger than life and the world constantly seems as though it's on the brink of collapse, the best examples of the genre can almost assume a documentary-like authenticity, reflecting our reality as vividly as vérité ever could.
Monster movies work because - whether you're talking about Godzilla or Frankenstein - they're much more about just monsters. They're about human fears, blown up to their most horrifying scale.
The Babadook might be about a demon that pops out of a children's book, but no recent film does a better job of capturing the acute reality of living with grief.
The Village is pretty much just two hours of Joaquin Phoenix cosplaying Our Town, but even M. Night Shyamalan's cameo can't distract from a powerful cinematic parable about the consequences of surrendering to the things that scare us.
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