Post-apocalyptic horror: a forgotten genre?

The horror genre has seen peaks and troughs of popularity down through the decades, but it has never been far from cinema screens or printed media. The advent of streaming services heralded a strong resurgence that continues to this day. It would be fair to argue that the horror genre remains current, innovative, and relevant.

Post-apocalyptic horror, on the other hand, has waned in presence and relevance over the past four decades or so. While popular (and one might say, mainstream) franchises like Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, and the Terminator series dominated the 80s and early 90s, post-apocalyptic cinema has been rather thin on the ground lately.

In this article, I'll examine the possible reasons for the apparent lack of interest in this particular sub-genre at present, and where it may go from here.

Post-apocalyptic horror tropes

If asked about what best exemplifies the post-apocalyptic horror genre, most people would likely mention zombies, some sort of plague (man-made, in most cases), and alien invasion, probably in that order. A natural disaster might come in at a distant fourth position.

There are multiple variations of all those elements, of course. There have been slow, shambling, moaning zombies, like those seen in the ultra-low-budget-but-incredibly-influential George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and the Day of the Dead series. We saw fast, savage, shrieking zombies in 28 Days Later (2002) and its sequels, and in World War Z (2013). We've witnessed people being turned into zombies by an alien energy (Day of the Comet, 1984, or Lifeforce, 1986). Fungal zombies, like those in The Last of Us (originally a video game released in 2013, later turned into a mediocre streaming series in 2022) or The Girl With All the Gifts (2016). And so on. Mankind has faced the zombie menace in all sorts of truculent manners.

The second trope, that of a plague, also constitutes the basis for a great variety of post-apocalyptic horror movies. Sometimes, that plotline intersects with the zombie genre: World War Z and its Solanum virus or I Am Legend (2007) with the Krippin virus (the latter a remake of 1971’s The Omega Man, and both based on the novel I Am Legend by American writer Richard Matheson).

Other times, the contagion simply kills off most of the world's population, as in 1994's The Stand (a genetically modified flu virus, nicknamed 'Captain Trips') or in 1995's Twelve Monkeys (a man-made pathogen named Kalavirus). The former was based on the eponymous Stephen King novel, and the latter was inspired by La Jetté, a short 1962 French film.

And the third trope, an alien invasion, is also a popular choice. Movies like Monsters (2010) and A Quiet Place (2018) are good examples.

There also exist some examples of post-apocalyptic horror sparked by a natural disaster, but these are few and far between. The Road (2009) is probably the best example of this category, even though the nature of the disaster is never explicitly stated or described, so it’s open to interpretation. The Road is based on an eponymous novel by Cormac McCarthy.

A genre in decline?

I argue that the post-apocalyptic genre is in decline for several reasons.

The continuous regurgitation of the above tropes led to saturation and ultimately, apathy. The zombie genre in particular had endless iterations, as we have seen, culminating in the massively popular but criminally bloated TV series The Walking Dead, which ended after season 8 following a massive decline in ratings.

Besides over-saturation and lack of narrative innovation, real-life events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and various conflicts around the world mean that current daily life is bleak enough, so today's audiences may not be willing to invest viewing time in entertainment offering an even bleaker panorama, perhaps seeking lighter entertainment.

But one of the biggest culprits for the downfall of this once immensely popular subgenre (and in fact, of the value of narrative storytelling itself) is the advent of platforms such as TikTok, which delivers short content at rapid-fire pace. This type of bite-size material is as easy to consume as it is vapid and meaningless. It does not have any narrative thread, characterization, or story arc. It's simply visual sweetener.

The future of post-apocalyptic horror

Cinema and literature move with the times and the prevalent culture, and the current social and geopolitical situation is one of worldwide unrest, chaos, and violence, led by rogue nations and unstable and unfit leaders. There is an actual and active threat of catastrophic, irreversible events, which may explain the temporary absence of fiction dealing with similar themes.

While there is a smattering of themed movies releasing soon (Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars, for example, or Apocalypse Z: New World, a streaming series), the popularity of the post-apocalyptic horror genre is definitely experiencing its nadir.

It is fair to argue that the genre may experience a resurgence in the future, once the geopolitical situation stabilizes globally and there is renewed appetite for tales of the apocalypse. Yet-to-come technological advances, scientific discoveries, and other currently unknown or unexplored factors may inspire new themes and fresh narratives for a genre that became rehashed and stale long ago.

When that rebirth occurs, if ever, remains to be seen.