Nobody is calm. Nobody feels comfortable. Gone were the optimistic and vitalistic stories. A pervasive sense of fragility is spreading across the world. And culture is not immune to this either: in 2024, the famous Shakespearean phrase will be expressed: “What I am afraid of is your fear.” In this new year, the world of culture returns to vampires, ghosts and demons , which has populated our nightmares for centuries, but as happy and creative as it is, the world has mercilessly implanted new fears into our psyches. Global warming, artificial intelligence, drugs, totalitarianism – all these effects penetrate the collective unconscious and crystallize (along with depression) in works that have one common element: terror.
Classic fears are materialized on the big screen. And so the alien will return in “Alien: Romulus” (Fear of the Beast, of the Unknown), the Joker will return in “Joker: Folie à Deux” (Fear of the Madman), the creatures we don’t care about can The sound will return to a quiet place 3 (fear of violent invasion); The always interesting Robert Eggers will dare to take on the classic vampire with his remake of Nosferatu. And it's not the only classic monster returning: Yórgos Lánthimos will revisit the myth of Frankenstein with Poor Creatures! But to these ancient fears we must add the new fears that cinema feeds on: the deserts of Dune II or Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will remind us of the threat of climate change; The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will remind us of the pandemic and war, and if this year the creator presented us with a battle between humans and artificial intelligences, in 2024 the same will happen in a chaotic environment like Borderlands.
In 2023, not only has fear crept into world culture, but the dangers of the world have also crept into culture in the form of terror. In the same way that Mike Flanagan used his series “The Fall of the House of Usher” to pay tribute to Poe, but also to denounce the opioid crisis that is causing so much havoc (it claims nearly 80,000 in the United States this year Dead). Háblame, one of the best horror films of this year, drew a mirror metaphor between the Ouija board and drug use. This line will continue in 2024 with series about drug traffickers like Griselda.
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix at the recording of “Joker: Folie a Deux,” which reprises the character of the most famous villain from “Batman.” James Devaney (Getty Images)
Speaking of series: The year will premiere with the new season of “True Detective”, with its high proportion of murders and its existential touch. Red Queen, the adaptation of Juan Gómez Jurado's bestseller, will also be about murders. The dragons from “House of the Dragon” and their metaphor about weapons of mass destruction will return. And the Trisolarians from the Three-Body Problem will arrive (or begin their journey to Earth). Totalitarianisms are on the rise and The Zone of Interest adapts Martin Amis's novel, which takes us to a concentration camp at the time of the most famous of all totalitarianisms. Oh, and we'll of course have a dose of zombies returning with The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. The infected already triumphed last year with The Last of Us, which adapted the video game of the same name; Well, in 2024, the Fallout series will adapt the great video game, which is of course set on an Earth destroyed by a nuclear apocalypse. The shadow of war overshadows everything.
Speaking of video games – perhaps the medium that conveys terror the most and best today – 2024 is full: Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines II or Little Nightmares III will try to surpass a bar that will be set in 2023 with Alan very high lay Wake 2 awaits the most sought-after (and feared) game: the new version of the classic Alone in the Dark. But the horror doesn't end on the screen: there will be exhibitions (until today, January 7th, you can visit the interesting and frightening Fake News: The Factory of Lies in Madrid) on one of the hottest and most frightening topics: technology as danger. About this, about misinformation and artificial intelligence, there will also be an avalanche of fiction books, but especially essays (and for the first time with the well-founded fear that one may have been written directly by ChatGPT).
Wars, pandemics, mechanical intelligence attacking humanity and ultimately monsters. Perhaps that is the word that best defines culture as we enter 2024: monstrous. This year, even if well thought out, all it takes is closing the book, leaving the cinema or turning off the television and opening a newspaper to feel fear. It almost doesn't matter which section we start reading.
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