History AudienceAlienatingEra / Film

* Many in the general audience believe that ''[[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAward}} The Academy Awards]]'' have fallen into one ever since the Mid-2000s, especially in regards to [[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture}} Best Picture Winners]] with many viewers feeling that the Academy has become very [[https://nationalpost.com/news/oscars-green-book-best-picture-spike-lee-blackkklansman-black-panther-a-star-is-born-bohemian-rhapsody out]] [[https://www.statsignificant.com/p/are-best-picture-winners-getting of touch]] with what appeals to audiences, and that the winning films have gotten worse. Historically, among the films that win ''Best Picture'', there has always been some correlation between the acclaim the film receives and how well it does among general audiences (a weak connection, but one nonetheless). However, starting in the mid-2000s there was a sharp divide between winning films that do well with critics and those that do well among general audiences & in the Box Office. A key reason for this is because of the rise of independent cinema in the late 90s & early 2000s. These were small, low-budget, typically [[LeFilmArtistique art-house]] films that usually [[TrueArtIsAngsty tackled heavy subject matter]]. These films are also frequently movies that general audiences and even many critics have never even heard of, much less seen, and they started to dominate the nominations every year at the Academy Awards. Many began to feel that the Academy has largely taken a very elitist view by specifically targeting indie films that are apparently meant only for the Academy... and no one else; so much so that many view them as [[OscarBait existing solely to get nominated or even win the Best Picture Award]], and they are frequently forgotten about within a year or two. And because of this, the Academy is seen as incredibly insular and out-of-touch with general audiences in recent years, and their viewership ratings have declined greatly as a result. As of 2023, the Academy is still stuck in this era.

*** Not helping is the perception that recent comedies are more and more populated by stand-up comedians, short-lived SketchComedy shows actors from Canal+ and successful WebVideoCreators with none of the prestige of "traditional" actors.

** Between the late '40s through the '50s, The Franchise/UniversalHorror cycle was sputtering out with only ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'', ''Film/ItCameFromOuterSpace'', and the Creator/AbbottAndCostello {{parod|y}}ies being fondly remembered. The rest of the genre was descending into [[DriveInTheater drive-in]] BMovie hell as a slew of cheaply-made sci-fi and monster movies tried to copy the success of hits like ''Film/{{Them}}'', ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', and ''It Came From Outer Space''. At best, the era provided quite a bit of material for ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. The concerns due to the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and the rise of Film/HammerHorror, Creator/RogerCorman, and (on television) ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'' would provide the beginnings of a comeback, which became finalized in the late '60s and lasted for [[TheSeventies roughly two]] [[TheEighties decades]].
** For some, TheEighties were thought of as an Audience-Alienating Era, as many fans thought that the genre turned back into BMovie schlock thanks to the [[DirectToVideo home video]] market. {{Slasher movie}}s especially were blamed for killing the genre's artistic and critical respectability due to a morass of cliches, plotless violence, one-dimensional characters, and pandering to teenage audiences. However, the critical reappraisal of many slasher movies have vindicated the era, with defenders noting the subversiveness and great special effects of horror greats.
** In 1989, the "Big Three" SlasherMovie franchises (''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'', and ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'') released bad movies that [[FranchiseKiller threw each of them off the rails]] and rendered the genre as a whole dormant in the first half of the decade. Very few horror films had much success between 1989 and 1996, and the few that did (such as ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' and ''Film/{{Se7en}}'') were either PsychologicalThriller or "horror-adjacent". It's not for nothing that ''Film/Scream1996'' and ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', two works that are now often held up as high points of '90s horror, are best known as ''parodies'' of the genre, looking back on the films of the '70s and '80s with a great deal of snark. Besides them, other notable horror films of the era were ''Scream'' knock-offs that were seen as little more than half-hearted, [[{{Bowdlerise}} sanitized]] recyclings of '80s slasher tropes that the series had mercilessly skewered and {{discredited|Trope}}. Julia Alexander of ''Polygon'' [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/29/13465868/house-of-1000-corpses-rob-zombie-halloween refers to the '90s]] as the "WB period of horror" due to the fact that many horror films from the decade looked like pilots for a TeenDrama on Creator/TheWB, filled with good-looking young people getting ([[GoryDiscretionShot bloodlessly]]) hacked to death by generic slasher villains. The Audience-Alienating Era ended around 2002-04 with the success of the [[ForeignRemake American adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheRing'', the boom in the {{zombie|Apocalypse}} genre (kicked off by ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''), and the rise of the "Splat Pack", a group of [[TorturePorn ultraviolent]] horror filmmakers that included Creator/JamesWan, Music/RobZombie, and Creator/EliRoth, and has maintained a decent place ever since.
** Some would argue that the genre's audience-alienating era continued into the 2000s, at least for Hollywood horror. ''Outside'' the US, the decade is remembered as a Golden Age for European (particularly British, French, and Spanish), East Asian (particularly Japanese), and indie horror. In Hollywood, however, despite some good films such as ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'', ''Film/TheRing'', and ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'', other horror films were either slashers, remakes, or trying to cash in on the success of the former two films. If one wasn't a fan of TorturePorn (a polarizing genre among horror fans), the pickings were often slim. The production company Platinum Dunes was often singled out for criticism as representative of the worst trends in the decade's horror, seen as importing a highly stylized music video aesthetic straight out of Creator/MichaelBay movies (Bay being one of the company's co-founders) into the genre while making mostly unwelcome remakes of horror classics that suffered in comparison to the originals. This period of Hollywood horror was ruthlessly satirized by ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'', which portrays it as caught in a rut and overly dependent upon [[StrictlyFormula worn-out, formulaic tropes and plots]] to the point of CreatorsApathy. The critical and commercial successes of ''Film/ParanormalActivity'', ''Film/DragMeToHell'', and ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' in 2009 ended Hollywood's dry spell, but it wasn't until ''Film/TheConjuring'' in 2013 that this Audience-Alienating Era came to a definitive end. The following years saw an explosive rise in the popularity and critical acclaim of horror films, led by the production company Creator/BlumhouseProductions (behind ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Film/{{Insidious}}'', ''Film/ThePurge'', ''Film/GetOut2017'', and ''Film/TheInvisibleMan2020'') and the indie studio Creator/{{A24}} (behind ''Film/TheWitch'', ''Film/ItComesAtNight'', ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'', and ''Film/{{Midsommar}}'').

* From the late '80s through much of the '00s, Creator/TimBurton became a {{goth}} icon thanks to his SignatureStyle that combined GothicHorror and macabre imagery with childlike whimsy. Fatigue eventually set in, however, especially in his work on big-budget blockbusters, with many fans feeling that his style had grown {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed to the point that even his more family-friendly films [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids could scarcely be called such]], that he was putting more emphasis on said style to cover for StrictlyFormula plotting, and that he was growing overreliant on [[ProductionPosse a select number of go-to actors]] (most notably Creator/JohnnyDepp and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter) [[WTHCastingAgency whether or not they were suited to the roles they were playing]]. Precisely ''when'' his creative decline started is a matter of debate. In hindsight, some put it as early as 2005 with his adaptation of ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', a film that, while well-received at the time, has become far more [[BrokenBase divisive]] in the years since, though the following years also brought two of his most popular films, ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'' and ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''. The latest point that fans will cite is 2010, when he released an adaptation of ''Film/{{Alice in Wonderland|2010}}'' that, while a box-office hit, got mixed reviews that criticized it as as unnecessary and empty. While he still made some well-received films afterwards like ''WesternAnimation/{{Frankenweenie}}'' and ''Film/BigEyes'', they were increasingly balanced out by the negative reception of films like ''Film/DarkShadows'' and ''Film/Dumbo2019''.

* Creator/MNightShyamalan fell into a bad one in the mid-'00s, to the point where his name became [[MandatoryTwistEnding a running joke about twist endings]] and many critics wondered if the filmmaker once hailed as "the next [[Creator/StevenSpielberg Spielberg]]" was just a one-trick pony. 2004's ''Film/TheVillage'' was the first film of his to meet genuinely negative reviews, 2006's ''Film/LadyInTheWater'' was seen as an ego trip that mainly amounted to him [[TakeThatCritics lashing out at his critics]] (and became his first BoxOfficeBomb), 2008's ''Film/TheHappening'' is regarded as SoBadItsGood (which, to be fair, [[StealthParody may have been the intention]] - or at least he [[ParodyRetcon claimed as much]]), his [[Film/TheLastAirbender 2010 adaptation]] of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' was seen by fans of that show as a gross disservice to the source material, and he finally bottomed out in 2013 with ''Film/AfterEarth'', which earned unwelcome comparisons to ''Film/BattlefieldEarth''. Shyamalan seemingly got his groove back in the mid-2010s by returning to the low-budget horror films and thrillers with which he made his name, with 2015's ''Film/TheVisit'' and 2016's ''Film/{{Split}}'' earning him his first good reviews in over a decade, but that goodwill hit a massive speedbump with the critical drubbing of ''Film/Glass2019''.

** French comedies. There seems to be an endless flow of what many consider as lowbrow comedies since the end of TheNineties, to the point nostalgia for the likes of Creator/LouisDeFunes (whose decades were a ''critics''-alienating era) is still going strong. While there ''has'' been a number of clever and well received French comedies since then (the ''Film/OSS117'' series with Creator/JeanDujardin for example), the majority of the highest grossing ones fall into that category (while never having positive user ratings on dedicated sites like Allociné or [=SensCritique=]). Even more concerning, comedies (lowbrow and everything else) made up a whopping '''''67%''''' of the total of French films produced in 2022. [[note]]Comedies are by far the cheapest genre to produce, the French economic landscape doesn't really allow for much bigger productions (as in, above €/$ 50 million, more or less) to happen[[/note]]

* French cinema:

** French comedies. There seems to be an endless flow of what many consider as lowbrow comedies since the end of TheNineties, to the point nostalgia for the likes of Creator/LouisDeFunes (whose decades were a ''critics''-alienating era) is still going strong. While there ''has'' been a number of clever and well received French comedies since then (the ''Film/OSS117'' series with Creator/JeanDujardin for example), the majority of the highest grossing ones fall into that category (while never having positive user ratings on dedicated sites like Allociné or [=SensCritique=]). Even more concerning, comedies (lowbrow and everything else) made up a whopping '''''67%''''' of the total of French films produced in 2022.

* Many Japanese moviegoers feel that their film industry has gone into this era, especially during the 2010s and early 2020s. Even though certain movies have earned critical acclaim, such as the [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestForeignLanguageFilm Oscar-winners]] ''{{Film/Departures}}'', ''Film/DriveMyCar'', ''{{Film/Confessions}}'', ''Film/ShinGodzilla'', ''Anime/YourName'', and the UsefulNotes/PalmeDOr-winner ''{{Film/Shoplifters}}'', many Japanese people feel that most locally produced films have cheap cinematography, cliched plots, low production values, and a general lack of ambition. Adding to this, most live-action movies produced are either based on manga series or light novels and have received backlash from fans of said series ([[AmericansHateTingle especially from North American fans]]). Big names in Japanese filmmaking have expressed their dissatisfaction with the drought of original movies, and Creator/TakeshiKitano in particular claims that the industry is in [[https://www.tokyoreporter.com/japan-news/national/the-delinquent-takeshi-kitano-rips-japanese-film-industry/ "a state of demise"]]. Critics often point to several reasons why the industry is going downhill:

** French comedies. There seems to be an endless flow of what many consider as lowbrow comedies since the end of TheNineties, to the point nostalgia for the likes of Creator/LouisDeFunes (whose decades were a ''critics''-alienating era) is still going strong. While there ''has'' been a number of clever and well received French comedies since then (the ''Film/OSS117'' series with Creator/JeanDujardin for example), the majority of the highest grossing ones fall into that category (while never having positive user ratings on dedicated sites like Allociné or [=SensCritique=]). Even more concerning, comedies (lowbrow and everything else) made up a whopping '''''67%''''' of French films produced in 2022.

*** The smashing success of ''Film/AsterixAndObelixMissionCleopatra'' likely was wrongly interpreted as "prioritizing lowbrow humor" in adaptations of FrancoBelgianComics that followed. That film's writing was clever (courtesy of Creator/AlainChabat) and the humor for the most part actually wasn't lowbrow, something that cannot be said for the 20+ years worth of adaptations that followed, which often gross big on opening weekends but find themselves maligned by both critics and audiences.

** French comedies. There seems to be an endless flow of what many consider as lowbrow comedies since the end of TheNineties, to the point nostalgia for the likes of Creator/LouisDeFunes (whose decades were a ''critics''-alienating era) is still going strong. While there ''has'' been a number of clever and well received French comedies since then (the ''Film/OSS117'' series with Creator/JeanDujardin for example), the majority of the highest grossing ones fall into that category (while never having positive user ratings on dedicated sites like Allociné or [=SensCritique=]).

* At the TurnOfTheMillennium, the RomanticComedy genre was seen as neither particularly romantic nor particularly funny. While TheNineties are often remembered as a Golden Age for the genre, the 2000s felt to many fans like a warmed-over retread of what worked in the past, with too many films relying on increasingly contrived MeetCute setups, forced CringeComedy, and outlandish HighConcept hooks, all while the characters got less interesting (this was when the term ManicPixieDreamGirl was coined to critique a particular type of shallow LoveInterest) and the actors had less chemistry. By the late '00s, this led to more serious romantic dramas coming into vogue, led by the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' films and the adaptations of Creator/NicholasSparks' novels, while films like ''Film/FiveHundredDaysOfSummer'' started [[GenreDeconstruction deconstructing the genre]]. The Audience-Alienating Era ended in the late 2010s with ''Film/CrazyRichAsians'' and ''Film/ToAllTheBoysIveLovedBefore'', which heralded a revival of the genre by hearkening back to its '90s golden age.

* Italian horror cinema fell into an Audience-Alienating Era in the late 1980s, from which it has never truly recovered. By the end of the decade, the stylish, baroque horror flicks and ''{{giall|o}}i'' popularized by the likes of Creator/DarioArgento, Creator/MarioBava, and Creator/LucioFulci had begun to fizzle out and the cheerful, low-budget {{exploitation film}}s of lesser directors had given way to poor-quality NoBudget DirectToVideo releases that were typically regarded as SoBadItsGood at best. While some good films originated from this time period such as those of Creator/MicheleSoavi, Lamberto Bava (son of the aforementioned Mario Bava), and Argento, they were few and far between, and even in the case of the latter his works from the later part of the 80s are generally seen as a step down from his previous successes, with ''Film/{{Opera|1987}}'' being regarded as his last true masterpiece.

* Many in the general audience believe that ''[[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAward}} The Academy Awards]]'' have fallen into one ever since the Mid-2000s, especially in regards to [[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture}} Best Picture Winners]] with many viewers feeling that the Academy has become very [[https://nationalpost.com/news/oscars-green-book-best-picture-spike-lee-blackkklansman-black-panther-a-star-is-born-bohemian-rhapsody out]] [[https://www.statsignificant.com/p/are-best-picture-winners-getting of touch]] with what appeals to audiences, and that the winning films have gotten worse. Historically, among the films that win ''Best Picture'', there have always been some correlation between the acclaim the film receives and how well it does among general audiences (a weak connection, but one nonetheless). However, starting in the mid-2000s there was a sharp divide between winning films that do well with critics and those that do well among general audiences & in the Box Office. A key reason for this is because of the rise of independent cinema in the late 90s & early 2000s. These were small, low-budget, typically [[LeFilmArtistique art-house]] films that usually [[TrueArtIsAngsty tackled heavy subject matter]]. These films are also frequently movies that general audiences and even many critics have never even heard of, much less seen, and they started to dominate the nominations every year at the Academy Awards. Many began to feel that the Academy has largely taken a very elitist view by specifically targeting indie films that are apparently meant only for the Academy... and no one else; so much so that many view these films as [[OscarBait existing solely to win the Best Picture Award]], and they are frequently forgotten about within a year or two. And because of this, the Academy is seen as incredibly out of touch with general audiences in recent years, and their ratings have declined greatly as a result. As of now, the Academy is still stuck in this era.

* Many in the general audience believe that ''[[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAward}} The Academy Awards]]'' have fallen into one ever since the Mid-2000s, especially in regards to [[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture}} Best Picture Winners]] with many viewers feeling that the Academy has become very [[https://nationalpost.com/news/oscars-green-book-best-picture-spike-lee-blackkklansman-black-panther-a-star-is-born-bohemian-rhapsody out]] [[https://www.statsignificant.com/p/are-best-picture-winners-getting of touch]] with what appeals to audiences. Historically, among the films that win ''Best Picture'', there have always been some correlation between the acclaim the film receives and how well it does among general audiences (a weak connection, but one nonetheless). However, starting in the mid-2000s there was a sharp divide between winning films that do well with critics and those that do well among general audiences & in the Box Office. A key reason for this is because of the rise of independent cinema in the late 90s & early 2000s. These were small, low-budget, typically [[LeFilmArtistique art-house]] films that usually [[TrueArtIsAngsty tackled heavy subject matter]]. These films are also frequently movies that general audiences and even many critics have never even heard of, much less seen, and they started to dominate the nominations every year at the Academy Awards. Many began to feel that the Academy has largely taken a very elitist view by specifically targeting indie films that are apparently meant only for the Academy... and no one else; so much so that many view these films as [[OscarBait existing solely to win the Best Picture Award]], and they are frequently forgotten about within a year or two. And because of this, the Academy is seen as incredibly out of touch with general audiences in recent years, and their ratings have declined greatly as a result. As of now, the Academy is still stuck in this era.

* Many in the general audience believe that ''[[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAward}} The Academy Awards]]'' have fallen into one ever since the Mid-2000s, especially in regards to [[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture}} Best Picture Winners]] with many viewers feeling that the Academy has become very [[https://nationalpost.com/news/oscars-green-book-best-picture-spike-lee-blackkklansman-black-panther-a-star-is-born-bohemian-rhapsody out]] [[https://www.statsignificant.com/p/are-best-picture-winners-getting of touch]]. Historically, among the films that win ''Best Picture'', there have always been some correlation between the acclaim the film receives and how well it does among general audiences (a weak connection, but one nonetheless). However, starting in the mid-2000s there was a sharp divide between winning films that do well with critics and those that do well among general audiences & in the Box Office. A key reason for this is because of the rise of independent cinema in the late 90s & early 2000s. These were small, low-budget, typically [[LeFilmArtistique art-house]] films that usually [[TrueArtIsAngsty tackled heavy subject matter]]. These films are also frequently movies that general audiences and even many critics have never even heard of, much less seen, and they started to dominate the nominations every year at the Academy Awards. Many began to feel that the Academy has largely taken a very elitist view by specifically targeting indie films that are apparently meant only for the Academy... and no one else; so much so that many view these films as [[OscarBait existing solely to win the Best Picture Award]]. And because of this, the Academy is seen as incredibly out of touch with general audiences in recent years, and their ratings have declined greatly as a result. As of now, the Academy is still stuck in this era.

* Many in the general audience believe that ''[[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAward}} The Academy Awards]]'' have fallen into one ever since the Mid-2000s, especially in regards to [[{{UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture}} Best Picture Winners]] with many viewers feeling that the Academy has become very [[https://nationalpost.com/news/oscars-green-book-best-picture-spike-lee-blackkklansman-black-panther-a-star-is-born-bohemian-rhapsody out]] [[https://www.statsignificant.com/p/are-best-picture-winners-getting of touch]]. Historically, among the films that win ''Best Picture'', there have always been some correlation between the acclaim the film receives and how well it does among general audiences (a weak connection, but one nonetheless). However, starting in the mid-2000s there was a sharp divide between films that do well with critics and those that do well in the Box Office. A key reason for this is because of the rise of independent cinema in the late 90s & early 2000s. These were small, low-budget, typically [[LeFilmArtistique art-house]] films that usually [[TrueArtIsAngsty tackled heavy subject matter]]. These films are also frequently movies that general audiences and even many critics have never even heard of, much less seen, and they started to dominate the nominations every year at the Academy Awards. Many began to feel that the Academy has largely taken a very elitist view by specifically targeting indie films that are meant only for the Academy... and no one else. And because of this, the Academy is seen as incredibly out of touch with general audiences.

* Creator/EddieMurphy had one starting with his 1989 flop ''Film/HarlemNights'' that lasted into the [[TheNineties early-mid '90s]], with his films, ''Film/TheDistinguishedGentleman'', ''Film/Boomerang1992'', ''Film/BeverlyHillsCopIII'', and ''Film/VampireInBrooklyn'' all bombing in theaters (''Boomerang'' has been VindicatedByHistory, while he's disowned the others). It was so tough for Murphy that in 1995, ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', the show he helped save in the early 1980s, skewered him for his struggles, as castmember Creator/DavidSpade snarked, "Look, children, it's a falling star! Make a wish!", which made Murphy so mad he that swore off SNL for nearly 20 years. Afterwards, he made his comeback with his 1996 remake of ''Film/{{The Nutty Professor|1996}}'' and 1998's ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}''. He entered another one in the 2000s, where, with the exception of the ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' movies, ''Film/{{Bowfinger}}'', and ''Theatre/{{Dreamgirls}}'', his films like ''Film/TheAdventuresOfPlutoNash'', ''Film/{{The Haunted Mansion|2003}}'', ''Film/{{Norbit}}'', ''Film/MeetDave'' and ''Imagine That'' were all massive failures (''Pluto Nash'' has become [[BoxOfficeBomb one of Hollywood's biggest flops]], and many feel ''Norbit'', while profitable, torpedoed Murphy's Oscar hopes with ''Dreamgirls''). He got praised for starring in 2011's ''Film/TowerHeist'', but his 2012 follow-up ''A Thousand Words'' (although it was filmed in 2008) was universally panned, receiving a [[Website/RottenTomatoes Tomatometer]] score of ''0%''. He did star in the critically acclaimed ''Film/DolemiteIsMyName'', which earned him a Razzie Redeemer Award, and he won an Emmy for his 2019 return to SNL, so only time will tell whether he'll recover.

** In 1989, the "Big Three" SlasherMovie franchises (''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'', and ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'') released bad movies that [[FranchiseKiller threw each of them off the rails]] and rendered the genre as a whole dormant in the first half of the decade. Very few horror films had much success between 1989 and 1996, and the few that did (such as ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' and ''Film/{{Se7en}}'') were either PsychologicalThriller or "horror-adjacent". It's not for nothing that ''Film/Scream1996'' and ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' - two works that are now often held up as high points of '90s horror - are best known as ''parodies'' of the genre, looking back on the films of the '70s and '80s with a great deal of snark. Besides them, other notable horror films of the era were ''Scream'' knock-offs that were seen as little more than half-hearted, [[{{Bowdlerise}} sanitized]] recyclings of '80s slasher tropes that the series had mercilessly skewered and {{discredited|Trope}}. Julia Alexander of ''Polygon'' [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/29/13465868/house-of-1000-corpses-rob-zombie-halloween refers to the '90s]] as the "WB period of horror" due to the fact that many horror films from the decade looked like pilots for a TeenDrama on Creator/TheWB, filled with good-looking young people getting ([[GoryDiscretionShot bloodlessly]]) hacked to death by generic slasher villains. The Audience-Alienating Era ended around 2002-04 with the success of the [[ForeignRemake American adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheRing'', the boom in the {{zombie|Apocalypse}} genre (kicked off by ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''), and the rise of the "Splat Pack", a group of [[TorturePorn ultraviolent]] horror filmmakers that included Creator/JamesWan, Music/RobZombie, and Creator/EliRoth, and has maintained a decent place ever since.

** In 1989, the "Big Three" SlasherMovie franchises (''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'', and ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'') released bad movies that [[FranchiseKiller threw each of them off the rails]] and rendered the genre as a whole dormant in the first half of the decade. Very few horror films had much success between 1989 and 1996, and the few that did (such as ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' and ''Film/{{Se7en}}'') were either PsychologicalThriller or "horror-adjacent". It's not for nothing that ''Scream'' and ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' - two works that are now often held up as high points of '90s horror - are best known as ''parodies'' of the genre, looking back on the films of the '70s and '80s with a great deal of snark. Besides them, other notable horror films of the era were ''Scream'' knock-offs that were seen as little more than half-hearted, [[{{Bowdlerise}} sanitized]] recyclings of '80s slasher tropes that the series had mercilessly skewered and {{discredited|Trope}}. Julia Alexander of ''Polygon'' [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/29/13465868/house-of-1000-corpses-rob-zombie-halloween refers to the '90s]] as the "WB period of horror" due to the fact that many horror films from the decade looked like pilots for a TeenDrama on Creator/TheWB, filled with good-looking young people getting ([[GoryDiscretionShot bloodlessly]]) hacked to death by generic slasher villains. The Audience-Alienating Era ended around 2002-04 with the success of the [[ForeignRemake American adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheRing'', the boom in the {{zombie|Apocalypse}} genre (kicked off by ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''), and the rise of the "Splat Pack", a group of [[TorturePorn ultraviolent]] horror filmmakers that included Creator/JamesWan, Music/RobZombie, and Creator/EliRoth, and has maintained a decent place ever since.

* Creator/TomHooper gradually fell into one throughout the 2010s. While he started out strong with ''Film/TheKingsSpeech'', which was a massive financial and critical success that won Best Picture and earned him the Best Director Oscar, Hooper and his filmmaking style became more divisive with his next two films, ''Film/LesMiserables2012'' and ''Film/TheDanishGirl''. While both were also financial successes and earned Oscar noms and wins, their critical reception was decidedly more mixed albeit leaning positive, with Hooper’s creative decisions for ''Les Miserables'', in particular the live singing and the cinematography, resulting in massive BrokenBase, and ''The Danish Girl'' being criticized for being surprisingly toothless for a film involving sex reassignment surgery, while also spawning a minor controversy over casting the cisgender Creator/EddieRedmayne as its transgender lead. However, things eventually reached a breaking point at the end of the decade with [[Film/{{Cats}} his adaptation]] of ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'', which not only amplified the flaws of his ''Les Miserables'' adaptation but added on a whole new [[AdaptationInducedPlotHole slew]] [[FetishRetardant of]] [[SpecialEffectFailure problems]], the most notable being its infamous UnintentionalUncannyValley CGI. Not only did this lead to the film being ruthlessly mocked from the moment its first trailer dropped, but in a massive reversal of fortune for Hooper from the start of the decade, the final product was savaged by critics and became a massive BoxOfficeBomb that eventually “won” six Razzies including Worst Picture and Director, massively damaging his reputation in the process, especially once reports about him [[HostilityOnTheSet being demeaning and hostile to the film’s massively time-crunched VFX department in spite of his inexperience working with a VFX heavy project]]. Hooper insisted that he was still being considered for a couple of projects after the release of ''Cats'', but this was before the reports of the VFX team’s treatment were made public; his only credit since ''Cats'' has been serving as an executive producer on the TV adaptation of ''Series/HisDarkMaterials''. Only time will tell if Hooper ever directs again.

* Creator/TomHooper gradually fell into one throughout the 2010s. While he started out strong with ''Film/TheKingsSpeech'', which was a massive financial and critical success that won Best Picture and earned him the Best Director Oscar, Hooper and his filmmaking style became more divisive with his next two films, ''Film/LesMiserables2012'' and ''Film/TheDanishGirl''. While both were also financial successes and earned Oscar noms and wins, their critical reception was decidedly more mixed albeit leaning positive, with Hooper’s creative decisions for ''Les Miserables'', in particular the live singing and the cinematography, resulting in massive BrokenBase, and ''The Danish Girl'' being criticized for being surprisingly toothless for a film involving sex reassignment surgery, while also spawning a minor controversy over casting the cisgender Creator/EddieRedmayne as its transgender lead. However, things eventually reached a breaking point at the end of the decade with [[Film/{{Cats}} his adaptation]] of ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'', which not only amplified the flaws of his ''Les Miserables'' adaptation but added on a whole new [[AdaptationInducedPlotHole slew]] [[FetishRetardant of]] [[SpecialEffectFailure problems]], the most notable being its infamous UnintentionalUncannyValley CGI. Not only did this lead to the film being ruthlessly mocked from the moment its first trailer dropped, but in a massive reversal of fortune for Hooper from the start of the decade, the final product was savaged by critics and became a massive BoxOfficeBomb that eventually “won” six Razzies including Worst Picture and Director, massively damaging his reputation in the process. Hooper, however, insisted that he was still being considered for a couple of projects after the release of ''Cats'', so time will tell if he can manage to end or prolong his audience-alienating era.

** A big part of the reason why the auteur critics of the UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave lavished so much praise on Hollywood was because they famously [[CulturalCringe held it up as a counterpart to their native film industry]] at the time, which they castigated as being trapped in its own Audience-Alienating Era. Later historians have argued that the likes of Creator/FrancoisTruffaut and Creator/JeanLucGodard were being unfair, and made French cinema into a strawman to bolster their points. But even a revisionist like Bertrand Tavernier admits that the '50s were a low point for French cinema, with largely forgettable films, poorly-thought literary adaptations that the screenwriters themselves disliked, and the best work being done in the French independent scene of Creator/JeanPierreMelville, Creator/JacquesTati, Creator/JeanCocteau, and Creator/RobertBresson (all of whom were championed by the New Wave).

** The first era is the late '40s through the '50s. The Franchise/UniversalHorror cycle was sputtering out around this time, with only ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'', ''Film/ItCameFromOuterSpace'', and quite tellingly, the {{parod|y}}ies by Creator/AbbottAndCostello being all that fondly remembered nowadays. The rest of the genre, meanwhile, was descending into [[DriveInTheater drive-in]] BMovie hell as a slew of cheaply-made sci-fi and monster movies tried to copy the success of hits like ''Film/{{Them}}'', ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'', and ''It Came From Outer Space''. Overall, the era provided quite a bit of material for ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', and with the exception of the undisputed classics, most '50s horror cinema is remembered as [[CultClassic kitsch]]. As noted above, this era is remembered nowadays for being the height of American middle-class prosperity, and while the Soviets were a menace, the specter of WorldWarIII still seemed remote until the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. While Film/HammerHorror, Creator/RogerCorman, and (on television) ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'' would provide the beginnings of a comeback, the genre isn't usually held to have fully gotten out of its Audience-Alienating Era until the late '60s, after which it's often seen as have entered a Golden Age that lasted for [[TheSeventies roughly two]] [[TheEighties decades]].
** For a while, TheEighties were thought of as an Audience-Alienating Era, especially among critics. Coming off TheSeventies, considered a Golden Age for the genre, many fans thought that the genre turned back into BMovie schlock during this time, only now for the [[DirectToVideo home video]] market instead of drive-ins. {{Slasher movie}}s especially were regarded as having killed the genre's artistic and critical respectability and plunged it into a morass of cliches, plotless violence, one-dimensional characters, and pandering to teenage audiences. This view reached its peak in the early '90s when the slasher genre fell out of fashion and seemingly took the entire horror genre with it (as noted below), causing many horror fans to blame slashers for "killing horror". However, with the critical reappraisal of the slasher genre since then, the '80s are now remembered as, if anything, a Golden Age for horror, with its defenders noting the subversiveness and great special effects of '80s horror while highlighting the films (including some of its biggest hits and franchises) that went against the tropes associated with it.
** These days, the second era that horror fans will point to as an Audience-Alienating Era is TheNineties. With the "Big Three" SlasherMovie franchises (''Franchise/FridayThe13th'', ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'', and ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'') all releasing bad movies in 1989 that [[FranchiseKiller threw each of them off the rails]], the genre as a whole went dormant in the first half of the decade. Very few horror films had much success between 1989 and 1996, and the few that did (such as ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' and ''Film/{{Se7en}}'') were typically closer to the PsychologicalThriller or "horror-adjacent" end of the spectrum. The [[SleeperHit sudden success]] of ''Film/{{Scream|1996}}'' in 1996 made horror popular again in the mainstream, but the wave of FollowTheLeader teen horror flicks that followed is often held in hindsight to be a continuation of the Audience-Alienating Era, with many horror fans seeing it as little more than a half-hearted, [[{{Bowdlerise}} sanitized]] recycling of '80s slasher tropes -- especially given how ''Scream'' had mercilessly skewered and {{discredited|Trope}} many of those same tropes. Julia Alexander of ''Polygon'' [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/29/13465868/house-of-1000-corpses-rob-zombie-halloween refers to the '90s]] as the "WB period of horror" due to the fact that many horror films from the decade looked like pilots for a TeenDrama on Creator/TheWB, filled with good-looking young people getting ([[GoryDiscretionShot bloodlessly]]) hacked to death by generic slasher villains.\\\
Much like how the late '40s and '50s were the height of post-war prosperity, the '90s are remembered as the age of the Pax Americana, the time when [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld America was at the height of its power]] and the only serious problems in society were mostly felt by groups who were already on its margins. It's not for nothing that ''Scream'' and ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', two works that are now often held up as high points of '90s horror, are best known as ''parodies'' of the genre, looking back on the films of the '70s and '80s with a great deal of snark. There are, of course, films from this decade that are still acclaimed today, but they tended to be diamonds in the rough, such that the horror website Bloody-Disgusting devoted [[http://bloody-disgusting.com/tag/exhumed-exonerated-the-90s-horror-project/ a series]] [[https://bloody-disgusting.com/tag/we-love-90s-horror/ of articles]] to unearthing those hidden '90s horror gems so as to demonstrate that the decade wasn't ''all'' bad. The Audience-Alienating Era ended around 2002-04 with the success of the [[ForeignRemake American adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheRing'', the boom in the {{zombie|Apocalypse}} genre (kicked off by ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''), and the rise of the "Splat Pack", a group of [[TorturePorn ultraviolent]] horror filmmakers that included Creator/JamesWan, Music/RobZombie, and Creator/EliRoth, and has maintained a decent place ever since.
** Some would argue that the genre's audience-alienating era continued into the 2000s, at least for Hollywood horror. ''Outside'' the US, the decade is remembered as a Golden Age for European (particularly British, French, and Spanish) and East Asian (particularly Japanese) horror, and the '00s also produced a great many quality independent American films. In Hollywood, however, while there were some good films such as ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'', ''Film/TheRing'', and ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'', most other horror films were either slashers, remakes, or trying to cash in on the success of the former two films, and if one wasn't a fan of TorturePorn (a polarizing genre among horror fans), the pickings were often slim. The production company Platinum Dunes was often singled out for criticism as representative of the worst trends in the decade's horror, seen as importing a highly stylized music video aesthetic straight out of Creator/MichaelBay movies (Bay being one of the company's co-founders) into the genre while making mostly unwelcome remakes of horror classics that suffered in comparison to the originals. This period of Hollywood horror was ruthlessly satirized by ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'', which portrays it as caught in a rut and overly dependent upon [[StrictlyFormula worn-out, formulaic tropes and plots]] to the point of CreatorsApathy. The critical and commercial successes of ''Film/ParanormalActivity'', ''Film/DragMeToHell'', and ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' in 2009 ended Hollywood's dry spell, but it wasn't until ''Film/TheConjuring'' in 2013 that this Audience-Alienating Era came to a definitive end. The following years saw an explosive rise in the popularity and critical acclaim of horror films, led by the production company Creator/BlumhouseProductions (behind ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Film/{{Insidious}}'', ''Film/ThePurge'', ''Film/GetOut2017'', and ''Film/TheInvisibleMan2020'') and the indie studio Creator/{{A24}} (behind ''Film/TheWitch'', ''Film/ItComesAtNight'', ''Film/{{Hereditary}}'', and ''Film/{{Midsommar}}'').

* Creator/MNightShyamalan fell into a bad one in the mid-'00s, to the point where his name became [[MandatoryTwistEnding a running joke about twist endings]] and many critics wondered if the filmmaker once hailed as "the next [[Creator/StevenSpielberg Spielberg]]" was just a one-trick pony. 2004's ''Film/TheVillage'' was the first film of his to meet genuinely negative reviews, 2006's ''Film/LadyInTheWater'' was seen as an ego trip that mainly amounted to him [[TakeThatCritics lashing out at his critics]] (and became his first BoxOfficeBomb), 2008's ''Film/TheHappening'' is regarded as SoBadItsGood (which, to be fair, [[StealthParody may have been the intention]] - or at least he [[ParodyRetcon claimed as much]]), his [[Film/TheLastAirbender 2010 adaptation]] of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' was seen by fans of that show as a gross disservice to the source material, and he finally bottomed out in 2013 with ''Film/AfterEarth'', which earned unwelcome comparisons to ''Film/BattlefieldEarth''. Shyamalan seemingly got his groove back in the mid-2010s by returning to the low-budget horror films and thrillers with which he made his name, with 2015's ''Film/TheVisit'' and 2016's ''Film/{{Split}}'' earning him his first good reviews in over a decade, but that goodwill hit a massive speedbump with the critical drubbing of ''Film/{{Glass}}'' in 2019.

* Creator/MaeWest lost a good chunk of her sex appeal when UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode was imposed, but her movies remained passable. ''Film/MyraBreckinridge'' and ''Film/{{Sextette}}'', made after she was convinced to come out of retirement in old age, are not. ''Myra Breckinridge'' ([[InNameOnly loosely]] based on a novel by Creator/GoreVidal, for whom this is a DisownedAdaptation) was a terrible film in its own right and only featured Mae in a single scene -- basically playing herself -- as a man-hungry talent agent-type who gives the eponymous heroine (a transgender woman who's just had her sex change) lessons on mistreating the menfolk. Frankly, Mae is not the grossest thing in it -- not after you see the [[BlackComedyRape strap-on scene]]. ''Sextette'' had West as a sex symbol... which was one thing when she was in her 30s and 40s and quite another when she's a frail, overly made-up 84-year-old woman paired with men young enough to be her grandchildren (such as 32-year-old Creator/TimothyDalton, for whom this is a major OldShame). Most people's reactions to the film are somewhere between a PrimalScene reaction and profound {{Squick}}.

** These days, the second era that horror fans will point to as an Audience-Alienating Era is TheNineties. With the "Big Three" SlasherMovie franchises (''Friday the 13th'', ''Halloween'', and ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'') all falling into their own Audience-Alienating Eras in 1989 that are detailed below, the genre as a whole went dormant in the first half of the decade. Very few horror films had much success between 1989 and 1996, and the few that did (such as ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' and ''Film/{{Se7en}}'') were typically closer to the PsychologicalThriller or "horror-adjacent" end of the spectrum. The [[SleeperHit sudden success]] of ''Film/{{Scream|1996}}'' in 1996 made horror popular again in the mainstream, but the wave of FollowTheLeader teen horror flicks that followed is often held in hindsight to be a continuation of the Audience-Alienating Era, with many horror fans seeing it as little more than a half-hearted, [[{{Bowdlerise}} sanitized]] recycling of '80s slasher tropes -- especially given how ''Scream'' had mercilessly skewered and {{discredited|Trope}} many of those same tropes. Julia Alexander of ''Polygon'' [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/29/13465868/house-of-1000-corpses-rob-zombie-halloween refers to the '90s]] as the "WB period of horror" due to the fact that many horror films from the decade looked like pilots for a TeenDrama on Creator/TheWB, filled with good-looking young people getting ([[GoryDiscretionShot bloodlessly]]) hacked to death by generic slasher villains.\\\