Socionomics Alert: Terror Pop

The horror genre has been dominating the box office for nearly 20 years now as social mood remains in long-term downtrend. See: Socionomics Alert: Stock Market Peaks Amid Record Horror Haul

Now a new genre has emerged: Terror Pop.

Guardian: Billie Eilish: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? review – thrilling Gen Z terror-pop

Old people (in this case, anyone over about 23) may be quick to cite Billie Eilish’s obvious influences as evidence of the 17-year-old’s unoriginality: Lana Del Rey’s broken balladry, Lorde’s hip-hop-adjacent pop minimalism and witch house’s lo-fi spookiness all seethe through her debut. Eilish doesn’t hide the fact that she is a product of an online adolescence, steeped in a pop cultural morass with no beginning or end. But what she does with those influences is unique.

Like a horror auteur, Eilish uses intimacy to amplify scares. She sings in a discomfitingly close gasp, like an ASMR actor having a panic attack. Her well turned melodies often unfold like haunted music box ditties or ghostly show tunes, and suddenly snatch away to expose an annihilating lyric: “The way I’m drinking you down / Like I wanna drown / Like I wanna end me,” she admits, coolly, on standout Bury a Friend.