The steady, very significant rise of horror films in popularity over the past several years has been striking to observe in the media literacy classroom. The increasingly significant number of students who select horror filmmakers and movies as topics of investigation for reports, analyses, and sources of inspiration — and most notably female students — is reflected in the stunning range of horror creations across motion picture media types today, from feature films to streaming series to interactive games and points in between and beyond. In fact, currently, for her final project in Advanced Video Production one of my students is working on a documentary called The Evolution of Horror in which she traces the history of horror filmmaking from the first years of cinema to now.
That said, horror is certainly a genre that can present a variety of issues when addressed in a classroom setting. One series that can give educators some ideas of current and recent horror media from across the globe (and often off the beaten path) is the series Five Horror Movies to Stream Now from The New York Times. Here is a recent edition from this series. It’s your decision whether the pieces are tricks or treats. Happy Halloween!
P.S.: Check out this informative piece — ‘Being a Woman is Full of Horror’ : Female Directors Discuss Their Craft — published in February of 2022, again from the New York Times, for interviews with current women mediamakers (including Prano Bailey-Bond, Kate Dolan, Charlotte Colbert, and others) exploring the diverse worlds of horror and suspense motion picture storytelling.
A NYTimes OpDoc piece was published recently and it concerns a topic close to the hearts of generations of movie viewers, each with their own reference points related to the genesis and evolution of this storytelling universe: Star Wars. In this case, the issue being explored is the impact of media on a particular group of people sometimes involved in its creation and subsequent life in culture: child actors.
In the “year without a (real) 
mediateacherdotnet 