PopHorror Let's Get Scared
I understand that the MCU makes superhero movies, but there have been a few instances where film studios did something différent in their execution of a film and the results have paid off. The MCU went into a slightly more horror venture when they recruited Sam Raimi to direct Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness.
Raimi took a darker tone for the film with some more jump scares, a psycho witch, and a production design that looked like something out of a Zdzislaw Beksinski painting. It was definitely a new and interesting turn for the MCU, but the problem with that movie wasn’t the tone, but its overstuffed narrative.
Anyway, the point that I’m trying to make is that we are here to look forward, not back. So, can the MCU make a solid horror film for Doctor Strange 3? For starters, this third installment would have to go back to the horror roots that made horror movies so frightening. It wasn’t necessarily a pollution of eons-long action sequences that made horror movies great. It was, rather, about constructing an atmospheric mood and palpable scares.
If the filmmakers focus more on psychological thrills and scares rather than CGI spectacle, it may dazzle the audience a lot more than any visual effect seen from the MCU, thus far. The third Doctor Strange movie could easily descend into the psychology of the villain Nightmare who is the malevolent ruler of a dream dimension where victims are brought in during their sleep. That scenario already makes for a compelling villain as it would be a foe that Strange could only fight in the dream world like Freddy Krueger.
It is possible to create a horror MCU movie and bending towards that genre could easily help that particular film stand out among the crowd of superhero-frenzied movies that has taken over the silver screens and has been so successful and abundant that people are now starting to get superhero fatigue with every new film coming out.
