by Jason Adams
Outside of the sort of sex parties lovingly depicted by Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut the majority of us only get to dress up in costumes once per year, on the high unholy night of Halloween. And like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls I am personally of the mind that bloody brides are the only way to go -- forget Sexy Pirates or Princess Dresses, I wanna be Frankenstein's Monster! I wanna be Freddy Krueger. I wanna be the May Queen from Midsommar or the Untethered from Us.
Which brings me to a realization I had during last night's Oscar ceremony's opening number with Janelle Monae...
... where the iconography of 2019's horror movies was appropriated -- yes I said appropriated -- to deliver an immediate pop, a wow, on stage. Front and center were the flower dresses and blood red jumpsuits that I also saw all over the sidewalks this past October 31st. And yet neither Andrea Flesch for Midsommar nor Kym Barrett for Us were deemed nomination-worthy by the Academy.
It's been twenty years since a Horror Film has been nominated for Best Costume Design, with Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, and even that's a bit off-mark as far as Iconic Horror Movies Outfits are concerned -- as much as I love those goth costumes they lean harder on the period factor than they do the wow; you (unfortunately) don't see many people doing themselves up as a sneering Miranda Richardson come dress-up time.
You have to go all the way back to 1992 and the undeniable psychotic oomph of Eiko Ishioka's Bram Stoker's Dracula regalia to find not just the previous nominee (and winner) overlap between the genre and the category, but to find the first bunch of nominated horror film costumes that actually feel iconic, like something you'd actually see somebody wear for Halloween. Somebody with outstanding resources obviously -- so much velvet and lace and red metal! -- but do-able, and iconic, with those resources on hand.
And yet in the three decades since that much deserved trophy the Horror Genre has been churning out Iconic Costume after Iconic Costume, without the slightest bite from the Academy. Every year we complain that great Horror Movies get ignored for the top-line categories, the Best Pictures and the Best Actress Toni Collettes, but their allergy runs deep, and it seems especially egregious when humanity's go-to when it comes to Costume Designing ourselves is so inextricably linked with the scary stuff. How many statues for flouncy gowns that could have happened in any year do we need? When I think of 2020's costumes twenty years from now I will see Florence Pugh in that mountain of flowers, Robert Pattinson in chunky sweaters and semen-soaked top-coats, I will see Lupita with her golden scissors and the voluminous crinoline of In Fabric, well before any other.
Here are just a few of the horror movies, besides the just mentioned examples, I would have nominated for Best Costume Design from the past two decades:
American Psycho (2000) -- costumes by Isis Mussenden
Crimson Peak (2015) -- costumes by Kate Hawley
The Witch (2015) -- costumes by Linda Muir
Thirst (2009) -- costumes by Sang-gyeong Jo
Silent Hill (2006) -- costumes by Wendy Partridge
Black Swan (2010) -- costumes by Amy Westcott
The Babadook (2014) -- costumes by Heather Wallace
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) -- costumes by Natalie O'Brien
Suspiria (2018) -- costumes by Giulia Piersanti
Ohhhh that last one stings. And I could keep going. There are a dozen more examples of absolutely stellar work -- work that is often done on the extreme cheap, with all of the outlandish creativity that that demands -- that have wormed their way hard into our forever cultural consciousness. What horror movies would you have nominated for Best Costume Design?