That’s because poverty itself is scary. Financial ruin serves as the subtext of so many classic American horror films, perhaps because monsters are easier to deal with than the real thing. Leatherface and his cannibal clan from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) would have no ax to grind if they hadn’t been laid off at the meatpacking plant. The hook-handed stalker of “Candyman” (1992) preys on the downtrodden Chicagoans of the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project, at least before he begins indulging a taste for grad students obsessed with urban legends.
A science-fiction film that pays more than lip service to the plight of the poor is John Carpenter’s sociopolitically inflamed “They Live” (1988), flatly described by the director as a reaction to Reaganomics.
Joshua Rothkopf
Some Movies Actually Understand Poverty in America
The complex realities of subsistence escape “Hillbilly Elegy.” But as far back as Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights,” filmmakers have been turning a discerning eye on destitution.