Breaking In: Horror or Comedy?

I recently gave some thought as to what it takes to break into the industry. When looking at those that have recently hit it big, whether writing or directing, they seem to fall into only two genres: horror and comedy.

I know there are a lot of new indie directors that make poignent masterpieces that illicit deep thought and question the moral compass of the everyman, but very few of those are true breakout hits (though there are some). So, statistically speaking, the surest bet would be to go with the aforementioned horror or comedy.

Two problems spring to mind though within each of these genres; modern horror was gone from scary to torture porn or remakes of Japanese movie and comedy has moved into BIG ACTOR DOING FUNNY JOB (with notable exceptions). I like going off in my own direction when it comes to writing and that may pose so problems, most of all being the commerciality of the script. If you want to do your original, daring work you have to be established first, so in order to do so, should one sacrifice a little originality for commercialism?

I don't know the answer, which is why I'm writing out this blog and not working on a script. Most people are going to say "go with your gut instinct, write the script you want to write, be original and daring!" and as much as I like doing that, it's what I did with the soon to be retitled "Vengeance" after all, is that really the course of action that's going to get me my in? A solid script is a solid script but the hardest thing is to get a studio to take a chance on an unknown without something that has a built in audience. A psychological thriller may not be the way to go, so I've been looking at, once again, horror or comedy.

A low budget horror movie has been a huge jumping point for a lot of writer/directors: John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and Eli Roth. They got their script and directed their own movie, which ultimately is what I'd like to do, but I wouldn't mind selling my screenplays either. Horror movies have established audiences. If it falls into the horror category, a certain amount of people will go regardless of what critics say. If I were to write a horror movie that could be filmed cheaply, would that help my chances of breaking into the film industry? Possibly, but should it be original? Derivative? What do people want to see... it's a lot of guesswork. Ultimately I could try raising money myself and write a movie that could be filmed cheap enough, without taking away from the feel, and just doing it myself and screening it at festivals. A possibility, if I knew some people with money.

A comedy is very hit or miss. Scary is scary but funny is subjective. I have kind of a dry humor, with a lot of observational, situational and societal humor. In short, I don't do slapstick. Once in awhile maybe, but overall I go for the dialogue laughs so the view has to pay semi-attention to what's going on. The question is should I balance the slapstick with the dialogue, stick to what I prefer, or go for straight slapstick (Slapstick to me is not just bodily humor but one liner after one liner after one liner. Like a Will Ferrell movie). Society as a whole today seems to prefer this sort of thing, escapism perhaps, than a Clerks type of movie.

Still, I have one horror script and two comedies that I'm working on at the moment (not at the same time) and I'm trying to figure out which one to focus on the most. I'm leaning towards horror in the off chance I might be able to make the movie myself and go down that route. Still, I really enjoy the comedies and may develop those and take my own advice and balance out the dialogue with some throwaway silliness. I'll keep at it regardless. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them.