horror movies, part three
the ways in which we are challenged
Horror movies present threats of different levels of danger. In some horror movies, the threat is to the entire world – to humanity itself. I want to discuss some of these movies, and what this shows about the movie's portrayal of humanity.
28 Days Later
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/
directed by Danny Boyle
2002
In this movie, a man wakes up from a coma to discover that London is empty – or not really. In fact, the INSANELY infectious “rage virus” has turned most of the population into bloodthirsty killers; the rest basically cower in fear. The movie follows this man and a few others he joins up with, and ultimately a group of British soldiers. But everyone in the movie, even the soldiers (perhaps especially the soldiers) are portratyed as very “ordinary human people.” The movie is about ordinary individuals – you and me – trying to survive in the face of horrific troubles. Indeed, it eventually comes out that the struggle is for more than survival – it is the struggle to remain ordinary, decent human beings in the face of the disaster. That is, more than a few humans, despite not being infected, become as bloodthirsty and awful as the raging infected. This movie portrays the distinctively human feature as (roughly) decency.
The Thing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/
directed by John Carpenter
1982
(see description here)
What is interesting about this movie is the way it depicts scientists, of all people, as the first (and last) line of defense against a tremendous threat to the human species. In other words, when we are faced wih a global threat, it is not military or political might (or indeed any other force) but the power of our science – the best expression, perhaps, of human intelligence – of wha distinguishes us from the other animals that will enable us to survive (or not). Another movie in this vein is The Last Winter, and also The Ring – it is Rachel's reasoning and investigative abilities (that mark of science, perhaps) that enable her to survive what has killed so many others (plus a bit of luck, of course). This movie portrays the distinctively human feature as science and reason.
Resident Evil
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120804/
directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
2002
In this movie, a virus has gotten out in an underground research facility that turns people into zombies. A special forces unit goes in to sort things out, and proceeds to get killed, except for the most badass member of the group, Alice (last name unknown). In this movie, there's little reasoning or thinking or adapting oneself to new circumstances to be done – it all really come down to who can kick the most ass (it is Alice, here and in both sequels). This movie portrays the most basic (and I mean basic, and not distinctive) human feature (the one that all other features contribute to) as fighting ability (I don't mean this in a purely martial-artsy sense). (Alien, Aliens and Alien: Resurrection are all excellent examples of this).
I can't help but mention the pathological case for my discussion: War of the Worlds (which could easily have been presented as a straightforward horror movie) presents the most important feature of humanity as our ability to carry diseases. Some one-liners: Cabin Fever presents the distinctive features of humanity as stupidity and petty vices (petty evils); The Devil's Rejects presents humanity's defining feature as the capacity for (liberating?) evil.
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Friday, December 19, 2008
horror movies, part two
living with contingency*
This is a continuation of the previous discussion of horror movies.
The Thing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/
directed by John Carpenter
1982
In this movie, a group of Antarctic scientists is attacked by a shape-shifting alien life-form that is progressively taking over members of the group. After the climactic battle, our hero MacReady lies in the snow outside the burning base. It's winter in Antarctica, and all means of transportation and shelter have been destroyed; he knows that as soon as the fires burn out, he'll freeze to death. Suddenly, Childs, another survivor, appears; it's unknown whether he's been taken over by the alien. Instead of fighting, they both settle down in the snow, and wait. The movie ends.
Hostel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278/
directed by Eli Roth
2005
A group of young male tourists is kidnapped in Eastern Europe by a group that sells the opportunity to torture and kill young tourists. One of them, Paxton, escapes after struggling with and killing his captor; he evades the group (by disguising himself as a customer), and rescues a fellow prisoner in the process of being tortured. She later kills herself after seeing her horribly mutilated reflection. Later, Paxton notices the man who initiated his kidnapping, follows him into a deserted restroom, and kills him.
Hostel: Part Two
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498353/
directed by Eli Roth
2007
The movie opens with Paxton hiding out at his girlfriend's relative's isolated house; he's very paranoid. The next day, she wakes up to find his headless corpse. Then, a group of young female tourists is kidnapped in Eastern Europe... you get the idea. One of them, Beth, escapes after struggling with her captor (both grit and intelligence are involved). Beth's companion, on the other hand, just screams and begs and dies a horrible death (she's a “screaming blonde”). Instead of fighting or sneaking her way out, Beth bargains with the kidnappers (it turns out she's fantastically wealthy), and becomes one of the customers; she later gets medieval on the woman who initiated her kidnapping.
I want to say that horror movies come in two flavors: those with affirmative and those with negative endings – that is, movies that give affirmative answers and movies that give negative answers to the question they pose: can we go on in the face of skepticism (see previous post)?
Here's an example: at one point in The Thing, MacReady has cornered the rest of the group with a flamethrower, and is testing which ones are aliens. The first man is human and gets cut loose and armed with another flame thrower. Unfortunately, the second individual is an alien; as soon as it is revealed, it sprouts a giant mouth and lots of teeth and goes on the attack. MacReady's flamethrower is on the fritz, and the second man just stands there terrified until he gets his head bitten off. I want to say that what happened here is that the new man was unable to adapt himself to a world radically different than the one he knew (it turned out that your best friend might sprout a giant mouth and try to eat you and you would be required to burn him alive). He was paralyzed because his old ways of going on were just not applicable, but he also couldn't develop new ones. He failed to be able to live with skepticism.
On the one hand, living with skepticism is an intellectual matter. All three heroes (MacReady, Paxton, and Beth) all use a quick wit to respond to new circumstances (MacReady develops a test for Thinghood; Paxton successfully disguises himself as a customer – even to the point of chatting with another customer; Beth figures out how to escape from a prison she can't fight her way out of). (It is worth noting that this is a constant process: Paxton ultimately succumbs to irrational fear by hiding out with a known associate, rather than just going totally off the grid). (A really clear example of this aspect of living with skepticism is the actions of Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street).
On the other hand, there's more to it than just figuring out how to achieve one's ends (or adapting those ends to meet new circumstances, perhaps). It's also a matter of maintaining those ends (“grit”). MacReady is a good example of someone who ultimately fails to do so. After the climactic battle, if he really wanted to definitively destroy the alien, he would have attacked Childs on sight – since he may very well be an alien creature. Instead, he just settles in to freeze to death; it as if he has no fight left in him – he is world-weary at this point.
On the other hand (I love that phrase), all these movies make it clear that, in order to survive, you have to become a truly different person – and by some standards (one might call them peacetime standards) a much worse person. Beth and Paxton are great examples; in order to survive her kidnapping, they both become just like their captors: murderers. (The development of the character Jim in The Hitcher is a really clear example of this kind of response to skepticism).
To put the point another way, Bernard Williams once wrote that we would be a little leery of a businessman who said, “Well, I could always just kidnap your daughter and threaten to kill her in order to force you to sign, but I won't, because that would be wrong,” [citation forthcoming]. In order to survive these situations, our heroes have to become harder people; they have to be willing to entertain possibilities and possible courses of action that are, in normal circumstances, totally horrific and perhaps even wrong. (It is of course the contention of horror movies that you never know when you're in totally abnormal circumstances, which makes it important to be like this all the time. But few horror movies (by definition) really explore what that would be like. The one brief example that comes to mind is Scream 3; the story starts with Sidney, the heroine, living totally isolated, her location unknown to all of her associates. She even works from home. This is because of her experiences from Scream and Scream 2. (Indeed, at the end of Scream 3, Sidney is the one who gets shot – and her body subsequently disappears – a classic horror-villain trope).
* I tend to slide back and forth between talking about contingency and talking about skepticism. This is because I think the point of skepticism is to reveal the contingency of its subject matter. (That is, we become subject to skepticism, through various means, which makes us aware that certain aspects of our lives are contingent in ways we hadn't expected; we must then figure out how to deal with this.)
This is a continuation of the previous discussion of horror movies.
The Thing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/
directed by John Carpenter
1982
In this movie, a group of Antarctic scientists is attacked by a shape-shifting alien life-form that is progressively taking over members of the group. After the climactic battle, our hero MacReady lies in the snow outside the burning base. It's winter in Antarctica, and all means of transportation and shelter have been destroyed; he knows that as soon as the fires burn out, he'll freeze to death. Suddenly, Childs, another survivor, appears; it's unknown whether he's been taken over by the alien. Instead of fighting, they both settle down in the snow, and wait. The movie ends.
Hostel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278/
directed by Eli Roth
2005
A group of young male tourists is kidnapped in Eastern Europe by a group that sells the opportunity to torture and kill young tourists. One of them, Paxton, escapes after struggling with and killing his captor; he evades the group (by disguising himself as a customer), and rescues a fellow prisoner in the process of being tortured. She later kills herself after seeing her horribly mutilated reflection. Later, Paxton notices the man who initiated his kidnapping, follows him into a deserted restroom, and kills him.
Hostel: Part Two
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498353/
directed by Eli Roth
2007
The movie opens with Paxton hiding out at his girlfriend's relative's isolated house; he's very paranoid. The next day, she wakes up to find his headless corpse. Then, a group of young female tourists is kidnapped in Eastern Europe... you get the idea. One of them, Beth, escapes after struggling with her captor (both grit and intelligence are involved). Beth's companion, on the other hand, just screams and begs and dies a horrible death (she's a “screaming blonde”). Instead of fighting or sneaking her way out, Beth bargains with the kidnappers (it turns out she's fantastically wealthy), and becomes one of the customers; she later gets medieval on the woman who initiated her kidnapping.
I want to say that horror movies come in two flavors: those with affirmative and those with negative endings – that is, movies that give affirmative answers and movies that give negative answers to the question they pose: can we go on in the face of skepticism (see previous post)?
Here's an example: at one point in The Thing, MacReady has cornered the rest of the group with a flamethrower, and is testing which ones are aliens. The first man is human and gets cut loose and armed with another flame thrower. Unfortunately, the second individual is an alien; as soon as it is revealed, it sprouts a giant mouth and lots of teeth and goes on the attack. MacReady's flamethrower is on the fritz, and the second man just stands there terrified until he gets his head bitten off. I want to say that what happened here is that the new man was unable to adapt himself to a world radically different than the one he knew (it turned out that your best friend might sprout a giant mouth and try to eat you and you would be required to burn him alive). He was paralyzed because his old ways of going on were just not applicable, but he also couldn't develop new ones. He failed to be able to live with skepticism.
On the one hand, living with skepticism is an intellectual matter. All three heroes (MacReady, Paxton, and Beth) all use a quick wit to respond to new circumstances (MacReady develops a test for Thinghood; Paxton successfully disguises himself as a customer – even to the point of chatting with another customer; Beth figures out how to escape from a prison she can't fight her way out of). (It is worth noting that this is a constant process: Paxton ultimately succumbs to irrational fear by hiding out with a known associate, rather than just going totally off the grid). (A really clear example of this aspect of living with skepticism is the actions of Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street).
On the other hand, there's more to it than just figuring out how to achieve one's ends (or adapting those ends to meet new circumstances, perhaps). It's also a matter of maintaining those ends (“grit”). MacReady is a good example of someone who ultimately fails to do so. After the climactic battle, if he really wanted to definitively destroy the alien, he would have attacked Childs on sight – since he may very well be an alien creature. Instead, he just settles in to freeze to death; it as if he has no fight left in him – he is world-weary at this point.
On the other hand (I love that phrase), all these movies make it clear that, in order to survive, you have to become a truly different person – and by some standards (one might call them peacetime standards) a much worse person. Beth and Paxton are great examples; in order to survive her kidnapping, they both become just like their captors: murderers. (The development of the character Jim in The Hitcher is a really clear example of this kind of response to skepticism).
To put the point another way, Bernard Williams once wrote that we would be a little leery of a businessman who said, “Well, I could always just kidnap your daughter and threaten to kill her in order to force you to sign, but I won't, because that would be wrong,” [citation forthcoming]. In order to survive these situations, our heroes have to become harder people; they have to be willing to entertain possibilities and possible courses of action that are, in normal circumstances, totally horrific and perhaps even wrong. (It is of course the contention of horror movies that you never know when you're in totally abnormal circumstances, which makes it important to be like this all the time. But few horror movies (by definition) really explore what that would be like. The one brief example that comes to mind is Scream 3; the story starts with Sidney, the heroine, living totally isolated, her location unknown to all of her associates. She even works from home. This is because of her experiences from Scream and Scream 2. (Indeed, at the end of Scream 3, Sidney is the one who gets shot – and her body subsequently disappears – a classic horror-villain trope).
* I tend to slide back and forth between talking about contingency and talking about skepticism. This is because I think the point of skepticism is to reveal the contingency of its subject matter. (That is, we become subject to skepticism, through various means, which makes us aware that certain aspects of our lives are contingent in ways we hadn't expected; we must then figure out how to deal with this.)
Monday, December 15, 2008
horror movies, part one
One constant theme of many horror movies is skepticism - about many things. Let's start with some instances:
The Hitcher
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/
directed by Robert Harmon
1986
The Hitcher is the story of a young man driving a car across the country. He picks up a hitchhiker, who turns out to be a mass murderer. John Ryder (the hitcher) holds a knife to Jim Halsey's (the kid's) throat, and tells him to say "I want to die." Jim eventually throws John out of the car, exclaiming "I don't want to die!" Later, John kills several police officers, and then proceeds to frame Jim for the crimes. Eventually, after much inducement, Jim kills John in a climactic showdown.
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490076/
directed by Jonathan Levine
2006
In this movie, a group of teenagers (including the titular Mandy Lane, who is so gorgeous and pure that everybody, male and female, lusts after her intensely) travels to a secluded ranch for a Bacchanalian weekend. They proceed to get murdered, one by one, until it is revealed that the high school outcast Emmet (and Mandy's apparently former friend) is killing them. In the movie's final moments, it is revealed that this has all been planned by Emmet and Mandy - and then Mandy kills Emmet.
Like I said, horror movies are about skepticism - about many things. I could go on nearly endlessly with examples, but these two movies provide a lot of material to work with. So:
The first trope is the innocuous killer - the fact that the killer's been one of the apparent victims all along. The idea here is that we really don't know very much about other people. Anyone could turn out to be holding a terrible grudge for which they desire to exact horrific revenge. They could be very motivated liars. (Screamers and The Thing are probably the two movies that take up this trope most centrally).
One series of tropes involves the cops getting killed, or a father getting killed, or the invasion of one's home or bedroom. The basic theme here is that traditional sources of authority fail in dire circumstances. Normally, once the cops arrive, we all know that everything's fine; affairs are out of our hands and in more competent ones. In the world of horror, there is no such authority - though we may have thought that such sources existed, we were wrong. (Another very clear example of this trope is Jeepers Creepers).
Yet another trope I'll call the "screaming blonde" trope, because that is the most well-known example. Sure, this person looks like they're pretty together, but when the shit goes down all they can think to do is run around (often in an amusingly awkward fashion) and scream (and get killed). They panic or get terrified or irrational and in general do things which guarantee their demise. Consider Nash from The Hitcher - although she seems to have it together, she can't keep it together; she cracks, calls her father, and gives away her and Jim's location to John, resulting in her gruesome death.
The last trope is the thought that we don't really know ourselves either, until we're really pushed. Jim, after all, starts The Hitcher cast in the screaming blonde mold - he shakes and quivers and is terrified of John. But in the critical moment, he pulls it together and figures out how to escape (this happens repeatedly). The point here is that it is usually difficult to distinguish the screaming blonde from the final girl* at first glance. Only when the shit goes down do we find out about ourselves whether we have what it takes to survive, or not.
The basic idea of all of these, and of skepticism in horror films, is that we know much less about the world, about other people, and about ourselves than we might think. We are subject to illusions - perhaps even fantasies - about the way things work. What the point of all this is I will leave for another post.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_girl
The "final girl" is a concept developed by Carol Clover in her Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992, Princeton: Princeton University Press). The basic idea is that the virtuous, chaste girl survives, while her debauched compatriots get murdered. These days, however, it is usually less easy to determine who the final girl is in advance - the first Hostel movie in particular is a good example of this, in which the chaste character is the first to be killed, and the debauched one survives.
The Hitcher
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/
directed by Robert Harmon
1986
The Hitcher is the story of a young man driving a car across the country. He picks up a hitchhiker, who turns out to be a mass murderer. John Ryder (the hitcher) holds a knife to Jim Halsey's (the kid's) throat, and tells him to say "I want to die." Jim eventually throws John out of the car, exclaiming "I don't want to die!" Later, John kills several police officers, and then proceeds to frame Jim for the crimes. Eventually, after much inducement, Jim kills John in a climactic showdown.
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490076/
directed by Jonathan Levine
2006
In this movie, a group of teenagers (including the titular Mandy Lane, who is so gorgeous and pure that everybody, male and female, lusts after her intensely) travels to a secluded ranch for a Bacchanalian weekend. They proceed to get murdered, one by one, until it is revealed that the high school outcast Emmet (and Mandy's apparently former friend) is killing them. In the movie's final moments, it is revealed that this has all been planned by Emmet and Mandy - and then Mandy kills Emmet.
Like I said, horror movies are about skepticism - about many things. I could go on nearly endlessly with examples, but these two movies provide a lot of material to work with. So:
The first trope is the innocuous killer - the fact that the killer's been one of the apparent victims all along. The idea here is that we really don't know very much about other people. Anyone could turn out to be holding a terrible grudge for which they desire to exact horrific revenge. They could be very motivated liars. (Screamers and The Thing are probably the two movies that take up this trope most centrally).
One series of tropes involves the cops getting killed, or a father getting killed, or the invasion of one's home or bedroom. The basic theme here is that traditional sources of authority fail in dire circumstances. Normally, once the cops arrive, we all know that everything's fine; affairs are out of our hands and in more competent ones. In the world of horror, there is no such authority - though we may have thought that such sources existed, we were wrong. (Another very clear example of this trope is Jeepers Creepers).
Yet another trope I'll call the "screaming blonde" trope, because that is the most well-known example. Sure, this person looks like they're pretty together, but when the shit goes down all they can think to do is run around (often in an amusingly awkward fashion) and scream (and get killed). They panic or get terrified or irrational and in general do things which guarantee their demise. Consider Nash from The Hitcher - although she seems to have it together, she can't keep it together; she cracks, calls her father, and gives away her and Jim's location to John, resulting in her gruesome death.
The last trope is the thought that we don't really know ourselves either, until we're really pushed. Jim, after all, starts The Hitcher cast in the screaming blonde mold - he shakes and quivers and is terrified of John. But in the critical moment, he pulls it together and figures out how to escape (this happens repeatedly). The point here is that it is usually difficult to distinguish the screaming blonde from the final girl* at first glance. Only when the shit goes down do we find out about ourselves whether we have what it takes to survive, or not.
The basic idea of all of these, and of skepticism in horror films, is that we know much less about the world, about other people, and about ourselves than we might think. We are subject to illusions - perhaps even fantasies - about the way things work. What the point of all this is I will leave for another post.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_girl
The "final girl" is a concept developed by Carol Clover in her Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992, Princeton: Princeton University Press). The basic idea is that the virtuous, chaste girl survives, while her debauched compatriots get murdered. These days, however, it is usually less easy to determine who the final girl is in advance - the first Hostel movie in particular is a good example of this, in which the chaste character is the first to be killed, and the debauched one survives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)