Highgate Cemetery Videos

This morning I discovered some fascinating YouTube videos featuring one of our destinations for next week, Highgate Cemetery. The cemetery is believed by many Dracula scholars to have been Stoker's main inspiration for the one in which the newly undead Lucy Westenra was entombed, and where she is subsequently confronted and destroyed by her former suitors and Van Helsing. Additionally, there was a period of time in the 1970s during which rumors were spread of an actual vampire running about in Highgate. The videos are actually quite spooky, so consider yourself forewarned. You can read more about Highgate cemetery and its famous vampire by following the links posted above. Click on the highlighted text to view the videos.

Plot and the Emotions

A short follow-up to yesterday's thoughts on Dracula. Are you caught-up in the story yet? What is the "hook" that pulls us into the story and makes us want to learn more? Carroll's "erotetic" (question and answer) understanding of plot maintains that questions are posed early in the novel that we expect to be answered later on. In horror stories, the question at the heart of the narrative is often "is the supernatural being or event proposed by the story going to turn out to be real?". Such stories can be thought of as dramatizations of a conflict between a "supernatural" and a "naturalistic" interpretation of the story. If the narrative leaves us suspended between the two, the genre is called, following Tzveton Todorov, "the fantastic." An example would be The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, in which we cannot be quite sure whether there was an actual haunting/possession taking place or simply the imaginings of an unhinged mind. In "pure" horror tales, the monster ends up being real. Todorov calls that type of story the "fantastic-marvelous", and the type in which the purported supernatural event or being is explained naturalistically the "fantastic-uncanny." The "fantastic" itself offers no resolution at all. Do you think that it would be possible to interpret Dracula as an instance of the fantastic? That is, is there any evidence that Count Dracula was in fact not a vampire? Compare the narrative structure of Dracula with Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskerville's, a Sherlock Holmes story in which an allegedly supernatural being (a spectral dog) ends up being explained by Holmes as a murderer's plot. By the way, Doyle and Stoker knew one another, and there is a Holmes story that seems to have been based on Dracula ("The Illustrious Client"). We may look in on Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson while in London.

Some Preliminary Thoughts on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Horror Genre

 Dracula was published in 1897, and was written by Bram Stoker. Stoker was born in Dublin but spent much of his life in London. We will, of course, be visiting many Stoker sites in both cities on our upcoming trip. See the above links for more information on Stoker's life and works.

  Along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1817) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula is one of the most influential horror novels of all time. But what is horror, and, perhaps more to the point, what accounts for its longevity as a genre? What is the aesthetic appeal of a genre so steeped in mayhem, supernatural terror, gruesome death and dismemberment, etc.? The second question that I have raised here is referred to by Carroll as the “paradox of horror”, and is one of the central questions of our course. We will return to it later. The first question has been addressed in a preliminary way in my last post, in that Carroll supplies us with a definition of the horror genre that highlights the centrality of monsters and the emotion of “art-horror.” For Carroll, a work falls into the horror category if, and only if, it features a monster that is both fearsome and disgusting. A “monster” is any entity that is taken not to exist by contemporary science. Some monsters, like those in Jurassic Park once existed but no longer do, others have never existed. As we have seen, not all monsters horrify us, and so not all fictions containing monsters are works of horror. Star Wars, as Carroll points out, is full of monsters but is quite obviously not a horror film.

 

Dracula as a Paradigmatic Horror Novel

 

It is fairly clear that, as an undead being, the Count is more than qualified to be a monster in the broader sense of a being that is not supposed to exist. According to contemporary science, the dead stay dead and are not to be found strolling about in Piccadilly or menacing picnickers on Hampstead Heath. If he exists, Dracula is a monster in the more general sense. In order to qualify as a proper horror monster, Count Dracula must be found to be both threatening and disgusting in addition to being impossible. For Carroll, it is from the attitude of the characters in the work of fiction that we take our cue with respect to the proper attitude toward a given monster. If the characters are afraid and disgusted, then Dracula is a fearsome and disgusting being. Notice that, for Carroll, the reader, or viewer, of Dracula need not herself be disgusted or afraid of the monster; it is enough that it is established in the fictional world of the narrative that Dracula has the relevant properties. Here are a few passages from Dracula that might serve to establish that Count Dracula is indeed fearsome and disgusting from the point of view of the characters who are not themselves monsters or monstrous.

 From Chapter 4: Jonathan Harker is attempting to escape from Castle Dracula and discovers the Count in an indeterminate state, neither alive nor dead, in the vaults of the castle:

 “I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact.”

 Another example of Dracula being viewed as fearsome and disgusting comes in Chapter 2, in which Harker sees the Count move like “a lizard” down the walls of the castle. Harker reports that he “feels the dread of this horrible place overpowering me.” There are many such references to Dracula’s fearsome and disgusting nature scattered throughout the novel, establishing beyond reasonable doubt that Dracula is a horror monster.

 Plot

 Carroll is going to argue that a large part of the solution to the “paradox of horror” (why do we like being frightened and disgusted by beings like Dracula?) has to do with our interest in the plots of horror narratives. Such narratives, for Carroll, often center on the alleged existence of monsters. We will discuss plot and its role in sustaining our interest in works of horror in greater detail later. For now, try to think of the way that the plot (the order of events in the narrative) helps to engage our interest in the novel. Carroll analyses plot in terms of a question and answer structure. Events that occur early in the story set up questions that are answered by later events. For example, the first chapter puzzles about who or what Dracula is set up the expectation that later events will answer that question.

 

Questions

 

Please respond to my post with some questions and/or observations of your own about Dracula. That way, we can get a discussion going about the novel. I have also posted some links to other websites relevant to our course, or to the trips that we will be taking.

 

 

 

           

 

 

A Philosophy of Horror

Welcome to The Spectral Symposium. This post pertains to Noel Carroll's work on the philosophy of horror. Those of us going to London and Dublin to study gothic horror fiction will be using Carroll's work to provide a philosophical framework for our discussions of Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu.

Noёl Carroll's The Philosophy of Horror

Carroll’s account of horror is modeled on Aristotle’s classic study of tragedy in the Poetics. Carroll analyzes the horror genre, broadly construed to include literature, film, theater, and painting, in terms of the “emotional effects” it aims to evoke in its audience. The primary such effect, according to Carroll, is an emotion that he calls “art-horror.”

Art-Horror

Carroll makes an important distinction between ‘natural horror’ and ‘art horror.’ The former is the sense of ‘horror’ captured in the statement “I am horrified at the idea of taking a summer class,” while the latter is the sense of ‘horror’ operative in statements like “ Nosferatu is the greatest horror film ever made.” 

The following excerpt from Carroll's book illustrates the way in which he is using the term "art-horror."

“Art-Horror”, by stipulation, is meant to refer to the product of a genre that crystallized, speaking very roughly, around the time of the publication of Frankenstein—give or take fifty years—and that has persisted, often cyclically, through the novels and plays of the nineteenth century and the literature, comic books, pulp magazines, and films of the twentieth. This genre, moreover, is recognized in common speech and my theory of it must ultimately be assessed in terms of the way in which it tracks ordinary usage.” (The Philosophy of Horror, 13).

The Monster as a Necessary Condition of Art-Horror

Carroll argues that in order for a given work of art to be a member of the set of all works of art-horror it must feature a monster. Having a monster, however, is not a sufficient condition for inclusion in the set of the art-horrible (Puff the Magic Dragon is not a work of horror).It is the hallmark of the art-horrible that it aim to produce a specific emotional effect. The monsters in a work of art-horror, then, must be regarded by the other characters in the work (and by the audience) as both fearful and hideously unnatural or revolting. Compare: Chewbacca and the Wolf-Man. The first is a monster but not an art-horror monster (Carroll remarks that Chewbacca is "just one the guys").Carroll contends that it is from the emotional reactions of the characters in the work that we take our cue as to the ‘violation of nature’ on display in a given monster.

Fear and Revulsion

Carroll argues that the ideal art-horror monster is both fearful and revolting. Consider the following excerpt from H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness:

“We had expected, upon looking back, to see a terrible and incredibly moving entity if the mists were thin enough; but of that entity we had formed a clear idea. What we did see—for the mists were indeed all too malignly thinned—was something altogether different, and immeasurably more hideous and detestable. It was the utter, objective embodiment of the fantastic novelists “thing that should not be”; and its nearest comprehensible analogue is a vast, onrushing subway train as one sees it from a station platform—the great black front looming colossally out of infinite subterraneous distance, constellated with strangely colored lights and filling the prodigious burrow as a piston fills a cylinder."

Lovecraft here perfectly illustrates Carroll's point about the "unnatural", fearsome and disgusting nature of art-horror monsters: the entity encountered by the novel's protagonists is a "thing that should not be", it is fearsome, and it inspires disgust in those who glimpse its form (or formlessness).

DRAG ME TO HELL

Drag Me to Hell is a new release I viewed Friday night; I wasn't too impressed with the film, but it did have a lot of good horror elements to it. It was a Complex Discovery Plot with a horror monster, and has a few jumpy moments.


In the onset we see a boy brought up to a woman's house who is haunted by a demon, when the woman tries to exorcise the demon, the boy is thrown from the room, the floor opens up and demons drag the boy into the fiery abyss. The movie then jumps to years later where we meet our main character Alison who is a loan officer at a Los Angeles bank. An elderly, repulsive looking woman comes in to get an extension on her loan, and when Alison rejects her she begs her, but is dragged out by security. The woman yells, "You shame me!" and lunges at Alison. When Alison goes to her car that night the old woman's car is parked in front of Alison's. In comes the bus technique; As Alison gets in her car the old woman's handkerchief flys on to the windshield startling Alison. As she watches the handkerchief blow by she turns to see the woman sitting in her back seat; the woman attacks Alison trying to get revenge for the loan. Alison fights back, but the old lady doesn't leave until she rips a button off of Alison's coat and hexes it and then returns it to Alison. That night the discovery occurs very Alison experiences the rath of the demon the woman unleashed on her, and realizes that there is something supernatural going on. The confirmation comes when she tries to convience her boyfriend that what happened to her was supernatural and she visits a psychic who tells her he sees very dark forces within her. She learnes that the demon that is huanting her will torture her for 3 days, and on the forth day it will kill her, or drag her to hell. The first confrontation occurs when she and the psychic visit the lady who tried to help the boy in the beginning; they summon the demon and try to pass the spirit into a goat so they can kill it releasing the hex. This fails, and the lady trying to help her dies. The psychic then tells her there is one other way she can get rid of the demon is to formally give the hexed button as a gift to someone. She chooses to return it to the old woman, who had the same night she attacked Alison, so she digs up her grave and shoves it in the woman's mouth. What she doesn't realize is that when she was in the car with her booyfriend her button fell out of her purse onto his car floor. The next day, Alison and her boyfriend are leaving on a train when he shows her the button and tells her he found it. Terrorfiied she stumbles backwards, falling onto the train track, where the demon proceeds to drag her to hell!!!



The monster of the movie was the repulsive old woman along with the demon; everytime the demon attacked, the old woman's "ghost" was present as well. The woman was very disgusting with one blind eye that was all glassed over and a different color, she had rotted jagged teeth, filthy rotten finger nails, and she tormented Alison even after her death. The demon was some kind of goat demon that killed after the third day of torture, torture that was horrorifying in its self.



The movie was PG-13, but it was still a successful horror film; however the ending was disappointing. The film also had a comedic feel to it in some aspects, which also made it more entertaining. I would recomend the film, just be prepared to want more in the ending.

The Devil's Backbone

The film starts out with Carlos being delivered to an orphange. When Carlos sneaks out to get water from the kitchen he comes across Santi the ghost but ends up getting scared. Carlos keeps going back to the ghost trying to overcome his fear to figure out what Santi wants. Carlos finds out that Santi wants revenge on his killer Jacinto. In the end, Jacinto sets fire to the orphange and everyone ends up dying besides some of the boys and Jacinto himself. The boys end up killing Jacinto and taking him to Santi and Santi gets his revenge.

I think based on Noel Carroll's stipulations on horror films that he would not consider The Devil's Backbone a horror film. Carroll states that the horror film requires a fearsome and disgusting monster. In the beginning of the film the ghost of Santi scared Carlos but to me even Casper the ghost scares people. In the film, the ghost of Santi was there to warn the boys but not to scare them. The film to me has a vibe of making ghosts seem nice and there to look out for you rather than scare you. Although the film may not be considered a work of horror, I think that it would be considered a work of art-dread.

I think the film is a work of art dread due to the fact that it shows a battle between good and evil. Evil is represented through Jacinto and good represented through Santi. Santi does good by warning the other boys about Jacinto and wanting revenge to take the evil out of the world. Dread is an emotional response in a horror film where something threatening is going to happen. Jacinto burning the orphange is a threat from Jacinto. The audience feels dread toward this threat.

The Devil's Backbone stands out more as a work of dread instead of horror. People feel that since it contains a ghost it is considered a horror film. Carroll shows us that the monster in the film needs to contain certain qualities to make it a horror film and the ghost in The Devil's Backbone does not contain these qualities. Dread is a better way to describe this film.

Horror

To me, horror films were just scary movies about serial killers. I had no idea that there were so much criteria needed to be considered a horror movie. I took this class because I thought it would help me get over my fear of horror films. I’m not a big fan of the scenes when the killers pop out of no where and scare the crap out of you. I did enjoy the classic films from the early 1900’s. Mainly because they were more funny than scary.
I don’t understand the fascination people have with horror films. Why would you purposely put yourself in a situation that you know is going to frighten you and leave you with nightmares? I am still trying to figure out why people get scared of creatures that you know don’t exist. Is it the way they look? Is it the thrill of being scared? I think it is mainly the suspense that keeps everyone coming back to see this movies. They enjoy getting scared. It is the same for people who ride roller coasters. That is what gets these people off, pure suspense.
The monster in the film plays the most important role. They way the monster looks can make or break the movie. If the monster is too fake it could ruin the entire movie. No one will be frightened if they can’t even imagine this monster to be realistic. To me, there a couple of factors that each monster should have. One, it doesn’t have to be real, but it has to appear realistic. These monsters that never die and get cut in half and still come back are kind of ridiculous. They must be able to eventually die. They can’t live forever.
One of the best scary films I have seen is Halloween. When I first saw it, it scared the crap out of me. They chose the best mask for Mike Myers to wear. Something about it was just creepy. It only cost $325,000 to make, and as of 2008 has grosses 150 million. That is insane how well it has done.
Carroll has three main things that make a movie considered an art-horror film. The first one is that you have to be physically agitated by the movie. Screaming would count for this. The screaming would have to be because you were scare by the thought of the monster as a real being. The monster has to appear to be impure, and you will have no desire to touch the monster. I think if these requirements were put into any horror film, it would make a pretty scary monster.

Michael Myers A Monster?

After reading Carroll's analysis of what exactly a horror monster consists of, I would argue that according to Carroll, Michael Myers is not, in fact, a true horror monster, therefore making Halloween (1978) not a true horror film. I recall in the first week of class after Carroll's theory was introduced that there were several arguments from classmates against such a restricted definition of a horror film. In these arguments, Hannibal Lecter and Silence of the Lambs was brought up for debate. The argument was that by any other standards, Hannibal Lecter would be considered a monster for what he did and the monstrous murders he committed. The rebuttal was that Hannibal Lector was a human regardless of what horrible acts he committeed. We can picture Hannibal as a child, being born of human parents and having a seemingly typical childhood. I belleve that this same sort of logic applies to Halloween, therefore rendering it in the thriller or even slasher genre - but not a horror movie by Carroll's standards.

As we can see in the beginning of the film, Michael enters into his sister's room on Halloween night and proceeds to kill her. Grant it, this was a brutal act for a small child to commit, but we see him in his true, human form and a child nonetheless. This scene here is enough to convince us that Myers is not "out of this world," from another planet, created in a lab, or something that science would consider to be "out of the ordinary." He is human and belongs to a family.

Throughout the film, Myers committs several murders, but nothing that would render him a title of being more than the typical serial killler. The only thing that would lead us away from the fact of his humanity is reflected in the many sequals to Hallloween in which Myers returns time and time again after his supposed "deaths" - much like we see in the Frankenstein series. In my opinion though, applying Carroll's theory solely to the first Halloween movie would give no indication to Myers being more than a serial killer and therefore not a horror monster.

Horror as Entertainment

Horror films are supposed to frighten, excite, and terrorize the mind. So why is it then that audience find horror films so enjoyable to go see? Why any sane person would put themselves through and prefer the scares and spills of horror to a light comedy or action packed drama? I think the answer lies in the psyche of the average human.
In the core of all people, there lie certain fears which seem to be inbred into ourselves. Whether they are innate or learned is a different question, but regardless, they still exist. To face these fears in reality would put exponential amounts of stress on a person physically and emotionally. Few beings encounter there deepest fears on a regular basis, and yet, these emotions run deep within.
Horror films give audiences a way to face these deep fears in a non-threatening fashion. The action is realistic at the time when enthralled in the movie. Your emotional responses are real, but at the end of the film, the horror is over. It is back to reality and the fear subsides as the events of the movie are further removed from consciousness.
Although this may be true, there are other forms to face such fears. Why is it that horror films are more popular over other forms? Fears in the form of film are less real, less threatening, even when involved mentally in the movie. Audiences can be active within, and yet still removed. Other forms, such as haunted houses, are more real. The beings, although fake and not truly threatening, are materialized in front of an audience. This more realistic form makes fears more real and reactions more irrational.
Personally, I enjoy watching horror films. It is a thrill to be scared and not know what is coming next. Yet, I do not find haunted houses or other forms of terror enjoyable. Although I can remove myself from the situation and realize it is fake, it is extremely difficult to do so when feeling threatened. This type of reaction is explained well by Carroll. The emotions are false; they are actually very real in the situation and apply to both film and haunted houses.
Horror films can be enjoyed because of the circumstances which surround them. Audiences choose what the monster or story will be from the title and are not physically threatened. There is more control over the situation although all reactions are realistic.

Fantasy vs. Reality

In the last few days of class I really began to wonder what style of movie is more horrifying. I started to wonder if a unrealistic creature or something that a bit more realistic. The big difference for me is the ability for myself to really put myself in the position of the characters in a film and whether or not I can even imagine ever accepting the monster in a film.



When it comes to unrealistic monsters I would consider things like vampires and werewolf's and such. Mythical creatures and creatures of myth are just lost on me. I feel as if I have had the images of these "monsters" shoved in my face so long that I have habituated to their appearance and the stereotypical personalities they tend to have in film. It is hard for me to put myself in the shoes of a character involved with these creatures because I simply cannot convince myself in the least bit that there is any way, in any world, in any odd chain of events that I would ever encounter such creatures.



For me the most terrifying monsters are the ones that are more “real” to myself and my own imagination. Before I explain more, this is important to point out, just because I say “real” doesn’t mean they are any more possible than the “unrealistic” ones I pointed out. Monsters such as the creatures in Alien and the aliens in War of the Worlds (the newest remake) are the type that are really able to put me on edge.
Again, this has nothing to do with me thinking I am any more likely to ever see one of these monsters than I am to see a vampire or a Frankenstein type of monster. The difference for me seems to be a sense of “biological possibility” instead of the actual chances of the monsters being realistic. Another type of monster that really is effective in my eyes are zombies. I am not thinking of zombie in the traditional sense, but instead the 28 Days Later style of zombie, though it can be argued they are “infected” and not so much zombies.



28 Days Later in my opinion was one of the most effective scary movies I had seen in a long, long time. The main thing for me was that it really was easy to feel the characters sense of helplessness because of the situation that is presented. The “monster” (a massafication type) is not mysterious either as they are explained to be a result of a experiment on a virus that was tested on monkeys and was spread to humans. The method of “monsterfication” also hits home because of real life epidemics that began with animals such as Bird Flu and Mad Cow Disease. The connection with real life events and the “scientific” explanation of the events is what really made this movie and the other horror movies I enjoy seem real to me and therefore effective as horror films.

Silent horror movies

When watching a movie that doesn’t have any sounds but some music in the back, it leaves you in some sort of suspense to where you can start putting your own words to what is going on in the movie. When you’re watching a movie and you can’t hear what is going on and it’s a horror movie you start to imagine that the characters in the movie are saying some scary things because you know it’s scary and you can’t help but try to do something that is only going to make it more horrifying. When most people watch a horror movie they are watching it to be scared or at least leave with some sort of satisfaction with the horror film, so when you put your own words to what is really going on in the movie its most likely going to be a bit more horrifying then what they would really be saying.

Also silent horror films can be a little bit scarier then horror films that have sound, because when there is talking and there is music you can almost know what is about to happen in the movie and it doesn’t really keep you jumping, however when there is no sound in the movie at all you don’t know when something scary is about to happen, you can’t really tell when the scary person is about to jump out and kill someone. Or when things are about to go bad, because most of these things you figure are coming when you hear the people talking about it or when you hear the sound of the music change. So when there is no sound to the movie it might seem a little slow at first and not very exciting at first but when you really think about it, the no sound effect at all leaves the movie with a sort of suspense that might be appealing to some people.

Silence in movies might be better off used only in horror or comedy movies because even without the sound it would still keep the people interested in the movie, as long as there was enough going on in the movie to keep the audience attached, however not all movies would be able to pull off a silent film because not a whole lot of other genera’s would be able to keep the audience attached to what is going on in the movie, because most movies would need the music and the words to be able to keep up with what is going on. So I think that making it a silent horror movie can at a touch of horror to the movie because you don’t know word for word what is going on, instead you are putting your own words into what is going on in the movie.   

Complex Discovery Plot

Throughout all the films watched in class, I enjoyed Village of the Damned. The movie tells a story of a small British village where the town is taken over by twelve children from another planet. All twelve children are born at the same time, mysteriously. The main character in the movie who is a scientist and his wife have one of the children and start to notice weird happenings going on throughout the town. All of the children's minds are connected and when one child learns something, all twelve know how do it. The children have the power to make the adults around them to do what they wish, like killing themselves or just to change their mind about something. The scientist figures out a way to stop the mind changing ability of the children by just thinking of a brick wall when they are trying to take over his mind. But with finding out this fact, he realizes that his life will have to be taken to destroy these children. He blows up the school house they are staying in with himself in it in the end. This movie presents another complex discovery plot (onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation).

In the first part of the complex discovery plot, Onset, is recognized in the beginning of the movie when the town is being taken over and all the people pass out for hours. When you seeing this, you know that something is not right and something powerful and out of the ordinary is going to happen. After this, the plot is filled with suspense on what made this happen.

Discovery, is soon after the time all the people in the village passed out, several women became pregnant on the same day and all of their pregnancies progressed very quickly. All of the people know something is wrong, but they don't know what to think.

Confirmation is shown when the children are born and all of the people in the village see they are different. They are all maturing very quickly and have the same glowing eyes. People start to notice when weird things start to happen throughout the town that were unexplainable. The children have collective brains to be able to change the adults minds around them. For example, one man almost ran over one of the children and they took over his mind and he drove his car into a brick wall and killed himself. Another man tried to take over and he ended up shooting himself.

Confrontation is when the scientist is able to figure out a way to stop the children by just thinking of a brick wall when they are trying to take over his mind. When he arrives to the school house to announce to the children that he isn't going to help them anymore and wasn't going to make arrangements the scientist was ready for them to try to take over his mind. When this did happen, he just thought of a brick wall to distract the children of what he was really trying to do, destroy them. The school house is blown up with the scientist and the children in it.

The power to take over minds is directly related to the time period the movie was made. During the 1950's there was a communist scare and people in the United States and other countries thought the communist party was going to take over the world. The children represent the emotionless people that were involved during this time that wanted to take over the world.

Village of the Damned has many interpretations by many different viewers. The horror film generates tension through the atmosphere and emotions rather than blood, gore, and violence. The thought of some person having the ability to take over your mind is very fearful and disgusting.

The Devil's Backbone

Throughout the class, I viewed many horror films but my favorite would have to be The Devils Backbone. The movie starts out in Spain during the middle of the Spanish Civil War. Carlos was sent to an orphanage to live, thinking he would only be there to wait on his father who actually died during the war. Early on we suspect there is a ghost due to Carlos vision of one in the kitchen upon his arrival. At night he is distracted by noises that is suggested to be a ghost. Soon after we learn that a boy that actually lived in the orphanage not to long ago disappeared and is thought to be killed. Little did we know Santi really was actually killed by Jacinto out of rage who is caught by Santi trying to steal gold from the orphanage. After an explosion, many died and a few of the orphans to survive protected themselves together against Jacinto who ultimately is defeated and is drowned in the same pool of water that Santi was thrown into. Although, The Devils Backbone, is controversial between Caroll and Cynthia Freeland's theories the movie provides examples in both "art-dread," and "art horror."

I would consider The Devils Backbone to be more "art-dread" than "art horror." According to Cynthia Freeland, dread involves a sense of danger but is less focused on a particular object and doesn't inlcude the strong repulsion and disgust of horror. In the movie, there is the ghost of Santi that could be considered a monster but the movie isn't centrally focused on the fear of him. The fear is focused more on Jacinto and his presence. Carlos eventually isn't scared of the ghost and confronts him and asks him what he wants, which is Jacinto. So how can the ghost be considered a monster when the characters in the movie aren't even scared of him in the end? But the ghost does create a unnerving feeling since the ghost is powerful and unidentifiable to reason.

The movie also incorporates some of Carrolls theories. In some way, there is a complex discovery plot. We do have some feeling in the beginning of the movie there is going to be some sort of ghost with the fear displayed on some of the faces when there is talk about the orphanage. Then Carlos discovers a ghost on his arrival and in the kitchen stairway later that night. Eventually, Carlos does confront the ghost in the end and reveals he isn't afraid anymore. The ghost does have disgust and fear since his presence isn't possible with modern day science.

Even though there are some points in the movie that could be debated on if The Devils Backbone is "art-horror" I would consider this picture "art-dread." The movie just promotes a sense of danger and fear and doesn't focus on the ghost, which would be considered horror. The movie could go on without the ghost of Santi and there would still be a plot. Santi's ghost is just an added plus.

Studying the Philosophy of Horror gave me an insight on how horror is identified and why we as humans, although we are repulsed by the unpleasant and disgusting, we still go back and oddly enjoy it. Ideas for the horror genre stem from everyday life experiences, and things that happen in the real world. Some are taken right out of the real world and others are a bit exaggerated. Going back to the roots of the genre, we should think of "What invokes evil and horror in real life?"

Evil is "intentionally behaving -- or causing others to act – in ways that demean, dehumanize, harm, destroy, or kill innocent people." I believe that evil in humans is invoked by no one else but their own kind. The power of social situations to alter the mental representations and behavior of individuals, and/or groups is under-recognized. We live in a world cloaked in the evils of civil and international wars, terrorism, homicides, rapes, abuse, and many more forms of devastation. "The same human mind that creates the most beautiful works of art and extraordinary marvels of technology is equally responsible for the perversion of its own perfection."

The hunt for evil is usually focused on those marginalized people who look or act differently from ordinary people. But what causes an ordinary, "good" person to act in anti-social ways, and behave destructively toward the property or person of other people? Philip G. Zimbardo relates, "I have seen first hand my childhood friends go through behavioral transformations, and always wondered how and why they did, and whether I could also change like that. I was similarly fascinated with the behavioral transformation tale of Robert Louis Stevenson’s good Dr. Jekyll into the murderous Mr. Hyde. What was in his chemical formula that could have such an immediate and profound impact? But then even as a child, I wondered, were there other ways to induce such changes, since my friends did not have access to his elixir of evil before they did such bad things to other people."

There are many horror movies in which the character is invoked to act in an evil and horrendous way, like Carrie, Cat People, Frankenstein, Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Saw to mention a few. Carrie is a story of a mousy and abused girl with telekinetic powers which she uses to harm people when she gets pushed too far. In Cat People, I believe that Irena was pushed to harm Alice because Oliver, Irena's husband, sought consolation with his colleague. Irena became jealous when she realized that she may be losing Oliver to Alice. Her jealousy led her to frighten Alice and try to harm her.

The movie Frankenstein, is centered on a monster and his struggle in the 'life after death' that he was forced to live. He was harmless but the way he was treated by the village people made him angry and led to his outbursts of rage. Wrong turn is about six people who find themselves trapped in the woods of West Virginia, hunted down by "cannibalistic mountain men grossly disfigured through generations of in-breeding." The Hills Have Eyes shares a plot with Wrong Turn and is about a suburban American family that is being stalked and attacked by a group of deformed psychotic cannibals, fruit of the atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by USA from 1945 to 1962, who live in the desert, far away from civilization. Absolutely trapped by the psychotics, they have to fight to survive. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about a group of friends passing through the backwoods of Texas and are stalked and hunted down by a deformed killer with a chainsaw in order to sustain his poor family who can only afford to eat what they kill. These are "normal" people per se. But they are "different", which led the "normal" person to treat them unjustly, and to shun them. All they needed was a little understanding and love. Perhaps the evil in the "normal" person is what invokes evil and terror in the unfortunate ones.

Saw is centered on Jigsaw, a patient dying from an inoperable tumor that had developed from colon cancer. In the series, Jigsaw usually created deadly tests for his subjects. He claimed that he was attempting to help his victims survive with a better appreciation of life by jump starting their survival instincts by placing them in life-threatening situations. This man wasn't as fortunate as others and wasn't given the chance to live a full and happy life. His subjects were people he sees as wasting their lives and attempts to "save" them by administering various inhumane tests. As opposed to other killers, Jigsaw does not actually intend to kill his subjects. The purpose of his traps is to see if the subject has the will to survive, and thus inflict enough psychological trauma for the subject to appreciate their life and save themselves from their own demons.

We are not born with tendencies toward good or evil, but with capabilities to do either. Perhaps it is our vulnerability to situational forces that leads the way.

Some Useful Mathematical Analogies and Empirical Approximations to Fictional Horror Theory

DISCLAIMER: This Blog is a geek-freak out that may not be suitable for small children, the queasy, and humanities major. Some audiences may consider the content of the blog to be horrifying.

It is always superior to utilize some mathematics to help quantify the behavior of a system or the distribution in a system to be more particular to our case. The Gaussian curve (or bell curve) is used in a variety of areas to statistically quantify the shape of the distribution graph. Not all distributions of measured values in a system are truly a Gaussian distribution, however, it is widely accepted to make the assumption of a Gaussian distribution because, often the shape of the measured data points seem to fill a bell curve shape as the number of data points increases. The importance of using statistics, particularly distribution either Gaussian, Piossen, etc. is the shape, whether sharp or wide, gives a graphical (and analytical) measurement of the experimenter’s precision through the variance of the distribution away from the mean (and related, the standard devation). Now, I’m sure you’re wondering how does this even matter? Suppose that ‘horror’ was a measurable quantity, either by measuring its constituent parts and deducing the “value” of horror, or just directly measuring horror value. If we had no way to measure the value of horror, then it would be impossible for us to place it into a genre, and preclude other from the horror genre. It is mostly likely that measuring horror is measured by its constituent parts (the requirements for horror, like Noel Carrolls, necessary condition of a monster) on some rating scale of 1-5 perhaps and if the sum of all constituent pieces is above some certain threshold value, then the work can be considered a work of horror. Now using this methodology there would be for, each value of horror and number of works that have that value, and if we made a histogram plot, where on the x-axis we had discrete bin values of say 3,4,5..15, and then the y-axis would be the number of works that have X bin value. (See below)
fig 1.1

It is the fact, that because we can say there is some ‘mean’ to what a horror work is and that a large number of totally horror works are that mean value, then we can find a distribution around the mean value like in figure 1.1 where the mean value is the tallest bar in the center. Noel Carroll put some strong restriction on what it means to be a work of horror, and whether or not the work can art-horrify an audience, while further philosophers like Freeland, have expanded Carroll’s work and loosen the reins of art-horrifying it and broadened the idea by saying a work can art-terrify an audience. Now, this is the roughest approximation, and most analogyish statement. Suppose, using Carroll’s art-horror, Freeland’s art-terror, and combine this with the idea of horror following a normal distribution with a standard deviation. One standard deviation away from the mean incorporates ~60% of all works, lets define the standard deviation where =value 1-5 of each rated part, and TCarroll= is threshold of allowed works by Carroll’s definition and requirements. Similarly, for Freeland we define where TFreeland is the threshold of allowed works by Freeland definition and 2σ would incorporate ~95% of all horror works. Now this is really mathy-nerd-analogy and not really solid, but it gets the right ideas moving about. When analyzing and measuring a film or work, there is often times a lot of cross talk between genres, this is due to the distribution of each type of genre having overlapping edges (See Below)
fig 1.2
The idea of overlapping distribution lead me to the idea of horror existing in the positive quadrant of a 3- dimensional space where, the x-axis is the real axis (the amount of realism in the work) the y-axis is the uncanny axis (the amount of uncanny things in the work) and the z-axis being the marvelous axis (the amount of super-natural things in the work). Using the three orthogonal axis, the R-axis (real), the U-axis (uncanny), and the M-axis (marvelous) we develop a space where, Fantasy, Drama, and Action are 2-D planes defined by the combination of the orthogonal axis. (see below)
fig 1.3
Where horror follows some 3-d distribution in that space where some works are closer to the Fantasy plane, some closer to drama plane, and some are closer to action plane. If we reduce our view to the Fantasy plane, then using the ideas of Todorov, with the pure fantastic, the fantastic marvelous, and the fantastic uncanny, there is a simple linear model that follows. Suppose we have the M-axis, where the y-axis normally is, and the U-axis where the x-axis normally is, then we can define a line of the pure fantastic. (see below)
Fig 1.4
Where the pure fantasy line is defined as YPure Fantastic = , where
And wi & wj are the weights of how persuasive each event Ei & Ej are the value of the event that reveals if it is uncanny, or supernatural, if the sum of the Marvelous events, are equal to the sum of the uncanny events, then the work lies on the pure fantastic line, and follows Todorovs descriptions of fiction. In the three dimensional space in fig 1.3 the pure fantastic line can be generalized to a 3-d line with an equal rotation from every axis. These math ideas aren’t actually models based on collected data, but rather math analogies that help flesh out ideas present in class when covering and working through the different aspects of what really makes up a horror work.

The Thing Blood Test Scene (Embedded)

For ease of viewing:




Update: Apparently, John Carpenter's "The Thing" will be re-released in theaters this Fall...

Where is our Horror cycle?

Noel Carroll speaks of horror film cycles that have taken place through the years. We have recently not seen a horror cycle for quite some time. The last group of horror films was Signs and Halloween Resurrection. We still have some horror films, but not an actual cycle yet. Why haven't we had a new cycle?
My theory on this is that society has become desensitized to the past horrors that actually evoked fear in us. Technology advancements have shown us the truth about monsters and what is real and unreal. We are not easily fooled into believing that monsters could exist, which reduces our fear and disgust, and we are more prone to criticize the many tries. Technology has also made many advances in the movie industry. We have more explosions and better effects. It's truely an amazing revolution, but it leaves the audience looking for bigger and better things the next time. It makes it very hard to come up with new ideas with better effects.
There is also the fact that television shows society gruesome and disgusting events on a daily basis. The t.v. shows blood and guts all the time in movies and shows. Society is used to blood and gore. They also hear about murder and death and war every day, multiple times a day in the news. Our world is filled with disgusting things that we hear about and see on t.v. and just brush off. We are so used to these events that as a society we rarely even flinch or show emotion. Video games are also a huge part of the problem. We allow children at a pretty young age to start playing games that involve using guns and murdering zombies or mythical creatures. Kids are growing up with these games and never fear what they see.
The question now, what will our horror cycle be and when will we get it? This is not a something that I can truely answer, but I do think it is coming soon. I believe our cycle will be one of satanic horror and of things that happen everyday. The best example would be movies like the Strangers, where some kids attack a house just because they were home, and the newest movie Drag Me to Hell where a girl is cursed and has satanic creatures haunting her. These are movies that play on religious fears of being sent to hell and on the fear that the things we see on the news could happen to us. Our cycle will be more terrifying than years past and will remain in the top of the horror classics for years to come.

The Thing Blood Test Scene

As promised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkNyC6MQMj0

Lights, Camera.... Cinematography!

"What sets us apart is our drive to have the best cinematography. We work hard to get shots that nobody else has."

            - Steve Winter

            There are hundreds of elements that go in to the creation of a film. There are the parts that we, as the audience, are aware of (i.e. the actors, a set, dialogue, music, a director, etc.), and parts that we tend to not even take notice of. One of these unseen filmmaking elements is that of cinematography. Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when filming a motion picture for the cinema.

            When the art of creating motion pictures began, the equipment was very technologically limited. The shots were rather simplistic. There were no bizarre angles or quick movements because it would've been very difficult for the cameramen to create them. They didn't have any camera-lifting equipment or the ability move the camera quickly so as to cause the audience to jump. They relied on the mood of the scenes. Directors would create spooky scenes with creative lighting and eerie costumes. In the movie Nosferatu, the director does a good job of setting the scene with dramatic lighting and the lack thereof. There is a scene where Hutter is in Count Orlok's castle and he is about to go to sleep, when he opens his bedroom door to see Orlok, the vampire, standing there. He runs back to his bed and sits under the covers as Orlok begins to entire the room with the creepiest look on his face. The lighting in the room is perfect for a horrifying atmosphere. The candlelight flickers and seems to grow increasingly brighter and more threatening as Orlok comes further and further into the room. As I had mentioned before, the costuming was also important! Orlok was dressed in the slim, form-fitting black outfit with large, broad shoulders, as well as dark and foreboding makeup that gave him the perfect evil look. These elements, as well as the music, are we make a movie horrifying.

            Today, those same tricks are used, but they are much more technologically advanced! The bone-chilling music, the sudden movements, the dark scenes, the sliver of light that beams through under the creaking door; the believable makeup and costumes; every single aspect of a shot is taken into consideration. We have almost become so desensitized to certain images that 60 years ago they would've been outrageous, but today they are the least of what truly horrifies us.

            Without careful and precise cinematography, a film loses the ability to allow its audience to dive into the story and feel as if they are actually experiencing what is being portrayed. It is such an important element in creating a movie, especially for a horror film. Cinematographic techniques create the mood and the atmosphere. Without serious thought of how every last detail should look and appear to the audience, the film would most likely be boring or pathetic seeming. Imagine if horror films all took place in broad daylight without scary costumes. It would almost be laughable.

After taking the class, Philosophy of Horror, I have come to appreciate the film I once dreaded, The Strangers. The film was a Hollywood movie which came out in 2008 and had mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film 44% out of 10 and other critics give it about a 50% average. Among some of the positive views, Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said The Strangers is "suspenseful," "highly effective," and "smartly maintain[s] its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror (Quote from Wiki, The Strangers). I remember watching the movie and being terrified out of my mind with regards to the suspense and action of the movie. However, for me the ending is what made me furious as I desired good to conquer evil, not evil to get away without any real reason for the attack.

Basically, the movie takes place in a home in the country where a man and woman create a romantic evening in which the man is preparing to propose. The man ends up getting rejected not because they don’t love each other but because of the timing. After being turned down, the mood is miserable as they are stuck in this home, miles away from civilization. The plot picks up as we see slowly these “stranger” with masks trying to break in and kill the couple. The director, Bryan Bertino, did a fascinating job in creating suspense and terror as the struggle is manifested between the characters. The shrilling music of the record player, the abrupt knocking on the door, the assassins appearing in the background watching and waiting as they plan their attack, are just a few of the examples that leave you on the edge of your seat. I can honestly say that I have never been that scared in a movie theater.

The Strangers is a pure example of a work of art-dread according to Cynthia Freeland. The sense of danger, the fear, the anxiety, the battle between good and evil fit the film. The director focuses not on the gore and the killing but on building the tension and suspense. However, this does not fit Carroll’s view of horror as there are no monsters just estrange people trying to kill a couple. I do think that this film is a legitimate horror film not because it lacks monsters but because of the emotions and fears one receives in watching a horror movie. I believe that the subjective feelings one experiences due to the director’s work of editing or the devices used to create suspense and terror is more important than the objective truth of rather or not a monster exists. I think that monsters and events correlate with the emotions but it is the adrenaline, the scare that we desire when we watch a horror film. This is what should make a horror film a success or not and not the conditions it may fall under.

The ending of the movie was a big disappointment, at first, as the characters slowly die and the “strangers” leave as if nothing happened. When asked “Why are you doing this to us?” The response was “because you were home,” as if it was for pure enjoyment and no justice was served in the film. At the time, I find myself despising the movie because of this horrible ending. However, after this class, I have come to appreciate the techniques used to create the suspense and horror as well as the lack of justice in the end. The ending leaves the audience suggesting that there are still people out there in which creates more fear and anxiety, leaving your mind restless. Exactly what a horror film is supposed to do.

Horror Throughout Times

Although the genre of horror in movies has existed for centuries, in The Philosophy of Horror Noel Carroll writes that the theme of horror movies changes with time. Carroll believes that throughout time, the themes in horror movies have changed to reflect, and respond to what is going on in the world. Carroll maintains that throughout time all works of horror must still contain a monster, but the monster itself, as well as the reactions of the characters and audience to the monster, change with time.

In the 1930s, America was going through the end of the Great Depression, as well as experiencing the beginning of World War II. These two events scarred the American country, and left many of the people feeling helpless. In this time horror films such as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), King Kong (1933), and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) became popular. Although these films differ in plot elements, all films leave the viewer with a sense of sympathy for the monster. For example, in Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, viewers feel sorry for the monster Frankenstein. Frankenstein did not ask to be made out of dead body parts, nor did he have anything to do with his frightening appearance. In the movie the townspeople are frightened by Frankenstein and try to kill him, however, the audience sympathizes with Frankenstein because he only wants a friend, but is unable to make any friends.

In the 1950s, horror films shifted away from the themes of previous decades. While Americans were still living with the devastating effects of World War II, a new theme of horror movies emerged in the 1950s. Many films in the 1950s mirrored fears and paranoia that people had of the Cold War. Some of the most popular films from the 1950s were “Creature Feature” movies, which featured monsters which were mutated due to radiation. During this time audiences did not experience much sympathy for the monster at all. Films such as The Thing from Another World (1951), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), all had monsters which were enlarged due to radiation, while other movies such as The Fly (1958), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) had monsters which experienced shrinking due to radiation.

During the 1970s, America was experiencing the downside of the optimism that was present in the 1960s. Films during the 1970s often centered on the fear of demonic children, and other family members. The Exorcist (1972) tells the story of Regan, a young child possessed by the devil, while the movie The Omen (1976) has Damien, a young boy who is the son of Satan. Both of these movies, as well as well as Village of the Damned (1960), contain young children that are either possessed, or contain supernatural powers.

During the 1980s, horror movies seemed to reflect the post-modern world. Many of these films contain numerous special effects including distortion of body parts and more realistic monsters. Unlike earlier horror films in which the monsters were basically an actor in a monster costume, films of the 1980s showed a realistic monster, often including gory details. An example of the special effects that were present in the 1980s horror films would be in An American Werewolf in London (1981). This film contains a scene in which David, a young American attacked by an animal, is turning into a werewolf. The transformation scene is particularly frightening because the advanced special effects allowed the director to film a scene which shows a human turning into an animal through the use of distortion of the human’s body parts. Other films which show the advanced special effects of the 1980s would include: The Thing (1982), The Evil Dead (1981), and Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

While all of the films listed above are considered to be horror, they feature different themes that depend on the time that the films were made. Although horror has existed throughout many historical events, the events seem to shape the type of horror that is made. The themes of horror movies have changed throughout time to reflect differing social and cultural topics.

Did Comedy Ruin the Horror Genre?

Horror has been around for many generations from Frankenstein and Dracula in the 30’s to The Ring and The Grudge of the 2000’s. The question that arises though does anyone fear or feel threatened by Frankenstein or Dracula anymore? Many people would say no, they are not scary anymore. Why? I think the problem is that many horror topics that people originally feel scared of lose their power of freight because the monster or images are lost due to comedy. Frankenstein and Dracula can be seen as comical figures in cartoons today and even sometimes play roles in romantic ways such as vampires in Twilight. Using the monster or frightening image in a way to show comedy can ruin the effect it will have. Why should anyway be afraid of a Frankenstein, when he plays a goofball in the Saturday cartoon? No one should be afraid. I think that has been a major reason why the horror genre has to reinvent itself almost every decade to account for the lost of interest in previous horror due to comedy put on those previous horrors.

The movie, The Exorcist, was considered one of the most horrific films ever made. Some people that went and saw the movie could not sit through the whole movie because it was to horrifying for them to handle. Regan, a little girl, gets possessed by a demon in the movie and two priests try to draw the demon out of her. There is a scene were Regan is all cut up and pukes on the two priests. This scene of her puking, when first seen in theatres was horrifying and disgusting, but now is seen as comical. Why? The answer is because after the movie came out many films or parodies have been filmed where Regan pukes on the priest and she laughs. The whole scene becomes a joke. This exemplifies my point because now when an audience views the exorcist they are less likely to be scared of the original scene because of the comical scene. Another example that occurs in the film is that Regan contorts her body so that she can walk down the steps backwards, but her head is still face forward and not upside down. This scene was another scene that was horrifying when originally shown, but now that the scene has been redone as comical it has lost all of its effect. This ruins some of the classic films making them less effect in the horror genre.

I think that this is one of the major problems of the genre. The genre must reinvent itself every decade because it loses its effect due to being made into comedy. The genre will always be made into a joke, like that scene is predictable or one should not walk back into the place you saw the monster, etc., which means that the genre must invent new scares or new horrifying concepts to continue to make the genre successful. I don’t know if I would say that comedy has ruined the genre, but it has forced the genre to progress and has ruined the classic films of the genres for next generations. I personally don’t like that I can’t watch a classic Dracula film and be scared because in my psyche I have been trained to not be afraid of Dracula anymore.

Ju-On Plot Analysis

So far throughout this course, there haven’t been many movies that have truly art-horrified me. That is, until I was Ju-On. From what I have seen and heard of this movie, I was expecting something scary, and I believe that this movie fulfilled expectations initially. But once the movie was over and the hype gone, I realized that I wasn’t as scared as I initially thought I was.
The film follows the typical complex discovery plot seen in horror films. We see onset early on in the movie with the strange behavior seen in the old woman and the cat, or boy, found in the closet upstairs; the latter of these findings bordering on the next phase which is discovery. There are several other scenes with discovery and confirmation by the different characters throughout the film until the end when Rika attempts to confront these spirits by covering her eyes and peeking through her fingers, something she’s noticed other cursed characters doing, in an attempt to overcome the curse that it haunting her. As we can see though at the end, her plan fails and she becomes one of the spirits which she once feared.

Though overall the movie was moderately frightening after the fact, there were a couple elements which I found particularly chilling once the film was over. For one, as we’ve seen in The Haunting, most ghosts or haunting occur at night, or in the dark. In Ju-On, we see the small boy twice during the day – once when Rika finds him in the closet and again when she is out to dinner with her sister. This could make these ghosts more frightening because they are out of the norm for what we expect of these fictional characters. Another thing which stood out for me was when we see one particular character in her apartment hiding under the covers. When she lifted the blanket, she came face to face with another one of these ghosts. This struck me because when I was younger, I used blankets as well to hide from things I found threatening or scary, as I’m sure most of us id. This for me dealt with the discussion of childhood imagination in relation to fear and struck me as the most terrifying scene in the whole movie. Other things, scary but not as frightening to me, were the unnatural movements of one of the ghosts, as well as the ghosts’ ability to present themselves at anywhere at any time to haunt those who were cursed.

By the end of the movie, we are left with no fantastic hesitation. We see the story from the 4th wall point of view, and the ghosts are confirmed by several characters – not just one. Overall though, I didn’t find the story extremely cognitively stimulating. Perhaps this is because I was reading subtitles and could only partially commit time to watching the film, which may have also led to my slight confusion in some scenes. Even with all of this though, I believe that the most definitely fulfills Carroll’s theory of horror.

PSYCHO - 1960

The movie I chose to watch as my film article was that of Hitchcock’s Psycho. I chose this movie on the reviews of others. Although the movie (in my opinion) took awhile to get to the suspense, I thought the shower scene and the climate at the end were packed with thrill and excitement as the plot unravels with the explanation in the end. The struggle that I had was whether or not (according to Carroll) Norman Bates legitimately fits the mold of a monster as well as Psycho being a horror film

Hitchcock’s movie Psycho, in my opinion is as real if not as more real in being a legitimate horror film. Some horror critics would classify Psycho as a horror film as well as others (like Carroll) would not. Carroll does give recognition to the atmosphere, sound effects, lighting, as creating suspense and tension in the film. But for Carroll the reason why Hitchcock’s movie is not counted as a horror film is because for Carroll, Norman Bates is not a monster. A monster has to be repulsive/disgusting and it must be feared. For Carroll a monster has to be a fictional being. It is this premise in that I disagree with him.

A “Monster” is “Any being not believed to exist now according to contemporary science” (Taken from notes). Bates is not a monster because science/psychology could classify him into a certain psychosis category. How is this possible? I could agree with Carroll that Bates may not be a monster in regards to “Art-horror,” but in reality I am more afraid of a Norman Bates in the world than a Frankenstein or a Dracula. He isn’t normal, “neither man nor woman but both. His is son and mother. He is of the living and the dead. He is both victim and victimizer. He is two persons in one” (pg 39, Carroll). However, Carroll says that this is a function of psychology rather than biology. My question would be what if the discipline of psychology couldn’t obtain a “scientific” explanation of Norman Bates condition? Would that make him a monster?...Science couldn’t explain it. He is a monster. There is something terribly wrong with his mind, a sort of impure, terrifying human as we know he is not normal. Carroll says, “We place ourselves in a position to explain what it is about figures like Norman Bates that tempts people to classify him as horrific.” I would say the reason why he is horrific is because I would not want to have a tea party at Bates’ house alone. That is what makes him a monster. Throw out science, there is still evil, fear, and disgust in such a man.

In conclusion, I would say that Psycho as well as many of other movies could best be classified as a horror film but following the “art-dread” category and not “art-horror.” In my opinion, the art dread category is more realistic and best suits the “Thought theory” in creating suspense and fear. I say this because there is a level of “this can happen” in the minds of the audiences which makes it more terrifying. I concur that Psycho’s Norman Bates is feared and disgusting (though not at first). Though Psycho doesn’t have a monster like a Frankenstein or a Dracula, it still has a villain that at the “thought” of it is terrifying in and of itself. This is what makes it a monster.

Guillermo Del Toro on Contemporary Horror

Guillermo Del Torro, the director of Pan's Labyrinth, Blade 2, and Hellboy, in response to the question of why horror persists as a genre:

"Because right now reality is so horrible. Everything has been so jaded, so manhandled, and horror maintains its purity. It is one of the stages of emotion that remains pure, and people love pure emotion. If you are capable of eliciting a moment of fear, of true fear, if anyone connects with your movie and feels a shiver of recognition that there is something in that screen that is beyond the natural, it's a huge high. It's as exciting as the best action sequence or the most romantic kiss. Pure uncut emotion, that's what people like. Sadly, horror movies just tend to be gory and blase, almost to the point of being post-modern reflections of horror. I am still a believer in the old gothic ghost story set in a building with long corridors and dark dungeons - there is still value in that."

Horror and Laughter

Comedy and horror are very commonly seen as two distinct genres. Horror is meant to incite fear and disgust according to Carroll and comedy is expected to cause laughter and happiness. Most people go to a horror movie to jump and scream while most people go to a comedy film to laugh and have their mood lifted. So is there any place in horror for comedy? Can a "monster" by Carroll's definition be involved in a funny situation?



My primary example of this hybrid genre is the film Shaun of the Dead. This is basically a play on the Dawn of the Dead films and most of the other zombie movies both past and present. The main actor is known mostly for his work in comedy and at it's roots I would say Shaun of the Dead IS a comedy. BUT I would also argue that the film is a horror film at the same time. The "monster" in the film is a mass horde or zombie's in a small town in England. The monster falls under the type of "massification" and in my opinion cause a great deal of fear and disgust to both the characters in the movie and the audience viewing the film.



The film is undeniably a comedy though. Whether you like the movie or not you have to be able to admit that it is at least tries to be funny. Though it has lots of funny jokes that are both between the living characters and those involving the zombies there is also a fare share of horror elements too. The film follows the Complex Discovery Plot very well and has some very tense moments. A scene when a group of the survivors are stuck in a car with zombies surrounding the vehicle gets very tense when one of the passengers who was previously bitten begins to turn into a zombie also. Another scene involving the group stuck in a local pub with zombies pouring in from the windows. The movie does, in my opinion, create plenty of "fearful" moments and even has an example or two of the "bus technique".

On another note, "true" horror movies also are great examples of this ideas of horror and comedy. Most of the films we have watched in our class have at least a few examples of comedy in them (though some of the older films may have been unintentionally funny).

For me I think there is a very strong connection between horror and comedy. I believe that essentially the emotions elicited by both genre's are very basic. Happiness, nervousness, anxiety, and the other things we feel during a film of either genre. I think that we go to both types of film to be put on the edge of our seat and to have the unexpected thrown at us, as the unexpected is the basis of both horror and comedy. I think that there are probably even better examples of this idea and that more examples will come our way in the future. The hybrid of horror and comedy is interesting to look at but I also have to wonder how many things can be mixed with a genre like horror that has so much potential.

Ju-on's Complex Discovery Plot.

Ju-on is a Japanese horror film that leaves the viewer bitting their nails,waiting for the little boy to walk behind the character who happens to be aimlessly wandering in a stranger's home to see if anyone is home. The characters then discover the boy before they are killed and dragged into the attic. The film is quite scary, not just because of the boy and the other ghosts, (or maybe they're zombies) but because of the way in which the story is presented. It is presented in a plot style that creates suspense and keeps the viewer interested; a plot style similar to the one known as the Complex Discovery Plot.

The film starts with the onset which is where the monster's presence is established to the audience. In Ju-on, this onset occurs when Rika, a volunteer, goes to an elderly woman's home to check up on her. While she is there she discovers that the woman's home is in terrible need of cleaning and begins to straighten up. She wanders upstairs to discover a little boy locked in the closet. When she tries to alert the old woman, she and the audience see the terror in the woman's face as a ghost is lerking over them that eventually kills the old woman. This part in the film is when it becomes obvious that something is wrong in this house, because the boy has now disappeared as well.

The discovery, which is when an individual or group learns of its existance, occurs later when the police are called after another social worker discovers the dead woman and finds Rika in the corner of the room terrified. She askes the police if they found the little boy, but they tell her that there was no little boy that lived there, the previous owners had no children.

The confirmation is when the discover of the monster convinces others of the existance of the creature. In Ju-on this occurs when Rika tells the police the little boy's name, and insists that she saw him, she even hands them a picture of him with his parents she found. The police later find an old news story about a tragic incident involving a family of three, where the pictures in the paper matched the one she gave the police. The further strengthen the confirmation, the police bring in the detective who worked the case. He has connections with the original case, one in which he knew something else was occuring.

The confrontation of the plot is when the character/s face the monster. In this film, there were multiple cronfrontations, but the most important one is when Rika returns to the house to save her friend who is tutoring a "little boy" in the same house where everything happened earlier. She runs in, but doesn't find her friend, but instead finds the ghost who hears her in the house and comes down the steps on her hands and feet after Rika.

To be honest the ending of the film is confusing, so I can only give my interpretation of it. There is more than one ghost. The one that comes down the steps after Rika is the mother of the little boy. She was killed by her husband because the little boy wasn't his son, but that of another man. The boy was killed as well because he watched his mother being murdered and then the husband killed himself. Whent the mother comes down the steps after Rika, she possesses Rika's body, which is then killed by the ghost of the husband thinking it is his wife, the whole time as the little boy watches from the stairs above.

The plot structure adds the suspense to the films, creating one that keeps you on the edge on your seat, literally.

The Thing From Another World, Onset/Confrontation Plots, and Cold War Horror

Howard Hawks’ 1951 Sci-fi/horror classic The Thing (From Another World), starring James Arness (of Gunsmoke fame) in the titular role stands as a potent blend of science fiction and horror. The Thing is a science fiction film by virtue of its exploration into the potentialities of extraterrestrial life, space ships, and new technology, and The Thing also fits Noel Carroll’s criteria for being a horror film. It has a monster, the Thing, which is both fearsome (it is seven feet tall and strong as an ox) and it is disgusting, being a humanoid, bloodsucking vegetable organism. The creature is disgusting because it is an unnatural, impossible, interstitial hybrid of man and vegetable. As Carroll notes, “the creature in Howard Hawks’ classic The Thing is an intelligent, two-legged, bloodsucking carrot. Now that’s interstitial” (Carroll 32).
The theme and atmosphere of The Thing is also characteristic of the horror genre. Our characters are completely isolated, outside the reach of humanity, and plagued by an unknown threat, which could be lurking behind every corner. The Thing does fit into one of Carroll’s characteristic narrative structures, namely the “Onset/Confrontation” plot. The Thing also provides a classic example of Cold War Horror.
Carroll identifies the horror genre as having two general narrative families, the Discovery plots and the Overreacher plots (mad scientist plots). The Discovery plots consist of four main movements: the onset, the discovery, the confirmation (present in ‘complex discovery’ plots), and the confrontation. These basic movements can be divided to form different types of stories, but no horror film involving the discovery of a monster can be without all of them. The Thing represents the onset/confrontation plot structure, which for Carroll “seems to be a function of the fact that there is really no distance between onset and discovery…there is no question about the existence and the nature of the present danger to all concerned…some characters might not think that the monster should be destroyed and may impede efforts to kill it. But there is no question that it is a monster that is at large” (Carroll 111). The plot of The Thing fits this structure very well.
The film begins with the Air Force being called to the North Pole at the request of Dr. Carrington, an eccentric researcher, to investigate the crash of a UFO in the ice. After failing to preserve the craft, the crew is able to salvage the frozen body of the pilot and take it back to the base. At the base, Carrington and the commanding officer Capt. Hendry disagree on what is to be done with the body; Carrington wanting to thaw it for observation and Hendry wanting to keep it frozen and await higher commands. A massive snow storm cuts them off from the outside, complicating what the orders of operation are from the Air Force. One of the guards of the body, disturbed by the visage of The Thing, covers the block of ice with an electric blanket (unbeknownst to him) and thaws the creature, which subsequently escapes. The Thing is then attacked by sled dogs, which manage to sever its arm. The crew examines the severed arm, and concludes that it is some form of plant life which is nourished by ingesting blood. Carrington then engages in secret experiments involving ‘seedlings’ of the Thing, which he has cultivated in a green house using human plasma. In the base green house, Carrington finds the blood-drained body of a sled dog, confirming his thesis that the Thing lives on blood. Two men who guard the greenhouse are killed by the Thing and drained of blood that night. A survivor of the attack notifies the rest of the crew that the Thing is on the loose, and out for blood. During this crucial part of the film, the tension between scientists and the military reaches a high point. Capt. Hendry learns of Carrington’s illicit experiments, but before he can confront him, the Thing strikes again, but this time the crew is able to temporarily trap it in the green house, buying them valuable time to formulate a plan, but it escapes. Failing to destroy it using kerosene, the crew devises a plan to electrocute it to death. Carrington attempts to foil the crew in this plan and save the Thing by shutting the power down and attempting to reason with the creature, but Carrington is violently tossed aside by the Thing instead. With Carrington out of the picture, the crew is able to lure the Thing into a trap and electrocute it to death, thus ending to threat to humanity (for now). The film ends by imploring the audience to “Keep watching the skies!”


This type of story is typical in the onset/confrontation plot which often involves an atmosphere of intense isolation, suspense, and a feeling of decisive conflict (ex: Alien). Another hallmark of the Thing is that the monster could be anywhere at any given time, thereby generating an intense suspense and dread (ala Evil Dead). The film seamlessly flows from onset (finding the monster, who is undeniably a monster, and who undeniably kills crew members and drains them of blood) to confrontation (the crew immediately devises a way to destroy the monster). The primary contribution of The Thing to the horror genre is its near flawless execution of the onset/confrontation plot in a sci-fi setting. The Thing is almost equal parts science fiction and horror, which is a difficult combination to have for a film without it sacrificing its effectiveness in either genre. It is able to successfully create an environment of genuine fear and suspense, provide a disgusting monster, and at the same time explore salient social issues (what would Lovecraft think?...). The fusion of science with horror is a unique element in The Thing. In the Cold War, science and scientific advancements were the sources of endless new horrors, such as the Atom Bomb, Intercontinental Missiles, Eugenics, etc. Science Horror movies, like The Thing, were armed with new horrors to art-horrify audiences with. The use of science fiction also lends more effectiveness to the exploration of social issues at the time. Fears of “the outsider” (the Thing), the dehumanizing effects of science, the threat of seemingly unstoppable forces (Communist Russia) and tensions within society about the proper relation of science to the military all were effectively explored in The Thing by virtue of its strong science fiction element.
As such, The Thing is a prime example of a Cold War Era monster movie, which usually explored themes of societal tension, Red Scares, and the larger theme of Science versus Military. Dr. Carrington represents the unscrupulous advancement of science, at the expense of mankind, as evidenced by his autonomous view of science: “In Science there are no enemies, only phenomena”. Capt. Hendry represents the courageous forces of the armed forces, which will defend mankind from any threat, foreign or domestic. In the end, it is very important that the sensible scientists ally themselves with the military to defeat the unstoppable monster (representing Communism). This synergistic alliance between the military and reasoned scientists was a prevalent thread in the social fabric of the early nineteen fifties. In the end, the monster is defeated, unscrupulous science is subordinated, and we are all safe, but the final message of film begs us all to be vigilant (presumably for Communists) and “watch the skies”.
The Thing is a timeless piece of horror sci-fi, and is also a seminal film for 50’s Cold war monster movies.