Monster!

Lovecraft says that the oldest and strongest emotion is Fear, and the strongest fear is the fear of the unknown. As a child that fear is the fear of the dark or the fear of the MONSTER in the closet or under the bed. We all know as we grow older that there is no monster under the bed or even in the closet, but as a child we didn't know that, and the monster was real to us. That reality came from the fear of not knowing for certain whether or not monsters exist. this is very similar to the pool scene in Cat People where Alice heard a noise and saw shadows but she never really saw Irena. As children we heard the noises of the house or the wind and we feared that there was a monster lerking in the shadows, and we created this horrifying image of a monster in our head. We created such an image that our eyes never shut, and at every noise we heard we jerked the covers over our head until the fear built up so strong that we screamed and jumped out of bed (just far enough so the monster under the bed couldn't reach our feet) and ran into our parents room and insisted they come get the monster. All that fear because children fear the unknown, they fear monsters because they don't know whether they really exist or not.



We develop a fear of monsters as a child, but what really defines a monster? We see all different kinds of monsters in horror movies, from classic monster Frankenstein to Aliens, but what is it that classifies them as monsters? Carroll raises this question and feels that he has a pretty good answer to go along with it. He talks of Art-Horror which decribes the feeling that a viewer of a horror film gets from the monster. He says in order for it to be a successful monster in horror it must strike an abnormal feeling of agitation caused by the thought that the monster is threatening and impure, making the thought of touching that monster undesirable. The monsters have to make the viewer feel that if it were real, they would do everything in their power to avoid it. These monsters are fearsome, disgusting, and supernatural, meaning that they strike fear in the viewer by their appearance, or the idea of their abilities or actions, and they can't exist in the world we know as reality, but if they did they would be greatly feared. Irena in Cat people can be described as a monster because the thought of her turning into a cat and killing is a supernatural idea, the thought is disturbing to the viewer, causing them to not want to incounter such a creature. She becomes fearsome, giving the viewer a feeling of agitation, she becomes threatening, and she becomes disgusting in the sense that a cat and human should never be combined. She fits all the criteria, according to Carroll, of what a horror monster should be.

So do our childhood monsters fall under the category of a successful horror monster? If they were disgusting, fearsome, and supernatural they do! Your imagination can create some of the scariest monsters you can think of because you create them out of your own fears. Hollywood just creates monsters they know will tap into those fears, and that is why they become successful horror monsters. What is your childhood monster?