It Could Happen to You

I have always subconsciously asked the question “Why horror?” because it is difficult for me to watch. According to Carroll, “Works of horror cannot be construed as either completely repelling or completely attractive.” I understand the attraction toward excitement and stimulation, but they have typically had a lasting effect on my psyche.  Personally, the exception has been shark movies: I am able to watch them without fear because I am in control of whether or not I am near sharks.  I watched Open Water because mass murderers and paranormal activity are plausible while sharks are completely avoidable.  Shark movies are notorious for their dramatic music which eliminates the element of surprise.  You simply know it’s coming. Open Water shows the “based on a true story” side of shark movies and emphasizes the human demise rather than shark attacks.

Horror is sought by some in order to experience awe, but there are various arguments about why people subject themselves to horror: “Cosmic fear may be relevant in explaining why some works of horror attract their audience, but it is not fundamental enough to explain the attractiveness of horror across the board” (162-164).  Horror is typically based in a narrative form: the plot is typical until something or someone bad happens upon it – the fact that these monsters exist in a seemingly normal world entices people (181). The curiosity and fascination that monsters and evil lives among us lures people to horror.  It is similar to the car wreck effect and rubbernecking; although the site is gruesome or simply unfortunate, people end up in massive traffic jams because of the temptation to look.  Horror is attractive because it defies Hollywood’s stereotype of "happily ever after." The viewer may keep looking for a rescue boat or helicopter destined to save the struggling couple, but it never comes.

In Open Water, the plot began with a serene vacation.  Daniel and Susan’s inevitable mental breakdown and eventual hopelessness of rescue exposes human vulnerability.  Their fate is realistic: the movie is filmed in a documentary type framing which enforces this idea. Vast oceans make up most of our world yet we are ignorant to their depth: horrific ocean films satisfy part of this unknown. Similarly, movies with murderers and demons offer aspects of human life that most never encounter.  BUT, characters are average, from all walks of life, encouraging the notion that it could happen to you.

This picture is a hoax but talk about chills?!

Not so funny without blood

Our views on the genre of horror have evolved. After all, we fear the most that of which we can relate to, so it is understandable that more and more horror movies deal with themes and scenarios relatively plausible to happen. Yet one undeniable thing is the growing explicitness in horror films. It is such, that movies from 30 years ago do not have the same effect in the newer generations as they did when they first were released. Our desire for horror and fear keeps pushing boundaries that we have become immune to a degree of violence and horror. In Funny Games, director Micheal Haneke tries to prove such point. That we as spectators cheer for violence and horror, that they in fact are entertainment for us. That a scenario where 2 psychopaths capture hostage a "classic white suburban upper class" family, we find it dull without the violence, that though is not explicitly showed in many occasions, we assume it to happen in our minds in order for things to be entertaining.

In The Paradox of Horror we are asked the question "how can people be attracted by what is repulsive?" Indeed, why do we find pleasure or desire for horror? Why do we seek for that of which we fear, and wish to avoid? How can we answer the paradox of horror?

H. P. Lovecraft argues that our attraction for horror is based on an attraction for awe, "Humans, it appears, are born with a kind of fear of the unknown which verges on awe. Thus, the attraction of supernatural horror is that it provokes a sense of awe which confirms a deep-seated human conviction about the world, viz., that it contains vast unknown forces." Hume claims is "pleased in proportion as they are afflicted" Yet none of them answer the why we are attracted by what is repulsive. They both simply state that we find enjoyment or awe in horror.

Could it be possible that we are by nature violent beings, but by virtue of being conscious and intelligent beings, we deny this nature over our sense of morality, and thus we find this attractiveness in the gore and gruesome of horror? Of being able to experience that of which by our rules of coexistence we are unable to do so?
To me personally horror movies give me a reality check of what humans are capable of doing. That though in my reality have not existed, does not mean that cannot happen.

Don't Read This Blog

The fear and horror concerning Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining are surrounded by the topics of insanity and paranormal realities. These elements are first shown through the abilities of Danny, the son, and Dick Hollerann’s, the hotel manager, ability to communicate telepathically. In the scene following the first display of this ability, the hotel manager takes Danny to get ice cream and explains the nature of their ability in simple terms. He terms their ability as “the shining.” He also explains how some buildings are similar to people with the shining and hold memories and footprints of previous activities that occurred at the location. From this point forward, paranormal activity and the mental stress of cabin fever began to take their tole on the Torrance family.

This film brings attention to both the comparison and contrast of insanity and paranormal/ demonic behavior. Early in the film, when Danny describes the nature of Toni, the voice that lives in his mouth, to a doctor, it is made rather apparent that Danny was schizophrenic. This marked him as a potential threat to the Torrance family within the context of a horror film. However, Toni displayed is ability to accurately predict the future on several occasions. This in not a characteristic of schizophrenia and blurred the lines between mental illness and the paranormal. At this point, the audience is forced to abandon the logical notion of Danny being and schizophrenic child trying to understand his mental illness, and accept “the shining” explanation proposed by Dick Hollerann.

Once the paranormal explanation is accepted, the fear of the unknown plays it’s role on the audience as a source of horror. In a clever fashion, the audience succumbs to the paradox of horror as they are attracted to a repulsive story of The Shining in the same way that Johnny Torrance succumbs to the will of the Overlook Hotel and its hauntings. The paradox of horror explains the phenomenon of how “normally aversive events and objects can give rise to pleasure or can compel our [the audience’s]  interests,” (Carroll, 161). The paradox of horror usually describes the artistic presentation of horrific events. However in Johnny’s case, he flirts with the paradox of horror as he interacts with the paranormal inside of the Outlook Hotel. This ultimately leads him to begin wielding an axe with the thirst to murder his small family. With one dead and the ongoing pursuit of a nearly defenseless woman and child, the audience continues to watch from the edge of their seat as the desperate are hunted. The paradox of horror successfully exploits the fatal flaw of man. It exploits the curiosity as it lures us into greater tragedies than we originally wished to witness.

IT MUST BE AN OMEN

For myself, i am not to fond of the Horror genre. I have never been one to want to intentionally become scared or frightened to build up my adrenaline. With that being said, I did watch The Omen, namely because it was a very old movie. This did, in my opinion, set it apart from some of the other Horror movies that were on the list.

The movie did a good job in representing a real world setting that any person could be a part of, which drew myself and possibly other viewers in. The entire movie is surrounded around Damion, the son of the Prime Minister of the United States who lives in Britian now, while also being the son of the Devil. Many movies will play on this idea that the son of the devil is a child who goes around killing and killing and killing. It was not his doing that the people died, but the work of his guardians, or demons. For being a movie that took place back in the 1960s, there was not the amount of special effects that could have been done to amp up the movie like there are now. What the director did very well in my opinion was set the mood.

What i did like about this horror movie was the simplicity of it. The very first horror movies were not about how gruesome or Devilish the creatures could look, but the "What if". If there is the idea that this could happen and may be happening to one of us, it scares the hell out of you. (Not pun intended)

Most all Horror movies have a general theme to theme that runs through them. Generally they are scary, hence the Horror Theme. But what a director can do that really sets the movie off is uses the sense of the viewer against himself. For the Omen, the music was constantly telling of a bad action that was about to happen that kept you wondering. The score had no sound so that it would not draw away from the attention given to the fear about the occur. Along with this, the pause of action builds suspense for Terror/Thriller movies, along with the cinematography that makes the viewer question hi/her own senses.

What i did enjoy about this movie which is an interesting point that i brought up a week or two back in class, is that Damion, the anti-Christ or antagonist of the movie, actually wins.  Not many movies will end with the bad guy coming out victories because it does not sit well with the audience. I really did respect the director for doing that since Damion did have way more power than anyone in the movie.

Staying Far Away from the Woods

Horror and Fear are part of the genres most popular in today's movie industry. Movies like Sinister, Annabelle, The Conjuring, The Green Inferno, Paranormal Activity, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project and the list goes on and on. Naturally if any of these situations being portrayed in film happened to the person watching it, it wouldn't be entertaining at all (for the victim(s)). Yet, day after day people are indulging themselves into these films of blood, death, and fear. There are a plethora of theories on why viewers watch these, but the main point that really relates to why I enjoy them is because of my attraction of power.  In The Omen, the powerful Antichrist child Damien, is the main power and fear source of the movie. His own adoptive father is so fearful of him he going on a hunt to figure out what is going on with his son.  Or in The Blair Witch Project, where there is legend of this old crazy witch that haunts the woods that these young people go to research and film a quick documentary in. Assumably at the end of the film, all three have met their demise at the hands of this powerful unknown beast.  They go without food for days, constantly trying to find their way out of the woods but always seeming to end up at the same night before.
These two movies the whole time have the viewers so captivated and wanting to see what terrible occurrence is going to happen next. As this is happening, viewers are eagerly awaiting the next suspenseful moment to be answered.  Knowing death and/or pain is lurking right around the corner for these characters. When these moments finally occur,  we as viewers become almost sympathetic for some, and wanting something terrible to happen to another.  For example, in Blair Witch Project, personally I became sympathetic for Mike, who just wanted to do the minimum to get the documentary completed and get out of the woods. Yet Heather was the person I didn't sympathize with because her confidence was her downfall.
A factor of fear embodied in Blair Witch Project, as they both lose their sanity, bringing them closer, knowing the fear that loiters in the nighttime. Their "sticking together for survival" was the factor that helped them last longer but yet it also aided to their demise. This applies to the Paradox of Fear because it enticed our pleasure, for the reason that you can sense that their end is near.  As well in The Omen, after Robert grabs Damien and brings him to the church, you can sense the end is near for Robert because he is battling with Satan Jr.
We are a world filled with strong believers in "oh that won't happen to me" and the high level of love for these horror and fear movies in the world really proves that.

What is really the Monster?

In Carrol's The Paradox of Horror, she brings about the point of "how to make a monster". She states that monsters can be different in regards to how they scare, or threaten; that it has to destroy, whether its fatal physically, morally, or societal. She then states:

"However, in order to be threatening, it is sufficient
that the monster be physically dangerous. If it produces further anxieties that
is so much icing on the cake. So the creators of art-horror must be sure that the
creatures in their fictions are threatening and this can be done by assuring that
they are at least physically dangerous. Of course, if a monster is
psychologically threatening but not physically threatening—i.e., if it’s after
your mind, not your body—it will still count as a horrific creature if it inspires
revulsion." -Noel Carrol

 The Shining plays a major role in having a threatening monster(s). The story revolves around a small family stranded in a hotel locked away by winter storms. The hotel is haunted and is basically playing terrifying mind games with the family. The two most important characters: the father, Jack, being an alcoholic and a major anger streak, and the son, Danny, who is telepathic, become the most affected. The hotel wants Danny, which causes a lot of strife for the father, who becomes jealous.

 There are a lot of ghosts in the hotel, causing mental distress for the family, but in the sense of who, or what, is the monster of the story, it would be the hotel itself. It isn't physical but it turns the dad into the physical being that is threatening. There are differences between the book and film, which can lead the audience astray to Stephen King's meaning of a monster. The father isn't supposed to be an evil person, he becomes entranced by the hotel and uses the fathers weaknesses against him. Having a building as the major antagonist is so fascinating in itself, because it takes the idea of what a monster has to be, and construes the idea. Who are we supposed to be afraid of? Who is the real monster? Examining the film while keeping Carrol's statement in mind, I question these things. I question if the true monster is the hotel, or the father.I believe Stephen King wanted the hotel to portray horror in a strange way, and if that's the case, I don't necessarily believe that the monster has to be physically dangerous. The hotel couldn't actually touch the family, which is why the hotel had basically "possessed" the father. The ultimate goal is that the hotel wanted the family dead, and to absorb Danny's powers.

Personally, I recommend reading the book. Even Stephen King was unnerved by the film, believing that a lot of the direction that the film took, ignored the key undertones that the book had, which made the story far more intense. A huge issue is that Jack Nicholson was given the role, and he makes the father character seem mad from the get-go, but the father is actually a sympathetic character, almost a Byronic hero in the sense that he is flawed, and the hotel used that against him, but his intentions were well at first.

You and Me and The Devil Makes Three

In Alfred Hitchcock's films, he tried to get something that was quaint, nice, or benevolent to seem menacing. Which explains why motels or flocks of birds give us the creeps. But in Richard Donner's The Omen we don't just see something neutral being turned evil. Billions of people see churches, the Bible, and sacraments as welcoming, if not just nostalgic. So there is far more damage done when suddenly there is a horror film based on what you hold incredibly dear. This movie, if taken as fact, would immediately put intense suspicion upon your closely held beliefs and even your own children.

In Noel Carrol's Philosophy of Horror, he persists that to be a monster, it must be both threatening and impure. Threatening to life, limb, mind, and/or morality. It must be trying to destroy some part of the main character in order to bring forth revulsion. The boy in The Omen, along with his guardian maids and dogs, have this quality. On a  deeper level however, it must be what Carrol calls "impure". This is a combination "between two or more conflicting cultural categories," he says. One way to combine conflicting categories is fusion, a physical blending of entities into one spatially limited frame, like Swamp-Man, Frankenstein's monster, or zombies (blending living and dead). He says that possessed monsters are fusion because of their being a blend of personality and body, but each belonging to different persons. So the mind belongs to a demon but the body belongs to a girl.

Though not an exorcism story, The Omen takes advantage of opposed forces in the same way. The boy, usually innocent, pure, and harmless is born with the personality of the devil himself. The monster is not a fusion inside the movie narrative, but to the viewer, the contradiction is blatant. As mentioned before, there is the added element religion into the fusion. The little boy could have merely been an evil alien and the story only affect how one may see their child, but because the film's central themes are of religion and churches and scriptural text, the once familiar entities now have a dark shadow cast across them. How could these beliefs and this little child produce something so reviling? So there is actually a fusion of three, the boy, the church, and the devil, making, I presume on purpose, a sick, unholy trinity of heebie jeebies.

 

The Lengths of Good and Evil

In the 1991 Martin Scorsese film Cape Fear, He uses the story from the original 1962 movie to set up a more up to date and refined plot of the film introducing fear as a way to defeat a conflict. As in Noel Carroll’s writing he talks of how we go to the movies out of fascination and because these problems are known to not exist we can then deal with them with curiosity. With that we might be able to face a fear or even come up with a way of taking our fear and creating a way to resolve it as is a theme mentioned in this film.  We are introduced to Sam Bowden who is an attorney and a family man. Max Cady is a man who has spent 14 years in prison for battery and rape.  He is after Bowden for withholding evidence that would have shortened his sentence. Cady has grown vengeful and studied in multiple ideologies that let him become the old testament psychopathic stalker he is to the Bowden Family.

The stalking is small but noticeable to Sam and is within legal limits. But the stalking soon becomes noticeable and threatening to the point it plays with Sam’s mind. This is the biggest fear to Sam. The way he fights is within legal situations and him being the educated man he is, there is no way to combat the “White Trash” man he is facing, yet this man knows enough to use the system to his advantage. This idea is used throughout the film where this uneducated man is defeating an educated man at his own business and is slowly bringing him down to his level. Multiple times in the film we are reminded of the moral consequences of actually dealing with Cady and eventually drives Bowden to the same unethical level; as in the final scene, Sam and Max are fighting in the mud with rocks. 

I think the fear was more on the suspenseful side but certainly poses the question and scenario what we would do if someone who could manipulate us to that degree to where we change our whole sense of moral. Noel writes,” the audience knows that the object of art-horror does not exist before them. The audience is only reacting to the thought that such and such an impure being might exist”.
This is interesting to me because throughout the film it is referenced to harness your own fear to overcome your problems, and both Bowden and Cady live that, one is forced to do it to survive, while the other revels in the idea. Sam is driven to the lengths that he feared where his morals for the justice system and the good of his family are questioned. But it all forces his will to where the law cannot protect him. This also corresponds with what Carroll is saying in his ideas that we use these movies to question our own reactions, would we be willing to kill a man illegally to protect our family? But according to Carroll we are curious about why such a man would go to such lengths to right his wrong when it was his wrong doing in the first place. The movie isn’t a horror film but sets up a story that is any family man’s worst nightmare that has to deal with convicts. But overall it makes us question what we would do to defeat this character and it gives us some laughs at the ridiculous odds by the end.
This is not related to my blog other than it is a philosophical theme within Cape Fear. It might be worth the read for others who watch the movie but it is a view on how this movie relates to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/82/Cape_Fear

Noel Carroll, "Why Horror?"

To view/download the essay "Why Horror?" by Noel Carroll, click here.