Modern Society & The Horror Film Monster

April 19th, 2008 | By Ophelia

Ophelia asks: What is the significance of the monster in the horror film? What does the monster represent and has this changed over the course of the development of the horror film genre?

I first became interested in the monster of the horror film not long ago, when I was speaking to a friend. We were discussing Wolf Creek, and the fact that it had disturbed her so much that she had considered leaving the cinema. Even without having seen the film, her description of the serial killer portrayed by John Jarratt was (obviously) very disturbing to me also, but more importantly it made me wonder – why is it that almost all recent, popular horror films have been centered around a psychotic killer, who mutilates, violates and maims, a killer who could be walking down the street right next to us (Hostel and Saw were two other examples that came to mind), a killer who, in its ultimate and most fearful manifestation, could reside within our own “dark, unnatural, hidden self.” (Skal, 1993:17).

When I thought about the history of the horror genre on the screen; its development from the Gothic novel, its original fantastic, supernatural, other-worldly beasts like Frankenstein and Dracula; I realized that both society and the horror genre have come a long way together – as Skal  (1993:18) so eloquently puts it; “so much of our imaginative life in the twentieth century has been devoted to peeling back the masks and scabs of civilization, to finding, cultivating and projecting nightmare images of the secret self.”

And what is ultimately the most fascinating aspect of the evolution of the horror film monster is the shift, which Tudor (1989) identifies, from an ‘external’ threat to an ‘internal’ threat, a shift which parallels society’s evolution from ‘security’ to ‘paranoia’ (these are key terms of Tudor’s analysis, which I will later explore and define in greater depth). It is this relationship between the evolution of the horror film monster and the evolution of our own society (and our individual consciousness within that society) which I wish to explore.

Firstly, the issue must be addressed of how to frame such an analysis. This is an enormous area of research to cover, and of course there are numerous perspectives from which we can observe and interpret the symbolism of the monster in the horror film. The main frameworks of analysis that I encountered were sociological (for example, David J. Skal’s The Monster Show), psychoanalytical ( Robin Wood’s American Nightmare), and statistical (such as Andrew Tudor’s Monsters and Mad Scientists) – although of course, there are significant interrelations between all three forms – for example, Tudor’s analysis encompasses both statistical and sociological elements, and Wood’s psychoanalytical perspective by default also encompasses sociological concerns. Therefore, I have attempted an analysis which uses a somewhat chronological description of the significance and representation of the monster in the horror film as a springboard from which to launch a discussion on each perspective as it becomes necessary and relevant.

The roots of the horror film as a direct offshoot from the Gothic novel have been well-documented, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein being the most well-known and enduring examples. Skal (1993) identifies four original horror movie monster archetypes, including the two mentioned above, as well Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, and Tod Browning’s Freaks. It is worth pausing to reflect upon each of these for a moment, as they do irrefutably rear their ugly heads again and again throughout the development of horror movie history, and in many ways serve as a template for everything to come. Dracula, the supernatural, blood-sucking, life-draining vampire, the undead outcast forced to walk the earth until such time as humanity, firm in its Christian beliefs, promptly dispatches him to the afterlife; Frankenstein, the mad scientist and his spawn, the mechanical monster who is somehow more human than the man who made him; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the original doppelganger, the physical embodiment of man’s inner bestiality laid bare; and Freaks, the blurring of the line between what is human and inhuman, the outward appearance of beauty and the fact that it masks an inner rottenness, and, ultimately, the implication of the audience in this parade of morbid fascination (are we freaks ourselves for even watching and enjoying this?). These archetypes and the issues and questions they raise have been central to the development of the monster throughout the history of the horror film, resulting in a culmination which Skal (1993:382) reads as an amalgam of all four of his original monster archetypes; the character of Hannibal Lecter. “Like Dracula, Hannibal Lecter has a pronounced taste for human blood; like Frankenstein, he is a brilliant, but mad scientist; he has two personalities, like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, both civilized and savage; and, like some sideshow super-geek, he is held and exhibited in a succession of zoo-like enclosures. The Silence of the Lambs itself proved a sideshow-like diversion in which all the traditional headliners in the monster show reassembled themselves like the pieces of a broken mirror. And the monster, this time, looked very much like us.”

Therefore, let us examine more closely the monster in the mirror.

The line between psychoanalysis and horror film theory is a fine (and perhaps somewhat ill-defined one). Where does one end and the other begin? There are seemingly endless explanations for and definitions of what the horror movie monster could signify or represent within a psychoanalytical framework, and there is seemingly no end to the possible depth of analysis once one begins approaching the subject from this perspective. For example, according to Tudor (1989:3), critic and theorist Robin Wood (1979) presents “an analysis based on the proposition that patriarchal capitalism demands certain forms of surplus-repression (of, for example, sexual energy, bisexuality, female sexuality and children’s sexuality) and that one way in which this is managed is by projecting that which is repressed outward onto the Other.” In other words, the monster in the horror film represents the inevitable ‘return of the repressed,’ and it is also the representation of the ‘Other’. The Other is that which is foreign to and threatening to the ‘Self’, the Self being a conforming member of a patriarchal capitalist society – referring to both the victims of the monster in the film and the members of the audience watching the film. Wood (1979:9) states that the psychoanalytic significance of the Other “resides in the fact that it functions not simply as something external to the culture or to the Self, but also as what is repressed (but never destroyed) in the Self and projected outwards in order to be hated and disowned.” The Other represents “that which bourgeois ideology cannot recognize or accept but must deal with in one of two ways: either by rejecting and if possible annihilating it, or by rendering it safe and assimilating it, converting it as far as possible into a replica of itself.” Thus, in horror films, the idea of the return of the repressed and the concepts of Self (normality) and Other (Monster) are inextricably interlinked. In Wood’s (1979:14) analysis, the figure of the doppelganger or alter-ego (such as the character of Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde) is the ultimate representation of this phenomenon; “The doppelganger motif reveals the Monster as normality’s shadow,” that is, “normality and the Monster are two aspects of the same person.” Tudor (1989:3) identifies two major problems with this framework of analysis for the horror film monster, namely; (a) the fact that it is extremely reductive (ie. once this has been established as the framework for analysis, the analyst immediately seeks to ‘assimilate the widest possible range of cultural variation to those terms,’ leading to a ‘revelatory reading’ of the films, ‘uncovering concealed significance’, which in turn leads to ‘esoteric readings of the texts it seeks to analyse, readings which definitionally could not be part of any audience’s conscious interpretive apparatus.”

Whilst I do hold Tudor’s concerns to be valid, there is much to be said for Wood’s (1979:14) idea that the basic formula for the horror film is that “normality is threatened by the Monster.” (Wood defines normality as ‘conformity to the dominant social norms’ – these being ‘the heterosexual monogamous couple, the family, and the social institutions (police, church, armed forces) that support and defend them’).  According to Wood, “the formula provides three variables: normality, the Monster, and, crucially, the relationship between the two. The definition of normality in horror films is in general boringly constant…the Monster is, of course, much more protean, changing from period to period as society’s basic fears clothe themselves in fashionable or immediately accessible garments…It is the third variable, the relationship between normality and the Monster, that constitutes the essential subject of the horror film. It, too, changes and develops, the development taking the form of a long process of clarification or revelation.”

So, how has the relationship between normality and the Monster developed over time?

Wood (1979) identifies five recurrent motifs in horror movies since the Sixties: The Monster as human psychotic or schizophrenic; the revenge of Nature; Satanism, diabolic possession, the Antichrist; The Terrible child; and Cannibalism. Tudor (1989:27) notes that “while the pre-1960 horror movie is dominated by science and, to a slightly lesser degree, by supernatural threats, the years after 1960 witness the rise of the psychotic and the development of a more overt sexual dimension.” He defines this shift as if they are two different worlds; the years prior to 1960 being characterized by a fundamental (if relative) ‘security’ – “the large majority of pre-sixties horror movies presume a world which is ultimately subject to successful human intervention.. human beings possess significant volition, while authorities and institutions generally remain credible protectors of social order”) – and the years after 1960 characterised by ‘paranoia’ – “both the nature and the course of the threat are out of human control.. disorder often emerges from within humans to potentially disrupt the whole ordered world…Threats emerge without warning from the disordered psyche, possessing us and destroying our very humanity. Lacking control of our inner selves, we have no means of resisting, and there is a certain inevitability to humanity’s final defeat.” (1989:103). Related to this, Tudor uses three sets of oppositions to define the threat within horror movies, they are: (1) Supernatural / Secular, (2) External / Internal and (3) Autonomous / Dependent. As time has gone by, the Monster has become increasingly secular and internal, and as Tudor himself notes, “a shift from externality to internality is central to the long-term development of the genre.” (1989:10) Compiling a survey of 990 horror movies from 1931 – 1984, Tudor found that the vast majority of movie monsters (28% – or 271 of 990) were psychotics (followed by mad scientists at 17%). Tudor further states that “the fact that psychotics outweigh all other monsters is partly a consequence of the modern growth of the genre: over 90% of films involving psychotics appear after 1960.”

Therefore, how do we trace this change in the nature of the Monster and why it has occurred?

Perhaps one of our frameworks of analysis is at least partially to blame – the rise of psychoanalysis as a popular and socially acceptable form of catharsis has perhaps encouraged society to look further inward than ever before. But surely it goes deeper than this. Skal (1993) raises the possibility that, culturally, the psychological after-effects of the Vietnam War, the ever-increasing secularization of society (the fading role of the church and its attempts to reassert itself as a spiritual and social necessity, coupled with a newly open societal emphasis on sex – the war between the spirit and the flesh), the rise of self-obsessive consumerism, the disintegration of the family unit, and the alienation and isolation felt by many people as a result of one or all of the above – could be the culprits. Notable examples which spring to mind include The Exorcist, and the designer-label-clad, status-obsessed psychotic killer of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho amongst many others. One particularly interesting example here is Halloween (1979), the film which Tudor (1989:57) identifies as the shift towards the trend in horror films during the 1980’s featuring “male-upon-female voyeurism; a link between violent killing and sexual gratification; and..a predator- prey relation between male psychotics and female victims.” With reference to the same film, Wood (1979:26) notes that “the killer’s victims are all sexually promiscuous, the one survivor a virgin; the Monster becomes simply the instrument of Puritan vengeance and repression rather than the embodiment of what Puritanism repressed.” It is interesting to note here the fact that there are times where the monster is re-enforcing society’s repression rather than subverting it. In the world of horror movie monsters there exists a strange dichotomy of either reflecting ideological disintegration and laying bare the possibility of social revolution, or actually re-enforcing those social norms and ‘sealing it over again’. This confusing phenomenon can also be seen in The Exorcist, a film where, as Britton (1979:41) notes, “metaphor.. engenders and is engendered by misrecognition: the return of the repressed isn’t clearly distinguishable from the return of repression, the very image which dramatizes the one enforcing the other.”

This leads us to the notion of ambivalence. Britton (1979:38) notes that ambivalence works by “dissolving the habitual grounds of certainty.” For example: Is the Monster truly evil, or is he actually good? Perhaps he is mostly evil and a little bit good? What do the concepts ‘good’ and ‘evil’ really mean anyway? Maybe, just maybe, the threat to normality that the Monster poses is better than normality itself? Maybe it’s not the Monster’s fault he is the way he is…perhaps he is the product of an unusually repressive society, or a horribly dysfunctional family.. but we all need to take responsibility for our actions, and besides, who could possibly do those awful things to someone? It’s all too much…AAAAGGH! (That’s the simplified version of typical horror film ambivalence that usually operates on a number of much more complex levels). Wood (1979:32) poses a central question of the horror film: “the question of the extent to which it is possible to conceive and create a ‘positive’ monster.” As Wood (1979:15) notes, “Few horror films have totally unsympathetic Monsters.. in many (for example, Frankenstein) the Monster is clearly the emotional centre, and much more human than the cardboard representatives of normality…but the principle goes far beyond the Monster’s being sympathetic. Ambivalence extends to our attitude to normality. Central to the effects and fascination of horror films is their fulfillment of our nightmare wish to smash the norms that oppress us and which our moral conditioning teaches us to revere.” That is, the horror film monster becomes a catalyst for the question of whether someone or something is actually inherently evil or simply transgressing unreasonably stringent oppressive boundaries set by society – so in this way, the horror film can become a biting social critique, although Britton (1979:41) notes that “The great American horror movies [such as Psycho, The Birds, and Sisters ] …seem to me to be characterized not so much by ambivalence…as by the use of the monster as the focus, or the catalyst, for the critical analysis of everything that ‘normality’ represents.”

In conclusion, it appears obvious that whilst the physical form of the horror film monster has changed drastically over time, in response to a particular zeitgeist or societal trend, at heart, it is the fear of ourselves – of our own monstrosity as individuals and as a society – that has endured. The horror film monster represents a manifestation of our ambivalence about the nature and events of the world, even the universe, around us; about our primal, guilty preoccupations with sex and death and religion; about our perception of what is good and what is evil; about our shiny, transient exterior and our eternal, rotten core. But perhaps we, ourselves, the makers and the viewers of these films, are the ultimate doppelgangers. Because, as we sit safe and self-satisfied in our movie theatres, watching the horror unfold before us, we deny the reality which confronts us.  John Thomas (in Huss & Ross [ed] 1972:138) refers to Tod Browning’s Freaks, a film which questioned the (in)humanity of not only its characters, but also its audience – but his words ring true through the decades and generations that followed. Watching the horror movie monster, “we are plunged back into the abyss of our own sick selves, to recall once again that the most fearful inhumanity we can know is our own….each of them is one of us; each of us, one of them.”

References and Bibliography

Britton, A. “The Devil, Probably: The Symbolism of Evil” [essay] in Wood, R. & Lippe, R. [ed] “The American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film” (Festival of Festivals, Toronto, 1979)

Clarens, C. “Horror Movies: An Illustrated Survey” (Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, 1968)

Huss, R. and Ross, T.J. “Focus on the Horror Film” (Prentice Hall Inc., New Jersey)

Prawer, S.S. “Caligari’s Children: The Film as Tale of Terror” (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980)

Skal, D. “The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror” (Plexus, London, 1993)

Thomas, J. “Gobble, Gobble…One of Us!” [essay] in Huss, R. and Ross, T.J. “Focus on the Horror Film” (Prentice Hall Inc., New Jersey)

Tudor, A. “Monsters & Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie” (Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford, 1989)

Wood, R. & Lippe, R. [ed] “The American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film” (Festival of Festivals, Toronto, 1979)