Horror and the Family

As I mentioned in my previous blog, horror films generally contain one of two themes: the body or the family. For this entry, I am going to focus on the family and the systematic destruction of it in many scary movies.
To begin this discussion, I am going to draw on a quotation from Robin Wood’s essay “An Introduction to the American Horror Film.” Though this work is older – it was published in 1985 – much of what was true then remains to this day. When the subject of the family emerged, Wood wrote “...the connection of the Family to Horror has become overwhelmingly consistent... whether the family itself is regarded as guilty...or innocent” (Wood 208). The family, in Wood’s view, then is either the creator of some awful monster or helpless victims.
Movies such as Night of the Living Dead focus on the theme of familial destruction. In this example, flesh-eating ghouls destroy a family. As each member is individually eaten and reanimated, the family slowly turns on each other with the daughter converting her mother, who, in turn, then converts her husband. Family, in our society, is the group of people with whom we are supposed to feel most comfortable. We turn to our families for safety and support. The modern horror film shows the crumbling of that support system during a time of immense fear when, one could argue, that it is most needed.
Philip Brophy also notes this trend in scary movies. Brophy does not comment on instances of the family being innocent victims, but rather on the group as “...the object of the horror and us being the subject of their demise” (Brophy 7). The audience, in Brophy’s stance, is afraid of the family, and thus takes pleasure in the destruction of it.
Whether seen as victim or perpetrator, the modern horror film has removed the sense of security that once came with the notion of family. The family is now something to be feared and destroyed rather than a sanctuary from the violence.
The destruction of the family seems to make more sense than the destruction of the self. Americans are becoming less and less concerned with family unity and more concerned with individual aspirations. The destruction of the family within horror movies seems to mirror, in many ways, the loss of family values that is occurring throughout our society.

Works Cited
Brophy, Philip. "Horrality – The Textuality of Contemporary Horror Films." Screen 27 (1986): 2-13.

Woods, Robin. "An Introduction to the American Horror Film." Movies & Methods (1985).

"Night of the Living Dead (1968) - Synopsis." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 07 May 2010. .