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. .

Horror Films and the Body

Though there was the occasional horror film in Europe, the genre didn’t really catch on in the United States until the 1920s. From then on, Hollywood has continued to produce movies whose sole purpose is to terrify viewers with horrific plots, sickening twists, and gruesome violence. The themes and motifs found in these movies have shifted as new technology has become available and popularized, allowing for more realistic images. Several common themes have emerged from the progression of the genre: the destruction of the family and the destruction of the self. In this blog, I will focus on the later of the two.
Many horror films show a complete disregard for the human body. A key example of this is The Exorcist, one of the few horror films I can claim to have seen. In this movie, a young girl named Regan McNeil is possessed by the devil. Throughout the film, the viewer is subject to graphic images that feature complete disregard for the human body and its limitations. The well-known visual of the twelve-year-old twisting her head around in a complete 360-degree turn is just one such mind-boggling example.
Philip Brophy also notes this phenomenon in his essay “Horrality – the Textuality of Contemporary Horror Films”, using an example from 1982’s The Beast Within, when a creature literally breaks out of a young boy’s body, leaving his massacred body on the bed. Brophy states that “The contemporary Horror film tends to play not so much on the broad fear of Death, but more precisely on the fear of one’s own body, of how one controls and relates to it” (Brophy 8). These movies can take our small fears of possession, aliens, diseases, etc. and blow them up into full-scale nightmares.
In some ways that is the beauty of the horror film – it can take our worst fears and make them seem real. That’s also one of the reasons many people, myself included, so strongly dislike scary movies. We live in a society that is extremely focused on individuality and being strong. Americans are always focused with being the best, looking the best, having the best, while many modern horror movies are about the destruction of many of those values that we hold so dear. The ability of a movie to destroy something that is culturally so important is mind-boggling.

Works Cited
"The Exorcist (1973) - Synopsis." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 07 May 2010. .

"Horror Film." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 06 May 2010. .

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

Introduction

To start out, I would like to give a brief introduction to who I am and why I have created this blog. My name is Maisie Clark and I am a freshman at Wheaton College. For my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class, we have to create a blog on a cultural phenomenon that we do not understand. I have chosen to blog about horror films because they are such a standard piece of American society and media. Personally, I have never enjoyed watching scary movies or experiencing any of the range of emotions that accompany being scared out of my mind. The majority of my friends, however, feel differently. Most of my friends could spend hours talking about their favorite horror film. Their conversations span from best plot, to best ending, to best twist. The very thought of some of the events they describe leave me cowering and wondering what kind of sane person would enjoy watching such torment. One thing that I really want to focus on is the “rush” that many people talk about experiencing during the conclusion of or directly after a film ends. I am also curious as to whether that “rush” is worth the two or more hours of fear that comes before it. Throughout this blog, I plan on using both research and personal interviews to gain a better understanding and appreciation of horror films.