Why, as a culture, do we watch horror films? Why is the genre so intensely popular? Why do otherwise seemingly normal people make these films in the first place?
Susan Sontag writes in Regarding the Pain of Others, “It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that show bodies naked.” Her use of the word “appetite” here suggests that we hunger for images of horror on some basic biological level, the same way we hunger for food, water, or sleep. It’s a common argument that we’re drawn to horror because of something violent in our nature, but I think it’s decidedly more complicated than just that, and so does Sontag. Certainly, we eat because we’re hungry, but we also eat because there is pleasure in the act of eating itself, because eating is a social activity, because we’re told by advertisers that eating their specific food products will fulfill us on some deeper level. We watch horror films for many of the same reasons.
In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, Edmund Burke argues that pleasure in the horrific is dependent upon our distance from it: “I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others . . . Terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too close . . . This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no small uneasiness.” Burke is not suggesting that we delight in terror only when it is observed from afar. Rather, there is a certain distance, not too near and not too far, at which terror instills pleasure in us. Terror must “press close” but not “too” close. Pleasure in horror must come pre-mixed with a simultaneous “uneasiness.” Our desire and pleasure in looking is amplified by our simultaneous urge to look away (what Julia Kristeva describes as the "abject"). Each instance of turning away, though, is followed by an even more emphatic turning toward.
In “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Linda Williams discusses at length the physicality of our engagement with what she calls the “gross” genres. She describes “the spectacle of a body caught in the grip of intense sensation or emotion.” For Williams, one of the exemplary features of horror film is its ability to force the spectator to imitate the feelings or physical reactions of the characters onscreen. Hence, in a horror film, when the characters in the film scream, we scream. Williams writes, “What seems to bracket [this particular genre] from others is an apparent lack of proper esthetic distance, a sense of over-involvement in sensation and emotion” (704-705). Williams suggests, like Burke, that there is an ideal vantage point for horror, not a lack of distance altogether but a lack of “proper esthetic” distance. To be properly scared, at least in the way that also produces pleasure, we must feel safe but not too safe--we must have room to reflect on what we see, but must not be allowed too much room.
Many viewers and critics make the mistake of describing as "gratuitous" anything that upsets them or their moral sensibilities. While many horror films are gratuitous, the best films of the genre are not merely gratuitous but use their images to comment on culture, politics, or human nature.
How do you react to the various thoughts here? Why do you watch horror films? Why did you sign up for a class about horror? What does talking about the horror genre have to do with writing?
The Grammar of Horror
METAPHOR: A figure of speech that expresses an idea through the image of another object. Metaphors suggest the essence of the first object by identifying it with certain qualities of the second object or concept. For example, fruit is often a metaphor for original sin. Metaphor is based on an associative relation.
METONYMY: A figure of speech that is characterized by the substitution of a word or concept closely associated with the object for the object itself. For example, one might describe a man in a business suit as a “suit.” Or, one might describe a sailboat on the horizon as a “sail.” Metonymy is based on a syntagmatic relation.
ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONS: In linguistics, ”associative relations” describe the potential substitutions of words within a sentence based on their shared meaning or category, where one word can be replaced with another with similar meaning in the same context. In film, you might make a connection between an image from one film and another image from the same film, an image from a different film, or an image in your mind.
SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS: "Syntagmatic relations" refer to the linear relationships between words that occur together in a sentence, based on their sequence and grammatical rules. In film, the meaning of one shot might be determined by its position in relation to the other shots in the scene.
SEMANTIC ELEMENTS: In “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre,” Rick Altman says these are “generic definitions that depend on a list of common traits, attitudes, characters, shots, locations, locations, sets and the like” or “general atmosphere,” “stock characters,” and “technical elements.” You might think of the semantic elements as the building blocks of horror.
SYNTACTIC ELEMENTS: If the semantic elements are the words, then the syntactic elements are the way those words are put together. Altman refers to them as “certain constitutive relationships between undesignated and variable placeholders”—i.e. the way the building blocks are arranged.
Questions:
1. Consider this quote from Rick Altman: “We need to recognize that not all genre films relate to their genre in the same way or to the same extent” (184). What happens to genre when films can relate to their own genre in different, innovative ways? Does genre break down? Does it evolve? Is it unaffected? Is The Ring an example of a film that neatly fits its genre, or a film that challenges or relates to its genre in a unique way? What about a movie like Scream? Consider other horror films you’ve seen.
2. Consider the following quote from Philip Brophy’s “Horrality—the Textuality of Contemporary Horror Films:
“[With ‘horrality’] what is of prime importance is the textual effect, the game that one plays with the text, a game that is impervious to any knowledge of its workings. The contemporary Horror film knows that you’ve seen it before; it knows that you know what is about to happen; and it knows that you know it knows you know. And none of it means a thing, as the cheapest trick in the book will still tense your muscles, quicken your heart and jangle your nerves.”
What does Brophy mean when he says that “horrality” is a “game that one plays with the text”? Brophy also argues that horror is “a genre about genre”? What does he mean by that? Can you give examples from one of the films we’ve watched that support these quotes? Consider other horror films you’ve seen. Can you think of other films that illustrate these points particularly well? Why, in your mind, does the horror film work (i.e. scare us) even though it is, according to Brophy, self-conscious, overtly textual, and predictable?
3. In “The Psychology Behind Why We Love (or Hate) Horror,” Haiyang Yang and Kuangjie Zhang write, “Research suggests we must possess a psychological “protective frame” to be able to derive pleasure from being horrified: We need to believe that we are physically safe, […] we can psychologically detach from a horror experience, […] and we feel confident about overcoming the danger. Can you think of examples of films that play with the edge of this “protective frame,” pushing us right to the edge of safety (or past it)? Are there moments from the films we’ve watched that push against this “protective frame” for you? Why might a film choose to do this?
4. Why horror? Why do we watch horror? Why do we make horror films? As a society? As individuals?