Horror apologetics
What place for horror? This article does a great job of listing possible reasons why some people enjoy the genre, and it even does this coming from a non-horror fan perspective. But of course, as a horror fan, I feel like I need to comment :) There's something that, I think, Rick's article doesn't emphasize enough, something paradoxically sympathetic to his sensibilities that he misses about Horror, because the genre's odor is, to be fair, rather strong.
But before I get to deep stuff I also must acknowledge that Horror is trashy in a way other genres don't seem to be. Sturgeon's Law is universal: 90%+ of everything is crud, but somehow the stereotypical Bad Movie is a Horror one. Indeed, it may well be that it was around Horror, or around Horror-infused fare like certain SF films of the 50s, that the "So Bad It's Good" style of movie enjoyment sprung up.
There's material enough in the "So Bad It's Good" concept for another article. For now I'll say that it's actually more nuanced than it appears, as any regular watcher of shows such as RedLetterMedia's Best of the Worst can see. There is, in fact, a kind of love from the audience to the film and its makers. There is love, from the makers, of the craft itself-- and the bad acting and fake gore emphasize craft, artificiality. I forgot who, it might have been Troma, who suggested that anyone who feels like they want to make movies should try to make a Horror film on a shoestring budget first. So yeah, here's a place for Horror: it's a very obvious play pretend and a way to cut one's teeth. And part of why it's a good first, or early step, is precisely because you need to take care of some technical aspects and conventions. It's not a Horror film unless it has gore, or atmosphere, or a dangerous mystery of some sort. There are certain strictures you need to operate in, and that makes good training.
Anyway, the point I wanted to get to is different and it is that Horror is the one genre where a morality play is baked into its very operation. Horror assumes as accepted that Evil, capital E Evil, exists.
That is the main thesis I have now and it calls forth two objections. First is that any genre can do morality plays. Second is that Horror is often nihilistic. But of course, I think the objections flawed.
I will accept the first objection in as much as the genres it invokes as alternatives to Horror are old-- and somewhat unpopular for new creators today. Classical tragedy is a morality play, so ok, ya got me there. But SF doesn't NEED to be moral, neither does Romance. Amazingly, not even Crime Fiction needs to be particularly moral, as Crime Noir shows. Noir's conception of the world is not one of Good vs Evil. And certainly things like SF and Fantasy often blur the line between the two in an attempt at realistic depth, or simply for the fun of speculation and subversion.
As to the second objection, I urge care. Are you absolutely sure some parade of horribles is devoid of moral assumptions? Take one of the progenitors of the "Torture Porn" subgenre, the Saw series. Jigsaw punishes people for trespasses against what would be fairly traditional ethics. He views the ordeals he subjects his victims to as a way to improve them. This doesn't make Jigsaw right, and it doesn't make his punishments anything other than over the top, but there is a clear conception there that, through their moral shortcomings, Jigsaw's victims exposed themselves to retribution from the universe. And that when it comes, the retribution is horrific.
It can be rightly remarked that many Horror creators seem in various ways "depraved". I'm fairly certain that Rob Zombie has a full-on chub for Charles Manson. And yet, there's again a sense that the tourists stumbling into the House of 1000 Corpses have their tortures coming to them, because of their entitlement, unfriendliness, and arrogance. Again, this seems over the top punishment for what are rather common human failings, but perhaps you can start to see where this is going ...
In any case, very often-- I won't say always because one shouldn't ever say always-- the evils that befall the victims in horror tend to have a reason in something the victims did. Something that's not just the victims being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also something they had the freedom to choose to do, and did. It's a stereotype that in slasher films the teens who get frisky get chopped, while the Virgin lives till the end. It's less common a trope now, but the idea that the victims get what's coming because they are evil and/or stupid remains in force in most Horror.
Truly great horror takes this one step further, like the gut-punch of an ending The Mist has. The main character does almost everything right. His one mistake is losing hope at the end, and for that he is punished severely. What makes this particularly effective is that the situation depicted in the film is such that anyone would have lost hope by that point. This isn't some stupid jerky schmuck you get to distance yourself from.
This is you.
And that brings us to the root of Horror. It is in the Gargoyle on the Cathedral, and in the icons of Hell inside it. It is the old Fairy-tale for children-- yes, that's what Fairy-tales were-- and the Infernal play we see in some denominations. Horror is awful in the old sense. It says there is Evil, it is coming to get you, and you deserve it.
But best of all, Horror, like all stories, ends. The lights go up. You laugh to try to shake the tension off, turn to your date to hug them. You're still here, intact. It was just a story. Sometimes you chat, sometimes you hold hands and walk in silence, whatever way to cope with the dissolving images of what you've seen, and go home. However it may be, home is not like the Horror. There are more things than horror out there, and somehow, you have some of them.
I don't think Horror can be "taken seriously" as a genre. Not because most of it is trash, but rather because, when it's most effective, it's hard to cope with it other than pretending it's something far away, just bad and unintentionally funny. It can't be taken seriously because it's much too serious when you look into its depths.
I heard a very nice turn of phrase from someone describing the film The VVitch: "it disturbed my spiritual center". Watch it for Christmas. Watch it with the kids. I promise your spiritual center will indeed be disturbed, for it will have heard something very old and simple.
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
But before I get to deep stuff I also must acknowledge that Horror is trashy in a way other genres don't seem to be. Sturgeon's Law is universal: 90%+ of everything is crud, but somehow the stereotypical Bad Movie is a Horror one. Indeed, it may well be that it was around Horror, or around Horror-infused fare like certain SF films of the 50s, that the "So Bad It's Good" style of movie enjoyment sprung up.
There's material enough in the "So Bad It's Good" concept for another article. For now I'll say that it's actually more nuanced than it appears, as any regular watcher of shows such as RedLetterMedia's Best of the Worst can see. There is, in fact, a kind of love from the audience to the film and its makers. There is love, from the makers, of the craft itself-- and the bad acting and fake gore emphasize craft, artificiality. I forgot who, it might have been Troma, who suggested that anyone who feels like they want to make movies should try to make a Horror film on a shoestring budget first. So yeah, here's a place for Horror: it's a very obvious play pretend and a way to cut one's teeth. And part of why it's a good first, or early step, is precisely because you need to take care of some technical aspects and conventions. It's not a Horror film unless it has gore, or atmosphere, or a dangerous mystery of some sort. There are certain strictures you need to operate in, and that makes good training.
Anyway, the point I wanted to get to is different and it is that Horror is the one genre where a morality play is baked into its very operation. Horror assumes as accepted that Evil, capital E Evil, exists.
That is the main thesis I have now and it calls forth two objections. First is that any genre can do morality plays. Second is that Horror is often nihilistic. But of course, I think the objections flawed.
I will accept the first objection in as much as the genres it invokes as alternatives to Horror are old-- and somewhat unpopular for new creators today. Classical tragedy is a morality play, so ok, ya got me there. But SF doesn't NEED to be moral, neither does Romance. Amazingly, not even Crime Fiction needs to be particularly moral, as Crime Noir shows. Noir's conception of the world is not one of Good vs Evil. And certainly things like SF and Fantasy often blur the line between the two in an attempt at realistic depth, or simply for the fun of speculation and subversion.
As to the second objection, I urge care. Are you absolutely sure some parade of horribles is devoid of moral assumptions? Take one of the progenitors of the "Torture Porn" subgenre, the Saw series. Jigsaw punishes people for trespasses against what would be fairly traditional ethics. He views the ordeals he subjects his victims to as a way to improve them. This doesn't make Jigsaw right, and it doesn't make his punishments anything other than over the top, but there is a clear conception there that, through their moral shortcomings, Jigsaw's victims exposed themselves to retribution from the universe. And that when it comes, the retribution is horrific.
It can be rightly remarked that many Horror creators seem in various ways "depraved". I'm fairly certain that Rob Zombie has a full-on chub for Charles Manson. And yet, there's again a sense that the tourists stumbling into the House of 1000 Corpses have their tortures coming to them, because of their entitlement, unfriendliness, and arrogance. Again, this seems over the top punishment for what are rather common human failings, but perhaps you can start to see where this is going ...
In any case, very often-- I won't say always because one shouldn't ever say always-- the evils that befall the victims in horror tend to have a reason in something the victims did. Something that's not just the victims being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also something they had the freedom to choose to do, and did. It's a stereotype that in slasher films the teens who get frisky get chopped, while the Virgin lives till the end. It's less common a trope now, but the idea that the victims get what's coming because they are evil and/or stupid remains in force in most Horror.
Truly great horror takes this one step further, like the gut-punch of an ending The Mist has. The main character does almost everything right. His one mistake is losing hope at the end, and for that he is punished severely. What makes this particularly effective is that the situation depicted in the film is such that anyone would have lost hope by that point. This isn't some stupid jerky schmuck you get to distance yourself from.
This is you.
And that brings us to the root of Horror. It is in the Gargoyle on the Cathedral, and in the icons of Hell inside it. It is the old Fairy-tale for children-- yes, that's what Fairy-tales were-- and the Infernal play we see in some denominations. Horror is awful in the old sense. It says there is Evil, it is coming to get you, and you deserve it.
But best of all, Horror, like all stories, ends. The lights go up. You laugh to try to shake the tension off, turn to your date to hug them. You're still here, intact. It was just a story. Sometimes you chat, sometimes you hold hands and walk in silence, whatever way to cope with the dissolving images of what you've seen, and go home. However it may be, home is not like the Horror. There are more things than horror out there, and somehow, you have some of them.
I don't think Horror can be "taken seriously" as a genre. Not because most of it is trash, but rather because, when it's most effective, it's hard to cope with it other than pretending it's something far away, just bad and unintentionally funny. It can't be taken seriously because it's much too serious when you look into its depths.
I heard a very nice turn of phrase from someone describing the film The VVitch: "it disturbed my spiritual center". Watch it for Christmas. Watch it with the kids. I promise your spiritual center will indeed be disturbed, for it will have heard something very old and simple.
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
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