Horror Monsters: Research

Horror Monsters

This article is from the 35th edition of Media Magazine in February 2011 and is written by Steph Hendry. The essay disscuses horror movies over the years and the similarities and differences in how they are written, produced and viewed as an audience. The main points of the essay are as follows:

• The essay makes the point that horror is one of the media's most successful genres and that stories that aim to scare their audience have proved to be immensely popular. Daniel Cohen says that "cultures create and ascribe meaning to monsters, endowing them with characteristics derived from their most deep-seated fears and taboos."
• The essay suggests that you could identify general cultural, contextual trends and that there could be a link between social issues and problems of the contemporary culture and the monsters created in horror movies.
• The essay talks about Pre World War 2 and states that 'the vampire' was the monster of this era. The essay says that this could be because at the time Nosferatu was released and Germany was economically and socially devastated after world war 1. This was the time of poverty and disease and in 1918 hundreds of thousands of people died during a flu pandemic. Therefore the Vampire could relate to this and could have been created using social concepts in order to target the audiences most current fears.
• The essay also discusses the 60's. The essay says this was the time of horrors such as Psycho and The Exorcist. The essay states that films such as The Exorcist can cause a great deal of public and media attention and controversy because of its depiction of a girl possessed by the devil. At the time religion was a big thing and using horror monsters such as the devil is very personal and daring.
• The essay also talks about the 1980s being the period of slasher films as horror became a staple of the home video market. It states that this was when horror movies became more outlandish and extreme. It also states though that film franchises got replicated the same ideas over and over and the genre grew tired and cliched. It also discusses how remakes of films such as Scream were lazy and boring.
• The essay discusses Contemporary Monsters, horror films today. It talks about 'torture porn' this being films such as Saw, which means a long running series of films that attempt to find more and more extreme ways to scare or repulse the audience. It then goes on to say that this created films such as Hostel to follow which show torture as a game and a pleasure with the monsters.
• The essay also discusses how horror movies re-work traditional conventions such as The Mad Scientist in The Human Centipede and how even though this should be seen as disturbing and weird, horror still attracts audiences.
• Finally, the essay talks about how in some recent films such as Eden Lake and The Strangers, the monsters are disconceringly emotionally removed. They are also anonymous, eg Eden Lake makes 'the group' the monster and masks are worn by The Strangers. It also discusses how the Saw franchise shows how the monsters victims become monsters themselves in a way of punishment which can be very desensitising for the audience. 

This 2013 horror movie "Dark Skies" is a perfect demonstration for the 2nd point made by the essay (see above.) This movie uses Aliens as its monster which relates to modern day society as recently we have been very curious of life on other planets because of the recent discovery of new planets etc. Using aliens may trigger a fear in the audience and therefore creates the horror. 

The above clip is a scene from the 1996 film Scream. This clip compared with the clip below from the remake 2000 version of Scream,

shows how similar they are and how the re-make has not up-scaled or became any different to the older version and has not changed to target recent and modern social terrors.


The above clip is another demonstration of the point made in the essay when 'torture porn' was mentioned. Another film that uses this technique is Wrong Turn. The above clip is from the 4th edition of Wrong Turn and you can see that they use scenes of a sexual nature for example naked girls and then make this gory by graphically showing bloody scenes like people getting cut in half etc. This reinforces the point made that no matter how weird or gory a film is, it will still attract audiences, if not a greater audience. 


The above clip is the trailer for the film The Strangers. This reinforces the point in the essay about some monsters in horror films being emotionally detatched from themselves- in this case by wearing masks, creating a different sense of horror.
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I chose this article because I am interested in horror movies and I am aware of many of them as it is my favourite genre of film to watch for entertainment and therefore I thought that it would be interesting and enjoyable to find out somebody elses views on different types of horror movies.
The article is written by Steph Hendry and it is about the different types of horror movies and concepts of them and how they have changed or remained the same over the year, and what appeals an audience to watch them. The main points of the article are that, "an analysis of horror monsters in the ligh of their cultural contexts can, therefore, give an insight into the anxieties and concerns of the contemporary culture." and it explores the idea that horror movies target the audiences fears depending on the social terrors of that time. I agree with the points made in the article as I think they are very accurate and true and when looking back on horror films I have watched myself, I can agree that these ideas appeal to the audience. My overall opinion of the article is that it is very enjoyable to read and the points made are very accurate and well thought out.