Horror Monsters

The article I chose was 'Horror Monsters' written by Steph Hendry in the MediaMagazine issue 35, in February 2011. The article features the evolution of the 'Horror monster' seen in the movies, and how, though the story-lines and images that we see may be totally out of the ordinary, they are actually incredibly influenced by the culture and society of the time.

The reason I chose this article was because horror films are one of my favourite genres, as well as this, I find it extremely interesting how a society and the culture of the time can play such a huge part in the cinema. 

Hendry states that the horror genre is one of the most successful, their aims to scare and disorientate an audience proving to be immensely popular. As she claims, "an analysis of horror monsters in the light of their cultural contexts can, therefore, give an insight into the anxieties and concerns of the contemporary culture".
     Pre-World War 2, the vampire was seen as an 'invader', coming from a foreign land to bring mayhem and pestilence to small local communities. His attack is by poisoning his enemies, turning them into creatures like him eventually leading to their death. At the time Nosferatu was released, the world was socially and economically devastated following WW1. Poverty and disease were rife, and in 1918 hundreds and thousands of people died following a flue pandemic. "A culture that had suffered at the hands of expansionist politicians was now vulnerable to disease, an audience responding to a monster that would represent invasion and infection", as Hendry puts it. 
     Later films, such as Frankenstein expressed the racial tensions that were present in American culture at the time, the monster's eventual death represents, a mob lynching of an individual who is unable to be integrated into the dominant culture. Post-WW2 films maintained the focus on monsters that invaded or infected, such as 'science gone wrong' themes, creating a blend of horror and science-fiction film such as 'Dr.Cyclops' or 'Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde'.
       This strict, techno-forward thinking later developed into a more relaxed era of the sixties and the seventies. Horror films tended to focus on the human mind, horror monsters becoming much before internal. Psycho being a crime example, when the "monster here is a man whose family dynamics created an abnormal psychology". Films tended to relay the idea that monsters were ordinarily people, which easily brought home the horror of the movie. Society was going through enormous social and cultural changes, and directions could only scare audiences by producing images so violent and extreme as what they were experiencing in everyday media. The monster later becomes more sadistic, with films such as 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'The Last House on the Left' bringing horror to small-towns in America. 
       The Exorcist depicted the secularisation of society that had occurred since World War 2, dealing with the unease and uncertainty through devils, demons and pagans as its monsters. The Exorcist also was a first of its kind in showing the changes of structure in the family; the possessed child is from a single-parent, a hard working mother.
        Later seen the end of an era, with the 1980s introducing slasher films as a staple of the home video market. As the audience grew used to the genre's characteristics, more outlandish and extreme spectacles were needed to keep mainstream interest. Scream uses an ironic approach to the genre that is self-aware and self-referential, with the 'Scary Movie' films later making humour out of the series. 
        Recently horror films have looked into their past through remakes as mentioned earlier on, however though the CGI effects are certainly impressive, they lack a sense of cultural context. Hollywood has even looked to the Far-East in the 2000s remaking a number of Asian horror films, including films such as 'The Ring' and 'Dark Water'.
         Moving on from this, is perhaps the most notable development in contemporary horror; torture-porn. These films focus on extreme violence, nudity and sadistic torture. (Saw, Hostel). The rise of torture as a subject in horror "parallels contemporary concerns over the post 9/11 treatment of terror suspects, and prisoners of war as stories of Western government endorsed torture was reported", as Hendry puts it. 

         However, contemporary culture is media-saturated. Entertainment is available anywhere and anytime, which perhaps is the reason for films nowadays positioning the audience through the camera itself. Films like 'Paranormal Activity', 'The Last Exorcism', and 'Insidious' use camera-like qualities in letting the film played out. A technique earlier shown in the iconic 'The Blair Witch Project'. This adds an entire new sense of fear to an audience, as we too are experiencing the horror along too with the characters that we see.