by David Byron
And its not just in splatterpunk. It applies equally to Lovecraft (who was an atheist) and his mythology. In Stephen King's The Shining, it is the audience's self-awareness that lets it see Jack Torrance's internal monologues as being fundamentally flawed. An even better example is the protagonist of David J Schow's The Kill Riff, whose mental state is the less than immediately obvious focus of the entire book.
But splatterpunk uses excess. For its symbolism, for its thrills, for
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covering up its less than immediately obvious concerns. Which all requires a little bit of audience self-awareness, and just goes to show that post-modernism isn't as modern as you might think. Because for every writer who seems to have been unaware of their subject matter (and Bram Stoker's sexual undertones is the obvious example) there are plenty over the years who have known and know precisely what's going on. Of course it can all be misused, or misinterpreted, or taken out of context, and splatterpunk even dares its opposition to do so. But looking at what is already in the field, the power is being welded in ways that aren't necessarily easy to stomach, but are hard to ignore.
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The Horror Movie as Art, Part I 1982 - 2004
―If we say ―art‖ is any piece of creative work from which an audience receives more than it gives (a liberal definition of art[...]), then I believe the artistic value the horror movie most frequently offers is its ability to form a liaison between our fantasy fears and our real fears.‖ - Stephen King, ―Danse Macabre”
Art is, at least in part, subjective, as is one‘s definition of art. At the time of publication of King‘s collection of essays on the subject (Danse Macabre), horror cinema was still fairly two-sided. There were the ―cheesy‖ old Hammer-styled films (that later developed into B-movies of the big budgeted sort) and there were the quieter films with deeper meaning or social commentary, such as George A. Romero‘s ―Night of the Living Dead‖ or John Badham‘s ―Deliverance‖(What‘s that, you say? ―Deliverance‖ isn‘t truly a horror movie? Wait for it; I shall return to this later.). Note that I‘m discounting such cult classics as ―I Spit On Your Grave (which may have been the first dis-member-ment shown on film),‖ ―Maniac,” ―The Toolbox Murders,‖ and ―I Dismember Mama (a bizarre variation on Alice in Wonderland).‖ Although all have their place, the main objective of these films is not to horrify, but to simply shock and repulse the viewer with incredible amounts of gore; thus, these belong in their own separate category as ―splatter‖ films. Anyway, back to art.
King‘s definition may be loose, but I also believe it to be accurate, at least in part. I interpret King‘s definition to mean that we consume film (and music, museums and art galleries, etc.) in order to feel something different, out of the ordinary (this, too, will be revisited later). The problem is that, by this definition alone, an argument can be made in favor of any film as being art. To keep ―Buried Alive‖ from becoming someone‘s cinematic ―Mona Lisa,‖ an addendum is needed to our definition. (Note: ―Buried Alive‖ is an Italian film (―Buio Omega‖ in its native tongue), in which several people are cut into chunks and then dissolved in a bathtub of acid. It was so gory that, upon its initial release in 1979, many people thought it was a snuff film. It remains just as convincing to this day.)
I was fortunate enough in high school to have a Regent‘s English instructor who would spend time with me several times a
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month after class to review pieces I had written on the side. He had been a member of the Special Forces in the military (and he both looked and acted the part); thus, he was the one teacher no one would dispute. He didn‘t dispense advice easily or gratuitously and so we tended to take his word as The Truth. It was at one of these meetings that I asked him about his definition of art. He had just finished reading an essay of mine entitled ―Adrenaline: the Rush,‖ which was about a shoplifter, and was written in the first person. He held it up and answered, ―This is art.‖ When I asked him why, he told me it had immersed him in the world I had created and made him feel uncomfortable for being there. I relay this not to seem self-important, but because I can think of no better definition for a successful horror film.
Horror, true horror, gets under our skin. It makes us wish we were somewhere else, even as we peek through our fingers so as not to miss anything. It builds slowly from a simmer to a full boil. The difference between this and splatter is that the former is all about creating a mood of fear and a sense of foreboding, while the other just wants a reason to show creative gore. Enough about splatter; let‘s return to the time of Danse Macabre.
As we have already established, there was one constant about cinematic horror of the day: that each new film would be either creepy or campy. In King‘s book, there is no reference to any single film that encompasses both elements. It wasn‘t until after publication in 1981 that John Landis released his genre-breaking film, ―An American Werewolf In London‖ and changed the rules for everyone.
―...Werewolf...‖ featured groundbreaking effects by Academy Award winner Rick Baker but, more importantly, reinvented the modern horror movie by injecting humor and a hip, classic soundtrack. For better or for worse, it directly influenced most major studio-released horror films of the 1980s. Witness several horror series as examples of this phenomenon: the ―Howling,‖ ―Friday the 13th,‖ and ―Nightmare On Elm Street‖ films all started out with initial films that were creatively fresh and had thick, tense atmospheres. By the end of the decade, each series had dived fearlessly into the deep end of the comedy pool (the “Friday the 13th ‖ series, while not utilizing outright humor as did the ―Nightmare‖ series, brought deeper levels of campiness (or, as I like to call it,
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―cheese‖) with each new entry. In 1986's ― Friday...Part VI‖ Ron Palilo, Horshack on television‘s ―Welcome Back Kotter,‖ shamelessly re-embodied his previous role; all that was missing was the raspy, donkey braying laugh.). This, I believe, had a great deal to do with the fade of horror over the next several years; there simply was nothing left to be afraid of. All the bad guys were telling jokes.
Everything Old Is New Again So it went for the next several years. Horror films no longer made money at the box office, although the recent popularity of home video kept horror fans sated on a steady stream of direct-to-video cheese like the 400 or so ―sequels‖ to King‘s ―Children of the Corn.‖ Then Wes Craven came along in 1996 and, as he had with ―A Nightmare on Elm Street,‖ breathed fresh air into a long stale genre with his semi-satirical film ―Scream.”
― Scream” worked because it was presented with a nod and a wink to viewers. It boldly announced all of the stereotypical rules that 1980's horror films had lived by, then cleverly had its own characters unwittingly follow those same rules in tense situations. At one point in the film, the stereotypical masked killer asks the female protagonist being stalked what she thinks of horror movies. Her answer: ―What‘s the point? They‘re all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can‘t act and is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It‘s insulting.‖ Hey, it may be just a movie, Craven seems to be saying, but we‘d all react pretty thoughtlessly if our lives were suddenly in peril.
Unfortunately, ― Scream‖ was successful enough that two sequels were ushered into theaters, and the series sealed itself into the same cliched box with the other films it had originally satirized. Such is the mindless machina of cinematic horror: If it works once, it gets remade several times over until audiences no longer care. Thus, the 1990's became overrun with more teenagers-in-peril films such as the ―I Know What You Did Last Summer‖ and ―Urban Legend‖ series that were neither clever or scary. Movie-goers, once again, grew bored. Until...
Ohmygawd...it’s...it’s...A PILE OF STONES...RUN!!!!
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― The Blair Witch Project,‖ released in 1999 (the
year before the final ―Scream”), was one of the most explosive films to ever hit theaters. Made for a paltry $22,000 and largely improvised (the unknown cast members played themselves), the film went on to gross more than $240 Million. It is currently a Guinness World Record holder for the largest movie budget-Box office ratio, grossing almost $11,000 for each dollar spent during production (Guinness). It is also probably the most widely debated horror film of all time. Depending on your school of thought, it is either completely silly and a waste of time, or the most nerve-wracking film ever. There is no one I‘ve come across who is lukewarm about the movie. I‘m in the latter group, so I can talk with confidence about why it works (for those of us who feel that it did, of course). ―...Blair Witch‖ is ninety minutes of videotape shot by three young filmmakers in search of the Blair Witch in Burkittesville, Maryland. Their trek takes them into the woods, where they apparently encounter something supernatural, evil and deadly. The set up is that the tapes that comprise the movie were found a year after the filmmakers disappeared. It is fiction presented confidently (and believably) as fact.
― Blair Witch” works precisely because it avoids all of the cliches of those films that came before it (although, some would argue, it created new cliches all its own). By either design or budgetary reasons, the movie hints at horrifying events while revealing nothing to its viewers. Psychologically, it is a harrowing experience because it is all buildup with no release of tension. At its conclusion, I was fairly ambivalent about the film; by the next night, I was sleeping with my bedroom light on, something I have never done, even after watching ―The Exorcist‖ alone at 3 A.M. when I was ten. This is the kind of film that triggers one‘s imagination, a place that, King would agree, can be the scariest place of all.
This kind of cinema verité, presented as a documentary, is not entirely new. ―Blair Witch‖ was preceded by ―Cannibal Holocaust‖ in 1980, in which disturbing footage is discovered of a missing documentary film crew. ―Blair Witch” was, however, the most successful film of its type; because of this remarkably different style of storytelling, it is essentially copy-proofed. No one, for the next fifteen years at least, can make another film like it without it being
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an obvious knock-off and summarily dismissed (even the sequel to ―The Blair Witch Project‖ is a more ―traditional‖ horror movie). It is a benchmark film and, as such, should age well.
...and so it goes... One welcome residual effect of ―... Blair Witch‖ is that horror movies since its release have been more about plot and suspense than gore (although gore certainly does play a role). Films such as ―Cabin Fever‖ and ―The Ring‖ pay homage to the genre while carving their own niche. Not all of these films are respectful; ―Freddy VS. Jason‖ is just as moronic as its title suggests, but Rome wasn‘t built in a day, to toss out a cliche of my own.
Critics, unfortunately, are no longer sure what horror is. Films like ―Freddy VS Jason‖ are rightfully rebuked, but then so are the more serious, horrific films. I was disheartened to see critics berate the 2003 remake of the 1974 horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" because it is (in the words of critic Roger Ebert) "vile, ugly and brutal" and causes feelings of "disgust and hopelessness." ―Texas Chainsaw...‖ is a true horror movie in every sense of the word and, if our definition of art as it relates to horror cinema is correct (to refresh your memory: Audiences consume these films in order to feel something different and out of the ordinary, and to immerse them in the story‘s world and make them feel uncomfortable for being there), then ―Texas...‖ meets our criteria and Ebert‘s rebukes are precisely the reasons the film should be lauded. Yes, it uses familiar plot devices (teenagers are stalked, the car won't start when they need to flee the killer), but this doesn't matter; the film's slowly tightening grip is relentless and these all work to create tension. When it was over, like Ebert, I felt less than human, but I knew that was really the point.
Why, then, do critics berate horror? Critics balk because they are expected to, because horror isn‘t a respectable genre. Think about it: What was the last horror film nominated for an Academy Award? What was the last one even marketed to adults? If you answered ―The Silence of the Lambs,‖ you‘re wrong, sort of. ―...Lambs‖ certainly meets the criteria for a horror film: It has a female protagonist running in fear of (and then after) a murderer who likes to skin his victims alive, then sew those skins into a new suit for himself; yet it was marketed as a ―suspense thriller.‖
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(NOTE: This is oddly similar to the aforementioned film ― Maniac,‖ in which the killer hangs those skins on several mannequins in his room. Both ―Maniac” and ―...Lambs‖ are presumably based loosely on real-life deviant Ed Gein, as were ―Psycho‖ and ―The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.") Apparently, film studios feel horror films are beneath adult moviegoers. It is this same logic that dictates that ―Panic Room” (―A mother is trapped in a steel closet with her dying daughter as killers try to get them both!‖) and ―Deliverence‖ (―Backwoods inbreds terrorize innocent businessmen by raping and killing them for no good reason at all!‖) are not horror films but thrillers, even though those plot synopses I have just provided certainly sound like they‘re the former.
Into the Dark... What will the future of horror cinema bring? Well, remakes are popular right now, as the aforementioned ―Texas Chainsaw...‖ can attest. Another recent version of an classic, ―Dawn of the Dead,” did very well at the box office, although it can safely be labeled an action-comedy rather than a horror film. Remakes of foreign films are popular right now, too. The American version of ―The Ring” has already spawned a sequel in the States to be released later this fall, and other films such as ―Dark Water‖ (a creepy ghost story) by the same director, Hideo Nakata, are being recreated for Americans. Even Tom Cruise has gotten into the business; he has purchased the rights to an excellent Japanese horror film called ―The Eye‖ and plans to produce the American version, due in 2005 (Guardian Review).
Hopefully, whatever the future brings, cinematic horror will remember to be about story and atmosphere first, and splatter effects last. In a perfect future, they will pay their respects to those who came before them, while remaining true to themselves. One or two genre cliches will be accepted (even encouraged, if done with knowing smile), as long as they can show us something new, someplace we‘d never visit outside our imaginations.
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The People VS Horror Cinema? It's the age-old debate. Does life imitate art? Or does art imitate life? It's a question that rages on, throughout the years, causing frequent controversy...and often making life more difficult for the artist whose work is deemed both "inappropriate" and, even worse, "imitatable." Of course, "imitatable" isn't even a real word. That's why my spell-check persists in warning me that I'm currently making some grave error. Despite its absence from the dictionary, however, it has become a self-inflicted media buzzword pertaining to any act (usually violent in nature) that an impressionable child (or particularly stupid adult) might be tempted to recreate in the privacy of their own home, or in the world at large.
The word "Imitatable" (doesn't even look like a real word, does it?) had not yet been coined in the 1950s, when comic books were placed on trial...or, more specifically, when they were made the subject of a taxpayer-funded Senate Subcommittee Investigation. If it were, however, I'm sure it would have been bandied about vigorously, as people like Dr. Frederic Wertham tried to convince the Senators, led by Estes Kefauver, that "funny books" were turning America's youths into soulless juvenile delinquents. Among his charges: That Batman and Robin were engaged in a pedophilic homosexual relationship. That Wonder Woman was an angry lesbian with a bondage fetish. That Mighty Mouse snorted cocaine openly (I swear to you, I didn't make that one up). He was also able, by poring over these "lurid" comics for hours on end, to "find" images of naked women "hidden" in drawings of human muscles and trees. Which, personally, kind of mak
es me wonder about his state of mind.
But clearly, Wertham's greatest concerns focused on crime and horror comics, the violent acts they portrayed, and how children might feel compelled to imitate those acts. It was the classic "Monkey See, Monkey Do" principle on display. Though as I've often said, if your children are monkeys, surely you have much bigger problems than comic books to worry about. The Senate, however, took these concerns very seriously, indeed, and treated Wertham as a celebrity "Witness for the Prosecution." In the end, horror, a genre which had only existed within the comic book medium for four years when the hearings were held in 1954, took
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the hardest hit of all. And the man who invented them took a stand to defend them. William M. Gaines, the President of EC Comics, had inherited the company from his father...Maxwell Gaines, the inventor of the comic book. Founded as "Educational Comics" in 1944, the company initially published such titles as Picture Stories from the Bible. Though its sales were not particularly high, when Max Gaines died three years later, his son Bill felt uncomfortable stepping into his father's shoes. After all, Max Gaines was the man who invented the comic book...the man who, in his days at DC, accepted the proposal for Wonder Woman. And now, Bill was inheriting his father's dying company. And if he allowed it to die, it would rest on his shoulders...not those of his legendary father.
