Bases for Fear, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in this and the next post, we ask of life, “How do I fear thee? Let me count the ways.”

Jails and prisons. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They’re full of psychopaths in with whom one is locked! There may also be brutal, sadistic guards and an apathetic warden. There are beatings, rapes, and murders, and one can never trust anyone. Parole board meetings are likely to end in a denial of parole and a continuation, for at least four more years, of one’s sentence. For those who are scheduled to be executed, the electric chair, the gas chamber, the lethal drugs, or the firing squad looms, with seemingly interminable appeals stretching between the present (life, after a fashion) and the future (death by execution). Neither family members nor true friends are present. The closest thing to hell on earth, jails and prisons both isolate and imprison, trapping men and women in hostile, potentially lethal environments from which, as a rule, there is no escape, for which reasons they are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.

Lamia. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. A lamia, or snake-woman, is a fusion of two creatures that are never otherwise a synthesis--a reptile and a human being of the feminine persuasion. Such hybrids are, in themselves, horrible. However, they are horrible for more than the reason that they represent a being that defies natural law and the way things are supposed to be. In such hybridizations, the animal component benefits from its fusion with the human, gaining much greater intelligence (unless the woman with whom the snake is fused is Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton, perhaps), but the human component of this ungodly union is not as fortunate. His or (in the case of lamias, gorgons, mermaid, naiads, and similar creatures) her nature is compromised and reduced because it takes on bestial features and qualities. The hybrid is less, not more, human. She slithers, not walks, and hisses, not talks, and her desires and needs and goals are more those of the serpent than the woman. This crossing of species is a crossing, too, of lines of propriety, a defiance both of nature and its God, who has cast the canons of existence into categories which are not to be regarded as mere conveniences but as expressions of divine will and natural law. As a defiance of nature’s status quo and the will of God, the lamia is, in horror fiction, if not in life, a basis for fear.

Mazes. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. Mazes are difficult to navigate, because all but one of their many meandering corridors come to abrupt halts, or dead ends, against walls of brick, stone, or some other all-but-impenetrable substance, leaving the confused and distraught victim, once again, frustrated in his or her eager attempt at escape. The addition of a threat--a wild animal, a madman, or a monster--to the labyrinth, of course, ups the stakes considerably, making the maze, as a potential deathtrap, all the more horrifying. As symbols of the confusion and dangers of irrationality, mazes are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.

Night. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. Night is darkness, and darkness is blindness. It robs one of his or her most-used sight, vision. Night transforms a safe and secure--or, at least, a seemingly safe and secure--environment into one in which nothing is certain and no one is safe. And night lasts a long time--hours, or, if one is at the Arctic Circle, even days--which is plenty of time during which the monstrous forces of darkness can execute their plans for the death and destruction of their diurnal foes, which is to say, you (but never me). At night, what one does not see is what one gets! The long-term blinding effect of night is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

The ocean. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. The ocean is vast. It is also deep. It is filled with strange, often deadly, life forms alien to landlubbers and odd even to seafaring folk: giant squid, octopi, man-eating sharks. If the “finny denizens of the deep” don’t get the shipwrecked fool, the elements or hunger or thirst will. Meanwhile, one’s skin will burn and one’s mind will play delusional tricks that could result in the death of oneself or another who shares the lifeboat or a bit of flotsam floating upon the face of the deep. Land is hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles away, and the only hope of rescue is the chance passing of a ship, should its crew see one among waves of twenty feet and more. To be lost at sea is to be lost, indeed. The ocean, therefore, is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

Pain. Why does it frightening? The answer is simple. It hurts! It also possesses. Rather like the demons of old were thought to be capable of possessing a person’s soul, pain can possess a person’s body and mind, filling a nerve--or a million nerves--with impulses that the brain will interpret as excruciating agony. Pain is a seizure. Although painkillers can kill pain, for a time, at least, and, sometimes banish it for good, new pains can seize one’s frame at any moment. Pain grabs hold, and, without--and often in spite of--painkillers, it does not release one until it is ready to subside. Pain can last seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, or a lifetime. It’s a symptom, too--but a symptom of what? That’s the truly terrifying question, for although pain can portend nothing more serious than a paper cut, it may also foretell a long, drawn-out, and agonizing demise. Because pain is both painful in itself and because it may also be a sign of even worse things to come, it is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

In the next post, additional bases for fear will be identified and considered, but, ‘ere we part, let’s summarize our findings with regard to the nine bases of fear that were listed in this post:

• Jails and prisons isolate and imprison, trapping men and women in hostile, potentially lethal environments from which, as a rule, there is no escape, for which reasons they are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
• As a defiance of nature’s status quo and the will of God, the lamia is, in horror fiction, if not in life, a basis for fear.
• As symbols of the confusion and dangers of irrationality, mazes are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
• The long-term blinding effect of night is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
• To be lost at sea is to be lost, indeed; the ocean, therefore, is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
• Because pain is both painful in itself and may be a sign of even worse things to come, it is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.

Source of photographs: U.S. Government Photos and Graphics

Bases for Fear, Part I

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in this and the next couple of posts, we ask of life, “How do I fear thee? Let me count the ways.”

Animals. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They’re faster and stronger than we are; they have greater stamina than we have; they have teeth and fangs or other offensive weaponry; and, wild, they are unbothered by the niceties of civilization and culture. In addition, humanity’s relationship, as it were, with the beasts has been as much one of exploitation on our part as it has been one of faithful service on the part of those which we’ve been able, as we say, from our point of view, to “domesticate.” There may be, we fear, as much loathing as loving in the animals’ feelings toward us, their presumed “masters.” Among those that are not “domesticated,” there is not the least pretense of affection for us; there is but the “gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun” of William Butler Yeats’ “rough beast” that, “it’s hour come round at last,/ Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.” Occasionally, wild animals that circus performers or magicians believe they have “domesticated” cripple or kill their “masters,” as the white tiger mauled the Las Vegas magician Roy Horn, formerly of Siegfried and Roy. In one of The Chronicles of Narnia novels, one of C. S. Lewis’ characters warns others that Aslan “is not a tame lion.” The same may be said of all other wild animals as well. Exploitation, whether of nature, animals, or other human beings, is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Source: U .S. Government Photos and Graphics

Bats. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They’re faster than we are; they may have greater stamina than we have; they have talons and teeth; and, wild, they are unbothered by the niceties of civilization and culture. They’re associated, traditionally, with vampires. They’re also hybrid creatures--at least in the popular imagination--part mouse and part bird, as it seems, and, therefore, an anomaly, a perversion, as it were, of nature. They can’t even get the wings right: they’re leathery rather than feathery, and the damned things can’t see; they use a bizarre “radar sense.” Perversity, real or apparent, is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Source: U. S. Government Photos and Graphics

Cemeteries. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They are full of dead bodies, entombed or buried, but dead bodies, nevertheless, or ashes. Those buried are buried for a reason, which has little to do with public sanitation and everything to do with their designation as “human remains,” the physical decay of the corpse, and the revelation that, in the end, we may be nothing more than bones and dust, which makes life both rather horrible and absurd. Cemeteries, like the dead bodies or human ashes they contain, the remains or the cremains, are, as mementoes of death, a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Demons. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They represent the embodiment of evil. Whether they are legion or represent only a particular vice or depravity, they are malevolence incarnate. Often, they are depicted with claws and fangs. They may have fur and tails. They may have horns and hooves. Bestial in appearance, they are frightening because they’re faster and stronger than we are; they have greater stamina than we have; they have teeth and fangs or other offensive weaponry; and, wild, they are unbothered by the niceties of civilization and culture. They are enemies of God himself and tempt men and women to sin and, ultimately, to denounce God and to be damned for eternity to hell. Demons frighten because they represent the powerful temptation to defy God, surrendering one’s will to self-destructive impulses. The pursuit of the inner demons of self-destructive behavior is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Evil. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. Evil is a mystery. It is an ambiguity and an inscrutability, and the incomprehensible and the irrational are seductive. Evil is a song sung by more than a few sirens. Evil is dark. It is fascinating. It is compelling. It is insistent and enchanting. It is hypnotic. It is spellbinding. It captivates because it has no center, no self, no soul, and its shape is ever changing, always shifting, becoming whatever one lacks but wants and should not have. Its root is pride, but it often puts forth tendrils of envy and leaves of spite. Evil’s protean ability to be all things to all people is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Frogs. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They don’t. That is, they don’t frighten many, but they do frighten some, and, if we let them represent not merely themselves but all amphibians (let’s throw in reptiles, too, for good measure), these creatures are frightening to the majority of people, for those who do not fear frogs are likely to fear lizards or turtles or snakes or eyes of newt. These creatures are primordial in appearance. They suggest the earliest of beasts, the hopping and crawling and creeping ones as much as the running ones, and, as such, they seem to suggest the least evolved life forms, those closest, as it were, to the primordial soup. They’re living embodiments of the days before we existed, suggesting that a world without us is possible--perhaps, someday, even probable. They’re also suggestions that we, who pride ourselves upon having evolved to the very pinnacle of nature, may perhaps regress to the level at which we are, once again, subhuman creatures whose only act of communication is the primal scream. Reptiles and amphibians (and imaginary and imaginative creatures derived from them), represented here as frogs, are reminders of our animal origins and of the possibility that we could regress instead of progressing and are, therefore, a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

In this drawing by Gustave Dore, God gets cranky, drowning the Egyptians in the Red Sea he parted to facilitate Moses' escape with the Hebrews

God. Why does he frighten? The answer is simple. God is not only powerful, but he is also all-powerful. There is no recourse against his will. As Alexander Pope succinctly phrased the matter: “Man proposes; God disposes.” We are all in the hands of God, like it or not, and his will is our fate. Some fates, we understand, are more pleasant than others, but ours, whatever they may prove to be, are chosen for us, are, in fact, assigned to us from the foundation of the world. Free will is an absurdity and an illusion. God is sovereign, and we are his subjects. God is love, but, sometimes, from the human point of view, love can seem cruel, for the ways of God are not the ways of man. It can be, as Jonathan Edwards said, “a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and, if anything, it is his servants who suffer the most. God is executing his will, not ours. God is a transcendent and wholly other power against which nothing avails unless he suffers it to do so, and it can never be known with certainty what he will suffer and what he will not, and such uncertainty and dependency upon the omnipotent and wholly other is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Hell. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. Hell is nowhere. It is the end of the line. It is endless and eternal futility. It is the “vanity of vanities,” the bottomless pit of despair, an existence apart from the ground of being, from being-itself, from God, the creator and the sustainer of life, of meaning, of purpose, of value, and of love. It is an outer darkness of death-in-life, of meaninglessness, of purposelessness, of worthlessness, of nothingness. “Abandon hope all ye who enter herein,” Dante’s portal to hell warned. Existential meaninglessness is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Source: U. S. Government Photos and Graphics

Ice. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. It freezes. It makes frozen objects brittle. According to the History Channel’s series Ice Road Truckers, even steel, when it is frozen, can snap like a rubber band under pressure. One episode, in fact, shows a thick chain shatter. Truck engines, in the Alaskan wilderness, must be kept running overnight when the temperature is low enough, and equipment that is idle too long may refuse to start. Ice can also snap large branches from mighty oaks, and its weight can crush a roof. Although strong--the diesel big rigs of Ice Road Truckers travel upon highways that are, to a large extent, nothing more than rivers and an ocean that have become solid ice--ice remains treacherous. It can cause vehicles to skid out of control or to plummet through its thinner parts, into a watery grave. Ice can also cause a body to freeze to death, despite layered clothing, heavy boots and coats, and shelter from the storm. Ice is symbolic of a cold nature, of a hostile and inhospitable temperament, of a lack of love and compassion, of the inability or refusal to sympathize and empathize. For all these reasons, and, especially, because ice is treacherous, it is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

In the next post, additional bases for fear will be identified and considered, but, ‘ere we part, let’s summarize our findings with regard to the nine bases of fear that were listed in this post:

• Exploitation, whether of nature, animals, or other human beings, is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• Perversity, real or apparent, is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• Cemeteries, like the dead bodies or human ashes they contain, the remains or the cremains, are, as mementoes of death, a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• The pursuit of the inner demons of self-destructive behavior is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• Evil’s protean ability to be all things to all people is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• Reptiles and amphibians (and imaginary and imaginative creatures derived from them), represented here as frogs, are reminders of our animal origins and of the possibility that we could regress instead of progressing and are, therefore, a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• God is a transcendent and wholly other power against which nothing avails unless he suffers it to do so, and it can never be known with certainty what he will suffer and what he will not, and such uncertainty and dependency upon the omnipotent and wholly other is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• Existential meaninglessness is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.
• Because ice is treacherous, it is a basis, in horror fiction, as in life, for fear.

Sexploitation Horror Films: Sexing It Up

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Perhaps after watching one too many horror movies while experimenting with LSD, Jim Morrison, late of The Doors, chanted, “Love is sex, and sex is death, and therein lies the ultimate high.”

 

It’s a perfect mantra for horror films in which a bit of hanky panky precedes the deaths of the participants, who usually expire in a particularly gruesome and ghastly way to show the mostly teen and young adult audiences of such motion pictures that, well, “love is sex, and sex is death, and therein lies the ultimate high.”

 

For those who aren’t happy unless a movie is more than just a story and for whom horror has to have some sort of justification for its mayhem, L. Vincent Poupard offers a Freudian take on horror films’ inclusion of bodies getting physical.

 

In his article, "The Symbolism of Sex in Horror Movies,” he argues that sex participants are rebels against parental authority and that they “are most vulnerable when they are having sex” because “hormones take complete control.” As a result, the sexual partners become “oblivious to the world around them,” making themselves perfect victims of a stealthy, possibly voyeuristic, and most likely envious, monster. That’s not why sex is “symbolic,” though. According to Poupard, it’s symbolic because it represents “not paying attention” to the dictates of one’s parents. It’s dangerous, too, he says, because it’s a minefield of “sexual diseases.” 

 

Another reason that moviemakers put sex in their scenes is because sex sells. Especially in Europe, it seems, where the horror films of such directors as Jean Rollin (Zombie Lake [1980] and Oasis of Zombies [1981]); Jesus (“Jess”) Franco (Mansion of the Living Dead [1985], Nightmares Come At Night [1970], 99 Women [1969], Golden Temple Amazons [1986], Sadomania [1981]); and Joe D’Amato (Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals [1977]) are just opportunities to exploit their audiences with sleaze-disguised-as-horror. (Yes, of course, that may be all the more reason to have seen, or to see, them; that’s the whole point of sexploitation films.) 

 

As difficult as it may seem to believe, there was sex before slasher films. Even as far back as the 1940’s and 1950’s, horror movies exploited youngsters’ urge to merge. The difference between earlier and more recent films is the manner in which sex is incorporated in the plot and shown (or not shown) on the screen. In the older films, sex was mostly suggested. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a good example. Instead of showing, close up and in person, so to speak, detailed sequences of Marion Crane making love to her paramour, the scene starts, not in media res, but after the fact, as Crane, wearing only her undies, dresses.

 

In a more recent film, Chuck Parello’s Ed Gein (2001), the opening sex scene is mild by today’s standards, with a pair of teenage lovebirds making out on a bench in the Plainfield (Wisconsin) cemetery. The action between them is restricted to some passionate kissing and to the youth’s unbuttoning of a button on his date’s blouse. 

 

They’re scared away by the sounds of Gein’s spade as he opens the grave of a recently deceased female citizen, and they hurry off, the young man zipping his fly as they vacate the premises. Most other contemporary horror films are far less circumspect, preferring to let it all hang out, as it were. 

 

Sexploitation horror films are about the sins of the flesh and the wages of this particular sin, but, even so, they require at least some narrative pretense, which is to say, a plot. Here are those of the ones we’ve mentioned in this post, just so no one can say we aren’t being fair in trashing this trash:

• Zombie Lake: Skinny dipping girls, some bikini-clad and others bare, entice a lake full of Nazi zombies. Huh? Nazi zombies?
• Oasis of Zombies: “An expedition searching for treasure supposedly buried by the German army in the African desert during WW II comes up against an army of Nazi zombies guarding the fortune” (The Internet Movie Database [IMDb]). Huh? Nazi zombies?
• Mansion of the Living Dead: Maximum nudity with minimum gore and a touch of anticlericalism thrown in for good (or bad) measure. No Nazi zombies, though.
• Sadomania: Newlyweds Olga and Michael stumble upon a desert training camp in which the trainees are enslaved women who work at a variety of odd jobs, including prostitution. Olga becomes their latest recruit. Uh oh!
• 99 Women: The movie’s tagline pretty much sums up its plot: “99 women behind bars. . . without men!”
• Nightmares Come At Night: Two topless dancers become friends; then, one of them begins to have nightmares. In her dreams, she kills people. Voyeurs--or, rather, viewers--learn the reason for the murderous dreams: the dancer is influenced by a hypnotic jewel thief who's intent upon eliminating her partners, one by one.
• Golden Temple Amazons: A woman avenges the murder of her parents by helping an expedition sack the tribe’s golden temple.
• Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals: Emmanuelle goes undercover. In a mental asylum. Where she finds a crazy girl. Who may or may not have been reared by cannibals. A visit to the Amazon will verify whether the patient is truly insane or just homesick.

Those who enjoy a bit of flesh (and necrophilia) with their blood and guts might also enjoy such sexploitation horror flicks as The Curse of Her Flesh, Vampiros Lesbos, The Kiss of Her Flesh, Tou Kui Wu Zui, Where the Truth Lies, Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Terror, and--well, there are lots and lots of them.

Insider’s Tip: Check out your favorite scream queens on Chickipedia.

Subliminal Horror

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

“Subliminal” refers to text, images, auditory statements, or other objects or props that escape one’s conscious notice but (according to theory, at least) are recognized on a subconscious level. Supposedly, subliminal techniques are used to sell everything from movie theater popcorn to alcoholic beverages. Some even go so far as to say that governments, including that of the United States, use such messages to propagandize and brainwash their citizens.

Subliminal messages are also used in printed and filmed horror stories, albeit rarely, it would seem.

In fact, I’ve seen the use of a subliminal image in a horror movie. It occurred at the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho--not in the original film, but in a release of the movie on videotape or DVD (I don’t recall which now, as this experience occurred several years ago, but I believe it was a videotape.) As Norman Bates, at the end of his killing spree, sits in a jail cell, dressed as his mother, Norma, a human skull flashes over his face.

I remember feeling especially uneasy during this scene, although it hadn’t seemed as frightening or eerie when I’d first witnessed the scene, as a child. On an impulse, I played the sequence again, in slow motion, and the skull, which I hadn’t noticed before (consciously, at least) was visible as it appeared briefly, over Norman’s face, and then vanished again, just as abruptly, the superimposition of the skull image over Norman’s face occupying only the space of a few frames. I’d heard of subliminal images, but this was the first time I’d ever seen one myself.

Apparently, subliminal images are used much more widely than one might suppose, not only in advertising, but also in popular entertainment media, including Walt Disney’s art and big-name comic books’ illustrations.

In Who Killed Roger Rabbit, Roger’s wife, Jessica, is shown, sans panties, exiting a taxicab.

 


The cover for the DVD release of Disney’s The Little Mermaid shows an erect phallus among the spires of a castle; a constellation of stars in The Lion King spells out S-E-X; and a nude painting is shown in a background setting in The Rescuers. It seems that, posthumously, Uncle Walt’s not nearly as family friendly as he was when he’d been among the living.




The “S” word also makes its appearance in New X-Men #118--at least 18 times, by one count.

In horror fiction, it’s more likely to be the gruesome and the ghastly or the bloody and the gory that sells, rather than sex, and it’s just such subliminal texts and images that are occasionally found, as in Psycho.

Another example of the use of such images occurs in the original Hitchcock version of the film itself. In three frames (equating to approximately 1/8 of a second) of the shower scene, in which Norman-as-Norma, attacks Marion Crane as she is showering, the knife thrust is reversed, so that it appears to penetrate her lower abdomen.

Although it’s questionable as to whether Hitchcock had any transcendent reason for including the subliminal images of penetration, he apparently did have a thematic purpose in mind for the shower scene itself besides mere titillation. According to Janet Leigh herself, who played Crane in the original film:

Marion had decided to go back to Phoenix, come clean, and take the consequence, so when she stepped into the bathtub it was as if she were stepping into the baptismal waters. The spray beating down on her was purifying the corruption from her mind, purging the evil from her soul. She was like a virgin again, tranquil, at peace.

(Well, as long as Leigh bought the line. . . .)

In The Exorcist, a demon’s face is flashed on the screen on two occasions, once when Father Damien Karras recalls seeing his mother as she is about to enter a subway station and, later, when Regan's mother walks down a hallway, but not so few times per foot of film that it can’t be seen, so this use of imagery doesn’t, strictly speaking, constitute the employment of a subliminal technique.

In a previous post, I showed how Bram Stoker’s deft use of description and innuendo creates what amounts to a sort of literary subliminal coding of the narrative’s text, heightening the story’s fear factor by suggesting that there is some astonishingly powerful force operating behind the scenes, so to speak. Subliminal text and images are today’s equivalents, in extremis, of yesterday’s rhetorical, literary, and cinematographic techniques and, yes, they can be effective. In fact, they can frighten the hell out of you!

Source

Leigh, Janet. Psycho : Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller. Harmony Press, 1995.