Theories of Horror

In his The Philosophy of Horror, Noel Carroll developed the attraction/repulsion theory, which is when we are attracted by gore and transgression and repulsed to it.

He said; "Horror genre gives every evidence of being pleasurable to its audience, but it does so through the means trafficking in the very sorts of things that cause disquiet, distress and displeasure."

A prime example of the attraction/repulsion concept in horror would be when we fear vampires, yet we fancy them because of their sex appeal. Like Damon Salvatore, for example, in The Vampire Diaries.

 

Damon Salvatore

 

 

A problem with Carroll's theory is that he does not take into account the interplay between attraction and repulsion, and he also rejects psychoanalytic accounts: does not consider role between conscious and unconscious - he only considers the cognitive side to psychology in regards to schemas.

In her essay titled "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Laura Mulvey coined the term 'male gaze', which is when a horror film puts the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual man - particularly the killer. Therefore, for example, scenes will focus on the curves of a woman's body. The audience simultaneously empathises with the victims on screen while occupying the killer's point of view.

Mulvey argues that the role of a female character has two functions:

1. as an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view
2. as an erotic object for the audience within the cinema to view



Sigmund Freud introduced the idea of 'The Uncanny,' which is something secret and disturbingly strange. The Uncanny is that which has ought to have been secret but that has come to light within the unconscious or subconscious mind. It is essentially the return of the repressed and it is projected onto objects, peoples and places. The Uncanny Valley is also interesting here.





 

 

Carl Jung philosophised the 'Shadow' which is a projection of all we fear and dislike onto an external figure. The horror film 'monster' represents our 'dark side' - which is the part of ourselves that our ego does not identify with. A problem with Jung's proposition is that it wasn't as popular as Freud's - this is because Jung's ideas were much more mystical, and less clearly explained. 

 

The 1987 essay "Her Body, Himself," by Carol Clover, argued that horror movies offer their teenage male viewers an secret opportunity to revel in their feminine side. Challenging the claim that horror encourages a sadistic male gaze of the female, Clover took a closer look at the low-budget horror film, in which typically all the female characters are murdered, save for the sole woman who struggles to survive and ultimately escape the villain. Clover argued that horror is one of the few film genres that regularly asked male audiences to identify with a triumphant female protagonist. Therefore, this could mean that a 'sexist' genre may actually not be so sexist after all!

Adam Lowenstein suggested that horror movies are all about 'spectacle horror' nowadays - it is no longer about the darker motives of the film. With the use of special effects, camerawork, and gory music, it is much more about appreciating the art of the genre instead.

Cynthia Freeland argues that graphic violence and gore are so over the top and exaggerated that they create a "perverse sublime." They are so far-fetched that we can enjoy the film on the aesthetic, entertaining level. We know that the things that happen in horror films are so unrealistic, they therefore become comedic.