I am not an adrenaline junkie. I still get nervous sleeping in the dark, I tremor walking over the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and I absolutely loathe rollercoasters. The first time I watched something terrifying was a different story. It was just after Halloween. My friend from primary school and I sat cross-legged under a DIY den made from a duvet sheet. We put on Henry Selick’s spooky animation Coraline (2009), and I was horrified. I’ve come to realise that while I avoid the outside of my comfort zone like the plague, I find it more fun watching people on the telly navigate unpleasant scenarios. When something really manages to spook me, I try and comfort myself with the facts: none of that will happen to me. That masked killer isn’t real; an alligator would never really get that close. But even when this is true it isn’t much help. I still end up petrified. Though horror comes in all shapes and sizes, it manages to rattle all of us in spite of the comfort blankets we hide behind.
A lot of us watch films comfortably (for the most part). We curl up in a sofa or cinema, stashes of confectionary waiting on our laps, and we share the moment with the company of ourselves or others. Coraline, on the contrary, lives on an eerie ancient estate. She gets stalked by an evil spidery-shapeshifter-thing. She puts her life, and her eyes, on the line. That contrast, a contrast between our safety as watchers and the terror on-screen is noticeable in every horror. It’s actually something we tell ourselves when the film starts to get a bit much and the panic sets in – they might not be safe, but don’t worry, we are. So why does what we witness still freak us out? Maybe because it’s just as horrifying to know that what we’re seeing might happen. The awful scenario, person, environment in front of us has now been brought into our heads. I presume that most people don’t go around considering all sorts of twisted scenarios, so I guess before we watch scary things we’re in some sort of blissful ignorance. I hope no one really thinks about what would happen if someone’s eyes got plucked out and buttons sewed in. But horror films do. They are the study of disgusting things; they dissect the possibility of these disgusting things up close. We are introduced to grotesque cenarios we’d otherwise entirely avoid and once the screen fades and credits roll, we become fearful of our imagination. What will it do now it’s been fed something unthinkable?
A lot of horror’s lead characters end up playing into quite recognisable tropes, like the ‘final girl’. A lot of horror invites the audience to see the possibilities this nasty world has to offer. Coraline, Sidney Prescott in Scream, Dani in Midsommar, just to name a few, all act as the audience’s vessel as we’re led to live vicariously through them. When these characters are chased after, struck down, or worse – the audience feels like they’re being chased after, struck down or worse. In a way, they act as a bridge between gap between the fictional horror we see and the horror we’re meant to feel. In fairness not all horror fits quite so simply under this umbrella: take Bodies Bodies Bodies.
To audience it may initially seem that the character of Bee is our way in, the one we identify with. She, just like us, is an outsider trying to find her place in this close-knit friend group. But it’s also possible that the film is told through the lens of Amandla Stenberg’s Sophie. Where the film starts Sophie’s been a distant friend, so distant that the group expresses their surprise not only when Bee arrives, but when she does. It is also increasingly obvious that Sophie and the entire clan are hiding something from each other and from the audience. In this horror, we are refused a set of eyes to look through for longer than ten minutes, so we find it difficult to identify with a character through which we can experience the film subjectively. Nonetheless, it remains a scary film. I find it just as horrifying as other denominations of the genre because it scares us for refreshingly unusual reasons. Firstly, there is no comfort in any of the character’s because we can’t rely on nor entirely sympathise with any one of them for long. Secondly, the characters’ personalities are just as horrifying as the twists, turns, blood and guts. The evil presence driving the horror is not Ghostface, nor a poltergeist. Bodies Bodies Bodies ends up in a blood bath, and that’s horrifying mostly because these people did it to themselves. The enemy is within.
Surely these filmmakers now by now that those who pay to go and see their work intend on being entertained by fear. It is no surprise that most traditional narratives, whether that be the supernatural, psychological or plain old gory killing sprees, are consistently being depicted. To maximise unpleasantness nowadays, gross stuff isn’t enough – audience’s need to be surprised. Returning to Coraline, there is one moment that gets me every time. Coraline feels she has finally outsmarted her villains and gleefully climbs through the claustrophobic purple portal to get back home. However, she arrives to find her parents have been locked in a snow-globe and are slowly freezing to death. Until this point, audiences have been lured into a false sense of security and because we’re closely attached to Coraline, because she’s a likeable, curious heroine, we’ve begun to relax. She’ll be fine and the audience’s fearful imaginations can finally rest. This is stopped in its tracks by an immense twist that spices up the narrative with an even scarier realisation that the war isn’t over. Sometimes it’s not simply the death of characters that induces our terror. When the hope for resolution is killed off, the feeling doubles.
Whether you love it or hate it, horror remains one of the most prolific genres. It is recognisable yet adaptable, it has more faces than pumpkins on Halloween. All its incarnations allow an audience to feel something unsettling. Although, the genre may struggle now considering there is a strong desire for ‘real cinema’ with people wanting nuance and subtlety over crash-bang-wallop, I expect the genre will adapt to fit these needs and will muster up more and more groundbreakingly unnerving ideas whilst stretching its preconceived boundaries. Nonetheless, these films will always be wanted, since adrenalin junkies and their poor wimpy friends that have been dragged along just can’t help their insatiable desire for more. It’s one of the only situations in which fear is considered fun. It’s not just about murderers or other-mothers, an anti-hero or no hero; there must be no room for comfort anywhere in the film. A good ‘horror film’ knows that the clue is in the name.
What do you think is the key to creating the perfect horror film?
