Deputy Editor Zaynab Khuder sinks her teeth into the idea of what a monster really is, and how horror films can allow women to become unapologetically bloody.
Trigger Warning: Mentions of Violence, Rape, Stalking and Assault
Horror films, thriller novels and tales of monsters that appear in mirrors when you chant their name three times. Monsters have stalked the recesses of our minds in many fundamental ways. We fear the creature who lurks in our folk tales and the hoaxes that are born from the Creepypasta tales we read beneath the covers as gullible, thrill-seeking children. We crave to dig our molars into the flesh of all things horrific. We seek it out. True crime podcasts, gorey television shows or masked serial killers; there is an elixir of options to gorge ourselves on. In a society where we must behave in a uniform fashion, the unusual and the horrific have always been outlets for the secluded. That is the appeal of monsters. They serve as mirrors into the ugliness and insecurity we bury deep inside our chests. Ironically, they remind us of our humanity. We strive for perfection in a world of monsters and freaks, which at its core, is counterintuitive. Perfection is an anomaly in itself. We indulge in scary things, not just to feel the adrenaline rush and the blood pumping in our ears, but to take a break from all the self-deprecation and embrace all the ugliness around us.
Unlike a majority of fictional media, horror and its subgenres allow us to address the stigmas of society and the human experience without having to justify their imperfections. Films like Raw (2016), Carnival of Souls (1962), I Spit On Your Grave (1978), Possession (1981) or Corruption (1968) are just some, amongst many films, that address the stigmas surrounding womanhood within several facets, including mental health, beauty, anger and revenge. The focal point of these types of horror films is the indulgence of body horror and violence, and how they can inherently break the stereotype of female suffering as romantic and idealised. Women are angry, they’re bloody and they’re hungry. So why should men get to kill each other in war and fight each other in battle while women frolic in fields and bake their frustrations away? It's why so many people love Lady Macbeth, Amy Dunne, Jennifer Check, Amanda Young or Asami from Audition (1999) – they’re violent and freakish, something they shouldn’t be. Bad women in horror are probably the most progressive representation we’ve had, whether people are conscious of it or not. They fuel the anger of the patriarchy and nourish the ugliness within us. By separating female characters in horror films from the usual depiction of women as innocent, kind or non-violent, we challenge the perceptions of women within society–we break free of the fabric of traits that are forced upon us. Horror allows women to be angry, bloody and violent without having to apologise for it.
We can also view films like Antiviral (2012), Natural Born Killers (1994), Dead Ringers (1988) and Saw (2004) and their commentaries on hierarchical and capitalistic society, the glorification of true crime and serial killers and the dichotomies of gender and identity. The exclusivity of horror films is not always the jump scares and the plot twists that we don’t see in other genres of film–but their exaggerated and violent expressions of humanity and its imperfection. Humanity is ugly. Humanity is flawed. And in quite an ironic way, I think all the blood and guts is a beautiful testament of how imperfect and fucked-up society is. We can turn to horror for the unbridled truths.
Whilst horror is an outlet for social commentary and representation of the stigmatised, in many ways it's also fun. Your Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Phantom Of The Paradise (1974), to your What We Do In The Shadows (2015), Bloodsucking Bastards (2015), or Shaun Of The Dead (2004), comedy horror satirises all the violence and takes the monsters we grew up cowering from–your aliens, vampires, zombies–and relieves us of their once frightening nature. But satirical horror/thriller does not always translate well amongst the mainstream. Take all the Patrick Bateman fanboys who unironically place him on a pedestal of ideal manhood– they’ve fed into the very thing Bret Easton Ellis was making fun of. That in itself is unbelievably ironic and hilarious, but ultimately concerning. What do we have if we don't consume our media with literacy? Without literacy we lose all meaning and purpose. The thrust of anti-intellectualism within our mainstream culture has impacted the way people consume media; they get lost in the art without actually recognising it as such.
I do think, regardless of the appeal of everything horrific and ugly, that we’ve allowed social media trends and fads to chip away at our ability to think critically about the media we consume. For instance, women are encouraged to want violence from men; to be choked, slapped, spat on and defiled because anything otherwise isn’t progressive enough in our modern day sex culture. Although horror, in many ways, is progressive–it's also exploitive. Is it really necessary to have a thirty-minute rape scene in I Spit On Your Grave (1978)? How many times do we need to see a woman suffer under the hands of Ghostface before we start wanting our boyfriends and husbands to put on that mask and do it themselves? When does the fantasy end, and how far have we convinced ourselves of its appeal?
I suppose the appeal of characters like Ghostface or Michael Myers is the mystery behind them. Ever heard of that phrase about men who don’t speak? I mean even I can’t resist the charms of Tony Todd in Candyman (1992) as he relentlessly stalks and terrorises Helen Lyle. But when does fiction break free from its constraints? It starts to become less and less appealing the less we idealise and the more we rationalise why we want to be seduced by monsters. Is it because we want to embrace their imperfections too? Are we unable to accept anything better, anything even half of what we’re worth? It's a loaded question–why are we so entranced by the monsters; the creatures from the Black Lagoon, the Draculas, the Frankenstein’s monsters? Is it because we want to face the imperfections of humanity or is it because we can’t stand to?
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