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What Frightens Us in Films and TV?

Understanding the Historical and Social Context of Horror Movie Trends

By Henry JonesPublished 6 years ago 8 min read
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The Oxford dictionary defines “horror” as “a literary or film genre concerned with arousing feelings of horror” (Oxford Dictionary, 2018). The horror genre has been a staple of entertainment since before the advent of the moving image. Authors such as Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Stephen King are all proof that images aren’t a necessity when eliciting emotions of fear. Yet directors have created many landmark pieces of pop culture within the horror genre, using the medium of film to create new and equally enticing works of art. But why do people enjoy scaring themselves? Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein argues that “people go to horror films because they want to be frightened… you want it to affect you... entertainment products like horror films... have big effects” (Psychology Today, 2015).

Horror films that garner cult status, as well as critically successful projects, seem to strike a balance between authenticity as well as an underlying layer of unrealism. A paper by Dr. Glenn Walters (2004, p.8) states that the appeal of horror films has its roots in three elements: the first is tension, created by shock, mystery, terror and suspense, the second is unrealism, ensuring that the film doesn’t stray from being entertainment. The third is relevance linking the film to something tangible, making it more engaging.

Art is typically a manifestation of current affairs and we absorb the politics of the day through all forms of culture, from posters at bus stops and train stations to the twenty-four hour news cycle. What frightens us is usually a manifestation of absorbing this information, either subconsciously or subliminally. It is easy to observe a distinct correlation between society, culture and history, and what makes us feel unnerved.

Starting as early as the 1950s, we can observe horror film trends and link them to moments in history. In August 1945 the world observed the first and only military use of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, claiming the lives of over 200,000 people. Coupled with the commencement of the Cold War between the nuclear powers America and the USSR, the biggest threat facing the world during the 1950s was nuclear armageddon. The YouTube channel Now You See It (2016, 00:01:14) cites that the popularity for monster films such as 1954’s Godzilla (the first monster film to gain mainstream popularity across seas) and other monster films could be representative of the world wide fear of nuclear war; a 1950 poll showed that 68 percent of Americans feared a communist nuclear attack. Ishirō Honda and Tomoyuki Tanaka (Godzilla’s director and producer respectively), were very vocal about the film being a metaphor for the bomb: “the theme of the film from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb” (VQR Online, Steve Ryfle, Tomoyuki Tanaka, 2005).

The concept of Godzilla was birthed by two factors: Inspired by the power of the atomic bomb, Godzilla was depicted as an unstoppable, unfeeling force, destroying anything and everyone that came in its path. Honda purposefully filmed Godzilla’s rampages to mirror the same destructive power of the bomb, while also serving as a metaphor for the fears of radiation poisoning, something Japanese citizens lived in fear of for decades

Created with a budget of 175,000 dollars (adjusted for inflation; approximately 1,600,000 dollars), this comparatively low budget feature made 4,600,000 dollars at the global box office (adjusted for inflation; approximately 43,000,000 dollars) (IMDb, 2018). Following Godzilla’s success, a crop of monster films sprouted during the fifties, including 1958’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and 1955’s Tarantula which were both emblematic of the political climate of the time. In addition, until 2014, the Godzilla franchise, held the Guinness world record for the longest running film franchise in history (Guinness World Records 2015, 2014).

In conjunction with monster films, another politically charged horror film trend can be found in the 1950s; science fiction films. Fears of the nuclear bomb ran parallel to Cold War paranoia. At the dawn of the twentieth century, following the fall of the Romanov monarchy and the rise of communism, tension between the West and the Eastern Bloc had been palpable.

Following the end of the Second World War, America dissolved its alliance with the USSR and two years later, in 1947, it is commonly accepted that the Cold War began. McCarthyism, perpetuated by the eponymous United States Senator Joseph McCarthy, illustrates the constant state of paranoia felt by the American public. The American public perpetually suspected that their neighbours and friends were communist spies who were attempting to infiltrate their neighbourhoods and cities. During the second “Red Scare” era, it could be interpreted that 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers encapsulates every single concern of the 50s era American public. Alien outsiders (a blatant metaphor for Russian Communists) infiltrate a small American town and replace it’s inhabitants with replicants devoid of all human emotion, known as “pods” (an analogy for Sleeper Agents). Due to the apathetic response of the government and the masses, the aliens are able to quickly and quietly take over the world. Projects like Destination Moon (1950) captured the hearts of American audiences, gaining 5,000,000 dollars at the box office, which adjusted for inflation is 52,000,000 dollars. Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959) received 10,000,000 dollars, adjusted to a 85,000,000 dollar box office as of 2018.

The 1960s marked a change in commercial cinema. History Cooperative writer Benjamin Hale writes that with the advent of television, Hollywood experienced a depression period. In an attempt to counter this, cinemas lowered the cost of cinema tickets by one dollar so as to lure the young adult demographic. This failed and combined with the pull of television, the film industry during the 1960s and 1970s entered a recession period. (History Cooperative, 2014). While budgets for projects dropped, filmmakers had far less creative limitations. Sixties era films featured far more nudity, violence, strong language and sex, and horror film directors had the opportunity to take their projects in far more psychologically twisted directions. The psychological horror films of the 60s and 70s are seen as some of the first of their kind and landmarks of cinema in this genre include 1973’s The Wicker Man and Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963), the second and eighth highest grossing films of their respective year.

However, not all horror films trends are emblematic of the current state of politics as such, but can be demonstrative of society; take for example the history of Judeo-Christian themed horror films. The research company Gallup has been compiling statistics regarding religious preferences in America since 1948, and their website cites that the amount of American christians dropped from ninety to eighty percent from 1960 to 1975 (Gallup, 2017). This could explain the rise in popularity of christian themed horror films during this time frame as young adults born in the 1940s and 1950s had a 91% chance of being raised in a christian household, 10% higher than it was twenty years later. It is reasonable to presume that in over two decades the taboo may have subsided but the instilled religious paranoia for those who had been raised in a christian home may have lent to their entertainment.

Many horror film classics, and staples of the genre came from the new horror film wave of the 1960s and 1970s. These include Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic Rosemary's Baby (the eighth highest grossing film of that year), 1976’s The Omen and 1973’s The Exorcist (the second highest grossing film of that year). The amount of American christians had only dropped down to seventy percent as of 2017 (Gallup, 2017) and this begs the question as to why there are not as many horror films of this genre. Very simply, this could be attributed to a different all encompassing fear arising at the dawn of the twenty first century.

On the morning of the eleventh of September 2001, nineteen hijackers coordinated four terrorist attacks on the United States. Claiming the lives of 2,977 victims and injuring 6,000 more, the September Eleven attacks irrevocably changed the world and continue to shape the twenty first century. While America experienced a surge in patriotism (Carducci, 2009, p. 200), Brad Schmidt Ph.D writes that the largest impact the September Eleven terror attacks had on the world was the extreme spike in the fear of a foreign orchestrated, deadly terrorist attack (Psychology Today, 2002). Chapman University conducts a yearly study of the primary fears of the American public; in 2017 43 percent of Americans were either afraid, or very afraid, of a terrorist attack (Chapman University, 2017).

Shortly before the terror attack that has defined the past seventeen years, an independent British horror film began production. Coming out in cinemas little over a year after September Eleven, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later made seventeen times its five million pound budget, settling at eighty four million dollars at the box office. A decade later, Zombie films are synonymous with 2000 era pop culture (standing with the birth of Facebook and the presidency of Barack Obama), with The Walking Dead gaining the highest viewership of any cable series in television history. Post ‘Nine Eleven’ paranoia and the explosion of popularity in the Zombie genre mirror one another. It is easy to observe the similarities; someone who by all outward appearance seems unthreatening, can infiltrate society and cause total destruction from the inside out. As foreign orchestrated terror attacks still progress into the 2010s, the popularity for zombie related media is still thriving.

Most notably said by Oscar Wilde in his essay "The Decay of Lying," “life imitates art” (1889). Whether we are aware of it or not the current state of politics is unavoidable and infects us through our consumption of entertainment and culture. Understanding the psychological and cultural implications of art allows us to gain a better understanding of the world we live in. Only through this understanding can we inspire change.

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