And the moral of the story is..: Horror cinema as
modern day fairy tale
David Carter
Abstract: The article looks at the cultural progression from traditional “fairy
tales” to their modern equivalent the horror film. A range of works is
examined including classic horror series as Friday the 13th and similar
“slasher” films, Frankenstein and other sci-fi, through more recent works
such as Roth’s Hostel and the Saw trilogy. Though culturally frowned upon,
horror films present moral themes that are similar in tone and intent to fairy
tales. The article examines both the subtle and overt socially conservative and
repressive messages present in the horror genre. Many of horror’s most
clichéd images (promiscuous teens being murdered, scientists destroyed by
their own hubris) are reinforcements of traditional Judeo-Christian values;
the intended purpose of fairy tales and other moral lesson works aimed at
children. Each film genre is examined along with the moral or religious ideas
it espouses, in addition to films that deviate from this model. The paper’s
primary focus is to examine the mixed signals sent by many horror films;
glorifying certain unacceptable behaviors (e.g. violence) by using them to
punish other unacceptable behaviors (e.g. sex, drug use), and the origins of
these concepts in traditional folktales and children’s literature.
Keywords: horror, fairy tales, slashers, cinema, morality.
Horror cinema exists in a dark, segregated corner of the film
industry. The genre might well be considered the “black sheep” of cinema.
Studios allocate few resources to the genre, instead opting to merely reiterate
successful formulas ad nauseam. Horror rarely fares any better with critics
either; “dismissed with contempt” being the most frequent critical reaction. 1
Far more critics ignore the genre as a whole. Historically lacking the
technical finesse of more mainstream fare and unceasingly steeped in clichés,
horror has never endeared itself to those seeking a more artistic experience at
the theater. Finally, the public themselves are often the loudest voices
speaking out against horror movies, albeit for far different reasons. The
public sector goes beyond the studio or the critics’ simple dislike of horror
films to actually call for censorship.
The United States and the United Kingdom have both had public-led
movements calling for the censorship of certain films and tighter restrictions
on the genre as a whole. The British government took the most well known
step with Parliament’s passing of the Video Recordings Act of 1984. A
reactionary move brought about as a response to growing public outcry, the
act resulted in the so-called “video nasties” list which almost exclusively
impacted horror cinema 2. The act’s passage made not only the sale but also
the ownership of the films in question illegal, and resulted in several search
and seizure missions by law enforcement. Not to be outdone, 1989 saw
several US states pass laws granting local authorities the ability to prohibit
certain video titles from their communities.
The most commonly cited rationale for cinematic censorship in
otherwise free societies is the morally objectionable content in horror films,
be it graphic violence, sexuality and nudity, or general depravity. Their
claims are not merely sensationalized attacks on the genre; however. Sex and
violence (and the highly-controversial mingling of the two) have grown to be
the calling cards of the horror film. The depiction of visceral imagery is the
easiest, but certainly not the only, way to achieve the stated goal of the horror
film: to scare the audience. Herschell Gordon Lewis set the bar with his 1963
precursor to both the splatter and slasher cycle Blood Feast. Gordon’s film
inadvertently started the trend of each successive horror film having to
“outdo” its predecessors in terms of blood and guts. Sexuality has been a part
of horror cinema since it’s inception, but it is an aspect that greatly increased
over time. Even during the tight restrictions of Hollywood’s Hays Code,
filmmakers found ways to put beautiful women wearing revealing outfits in
peril. Fay Wray’s beauty was as integral a part of King Kong as the big ape.
As restrictions loosened, so did clothing; by the mid-seventies, female nudity
was de rigueur in American horror cinema.
Those that government and public groups are attempting to shield
from horror’s corrupting influence are children and young adults; the same
group that is the intended audience of fairy tales, fables, and other children’s
stories. Fairy tales are used primarily to entertain children; perhaps more
importantly they function to educate and instruct children in appropriate and
inappropriate social and moral behavior. 3 Originally intended to be a crossgenerational form of entertainment, the educational potential of folk stories
was immediately realized once they were adapted from oral tales into
literature.
Though innocuous at first glance, the moral lessons in fairy tales are
often revealed through some rather objectionable behavior. 4 A prime example
is “The Juniper Tree,” a short included in the Brothers Grimm’s first
collection. In the tale, a stepmother’s hatred of her stepson causes her
downfall. The overt moral lesson is that wickedness and hatred are evils and
will inevitably lead to harm; no doubt a useful lesson for a young person. Yet
to rely this message the story uses the rather unpalatable acts of murder,
cannibalism, and revenge. These elements enter and exit the story rather
matter-of-factly, as if they are events that any child would be familiar with
and accustomed to seeing. The stepmother’s preference of her own child over
the stepson is depicted as being more unacceptable that her murder of him,
and her own eventual violent death is the “happy ending” of the tale.
“The Juniper Tree” is but one example of shared themes between
horror cinema and fairy tales. Many of the most familiar stories contained
murder, dismemberment, and death in their original forms, some even
retaining these elements after being edited for a younger audience. Violence
is depicted as an inevitability of life and is the primary method used to punish
evil. Children are conditioned to believe that unacceptable behavior will lead
to violent punishment, thereby discouraging them from engaging in those
actions. Horror cinema uses a similar mode of operation; depicting various
immoral behaviors and then showing said behavior punished by violence and
death. Ironically, it is often the most maligned horror films which embody
this concept the most.
There are those in society to whom depiction of a behavior is
endorsement of said behavior, or at least tacit approval. By depicting
murders, promiscuous sex, drug use, or whatever other unwholesome
activity, horror films are believed to be glorifying those behaviors and
encouraging their impressionable fans to join them in the debauchery.
Viewed in isolation, a scene of a masked man decapitating a beautiful blonde
complete with a carefully timed arc of crimson flying through the air
certainly seems to be an attempt to make something horrific appear beautiful,
appealing, or even less-than-reprehensible. However, when you look at the
film as a whole this act takes on an entirely different meaning. The mute
killer in the hockey mask is communicating something with his actions, but it
is not the oft-cited endorsement of destruction.
The stated motives of Pamela and Jason Voorhees’ killing sprees in
the Friday the 13th series is enacting revenge on the immoral teens that are to
blame for Jason’s death. This non-specific vendetta is applied to any person
who breaks the unspoken moral code of the films by using drugs or having
sex, the two behaviors associated with those who were guilty of the
negligence that lead to the young Jason drowning. This particular plot point
is the most integral part of the series, and serves as the impetus for all action
in each film. It is so all-encompassing that the series eventually delved into
self parody with a scene in Jason X when the now-bionic Voorhees is
distracted by a virtual reality simulation of nude, pot-smoking girls 5. His
internal moral compass forces him to abandon the victim he is currently
pursuing to attack those who are perceived as being in greater violation of his
laws.
Horror films are usually absent from discussion of technical
brilliance, but Friday the 13th and its ilk deliver the bulk of their commentary
on morality through a technique not dissimilar to that outlined in Lev
Kuleshov’s theories on montage, where meaning is directly linked to the
order in which events are shown.6 By showing two teens engaging in drug
use shortly before they are brutally murdered, the viewer’s mind links the
two; the former causes the latter. The time between the commission of the act
and the character's demise is brief. Retribution and punishment are automatic.
In the first three entries in the series, the majority of the victims were killed
during the commission of the immoral act, concretely linking their
immorality as the cause of their deaths. In stage one of Kohlberg’s stages of
moral development, the individual assigns a “good” or “bad” value to a
behavior based on whether it results in reward or punishment, with the degree
of the result directly correlating with perceived degree of the action 7. This
first stage is the moral level of a slasher film. The “good” or “evil” nature of
the characters is only discernable when viewed in conjunction with what fate
befalls them. Premarital sex is the primary offense in Friday the 13th and
depicted as a far greater transgression than murder since it is invariably and
instantly punished with a brutal death.
The Voorhees’ quest for revenge is an all-consuming one, the sole
motivation for their existences. In some regards, their inclusion in the films is
to some degree coincidental as evidenced in the amount of screen time they
receive in relation to other characters. Jason is the deus ex machina of the
series; he shows up to execute the judgment that the audience has been
manipulated to believe is required. Once the campers begin their illicit
behavior, Jason arrives, machete in hand, to deliver the punishment they have
earned. This particular aspect of the series mirrors the “just-in-time” arrivals
from children’s stories:
the father in “Hansel and Gretel,” the
hunter/woodsman in “Little Red Riding Hood,” and others. Each arrives late
in the story to enact the comeuppance to the villain that the weaker main
characters are unable to deliver themselves. Friday the 13th uses a similar yet
inverted model: Jason, the hero, arrives to murder the wicked, the teens,
something the powerless audience is unable to do.
Rare is it in Friday the 13th that Jason himself is shown as being
punished; however. His defeat at the end of each chapter is both anticlimactic
and impermanent. The fact that his violence continues unstopped while other
lesser offenses are punished lends a quasi-religious aspect to his work;. The
films remove his actions from being subjected to the laws of man or the
Voorhees’ own moral code, placing them at an extra-human level. Jason
Voorhees is a God figure within the confines of Camp Crystal Lake. He
carries out both the judgment and punishment on his victims based on their
disobedience of laws he has established. The black and white morality of
slasher cinema is a carryover from the simple moral lessons of fairy tales. His
actions go unpunished for the most part since, in essence, he is doing “good”
by punishing the wicked. The helpful woodsman in the tale of “Little Red
Riding Hood” is the de facto hero of the story simply because he murders the
wolf. His sole accomplishment is murder, which was the same goal the wolf
had. As in the Friday the 13th series, his actions are considered “good”
because the preceding story has established the “bad” of the victims.
The Crystal Lake setting is another area that unites the slasher film
with the fairy tale.8 In fairy tales, the woods alternately represent the correct
natural order and the source of mystery and danger. Frequently in literature,
the dense woods represent “the unknown,” in the same way the oceans and
outer space would to latter generations. “Hansel and Gretel” and countless
others found that the forest held many secrets, ranging from witches to
wolves, all linked by a common desire to cause harm to those who entered
their domain. Symbolically, the forest represents the break between
civilization and barbarism. Once a character enters the woods, he or she
must tread carefully. The teens are drawn to the abandoned and maligned
Camp Crystal Lake because of its seclusion and the illusion of freedom from
the societal restrictions they have in outside world. By leaving the realm of
the civilized, symbolically and later literally giving in to animalistic desires,
they unknowingly put themselves in harms’ way.
Much analysis has been given to the cliché of the “final girl,” the
one teen who manages to defeat or escape from the killer’s clutches. Most
often in slasher films, this is the “good girl:” the one who abstains from sex
and drug use. From a gender standpoint, the final girl balances out the
masculinity of the marauding male killer despite having to take on masculine
attributes (i.e. weapon usage) to defeat them. Gender is not important to this
aspect of the film from a moral perspective, however. In fact, it is
inconsequential. The “final girl” survives not because her femininity in any
way protects her, but because her moral purity renders her immune to the
righteous vengeance of the killer. The last survivor’s gender has no
relevance since invariably someone of the same gender will have been shown
engaging in immorality at some preceding point in the film.
Not all messages in horror cinema are as cut and dried as “have premarital sex, get killed.” Some deliver a subtler message, yet one that retains
many of the concepts of the traditional folk tale. In Tobe Hooper’s The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, none of the eventual victims engages in copious drug
use, casual sex, or other types of unacceptable behaviors 9. What, then, is their
crime? Sally Hardesty and her traveling companions violate one of the most
repeated messages in folk tales, parables, and other forms of child
indoctrination: they stray from “the path.” The path in The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre is both literal and metaphorical. Ignoring the warnings of their
elders, the group ventures to locate Sally’s grandparents’ home. It is quite
literally off the map; a place from Sally’s distant memories. They are
traveling from the known and into the unknown.
The small detail that the house they eventually find uses a generator
for power symbolizes a complete separation from the world of the civilized.
Leatherface and his clan are an anomaly in the horror world. They did not
seek out their victims, but merely took advantage of an opportunity in the
same way a predatory animal would. The monsters of folktales share this
quality. Past the edges of the path is their realm, and by disobeying and
leaving the path, one is inviting their own demise.
The first kill in the film remains one of the most terrifying images in
cinematic history. It comes without any foreshadowing, in broad daylight,
and is over in a matter of seconds. The uncinematic nature of it instills an
impression in the viewer’s mind that what they are watching is real, not a
film. The reality of the situation reinforces the idea in the audiences’ minds
that this fate could befall them as well. The success of the educational aspect
of fairy tales depends highly on the child’s ability to put his or her self in the
place of the main character.
Though quite often drowned out by the chainsaw’s buzz and a
cacophony of screams, the message of the film is evident: stay on the path,
there are things lurking outside the boundaries that will do you harm. Sally
Hardesty is often pointed to as the prototypical “innocent victim” of horror
lore. Her innocence is only superficial; however. It is on her insistence that
group goes to explore outside of the known paths. Her curiosity about
reclaiming something she lost leads them to their fates. The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre’s message is a repressive one. Do not be curious. Do not go where
you are not supposed to go. Listen to your elders and do as you are told.
Unappealing though they are, they are directly in line with three of the four
functions of folklore as outlined by Bascom, particularly educating children
about “bogey-men” and instilling conformity.10 The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre is folk tale in its purest form; raw, threatening, and leaving an
indelible impression on its audience.
Curiosity as character flaw is a concept that has origins in stories
like “The Three Bears.” Goldilocks not only trespasses in their home but also
transgresses against them, taking their possessions and being disrespectful to
their property. The teens in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre violate
Leatherface’s home by entering uninvited. As the “bears” of the film,
Leatherface and company do far more than scare young Goldilocks/Sally.
Sally and Goldilocks even choose the same ultimate method of escape:
jumping from a window. Leatherface and the bears are both non-human
threats designed to scare the reader or viewer from engaging in any behavior
that would cause their paths to cross. Curiosity is represented in each story as
something very dangerous and potentially life-threatening.
This “stay on the path” mentality is something common to many
nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Had Little Red Riding Hood only listened to
her mother and ran as hard as she could to Grandma’s she could have escaped
the Big Bad Wolf’s clutches. This similarity of messages was not lost on Wes
Craven, always one to take the genre to new extremes of brutality and
intellectual depth. Therefore, he structured his The Hills Have Eyes with the
fairy tale in mind, even to the point with throwing out subtle clues to the
audience as to his inspirations11. It is no accident that the Carter family’s
dogs are named Beauty and Beast, nor is it coincidence that Beauty is the
first casualty.12
The events of the film are set in motion when patriarch Big Bob
Carter deviates from the planned route and attempts a short cut rather than
sticking to the map. Thus, the Carters’ happy nuclear family is pitted against
their demonic inversions in the form of Jupiter and his brood. Clearly
echoing the structure of a fairy tale but not a specific example, Jupiter was
born sideways and covered with hair, then forced to live in seclusion after his
birth father’s attempt to kill him failed. He and his family live on the
outskirts of civilization, exacting their revenge on any foolish enough to
trespass in their domain. They stalk the Carters like a predator stalks it’s
prey; a subtle reminder of the thin line between civilization and barbarism
and further reinforcing the idea that sticking to the accepted way of doing
things is critical to survival.
Few slasher films have been the subject of as much ire as 1984's
Silent Night, Deadly Night. The Parent-Teacher Association tried
(unsuccessfully) to have the film pulled from theaters due to the use of a
villain dressed as Santa Claus. In one of the most famous examples of critical
backlash, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert read the list of the crew members on
their television show At The Movies, singling each member out for individual
scorn. Despite being the impetus of one of the few public campaigns directed
against a single film, Silent Night, Deadly Night features an across the board
reinforcement of Judeo-Christian values.13
Young Billy Chapman witnesses his mother and father being
murdered by a criminal dressed as Santa Claus. He then grows up in a strict
Catholic orphanage where any rule violation is severely physically punished,
a lesson not lost on Billy. Billy's traumatized mind begins to rationalize the
events of his life in the only way he knows how: the wicked deserve
punishment, and Santa Claus is the agent that punishes the wicked. Thus,
when the now mature Billy is asked to wear a Santa Claus suit at his toy store
job, he naturally begins punishing the wicked (through inventive and graphic
murders) with cries of "Naughty!" and "Punish!"
Billy's psychosis causes him to believe he is the actual Santa Claus
and therefore has the right and duty to punish those who do evil. Parents have
traditionally used Santa Claus as a tool of fear: misbehave and Santa will not
visit. Silent Night, Deadly Night transforms that concept into "misbehave and
Santa will kill you." Billy makes the parents' idle threat into a transgressive
reality. He punishes a wide variety of "sinners," including an attempted
rapist, two teens that have premarital sex, and even a pair of young bullies.
The film makes no effort to assert that Billy's actions are anything
less than insane. However, he believes he is doing good according to the
values instilled in him, likely the same values that have been instilled in the
audience at some point. He is acting out a traditional Judeo-Christian value
system, replacing the eventual punishment of Hell with the immediate
punishment of murder. The police and a Catholic nun pursue Billy; both of
who, no doubt, would agree with his assessment of those he is hunting and
yet would disagree with his method of addressing the situation.
Billy’s religious indoctrination is of no small importance to his
eventual acts of violence. The Bible is rife with examples of wickedness
punished with violence or death. In Exodus, God advises death as the
punishment for murderers with all violent acts to be repaid in kind.14 In
Genesis, God slays Judah’s sons Er and Onan for being “wicked…in the
sight of the Lord.”15 These examples of the often-violent Old Testament
show how Billy is both a product and an example of Judeo-Christian values.
The pantheon of “classic slashers” punished the wicked by design,
but legions of slashers that followed inadvertently drove home the same
message through their simple repetition of the popular formula. One such
film is The Slumber Party Massacre, which has the interesting distinction of
being one of the rare slasher films written and directed by women. In it a
deranged killer slaughters more teens after engaging in illicit behavior, but
the moralizing is gone and the film is more concerned with blood and flesh.
Two female-helmed sequels followed, each parodying the execution of genre
without the implied message. Notable only for its cast of future stars, The
Burning was a Friday the 13th clone timed to coincide with the release of the
film’s second chapter. The film features dozens of teenaged campers
terrorized by a disfigured killer, but there is no correlation between their
behavior and their fates.
Two slashers that are held in high esteem by aficionados but also do
not follow the same moral retribution pattern are Halloween and A Nightmare
on Elm Street. In each film, the onus is placed the villain on rather than their
victims. In both, the filmmakers made a decidedly obvious effort to show the
evil of the villain. In Halloween, Dr. Loomis provides Michael Myers with an
impressive back-story in which he is labeled “pure evil.” His victims are
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time as Myers slashes his way back to
his childhood home. Halloween’s teens do engage in pre-marital sex;
however, Michael’s attacks on them are coincidental since he is not
motivated to kill anyone other than his own siblings. A Nightmare on Elm
Street’s teens are also blameless, forced to face Freddy Kruger’s revenge for
their parents’ actions. Victims are targeted for whom or where they are rather
than for what they do, showing that moral content in a slasher film is a
conscious choice of the filmmaker’s and is done so by design rather than
accident.
The slasher films of the seventies and eighties were not the first to
introduce moral issues in horror films. Frankenstein had a powerful impact
on both horror and science fiction cinema upon its release in 1931 and is one
of the few films to have the distinction of being viewed as not only a classic
of the genres, but of cinema as a whole as well. The film deviates greatly
from Shelley's novel; a fact lamented by many who feel that the screen
version loses many of the philosophical quandaries raised by the work. With
the social criticism is gone and Shelly's sensitive creature reduced to a mute
monster, the film has little to offer in the way of a critique of consciousness
or development. It is often overlooked, but these metaphors are replaced with
what was to become the backbone of the science-fiction film: a brilliant but
egomaniacal scientist, and the unintentionally monstrous results of their
work.
Frankenstein's monster on film is not Shelley's eloquent malcontent
but instead a grunting murderer.16 Where the novel attributed the creature's
eventual hatred for his creator to a combination of neglect and indoctrination,
the film version has a much simpler reason for the monster's murderousness:
he was given a criminal's brain. A single plot device shatters Shelley’s
complex nature versus nurture argument. In the film, the monster is clearly
villainous by nature; his criminal's brain being the root of his evil from
"birth” and therefore incapable of redemption. Again we see the simplistic
fairy tale morality: individuals are either wholly good or evil and their actions
should be viewed accordingly.
Dr. Henry Frankenstein is held largely blameless for the monster's
behavior, but not for his decision to tamper with the law of God. By
emulating the creation act, Frankenstein commits blasphemy from a JudeoChristian moral standpoint. The Hays Code dictated that "no picture shall be
produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it," which
most often practically translated a requirement that all evildoers had to be
punished before the end of the film. Oddly, it is only the monster that is
punished at the end of Frankenstein. The doctor himself ultimately survives,
despite logically sharing an equal portion of the blame for the monster's
actions. The doctor is pure good and the monster is pure evil. As is shown
countless times in fairy tales, Henry Frankenstein’s blasphemy is dismissed
in the face of wickedness of the monster, however similar their crimes may
be. The lack of punishment for the scientist's hubris would be an anomaly
and punishment would become a prominent feature of the genre in post-1945
science fiction.
Post-1945 science fiction regularly dealt with the new novelty of
atomic energy. Rather than focusing on a single mad scientist, the barbs were
usually directed at society as a whole. Much like in Shelley’s novel, a
criticism of the Industrial Age, films like THEM! and The Beast from 20,000
Fathoms were indictments of the Atomic Age. Even before atomic energy
was fully understood it was hailed as a panacea and a pariah, a fact on to
which horror and sci-fi immediately latched. Much like the Brothers
Grimm’s Three Doctors whose belief in their own abilities lead them to
mutilate themselves in the name of medicine, the typical science fiction film
of the fifties and sixties depicted a society wantonly wielding the power of
the atom with little thought of potential consequences. The evil of the
individual is morphed into the evil of a society that chooses to put their faith
in new technology rather than traditional ideas of right and wrong.
The most famous of the anti-atomic films is Godzilla and the cycle
of sequels it spawned. In an extrapolation of the Frankenstein plot, the
United States government creates a monster through tampering with the
natural order. Much like in Shelley’s novel, it is the innocent, in this case
Japan, which suffer rather than the ones responsible for the monster’s
creation. Again, like Frankenstein’s creature, Godzilla ultimately became a
sympathetic character and the hero of the subsequent sequels. The
humanizing of monsters is a recurring theme in fairy tales as well. In tales
like Bearskin, those who have the outward appearance of a monster are often
kind and well meaning. Things not being as they seem, also a shared theme in
fairy tales and horror, is key here.
After 1945, the “unknown” for humanity moved from the woods
and the sea to outer space. As our knowledge of the universe around us
increased, the picture of what we did not know became increasingly clear.
Films like The Blob and The Thing masterfully translated these fears to the
big screen. Earth was portrayed as defenseless; a single meteorite in each
film brought massive destruction to unprepared citizenry. Though intended as
simple drive-in entertainment, the outer space terror film metaphorically
addressed fears that had existed for centuries. The Blob and The Thing would
have been witches or vampires in previous incarnations. The both represent
that which is unknown, unstoppable, and waiting just outside the bounds of
human society.
The mad scientist and atomic menace subgenres of science fiction
all but faded from movie screens by the close of the sixties. Three decades
later, market over-saturation and declining quality contributed to a downturn
of the horror industry as a whole and caused the virtual demise of the slasher
film. Horror cinema would return to prominence with the releases of Saw and
Hostel, two films that combined traditional horror trappings with morally
conscious outlooks. Horror began to drift away from the fantastic and toward
more concrete realism. Post 9/11 horror audiences still want buckets of
blood, but demand more plausibility in their scenarios. Even with the
infusion of reality, horror cinema cannot escape its espousal of traditional
morality in a manner akin to children’s literature.
The results of combining a newfound need for reality in the genre
with horror’s historical reliance on traditional morality lead to the creation of
a different breed of villain. Saw’s Jigsaw Killer’s goal is not to kill his
victims, but instead “enlighten” them using clever traps to force them to
make a difficult ethical choice or face death.17 Unlike a killer like Jason,
whose moral lessons are implied and only revealed through examination after
the fact, the Jigsaw Killer's stated modus operandi is moral education. Dying
from cancer himself, Jigsaw's motivation is to help his victims appreciate
their own lives more through a trial by fire. A woman addicted to heroin is
forced to choose between killing an innocent man or being killed herself by a
gruesome trap, forcing her to have a strong enough will to live to commit a
horrible act; a different kind of moral lesson, but a lesson nonetheless. Like
the Voorhees family, Jigsaw chooses his victims based on their character
flaws. The difference is that he allows them a chance for redemption rather
than immediately murdering them.
The success of Saw and Eli Roth’s Hostel brought a new vigor into
the horror genre and a new wave of criticism as well. Labeled “gorenography” or “torture porn” by its detractors, Hostel concerns a group of
American tourists who meet their demise in Eastern Europe.18 Tempted with
the promise of sex, the boys are lured into a secret cabal of wealthy elite who
pay to murder.19 Many of the familiar fairy tale tropes are there: the unknown
is represented by the remote area of Slovakia, the tempting red apple appears
as beautiful women, and murder is depicted as just vengeance. Hostel
contains both a well-thought out indictment of American arrogance and
quasi-comedic levels of gore, but the single message most audiences will take
away is the familiar warning of staying on the path and conforming to
accepted behaviors.
The folklore of every nation is filled with monsters. Modern folklore
as told through horror films is no different. Our ancestors looked at the world
around them and imagined frightening things lurking outside of the barriers
of the known. To cope with these fears, they invented tales of the forests
being filled with witches and pixies, at the same time acknowledging the evil
that existed in those around them. Modern man has interpolated these same
ideas into horror cinema. Science and exploration have shown us that that the
mythical creatures of our ancestors are just that, myths. However, today’s
audiences are all too aware of the wickedness of other humans, so films like
Saw and Hostel are terrifying because of their plausibility. The Big Bad Wolf
is now the man sitting next to you on the train.
Horror cinema has changed greatly from the days of The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari to recent films like Hostel. The one unifying aspect is horror’s
ability to reflect the fears and obsessions of the societies that created them.
The same can be said for fairy tales and fables. During the lives of the
Brothers Grimm, the themes addressed in their stories were frightening
realities for most of the populace. Perceived threats like witches and goblins
were as real to people of the time as serial murders are to modern audiences.
The two share a common bond of addressing cultural fears and cautioning
viewers against certain behaviors.
Fear of death is a cross-cultural and cross-temporal fear. Every
artistic medium has dealt with the concept, but portraying death as an allpervasive inevitability and as a punishment for evil is almost exclusively the
domain of horror films and fairy tales. The fact that few, if any, characters
are alive at the end of any of the Friday the 13th films is a subtle
metaphorical reinforcement and acknowledgement of death’s grip on
humanity.
The ultimate message about death made by fairy tales and horror
films is the same: the individual holds the power to avoid death by behaving
in certain ways. Any disobedience invites death into your life. Be it Silent
Night, Deadly Night or “The Three Little Pigs,” heeding the moral lessons
told to you by your elders or those in power may mean the difference
between life and death. Furthermore, the wicked stepsisters in “Cinderella”
and the promiscuous campers at Crystal Lake each learned that wickedness is
inevitably repaid in kind. The horror film continues the tradition of simple
moral lessons told through violent stories in the modern day. Each medium
reiterating the message that disobedience and immorality invite the monsters
lurking in the shadows. In the end, only the obedient and pure live to see
their happy ending when the credits roll.
1
R. Wood. "An Introduction to the American Horror Film." Planks of
Reason: Essays on the Horror Film. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. New Jersey:
Scarecrow, 1984.
2
D Kerehes & D Slater, See No Evil: Banned Films and Video Controversy,
Critical Vision, London, 2000.
3
J Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for
Children and the Process of Civilization, Routledge, New York, 1983, p. 14
4
M Tartar (ed.), The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, WW Norton &
Company, New York, 2002.
5
Jason X, DVD, New Line Home Video, 2004.
6
D Cook, A History of Narrative Film, Fourth Edition, WW Norton &
Company, New York, 2004, p. 119
7
D Shaffer, Social and Personality Development, 5th Ed, Wadsworth
Publishing, New York, 2004.
8
CJ Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the modern horror
film, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1992.
9
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, DVD, Dark Sky Films, 2006.
10
W Bascom, “The Four Functions of Folklore”, The Journal of American
Folklore, Vol. 67, No. 266 (Oct. - Dec., 1954), pp. 333-349.
11
The Hills Have Eyes, DVD, Starz Home Entertainment, 2006.
12
M Brottman, Meat is Murder!: an illustrated guide to cannibal culture ,
Creation Books International, New York, 1998, p. 108.
13
Silent Night, Deadly Night, DVD, Anchor Bay, 2003.
King James Bible, Exodus Chapter 21, verses 12 and 23-27
15
King James Bible, Genesis Chapter 38, verses 7-10
16
Frakenstein, DVD, Universal Studios, 2006.
17
Saw, DVD, Lion’s Gate, 2005
18
D Edelstein "Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn", New
York Magazine. February 6, 2006.
19
Hostel, DVD, Sony Pictures, 2006.
14