Horror Films, Projecting Your Fears

The popularity of horror films has never waned since their inception in the early 1900s. Other genres of movies have seen their times come and go including the 1940s boom of the musicals, the exploitation films of the 70s, and even the Vietnam films of the mid to late 80’s. These genres rise and fall over and over again throughout our cultural landscape leaving only the classics behind after each surge in popularity. But horror, is another demon altogether (see what I did there? Guffaw!). Scary movies have always found an audience no matter what the culture at the time has been going through. So what am I going to ramble about this time? It’s called projection. It’s the movie reflecting back on us a certain fear or anxiety prevalent with the people (society). And it’s the reason you react to horror movies the way you do.

The best examples that I can give you are two very different horror movies. The first, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is an obvious metaphor for the looming threat of absorption via communism on the American people. The second example would be the classic Godzilla (1954) where as the physical manifestation of the monster (via nuclear tests) is a metaphor for the destruction and devastation of Japan from two different nuclear bombs during World War II. Now the reason I bring these up, aside from them being about as subtle as punching someone in the face, is that they are the perfect embodiment of how a culture’s fears are reinterpreted cleverly and reflected back onto its audience.

Now what must be taken into account is the fact that not everyone in the world was under threat of a communist takeover or recovering emotionally from such a horrific event. Therefore not every human being on the planet had these feelings going into their viewing of each of the films. So therefore, not everyone was affected by these films on the same level, or even not at all. The logical conclusion that I’m getting to (I swear there is a point here) is that the films aren’t scary to everyone.

This is a glaring reason why different people are afraid of different things. The is why you may see the original Friday the 13^th as a white knuckle thrill-ride while a seasoned horror veteran may look at it as a classic, yet tame horror film. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s all perception. It depends on what you have been exposed to in your life (such as a boat load of much more intense horror films) and how you have handled and interpreted it. It doesn’t mean one person is more hard core or badass because they didn’t get scared, it just means that they aren’t scared of that.

So Poppascotch, what are you getting to, you may be asking yourself as you read something that sounds a lot like rambling, but with some kind of weird obtuse pertinence (you’ve also turned into a cliché narrative device somehow). Well again, we go back to that term projection. What most people don’t realize is that a large part of the horror experience has nothing to do with the movie itself. It’s all about you the viewer. The viewer is the one who reacts either negatively or positively to a film based on their personal likes and dislikes. Aside from that important fact there are a number of ways that you can identify with a film. This is of course important because if you don’t identify with at least something in the film, chances are you won’t enjoy it or get anything out of it. So now you are probably wondering what you can do to identify with the movie? I’ll help.

The first thing that you want to do is throw away every preconception that you have with the horror movie you are about to witness. Toss aside all the hype, the recommendations from friends, and whatever the trailer told you. Those were all meant to get the movie in front of you which has worked at this point. I know this is extremely hard, especially when we are constantly bombarded with advertising and reviews but you have to try. You’ll enjoy the movie much more because it’s no longer about anyone else. It’s about you and how you are going to react to it. This is because horror is extremely personal.

To me, a movie is successful when I can get at least one good thing from it. Maybe I will never see it again, but at least for that moment, I liked a certain shot or a certain way an actor delivered a line. It makes me feel as if I hadn’t spent the last few hours of my life in vain. So what I want you to do, as an exercise, it go to your local video store or netflix and pick out a movie in the horror section that you know absolutely nothing about. Rent something that you have never heard of or even heard someone else mention. Maybe you’ll be surprised; maybe the movie will be just as bad as you thought it would be. Either way there is no harm in trying. In the end, who knows maybe you’ll mind a film that every critic in the country hated, but you loved because it successfully projected something out to you that you could connect with. When a film can subtly portray that kind of projection out as if it were aimed solely at you, it’s no longer the filmmaker’s story… it’s yours.

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