Accounting for the popularity of HORROR...!

Rave reviews for The Conjuring. Funny how this style of story-telling is so well received. Blair witch project, paranormal activity, the conjuring..

Anxious to know what drives the consumption of horror films, I jumped at the opportunity to write a paper on it while pursuing my degree in Liverpool. We were tasked to account for the popularity of any genre discussed on course, but I was being a little too difficult by insisting to write on HORROR. Horror was not exactly discussed on course, but was a mere mention in one of the lectures. However, the "British niceness" of my lecturers set in and I was allowed to expand on my curiousity.

Just a sharing for you all.. =) Paper was submitted to university on 19th July 2012 and cleared for plagiarism. References/Bibliography excluded here.

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The horror genre is characterised by its ability to generate and manipulate with man's fundamental fears of uncertain threats to existential nature (Wells, 2000). Horror films can be categorised into three main categories, which according to Tamborini et al. (1996) are, gothic horror, occult horror and psychological horror. It is noted by Conrich (2009), that horror films are highly successful and is a popular genre in cinema. Academically, the horror genre has surpassed the predominantly popular western genre in Hollywood as one of the genres most critiqued about (Langford, 2005). This speaks great volume of the elevated status and popularity of horror genre.

Thus this paper seeks to account for the popularity of horror genre through Freudian's psychoanalytic approach of audience, and their paradoxical enjoyment. The following horror texts representative of gothic horror, psychological horror and occult horror respectively, will be used. They are, Frankenstein (1931), Psycho (1960) and Paranormal Activity (2007).

According to Langford (2005), horror films are ambivalent, and the reason for consumption is contradictory. While horror films seek to tap into the innate fears of mankind, however, simultaneously, the consumption of horror films actually gives various forms of pleasure (Hanich, 2010). Moreover, the popularity of horror genre films is also driven explicitly by audience's curiousity on unexpected twist and events (Jancovich, 2002) and violates our assumption that we live in a predictable, routinized world, in which the curiousity can be attributed to repressed emotions. As such, introduces Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach which substantiates audience's choice to consume horror film and its paradoxical enjoyment derived, thus accounting for the popularity of horror genre.

Aligning with Freud's psychoanalytic framework, it is understood that everyone have repressed and unaddressed feelings at the heart of unconsious thoughts. Therefore, horror films served to underpin the inner self of audience through engagement of ideologies of threat, death and fear within the diegesis. Simply, since the 'monster' is all in the mind (Wells, 2000), horror films provides paradoxical pleasure and enjoyment for audience through manipulation of fear, or the 'monster' in audience's mind, as the repressed subject consequently returns to threatens a human ego which has constructed itself as secured from the uncertainties of the external world.

The paradoxical enjoyment is derived, as psychoanalysis has a built in tendency to produce interpretations which not only have little but no relation to one's actual experiences to the text, but actively contradict those experiences (Jankovich, 2002), thus addressing the repressed and unaddressed feelings of audience, which brings pleasure by resolving audience's own ideological contradictions within.

In the light of classic horror films, mainly before the 1950s, production was concentrated on gothic horror films. The storyline usually surrounds a protagonist and a monster, drawing clear boundaries between the good and evil, and concludes the struggle with good triumphs over evil, and ultimately the destruction of monster. A typical example is Frankenstein (1931), where a monster was created by a mad scientist, by assembling exhumed corpses. The monster went on to commit murder, was eventually destroyed by the villagers.

The existence of a monster in classic horror film is crucial. The monster, which acts as an agent of violence, is often seen to embody and enable the expression of repressed feelings and desires of audience (Langford, 2005). Popularity of horror genre is fuelled as audiences reap the pleasure of horror film consumption through the sense of satisfaction achieved from the destruction of the monster. It is a symbolic psychological process which sees audiences surviving against the odds, against the monster, and emerge as a victorious sole survivor from the entire viewing experience. This process also in turns gives audiences a sense of maintaining control in their lives in face of profound disruptions (Wells, 2000).

Moreover, consuming horror films is also a mean of catharsis for audience. According to Wells (2000), catharsis is the beneficial purgation of emotions which is necessary and purifying as it aptly addresses the repressed feelings of audience and relieves it. As a user gratification (Bartsch et al., 2010), being frightened, can in itself, become the main pleasure of watching horror films (Cherry, 2009). Also, horror films dramatise the eruption of violence, supernatural and irritant (Langford, 2005), and through means of cartharsis, such violent feelings are translate into normative social context. This purgation of emotions also acts as a form of escapism and relief for audience in the process of confronting their worst fears, perverse feelings and desires. The strong presence of horror film has also been often read as a reflection of a crisis in society. Horror film has been seen to peak at times of war, and during periods of economic, political, and moral exigency (Conrich, 2009). Thus more aptly so, the need for catharsis to seek relieve from societal stress and pressure, and therefore accounts for horror genre's popularity.

Horror films in the 1950s and 1960s however went through a transitional period away from the predominant gothic horror text. There were new and different registers and reflections of horror (Langford, 2005). Psycho (1960) is an epitomy of this turning point of horror films from gothic horror to psychological horror plot. Instead of a monster, real human characters were used to unfold the psychological horror plot surrounding the the main characters, Norman Bates and his mother, with the help of Bates' psychiatrist.

Moving forth, modern horror films concentrates more on occult horror, like Paranormal Activity (2007), which tells of a supernatural encounter at home of a young couple, Micah and Katie, through their own home video recording, have a marked difference from gothic horror and psychological horror films in its plot. There is no longer a clear boundary between the good and bad, no prominent monster, and the outcome of struggle is at best ambiguous, where the plot concluded with Micah killed and Katie went missing.

While elements in horror films have changed greatly, however, its popularity is still accounted for. The same pleasure is still reaped as horror genre continues to be relevant to societies as the diegesis still addresses things which threaten the maintenance of life and its defining practices (Wells, 2000). Horror films remain highly correspondent to the social and cultural upheavals to which it runs parallel (ibid). According to Langford (2005), it unmasks latent unspeakable desires of society and shows dissimulation of the culture. Therefore, audiences adopts the viewing pleasure of horror film as a reactionary stance to what they dislike about their culture. Therefore, coupled with aggressive marketing strategies, there is continued demand for horror films as the consumption is a form of relieve for audiences' repressed emotions on the society, thus contributing to horror genre's unwavering popularity.

In conclusion, this paper have accounted for the popularity of horror genre drawing examples from the three different types of horror films, and explaining audience's reason for consumption under Freudian's psychoanalytics framework, where audiences reap paradoxical enjoyment by breaking free from their repressed state of mind.

*So now we see the evolution of horror and reasons for consumption... Food for thoughts.*