Horror Genre
...time is a theory which has been tried and tested since the dawn of the genre. The monster can be seen to illustrate our phobias or uncertainties as a human, changing with the times and therefore always seeming to be relevant in society. If this is true then the converse must also hold the same weight, that by analysing the monster in horror and their psychoanalytical meaning we can learn something of society at that point in time, a snap shot of our weakness and failures historically. Indeed the relevance of the monster and its ability to be on the pulse of our current concern is where the real psychoanalytical weight of the genre lies.
Robin Wood expressed the idea of Otherness', using the basic narrative formula that the monster - threatens - normality.' I am arguing that the normality is actually self obsession and a lack of morality within society and that the monster who threatens this is actually a representation of the current fears in terms of the socio-economic-cultural-context. The genre uses the Otherness' of the monster to set up a thematic focus - good vs. evil, which merges into Levi Straus idea of Binary Opposition within film, this can be pushed further onto the idea of morality/immorality- where is the dividing line? Wood suggests that the monster is an other, and that humans push all their fears and insecurities onto others in order for them to live uncomplicated lives. Freud, a psychoanalyst argued the idea that we all hold subconscious desires, repressed and undressed feelings that we are able to release through dreams. He created the theory of repression, linking reality to the idea that the monster in horror films cathartically addresses and resolves these primal desires within us to kill. A good example to prove this theory is the 1930's classic, Frankenstein. If we were to watch this film now we would find it quite comical and not at...
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