One really odd sentiment I often see thrown around in discussions, interviews, and documentaries about the Horror genre and Horror storytelling is this:
“The monster/villain represents primal humanity; a drive for violence, sexual repression, etc. We sometimes identify more with the monster, and that’s the appeal of a monster movie!”
So, ok. First of all, one of the things I love most in horror or any story in general is a relatable, sympathetic, and/or tragic monster or villain. I absolutely understand and relate to the idea of an othered, ostracized monster, or a monster that represents things human beings fear within themselves. Those ideas are interesting, respectable, and are often the mark of a thoughtful, nuanced horror story. It’s is a very Gothic sentiment, it’s an exploration of darkness in humanity and humanity in darkness. I’m 100% behind this.
Curiously however, the most often time I hear this sentiment thrown out, it’s usually from men talking about Slasher movies.
The general trappings of a slasher film involves a (usually) virtually personality-less, faceless male figure gratuitously murdering promiscuous young people, often helpless young women.
Is it just me, or is this a very peculiar sentiment to hold about Slasher movies?
Characters like Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, and Jason (I think Jason might have a tragic backstory, but still) are for the most part beings who’s sole purposes are to enact violence against a series of hapless victims. Perhaps one could make the argument that as the Elm St. series progressed, Freddy became more humorous, more fun, and this made him appealing to watch for the Elm St. fanbase. But at his core, he’s still nothing more than the vengeful spirit of a child killer. He was just as unsympathetic in life as the afterlife. But I digress - my point here is that it’s very strange and a bit alarming to me that this is a common explanation for audience’s drive to see these kinds of horror movies, particularly as a sentiment perpetuated by men. And I don’t think it’s accurate.
This is a sentiment that makes much more sense for the Gothic villain; with examples like Coppola’s take on Dracula, a man who succumbed to extraordinary evil over the death of the woman he loved. Frankenstein and his Monster, one man who’s arrogance made him monstrous, and a monster who only wished to be accepted as human. Pinhead from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, an ultimately tragic monster born from an eldritch god’s exploitation of a traumatized man, making him and the other cenobites into Borg-like acolytes of it’s endless consumption of human souls. Though I haven’t seen it yet (and know very little about the plot), Clive Barker’s Candyman is an out and out Gothic-Slasher villain, probably another good example of a tragic monster, a slave who was tortured and murdered in life, come back in death as a vengeful spirit.
While the monsters of these Gothic stories are tragic, they are still frightening and monstrous, and often they aren’t always savable. Redemption sometimes exists only in death for these creatures. But we can still relate to the tragedy of Coppola’s Dracula’s eternal grief. We can relate to the blind need for success in Frankenstein, we can relate to the pain and social ostrasization of his Monster. We can relate to how Captain Spencer’s trauma and attempts at self-punishment resulted in him being made into a cosmic punisher of others (Pinhead) on behalf of an evil god. We can relate to a man who was abused by slave masters and who now only exists to destroy as he was once destroyed (Candyman). Furthermore, all of these monsters can in different ways represent primal humanity, our desires and fears and darkness, etc. Hell, Dracula himself fits that bill entirely.
Who the hell is relating to Michael Meyers, though? What does Michael Meyers actually represent, other than our basic fear of being hunted and killed? Sure, modern audiences can sometimes get a kick out of seeing cheesy, over the top deaths or obnoxious teens getting killed off, but that exists in the cynicism of an audience bored of the same old predictable, empty motions, and probably not in any deeper psychological capacity. And I’d certainly like to believe that men can’t actually relate to a mindlessly violent man-monster bent on stabbing helpless women.
Why is this a repeatedly posited understanding of the psychology behind Slasher films, rather than understood as something that came specifically from the Gothic and was inexplicably extended to include all Slasher Horror, for no valid reason?
Is there something I’m missing here? Am I misunderstanding this sentiment, or what it’s actually being applied to?
