"Contracted" - Sadistic voyeurism at it's finest - Shannon Balstad

        I have read Tom Gunning’s essay on the cinema of attractions a few times now, and each reading and application of it reveals another layer in the studies of film.  This particular time around, I was able to discover how the horror genre relates back to some of the earliest roots in cinema. The connections between the macabre and the cinema of attractions are not only believable but also essential to the syntactical elements of the genre. From building suspense to shocking the audience with a thrill, there are several horror films that demonstrate the application of ideals put in place by the cinema of attractions.  For the purpose of this response, I will be writing about the film Contracted, directed by Eric England, and its relationship to the early forms of cinema.

            The cinema of attractions was all about viewers getting a quick thrill and gaining pleasure and excitement from the fact that they were watching something astonishing.  Horror films take these aspects of early cinema and exploit them for the purpose of delivering a scare.  Films of the macabre can go to several creative lengths in order to do this, as they are of a genre that does not necessarily have to pan to the Academy.  The movie Contracted demonstrates how horror films exploit voyeurism by resting on static moments to bring forth the power of the assault.  Just as with the cinema of attractions, Contracted relies on the audience observing a moment on screen to deliver the thrill.  This can be seen in several moments in the film, as it is all about body horror and the effects a one-night stand has on a young woman named Samantha.  What is essentially a “zombie STD” begins to destroy Samantha from the inside out, and the audience is at the mercy of the camera as it focuses the slow decay of her body into gruesome close ups.  One particular long take consisted of Samantha discovering she was missing a fingernail, and proceeding to peel a few more off.  The camera watches as we observe Samantha’s hands from her point of view, resting its lens on her fingers.  It does not cut away; the audience has nowhere else to look but down at the rotting fingernails.  What would normally be considered static for how long the film stayed centered in on one take was instead painstakingly hard to watch, yet difficult to look away from.  The thrill of this moment in Contracted comes from the thrill of watching this moment unveil.  

            The fact that we as the audience observe Samantha’s body slowly becoming more and more sickening from her point of view demonstrates how the macabre exploits the ideals of the cinema of attractions.  Samantha’s character is the one who has the most up-close and personal relationship with her body and its illness and because the audience shares the same perspective as her, they take on the role of the perfect observer.  This brings forth a heightened awareness of the medium, something else that was established by the cinema of attractions and utilized by the horror genre.  It most certainly does the job in terms of delivering a thrill.  In Contracted, being placed in the position of the voyeur reveals the most sickening moments of the film to the audience, something that would otherwise be missed out on if the style of shooting were to be different (say, realism for instance…the moments where Samantha is in a bathroom stall would not be observed because the blocking would not serve as believable). 

            The ways in which Contracted operates to shock the audience mirror those of the cinema of attractions.  As the early days of cinema concentrated on observable moments that would deliver a quick thrill, so does the macabre.  It is also shown by how both areas in cinema exploit voyeurism; the very act of looking is what is relied upon for the two to be successful.  In these ways and more, we can see where and how horror films fit in the history of cinema.