The First of Many

In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the classic horror film narrative was established. At this point in time, the horror film industry has produced (maybe reproduced is a better word) a similar plot line time and time again. There are a group of kids, or occasionally relatives, that all go on some sort of trip or vacation. This is vaguely the beginning to countless horror films, however, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was one of the first, which shows its true importance and effect on this industry. Before the real horror begins in these films, there is often a new character brought in that starts the victims on a cautious mindset. This can be observed as the hitchhiker in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or the roadkill driver in House of Wax, of the guy at the gas station in The Cabin in the Woods. Nonetheless, the group usually moves on and continues to try to have a good time on their trip. From there, the horror begins.
At this point, there are many stereotypes that most horror film buffs will already know: The blonde girl or dumb guy dies first, the manly man tries to fight the killer, the last girl will be the only survivor. While, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn't follow all of these common scenes, it still is as predictable as many of the others. However, the question remains why do we continue to watch these films if they're all the same? And why does the industry keep producing them? It is often the predictable nature of the movies that draws us in. It has been proven that people generally enjoy movies more the second time that they watch them. This is because they already know what's going to happen in the movie, and therefore, are able to pay attention to the finer details and true art of the film better than the first time. This fact may feed into the reasoning for why this plot has been run into the ground. In addition, as each film is different than the last, a new twist lies in each one that keeps the viewer interested. This can easily be noted when looking at the killer in each film, as they all have their own techniques and secrets. However, there are other twists that also come up, such as the relation between Leatherface and the hitchhiker and the convenience store owner. These changes help to keep the audience watching so they can convince themselves that they haven't seen the same film many times before.
Although countless films have been made in the classic style, the horror film industry has begun to shy away from these films and has produced new stories and types of horror. The modern industry has also come out with films that are direct comments on this type of horror film. The Cabin in the Woods is the well known example as it shows how a company literally carries out this familiar plot line synthetically, solely for the entertainment of the viewer. The company here represents the film industry, and the viewers are still the viewers. Yet another film that makes a mockery of this concept is Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. This film takes the comedic approach as it shows a group of teenagers on a camping trip that run into two sketchy looking guys, and begin to fear for their lives, just as they would if it were a real horror film. Instead, Tucker and Dale mean no harm and the teenagers end up accidentally killing themselves while trying to stay alive from the two. This comments on the absurdity of the plot line and that it really is laughable at this point.
Overall, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a film that helped bring a new wave of films to the viewers simply in its basic plot. While it was not the first, it was perhaps the first well known in this subgenre and it set a precedent of the rest to come after it. While we may not be able to escape this never-ending stream of slightly different films, at least we are able to escape from the killer with the girl who watched all her friends die.

Re: Men

In The Thing, we saw that a lot of Carpenter's men looked eerily the same: they were the two older white doctors, the two black characters, and the group of lumberjack men. It was difficult to keep the lumberjacks straight, to say the least. This is kind of a way at which the tables have turned from displaying women as replaceable to now showing men as the replaceable ones. We also see that the evolutionary success of the alien “thing” is completely undermined and thus labeled the antagonists. We can also take a step back and look at this from a global point of view: this sort of "mass casting" the same character definitely highlighted the insecurity of Americans and their egos.

There are too man of the lumberjack to keep straight. Of the cast the only memorable ones were MacReady and Fuchs, mostly because MacReady was the main protagonist and Fusch was the first to die. This phenomena of casting multiple men who look alike is also repeated in the recent fifth season of American Horror Story: Hotel. The repetition of men gives a sort of constricting house-arrest feel, a sort of cabin fever feel. Can cabin fever extend to America as a country? How about Earth? All of a sudden, the vast artic prairie was not big enough to escape the alien and men. When all of the men were standing around Fuchs as he releases an alien cry, it is difficult to differentiate the lumberjacks, aside from MacReady of course. This definitely added to the paranoia, since it was especially difficult to determine which of the men were human and which were not when they looked all looked so similarly.

The alien things are a superior being, and it made sense that they would be able to overtake measly humans and earth. Let’s be real, humans are not at the top of the food chain, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what the universe contains, much less what earth contains. As a species, we’re not doing so hot. That’s why it is such a surprise, and clichéd that the humans were able to outsmart and outdo the evil aliens. Evolutionarily speaking, the aliens absorb their universal hosts and adapted so well until they came here to earth, so why is it not possible that they would be able to fight the humans and do the same thing here? Perhaps part of it can be contributed to their entire being seeking and fighting for survival, whereas the humans here in this situation were actually working towards the greater good of mankind.

The superiority of aliens is also seen in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the pods showed that they were clearly capable of taking over the world, and that it was superior to humans. The resistance of these Americans to aliens can be translated to the resistance of Americans to other nations. This is also a translation of the nationalism that Americans have: we are better than the aliens, and we are better than our fellow Americans.

I really like this class, and wish that there were more classes like this one. I really enjoyed being able to talk about the movies with guidance from the texts. With that said, I don’t think that it was necessary to have both the text and book, and just the printout book would have sufficed. I love horror movies and all things macabre, and so this class was exactly what I wanted and was looking for. I also think that it would have been cool to watch foreign horror films too, but that could totally be another class in itself. I have some friends who are also really into horror movies and we do weekly comparisons of what we know and think about different horror films, which this class definitely helped me a lot in considering my takes and impressions of different American horror films.

Mac is the Thing

I’m just going to get right down to it: who is the thing at the end of The Thing (1982)? Mac or Childs? Are neither of them things? Are either of them things? I’ve had this debate once or twice over the years and I’ve always held firm that Mac is the thing because I just don’t trust him. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m going to say it anyway. It seems like everyone basically agrees that The Thing, whoever it was at the time, planted Mac’s shredded jacket in the snow, but that seems a little convenient. After all, it is Mac that makes the observation that The Thing tears the clothing when it over takes someone (so does this mean The Thing can replicate someone’s clothing too?). And when they find the jacket in the snow, he uses the fact that Fuch’s glasses are there to cover up the fact that it’s his jacket.

We also can’t ignore the fact that Mac disappears in the snow for a while and just happens to reappear without using the guide rope, which parallels with Childs disappearing out into the snow at the end. So if you assume that during that time Childs became a thing, it’s fair to assume that Mac became a thing earlier in the film. 

The only problem that I run into, is the fact that they do the blood tests and Mac passes with flying colors, but (bear with me) we don’t know much about the nature of The Thing. Mac is the one that states that he thinks they are all parts of a whole and that the blood would react like that, but what if this is just part of The Thing being able to deceive people? If The Thing is some advanced alien species, could it not be deceiving them by revealing one part of itself, while living on in the form of Mac. I may be giving The Thing more credit than it deserves, but I don’t think you can just disregard that we don’t know much about this thing and a lot of our information comes from Mac’s astute observations. 

Even if you think you disagree with my argument, some part of you probably sees it to some degree. Why else would the ending be so ambiguous? If the blood test was so conclusive, why do we not know who is a thing by the end of the film? Earlier in the film, Childs even wonders if a person would know that they were a thing. Maybe Mac is unaware that he is a thing that whole time. 

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John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) introduces a new civilization based in a desolate area (it definitely isn’t Eden). The use of extreme long shots outside the base illustrates the total isolation in which these men live—it’s a white abyss. The first person to interact with, to intrude upon, this small sector of civilization is greeted with reciprocal hostility. Because he is viewed as a threat, he is instantly killed. This leads to questions of the ethics of those in this newfangled civilization. Accusations of murder occur in the film, but they’re met with indifference. Has the environment altered the way in which this new civilization approaches ethics? It appears as if the civilization resorts to primal behavior as a means of survival. In “Cinema’s Darkest Vision: Looking into the Void in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)”, Heather Addison claims the film “deconstructs human existence, reducing it to an irresolvable uncertainty.” She continues by claiming The Thing provides discourse concerning Reagan-era masculinity and fears within a patriarchal society. However, this argument, while convincing (there are plenty of points I agree with), gives me bouts of déjà vu. I will approach The Thing with a feminist lens, but I will be using Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” for my argument (I’m aware that it will be difficult to apply this essay to a group of hypermasculine men, but some people…or things…want to watch the world burn).

In her essay, Haraway claims that the cyborg, a hybrid of human and machine, erases binaries (e.g. humans and nature, male and female, etc.), which were created through social constructs. Throughout the film, the men interact with various technologies within the base, and these technologies are utilized on a daily basis. Radios, helicopters, television, computers, and the other technologies required for work on the base influence the activities of the men. However, MacReady and his handling of the flamethrower convey a visual representation of a human-machine hybrid. Through his consistent use of and reliance on the flamethrower, MacReady has an intimate connection with the object—they become one. The binary of gender has been eradicated on the base, due mostly in part to the absence of female characters. The woman on the poster seen on the base has become an artifact of a previous civilization, one that emphasized binaries. Despite the shelter needed for the civilization to thrive, the divide between human and nature has been blurred. MacReady’s appearance reflects his surroundings when he is locked outside the base. His hair is covered in white snowflakes, and his skin tone has changed to a cool hue. He embodies the elements of the Antarctic. Dead, charred bodies become a part of the landscape. The texture and color of their remains personify the rocky cliffs the camera captures while following helicopters. The victims of the Thing also present evidence of binary erasure between human and animal, because it attacks and embodies both types of lifeforms.

  

Other than being viewed as a threat to the lives of the men on the base, the Thing is also a threat to the non-binary system that has been created on the base. The Thing appears to be intersex: it has a “castrating vagina” and phallic tentacles—it could itself be viewed as a manifestation of the sexually non-binary. However, it still threatens the cyborg civilization because it assumes the appearance other lifeforms, taking what was cyborg and making it wholly itself. The threat imposed by this creature results in paranoia and unrest amongst the men. Its existence creates a binary between the men-cum-cyborgs and itself, a binary that is quite literally destructive to this new civilization.

Response #5: Seriously, How Do You Get Bored In A Mall?

Night of the Living Dead (1968), George Romero's original zombie film, takes place, much as the title implies, in the space of a single night at a house, from dusk to dawn. Its successor, Dawn of the Dead (1978), works with the common sequel template of taking elements of the original and making everything bigger. Here, the budget is bigger, the setting is grander (mall vs house), the gore is more plentiful and visceral (and in color!), and the film is nearly an hour longer. These are all very fitting for the capitalist allegories found in the film. In addition, Dawn makes no promises for the time period of which the action of the film takes place; there is a point in the film where we lose track of just how many days the characters have been in the mall. By forgoing the classical Greek unity of time that the original film preserved, Dawn is capable of furthering its discussion on the human condition that is present throughout the film.

When our characters first arrive at the mall, they do so because they are searching for a place to obtain supplies. Once they have done this, they formulate plans to vacate the mall of its zombie inhabitants. It is these goals that grant our characters temporary purpose and meaning i.e. survival in a zombie apocalypse. Once they have accomplished these tasks and begin to become accustomed to their new commodity-filled habitat; however, the cracks of their complacency begin to shine. In the mall, they are free to live as kings and queens, doing anything they want and having everything they desire (provided that it's in stock). It is then that they attempt to replicate pre-apocalyptic life, having romantic dinners for two, ice skating, and getting haircuts. In a way, their imitation of the past is in a similar fashion of the mindless zombies. As Steven Shaviro says in his essay, “Contagious Allegories: George Romero”, both the living and the dead come to resemble the “...humanoid figures: department store mannequins.” (CP 141). Unlike Night of the Living Dead where the characters are only together for several hours, Dawn is able to show this period of relative safety as lasting for an indeterminate amount of time and therefore is more capable of being able to delve into the effects that this purposeless feeling of ennui has on the survivors. Without any direction or conflict, the characters indulge in an almost nihilistic state of being that places them nearly below the undead's own single minded cannibalistic purpose. In one scene, we see two of the main characters, Stephan and Francine, together in bed presumably after having sex. In this shot, it is more noticeable than anywhere else in the film of the mannequin-like form that the characters have taken on. Here, the two do literally nothing, no talking, just staring at us, immobile, as if they were made of inhuman material. I feel as though there is a kind of void present in their eyes which almost gives the impression that they are wasting away, even though they are still living.

Something that I think would be entertaining and possibly enlightening for the class in the future is to watch a failure of a horror movie. By that, I mean something that never had any sort of critical acclaim. Think of something like a b-movie or an Ed Wood film. I know it sounds kind of silly, and it is, but I think that a movie in this category could lead to some interesting discussions on what makes a horror film “good” per say. It'd be a fun aside from analyzing a film like we have for most of this course, although you still could do that, obviously. I feel that talking more about the film making process and how it can be disastrous in the case of a film like these would be neat and definitely still has a lot of relevance to this course and the way that films function. I also kind of have a soft spot for “bad” movies so there's that.

Vampires with Chainsaws

            When thinking about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the first few words that usually come to my mind are blood, bodies, and gore. I was very surprised to be thinking mostly about vampires by the end of the film, a much more romanticized image than that of the mutant cannibal family. This train of thought was prompted by Franklin’s line about “a whole family of Draculas”. Because of my idea of the vampire, this line stood in stark contrast to the dirty, gritty backcountry of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is doubtlessly because of the world that Dracula himself comes from and inhabits: he leaves his castle in the wild forests of Old World Romania for the sophisticated, modern, and urban New World England. Even though (in the context of Dracula) Transylvania is a land of the past, it seems much more glamorous than the stark, open spaces we see in TCM.

            Dracula is a creature of the Old World, moving to London in an attempt to become more modernized and part of the New World. The family in TCM provides an interesting parallel with Dracula; while Dracula is seemingly able to adapt to the ways of his New World, the family stays stuck in their Old World. Perhaps they’re not able to meet the demands of their New World, or they prefer the way things used to be and have always been. Either way, they become self-reliant to an extreme, foregoing money and capital in favor of providing and consuming on their own.

            Like the family, however, Dracula ultimately fails to assimilate into his New World. Though he seems to be able to make changes to fit in, he is bound to his Old World rules and restrictions (sleeping during the day and in a coffin, needing dirt from his homeland). He returns to his native Transylvania/Old World and is killed. While Dracula tries to thrive and dies, the family refuses to change and lives…for now.

            The main difference between Dracula and the TCM family is not immortality though—it is money and the power that currency provides. Dracula is wealthy and fits in well with the upper class. His money makes it easier for him to try to transition to the New World. The TCM family lacks money though, and this is why they’re forced to remain in their Old World. Part of the horror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre arises from the family’s poverty. Their lack of wealth and inability to assimilate into the New World raises concerns within the viewer about the extent of self-reliance they themselves would be willing to assume were they in a similar position. In the context of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, perhaps the Old Gothic revolves around the issues and anxieties that arise with being wealthy, while the New Gothic is about being poor.

            My only complaint about this class is that there aren’t more weeks in the semester. The history of horror movies has always been of interest to me, and I appreciate that we started so early with cinema by watching the Edison-Porter shorts; I’ve never studied/read about those with consideration of the history of horror cinema. I also like that we didn’t watch more recent movies and stopped in the 1980s instead. It might be interesting to watch a film or two from the 1990s, but, again, time crunch. I think the format of the class—brief intro, movie time, discussion—also worked well.

Response 5: Catholic Guilt in Rosemary's Baby

            In a movie about creating the spawn of Satan it’s hard not to see religious symbolism, and in Rosemary’s Baby, the Catholic religion is highly represented. We’ll start with some historical context for the Catholic Church at this point in history: the 2^nd Vatican Council occurred between 1962 and 1965. This council was formed as a response to the decline in popularity of the Catholic Church due many changes happening in the 20^th century in regards to science, civil rights movements, and women’s rights movements. This imposed many changes to how Catholicism was to continue into the second half of the 20^th century and on. There is a shift in focusing on the New-Testament-forgiveness-God and less emphasis on the Old-Testament-Smitey-God. Many changes were threatening to the strictest of Catholics, especially those who adhered to traditional gender roles. The bible was (and sadly still is) used to impose specific rules for how men and women are to behave both within and outside of marriage. Sex, in particular, is meant to create life; the idea that it could possibly be done within the context of pleasure and not procreation is abhorrent and will grant you a one-way ticket to Hell.

            With Rosemary’s Baby, we are presented with a lot of Catholicism. In the first instance, we see how the Catholic Church has lost its popularity when the Pope has come to visit and the characters aren’t particularly excited but instead kind of make fun of his appearance. In her Catholic guilt, Rosemary has to make a defense of the pope not because she is particularly religious, but because she has been conditioned to have respect for the Church and its leader. Unfortunately, she was also taught to be meek and quiet as part of her role as a woman, so once she makes her one-line defense of “well, he is the pope” she lets the Castevets and Guy rag on the pope while maintaining a look of discomfort with the conversation.

            Another area where Catholicism pops up is very clearly in Rosemary’s nun dreams. I interpret this as further internalized catholic guilt. The dreams occur after Rosemary and Guy have sex where they’re not planning on having a baby just yet. Although they are husband and wife, the sex they have in their empty apartment is robotic and scripted, like they’re doing what they’re “supposed” to do as a married couple. Where that deviates, however, is the intent. As I said before, in the eyes of the Church, having sex for pleasure is wrong and we are reminded of this fact when the nuns show up in Rosemary’s dreams. The symbolism there is very strong because nuns held a lot of power to children growing up Catholic. You feared the reactions from the nuns for your wrongdoings before you feared your parents’ reactions. They were the ones to tell you that you were going to go to hell when you were being bad, and smacked you across the head, butt, or hands with a ruler.

            I would further argue that because Rosemary and Guy have pleasure sex instead of baby-making sex, Rosemary is consequently damned to have Satan’s baby as a result. This is God’s punishment for her; she deviated from what the bible says she is supposed to do and therefore must be taught a lesson. This lesson would very much be one doled out by Old-Testament-Smitey-God as opposed to the newly focused on New-Testament-Forgiveness-God. There is obvious rigidity to maintain the pre-Vatican 2 ideas of a woman’s role in marriage because of this focus on punishment.

            Rosemary maintains her role as a Catholic woman by adamantly opposing getting an abortion even though it seems like her pregnancy is killing her. Life is a sacred gift from God and begins at conception. To end her pregnancy is to end her own salvation; there’s no forgiveness for abortion in the eyes of God. She carries out her pregnancy and assumes her role as the mother because she’s supposed to, “the baby needs its mother.” Because she is a woman, she has to accept her lot in life as “God’s plan,” instead of going on the murder spree we all had hoped she would have gone on when she had the knife.