Horror Theorists
As with all creative industries, there are practitioners and theorists fueling the theory that goes into every light, camera and action needed to create your favorite horror experiences. Where Theater has Brecht and Stanivslasky and Literature Orwell and Conrad, Horror has a diverse range of wise men and women who have devised rules, theories and practices to be followed and defied in equal measure in the hopes that the most audience resonant, terrifying, box office breaking film can hit the cinemas.
Noel Carrol
Although Noel Carroll is famous for all manner of motion picture, fiction and artistic philosophy, the talking point around which he gained such stature was his academic analysis piece, The Philosophy Of Horror or The Paradoxes of The Heart, in which he dissects the ludicrous reality of man's suspension of disbelief.
As a horror connoisseur, Carroll approaches the genre with the solemnity of Aristotle in regards to matters such as 'why we enjoy being scared', 'why evidently fiction devices continue to disturb us' and 'what makes horror and transmedia phenomenon' at the forefront. Art-Horror is one of the many things he raises with his reading of what makes horror enemies terrifying are particularly interesting; in his theory he posits that the scariest figures in Consternation Media are those that break conventions and conceptions, for example, Zombies are both living and dead, making them a deathly unknown.
Jumping back to the main point of this feature, Art-Horror is a thematic underpinning to certain horror games and movies in which the narrative contemplates the dissonance between the commonplace and the danger to such uniformity. The linear progression through the story arks must involve a disruption to an established decency, or at least to a world painted a few shades brighter than the threat. To give you an idea untainted by my own pseudo-waffling, the horror series 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', which could be deemed Art-Horror, breaches the traditionally safe connotations of dreaming with its titular antagonist, Freddy Kruger, acting as a symbolic manifestation of the danger to the cast.
In my OTS, I would very much like to capitalize on this idea of Art-Horror, using the visual iconography, color correction and the language of cinema to instill the inherent wrongness of the killer before he has even set about his preordained role. To elaborate, one of the core themes of 'Synth' is the disconnect between "cinematic" violence and actual violence which is to be communicated through all the fibers of film making. Even the title, 'Synth', implies this what with it being an internet age abbreviation of the word Synthetic, meaning false and artificial. The main way in which the OTS will demonstrate this idea however is with the two relative perspectives it presents, the garish and sensual freedom of the killers world-view and the shaky, terrified, grounded view of the victims. By exaggerating the two extremes and having them overlap to the viewer (such as the loud and chaotic music of the killer's perspective turning to a muffled, raspy, diegetic effect in the others), 'Synth' highlights the the audience how each look in the eyes of the other with the actual characters being ciphers for the common audience member and those infatuated with the danger of dramatized death. This idea could also fall under Carroll's other major theory, the Attraction-Repulsion complex, where in the audience is simultaneously enthralled and disgusted in a near masochistic fashion at the actions on screen in a safe way, despite what old-guard, soap box preachers would have you believe.
As a horror connoisseur, Carroll approaches the genre with the solemnity of Aristotle in regards to matters such as 'why we enjoy being scared', 'why evidently fiction devices continue to disturb us' and 'what makes horror and transmedia phenomenon' at the forefront. Art-Horror is one of the many things he raises with his reading of what makes horror enemies terrifying are particularly interesting; in his theory he posits that the scariest figures in Consternation Media are those that break conventions and conceptions, for example, Zombies are both living and dead, making them a deathly unknown.
Jumping back to the main point of this feature, Art-Horror is a thematic underpinning to certain horror games and movies in which the narrative contemplates the dissonance between the commonplace and the danger to such uniformity. The linear progression through the story arks must involve a disruption to an established decency, or at least to a world painted a few shades brighter than the threat. To give you an idea untainted by my own pseudo-waffling, the horror series 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', which could be deemed Art-Horror, breaches the traditionally safe connotations of dreaming with its titular antagonist, Freddy Kruger, acting as a symbolic manifestation of the danger to the cast.
In my OTS, I would very much like to capitalize on this idea of Art-Horror, using the visual iconography, color correction and the language of cinema to instill the inherent wrongness of the killer before he has even set about his preordained role. To elaborate, one of the core themes of 'Synth' is the disconnect between "cinematic" violence and actual violence which is to be communicated through all the fibers of film making. Even the title, 'Synth', implies this what with it being an internet age abbreviation of the word Synthetic, meaning false and artificial. The main way in which the OTS will demonstrate this idea however is with the two relative perspectives it presents, the garish and sensual freedom of the killers world-view and the shaky, terrified, grounded view of the victims. By exaggerating the two extremes and having them overlap to the viewer (such as the loud and chaotic music of the killer's perspective turning to a muffled, raspy, diegetic effect in the others), 'Synth' highlights the the audience how each look in the eyes of the other with the actual characters being ciphers for the common audience member and those infatuated with the danger of dramatized death. This idea could also fall under Carroll's other major theory, the Attraction-Repulsion complex, where in the audience is simultaneously enthralled and disgusted in a near masochistic fashion at the actions on screen in a safe way, despite what old-guard, soap box preachers would have you believe.
Tzvetan Todorov
Contemporary to Carrol and argumentatively contentious in his theories, Tzvetan Todorov contributed to the philosophy of horror in a way that many people would argue isn't even relevant. Below is a short extract from is 1973 book 'The Fantastic: A Structural Approach To A Literary Genre' in which he explains his idea, the theory of the fantastic, and how it creates horror:
"The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work -- in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations"
I thought I'd include that vertical slice as it highlights, at least to me, an inherently self defeating prophecy. Todorov suggests with his third rule that the audience of the horror fiction will denounce any meaning beyond the superficial account, buying entirely into the premise as an established thing to be taken on face value. In much the same way that Todorov's theory applies to all mediums and not just horror, let me exemplify his point in the form of Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin's world isn't devoid of subtext by any stretch of the imagination and not work truly is but it isn't the point of the books or show; the viewer is invited to peek into this world, to observe its working and to make up their own minds as to how it makes them feel. Although questions of class, creed, dynasty, gender, politics, sex, violence, war, drugs and so, so much more are posed, they are not the point and as such, the central draw of the show is the the character-to-character conflicts. The idea of the Fantastic is a similar thing, inditing that it stems from the hesitation you have when lost in a work of fiction as opposed to the reflection you experience when looking back on it. However, the theory of recognizing the Fantastic is a meta-act, existent beyond the realms of the content, turning it into somewhat of a paradox.
For my OTS, I will not, at least knowingly, be employing the theory of the Fantastic as, despite the imprinting that an audience has with the victims of a horror experience, the meaning beyond the projection is founded entirely through the viewers ability to recognize the disconnect between the two different interpretations of the universe in the sequence. Although I can fully appreciate that it is the dissonance in a work that generates fear, I believe that a mainstream Horror experience isn't really the place to engage with such a practice as, putting aside whatever ethical quandaries can be raised from thrusting someone into world defined by its purpose to terrorize, the technical limits of the format (such as time and budget) don't allow for such a deep personal investment.
"The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work -- in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations"
I thought I'd include that vertical slice as it highlights, at least to me, an inherently self defeating prophecy. Todorov suggests with his third rule that the audience of the horror fiction will denounce any meaning beyond the superficial account, buying entirely into the premise as an established thing to be taken on face value. In much the same way that Todorov's theory applies to all mediums and not just horror, let me exemplify his point in the form of Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin's world isn't devoid of subtext by any stretch of the imagination and not work truly is but it isn't the point of the books or show; the viewer is invited to peek into this world, to observe its working and to make up their own minds as to how it makes them feel. Although questions of class, creed, dynasty, gender, politics, sex, violence, war, drugs and so, so much more are posed, they are not the point and as such, the central draw of the show is the the character-to-character conflicts. The idea of the Fantastic is a similar thing, inditing that it stems from the hesitation you have when lost in a work of fiction as opposed to the reflection you experience when looking back on it. However, the theory of recognizing the Fantastic is a meta-act, existent beyond the realms of the content, turning it into somewhat of a paradox.
For my OTS, I will not, at least knowingly, be employing the theory of the Fantastic as, despite the imprinting that an audience has with the victims of a horror experience, the meaning beyond the projection is founded entirely through the viewers ability to recognize the disconnect between the two different interpretations of the universe in the sequence. Although I can fully appreciate that it is the dissonance in a work that generates fear, I believe that a mainstream Horror experience isn't really the place to engage with such a practice as, putting aside whatever ethical quandaries can be raised from thrusting someone into world defined by its purpose to terrorize, the technical limits of the format (such as time and budget) don't allow for such a deep personal investment.
Sigmund Freud
As the God Father on all things disturbing, Sigmund Freud's revolutionary theories on Animism and the Uncanny have rung out beyond the realms of just horror, breaking into all mediums with their honest, yet disturbing truths. Freud is most famous for his work on something known as the Uncanny, a theory you've likely become familiar with on a daily basis as it elevates the mystery surrounding what makes something disturbing or scary into the cold light of day. To elaborate, the Uncanny effect, specifically the Uncanny valley, refers to the the cognitive dissonance that arises when something isn't Human enough for us to consciously recognize it as such but that has enough Human features to mentally disconnect it from a non-person entity (such as a machine).
As you can see in the diagram, the industrial machine is nothing like a living thing aesthetically, meaning that it is very difficult for us to feel empathy for it, on the other end of that spectrum, a 'normal' person is very easy to understand and to reconcile. The Uncanny Valley effect comes in when those strong barriers are broken or put into question. It is one of the reasons it's slightly odd to look at someone with a physical impairment such as an amputee as, despite our morally just outlook on them as sympathetic, our brains are troubled by this off version of something familiar.
The cognitive dissonance that arrives when familiar iconography is something that great story tellers across all mediums have utilized for generations to create unease and to instill an air of irregularity onto their audience; examples being the menu of Spec Ops: The Line, the statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes and The Scream by Edvard Munch. The Uncanny has always been particularly at home with horror since the whole point is to make the audience feel uncomfortable, using things as simple as corpses to scare the viewer for their naturally unsettling qualities.
As you can see in the diagram, the industrial machine is nothing like a living thing aesthetically, meaning that it is very difficult for us to feel empathy for it, on the other end of that spectrum, a 'normal' person is very easy to understand and to reconcile. The Uncanny Valley effect comes in when those strong barriers are broken or put into question. It is one of the reasons it's slightly odd to look at someone with a physical impairment such as an amputee as, despite our morally just outlook on them as sympathetic, our brains are troubled by this off version of something familiar.
The cognitive dissonance that arrives when familiar iconography is something that great story tellers across all mediums have utilized for generations to create unease and to instill an air of irregularity onto their audience; examples being the menu of Spec Ops: The Line, the statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes and The Scream by Edvard Munch. The Uncanny has always been particularly at home with horror since the whole point is to make the audience feel uncomfortable, using things as simple as corpses to scare the viewer for their naturally unsettling qualities.
Freud's theory of the Uncanny duck-tails rather nicely with another theory of his, the theory of Animism, which is used to describe objects traditionally inanimate without Human interaction moving independently, such as a ventriloquist doll or zombie. Horror has long since had an affinity with Animism from classics like George A. Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' to recent thrillers like 'Annabelle', the disenfranchised actions of something that, by the laws of logic, cannot move, unsettles us.
Personally, I think it is impossible to avoid using Freud's Uncanny effect in my OTS due to it, for starters, being a horror which necessitates unsettling the audience and secondly, as it is such an effective narrative tool for setting a tone or for visual story telling, playing up the symbolism of certain on-screen presences by extenuating or corrupting them. 'Synth' will benefit greatly from territorial assets such as blood, corpses and the masked yet human killer; however, I would like to extend that use to the cinematic elements as well. I discussed earlier the camera movements and how they would be used to depict the violence in a though provoking way, I would also like to use the color scheme to create a sense of the Uncanny valley as the hyper colorized, over saturated aesthetic coupled with the killers camera should evoke it, especially when juxtaposed against the bleak shades of the victims perspective.
Personally, I think it is impossible to avoid using Freud's Uncanny effect in my OTS due to it, for starters, being a horror which necessitates unsettling the audience and secondly, as it is such an effective narrative tool for setting a tone or for visual story telling, playing up the symbolism of certain on-screen presences by extenuating or corrupting them. 'Synth' will benefit greatly from territorial assets such as blood, corpses and the masked yet human killer; however, I would like to extend that use to the cinematic elements as well. I discussed earlier the camera movements and how they would be used to depict the violence in a though provoking way, I would also like to use the color scheme to create a sense of the Uncanny valley as the hyper colorized, over saturated aesthetic coupled with the killers camera should evoke it, especially when juxtaposed against the bleak shades of the victims perspective.
Carl Jung
Carl Jung's theory of a self and a shadow I'd argue lies at the heart of almost all contemporary horror and even a lot of classics too. To be hunted, the concept of there being a negative reflection of yourself, an embodiment of everything a character fears in them selves and, poetically, in man itself. A shadow is also seen as the harsh truth incarnate with either the expressed goal or osmosis desire to punish the self for what it depicts. For example, it arguably the most blatant example of this theory, recent horror film 'It Follows' presents a story in which the protagonist inherits a creature destined to kill her after having sex with a relative stranger, the subtext isn't so much submerged as it is bobbing under the sunlight two inches from your face with the most obvious indication being that it reflects sexual diseases, youth night culture and the stalker mentality with the titular 'Tall Man' even raising questions of impregnation, sexual assault and rape. All of these ideas are present in the shadow and are examples of things the self has either indulged in or put themselves at risk of.
I will be using a similar idea to Jung's shadow/self complex although it isn't quite as binary as his theory supposes since the killer doesn't so much reflect the bad qualities of one person as he does the attitudes and sins of a generation as well as, allegorically, an entire way of presenting violence on screen. The killer of my OTS is one of the main characters, humanized enough to understand why he's doing the things he does yet distant enough for the audience to still fear his presence in a scene, especially when the camera jumps to the victim's perspective.
H.P Lovecraft
To finish off, I thought I'd reference not only one of my personal favorite writers of all time with his work on 'At The Mountains Of Madness', 'The Shadows Over Innsworth' and 'The Dunwich Horror' but easily one of the most influential horror figures of all time: H.P Lovecraft. The theme of madness and insanity, of an unreliable narrator and of some type of Eldritch horror that transcends a realm of understanding are pivotal to the progression of the genre across films, games and written literature. Given the body of work I have already discussed, the coupling of this theme with the Jung's Shadow/Self complex, Freud's Uncanny Valley and Carroll's Art Horror should come together in my OTS to create something truly horrifying.
One of Lovecraft's common traits is that of an unreliable narrator, as previously mentioned, and something that I wish to capitalize on in my OTS. The camera never stays with one character long enough to call them the definitive protagonist with the one constant, the killer, having such a warped and distorted view of the world that anything interpreted from his massacres being as disenfranchised from the realms of reality as the violence he commits which should allow the commentary to work. Although it is apparent from close to the very first shot that the killer is being told what to do and that he is an instrument, his madness and psychological torment a mere catalyst for his brainwashing; even his outfit, a featureless black rain jacket with a gas mask sporting reflective eye panels speak to the audience that he is the hand of someone's will, not the fault itself which Lovecraft would mirror with his horrified protagonists.
One of Lovecraft's common traits is that of an unreliable narrator, as previously mentioned, and something that I wish to capitalize on in my OTS. The camera never stays with one character long enough to call them the definitive protagonist with the one constant, the killer, having such a warped and distorted view of the world that anything interpreted from his massacres being as disenfranchised from the realms of reality as the violence he commits which should allow the commentary to work. Although it is apparent from close to the very first shot that the killer is being told what to do and that he is an instrument, his madness and psychological torment a mere catalyst for his brainwashing; even his outfit, a featureless black rain jacket with a gas mask sporting reflective eye panels speak to the audience that he is the hand of someone's will, not the fault itself which Lovecraft would mirror with his horrified protagonists.