Nathaniel FitzSimons

UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

The Evolution of Horror: There is Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

As author Guillermo Del Toro says, Monsters, like angels, are invoked by our individual
and collective needs. Analyzing the genre of horror- in ANY time period- shows the
insecurities, aspirations, and conflicts of any given time period and allows us to see where
society as a whole is headed towards. That said, at the core of horror there is a single, universal,
fear: that we, as humans, can be usurped of our place of power and cast back down into the
muck, mire and darkness that we have worked so hard to avoid- and that there might be some
other creature lurking in the shadows with open jaws, ready to take our place- be it some
ravenous beast, a supernatural being, an extraterrestrial- or one of our own.

To begin, let us define the constraints of what we mean by Horror. Dictionary.com

describes horror as an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully
shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear... anything that causes such a feeling. That
definition will not work for this essay, however, as if we discussed the actual FEELING of horror
we would have to break into the endless depths of psychology and neuroscience to track down
the causes of flight or flight impulses- and that wont do. Instead, we shall focus upon the
GENRE of horror- plays, books, movies, folktales- those stories that are meant to evoke the
feeling of horror described so eloquently by the dictionary. In addition, I will not necessarily be
making a point in all of the following sections- understanding horror as a genre requires a
specific amount of background which I shall seek to provide as we go along.

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

Vampires work as a fantastic litmus test for what a specific society fears most as
vampires have been present in almost every kind of folklore. Referring once again to Mr. Del
Toro, The myth, established well before the invention of the word vampire, seems to cross
every culture, language and era. The Indian Baital, the Ching Shih in China, and the Romanian
Strigoi are but a few of its names. The creature seems to be as old as Babylon and Sumer. Or
even older. With this vast array of cultures each coming up with their own versions, each culture
came up with its own individual list of strengths and weaknesses for vampires that tended to be
based around each cultures fears, what was the common way of acting in that culture, and what
was readily available to kill the undead with. For example, the most readily known way of
defending oneself from vampires, e.g. Holy water and a crucifix, comes from the middle ages
where everyone was a Christian and, thus, everyone had crucifixes and believed that prayer
would deliver them from whatever evil would attempt to kill them. However, folklore tells of
multiple solutions to deal with vampires outside of the commonly known solution of grabbing a
crucifix and a vial of holy water- for instance, if one were to pour out millet in front of a
vampire, the creature would be unable to continue its pursuit of you until it finishes counting
each individual grain. Or, failing that, you could throw a bit of knotted twine before its path and
the vampire would not pursue you until it had fully untangled the knot. Or you could use garlic
to offend their sense of smell and drive them back- or use silver to wound them- or shoot them
with a standard gun through their coffin whilst they sleep. Or, in Malaysia, you can defend
yourself from vampires by placing thorns around your windows and doors to ensnare the entrails
of what they call a Pennangalan- a blood drinking spirit that separates its head from its body
during the night- and if the thorns dont work, you can place broken glass on the stump of its
neck so that when the head returns the next morning, the broken glass will shred its innards. In

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

North America, where the Wendigo is a spirit that drives hungry men to cannibalism, the best
option is just to keep everyone well fed- and kill anyone who seems a little too hungry. In South
Africa, the impundulu is nigh invulnerable- save to being set on fire- though tribal medicine
exists to repel the creature. In India, the resident bloodsucker drains a mans blood via his big toe
and the only defense is to be a woman. Or to see your local healer. The common thread
between all of these examples, however, is that in each case the blood-drinker can be repelledusually with great difficulty, but with common objects that the fearful could find lying around.
Near the beginning of the 19th century, new breed of horror crawled from the primordial
mire as the first true horror films began to appear on the silver screen. Early works such as
George Melies Le Manoir Du Diable or Edisons 1910 version of Frankenstein appeared,
followed by such classics as The Phantom of the Opera, The Man who Laughs or The
Hunchback of Notre Dame- and yet none of these can really be considered true horror films as
they all are far more concerned with making the audience think about the story of the singularly
deformed character than with being disturbing or frightening. Then came German
Expressionism- The Cabinet of Dr. Callegari, The Golem, Nosferatu- with their strange
otherworldly angles, shadows, unnatural looking effects that are, with all due respect to Melies,
not merely jump cuts. German expressionism gave a great boon to the genre of horror films by
giving them a feeling of the unnatural in every frame- a feeling that there was something off
about the entire world.
It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men
were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30, the Crosley
service estimated that thirty-two million people were listening in on radios. came the silky
smooth voice of Orson Welles on the night of October 30th, 1938, drifting over the radio waves.

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

Of course, at the time of the actual radio drama, that most certainly was not the truth. Hitler had
recently come to power and was invading countries throughout Europe, The Great Depression
was still in full swing, America was still in its isolationist mindset, the world was balancing
tenuously upon the precipice of war and the only way that anyone could get information about
world events would be to listen to the radio. Of course this would be the time that Orson Welles
would stage an alien invasion- an invasion that caused such panic that people were preparing to
combat the martians and phoning public officials- as that is what one does in a world where war
could happen at any time.
When the 1950s began, society was getting paranoid again. The world, still reeling from
the second world war, suddenly found the USSR and the United States eyeing each other in
stalemate. this tension carried over into the horror genre. In 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still
came to theaters, then It Came from Outer Space, then Invasion of the Body Snatchers- each
having some form of extraterrestrial infiltrating society in an attempt to destroy the world.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a film about alien creatures abducting people and impersonating
them in an attempt to conquer the world, struck such a chord with American audiences fears that
it became one of the most successful releases of the 1950s. (Heffernan, 80) Amidst all of this
societal fear, a familiar name emerged- this time in movie theaters as War of the Worlds hit the
big screen, showing how afraid the American public was of invasion yet again.
Eventually the space race ended and the world found itself in a fairly peaceful state. The
Eighties and Nineties were a time of having fun with horror, spawning things that film critics at
the time called Violent and reprehensible piece(s) of trash (Siskel & Ebert, 0:16) and audiences
tend to call brutal but entertaining. This was a time of gore to an extreme- and that is not just a
reference to the Vice President. At this era of horror, fear was slowly getting mixed in with

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

comedy- more and more humorous death scenes, as the darkly humourous, yet horrifying
Nightmare on Elm Street death scenes gave rise to Freddys Dead with its infamous Power Glove
death scene. Throughout this time, though one could sympathize with those defending
themselves from the Freddy Krueger's, the Jason Vorhees and the Michael Myers of the world
and be absolutely terrified, one could almost cheer for the villains to win as the slasher villains
became the stars of the show- mascots of horror who were all one-upping each other in terms of
violence, showmanship and, of course box office revenue. It was a time of relative peace for
America and so the horror movie was all about having fun- the killers having fun killing while
the campers tried to have fun camping. No matter how many people the slasher villain killed,
there was very rarely any chance that the killer would get off scott free- the killer would be
stopped by one of the campers, supposedly forever- and then the cycle would start again the next
movie. While people were getting killed constantly and the villains seemed invincible and
omnipotent, there always remained a glimmer of hope- that good would triumph and evil, while
always coming back, could be routed by ordinary people.
Then came the year 2001 and the world changed.
When the twin towers fell, America was shocked. One could say that we had no right to
be, given how many times America had done things in other countries- but nonetheless, America
was shocked. It cant be said that we didnt see it coming though.
The TV show pilot for The Lone Gunmen, a spin off of The X-Files had a plane flown
into the world trade center by remote control. It was done as a work of fiction, of course- but
nonetheless, the episode aired six months before the attack. Horror has a way of showing the

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

future, sometimes. Its the subversive nature of the work. Fears are often a way of unconsciously
interpreting the world and anticipating future problems.
After 9/11, the face of horror shifted- no one can deny that. as Kevin J. Wetmore says in
his book Post 9/11 Horror in American Cinema : One key difference between pre-9/11 and post9/11 horror is that the former frequently allows for hope and the latter does not. America was no
longer in a position to poke fun of the monsters of the world- because now they were real. One of
the most potent examples of this change is The Ring- a vastly nihilistic film where death
cannot be evaded and evil wins in the end. What is more, zombie films his their second wind- but
not in their original sense. Originally, zombie films were social commentary on our consumer
driven society- tales of a group of people valiantly defending themselves from the zombie
hordes, the zombies being shambling aimless creatures. In the 2000s, however, the zombies
suddenly became violent, hungry abominations, Enraged Corpses that individually are a swift,
powerful and ferocious predator that makes a direct, purposeful beeline towards the living
(Wetmore, 159)- no longer a representation of an American public that was its own worst enemy
in its blindly following, zombies had turned into the attackers- and the survivors were no longer
brave champions who would inevitably win in the end but instead doomed vestiges of a ruined
civilization, surrounded by unending ranks of the dead that hunger for human flesh.
America has something of a problem with over-reacting.

The grim prognostication that horror trends seem to point towards is that we, as a society,
are not afraid of THINGS anymore. Society has outrun the boogeymen, the werewolves, the
vampires- all of it. What society as a whole fears is it all being taken away. Mankind has climbed

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

above our dark caves and given ourselves access to reliable light 24/7- and yet, deep down, we
know that the world we live in is a fragile one. It is not merely a coincidence that most every TV
show that deals with horror themes will inevitably cut out all the lights- be it Walking Dead, The
Strain or any others. We are afraid of wanting- not in the consumer driven way that was evoked
with George A. Romeros Night of the Living Dead; but of being hungry, without the
conveniences that modern society provides and with a predator lurking in the shadows, ready to
remove us from our former position as top of the food chain. And with all this seen, it seems that
the old axiom of the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, rings truewe have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

Lovecraft, H.P, (1890-1937), Supernatural Horror in Literature (from H. P. Lovecraft, The

Complete Fiction, a collection of works by H. P. Lovecraft), New York, N.Y.,
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Wetmore, Kevin J., 1969-, Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema, New York, N.Y., The
Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012
Heffernan, Kevin, Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American
Movie Business, 1953-1968, Duke University Press, 2004
Tudor, Andrew, Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie,
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Del Toro, Guillermo, and Chuck Hogan. "Why Vampires Never Die." Editorial.
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"horror." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 29 Mar. 2015. <Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/horror>.
Siskel, Gene, and Roger Ebert. "Siskel & Ebert - Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter." Siskel and
Ebert at the Movies. N.d. YouTube. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.

"Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter." Rotten Tomatoes. N.p., n.d. Web.
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Nathaniel FitzSimons
UWRT 1102
Due: April 1, 2015

Welles, Orson. "The War of the Worlds." War of the Worlds- The Script. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar.
2015. http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/mars/wow.htm