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An activist friend of mine
launched into an enthusiastically passionate
diatribe after seeing 28 Days Later,
expressing that the film was an analogy for the current social-political climate. She had
been met with a blank stare afterward and was asked: “You aren’t really politically
analyzing a horror
film, are you?”
It wasn't a coincidence, of
course. Screenwriter Alex Garland blatantly intended
these themes to be inherent in
the film—just as with his earlier script, The
Beach, he had set out to explore
society’s ills—yet my friend couldn’t help but
second-guess her analysis when
questioned. “I must really be over-thinking this
stuff,” she had
concluded.
Our conversation after the fact brought a number of questions
to mind: Why are
the political themes woven into the horror genre so easy to miss? Is
thematic
content always intended, or is it more often revealed after a film has been
released? If the content is unintended, is this a less effective means of delivering the
message? How many columns will it take to answer these questions?
In the
horror documentary The American Nightmare, the genre classics of the sixties and
seventies are explored to show how they reflected the political
turmoil of these
decades. Titled with a double entendre allusion to a Malcolm X
quote: “I don’t see
any American Dream; I see an American Nightmare,” it sets
out to investigate the
Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the sexual revolution, and the horror culture
that emerged from it. Featuring an all-star line-up of modern masters of the macabre:
Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw fame, Wes Craven (Last House on the Left,
The Hills Have Eyes), John Halloween Carpenter, George of the Living
Dead Romero, and special effects genius Tom Savini. Throughout interviews, they
express that they had not set out with overt politics in mind when filming. As artists,
they interpreted the world around them, and these productions were the result of those
interpretations.
This was shocking!
I had always just
assumed that these themes were intended. Night of the Living Dead with its biting
anti-racist commentary. Texas Chainsaw, Last House on the Left, and The
Hills Have Eyes, with their brutal dismantling of the nuclear family mythos and
commentary on the Vietnam War. All of these themes have become inseparable associations
with such films so many decades after their release.
To hear Romero
explain that Duane Jones, the actor who played protagonist Ben in the original
Night was simply the best person they could find for the part was staggering; that
the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t the film’s foremost intention was bewildering. While
still shots of lynch mobs juxtaposed with end
credit images of zombie hunting poses
seem to tell a different story—these
images clearly parallel—they may not have been
strictly conscious, but yet
they’ve become implicit in the work.
In
all cases, whether it’s Craven reliving the shooting of four students at Kent State
between savage splices of Last House or Savini peering through his
camera lens
at the tragedies he witnessed in the jungles of Vietnam paired with
carnage from
Day of the Dead, their creations are intimately personal. Each is a work of art,
illustrating the period and personal demons in which it was composed—perhaps made all the
more powerful by the fact that these themes
infected their creativity subliminally.
That they were implicitly woven into
their content made them so effective.
It would take five columns to answer my questions, but I was off to a
solid start. To get a clearer understanding, I would have to explore beyond the
documentary into the darkest reaches of the genre—or at least the
silliest…
For more of Josh's series, be sure to read:
Part 2 and Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
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