Does horror depend on a sense of being violated, and what makes that violation
real? When the real--the threat of penetration or dismemberment--hides itself in
its double? Euphemism.
The all-to-familiar shower scene in _Psycho_: surveillance, stalking, slashing.
What makes the movie work and this scene predominate? The overdetermination, the
doubling: transvestite Mother, curtain-flesh ripped open, the liquidity of the
liquidation (shower-pond), the clean-up (the sprinkling of the thief, the
metaphoric abortion of Mother (house cleaning)), . . . . Notice how well
Hitchcock hides the more low-grade, trashy, unsavory aspects of his stories
within the (dis)guise of normalcy. The euphemism prevails. . . . Captured, in
jail, Mother is clinical subject.
Perhaps Hitchcock realizes the power of the euphemism and how well evil hides
itself. With Hitchcock the real returns to us as the real--as euphemism--as
encoded, polite object of art. But such is not the case in most horror films.
The real--the threat of penetration or dismemberment--shows itself as such and
becomes, as such, unbelievable. Unreal, beyond normalcy--unless we work in crime
labs, mortuaries, . . . . The gruesomeness of _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ .
The shock of the unreal-ized.
Perhaps Hitchcock understands that we do realize the unsavory aspects of our
world and rather than confront us with what we've tried hard either to "move to
the edge of town" or to institutionalize, Hitchcock confronts us with the
reality of our evil--the euphemism we live with. In this way, Hitchcock avoids
schlock where most directors--in their unveiling--present to us something
shocking, yet unbelievable. Schlock.
And what of Bataille as critic of horror?
JMC
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|