I feel like Thrasymachus breaking in here, but horror films are about power. They typically are power struggles between inhuman (whether impossible or not) antagonists and human protagonists, where the stakes are life or death (often of the species and not just some individuals) and the fun comes both from identifying with the horrific force and with the humans that typically overcome it. Horror pleasure is the pleasure that we take in the preternatural power of the monster to wreak havoc, and of the humans that nevertheless overcome it. They are engaged in a struggle for survival, which determines who is more fit, and who less, to survive.
What it means when the horrifying force is not overcome is another story.
"For beauty is the beginning of terror we are still able to bear, and why we love it so is because it so serenely disdains to destroy us" Rilke's First Duino Elegy
Daniel Shaw
Professor of Philosophy and Film
Lock Haven University
Managing Editor, Film and Philosophy
website: www.lhup.edu/dshaw
________________________________
From: Film-Philosophy Salon on behalf of Hans Heydebreck
Sent: Sun 8/24/2008 2:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Horror Question
>
> The impoverished French damaged the cathedrals in (17)89
No. no, Iīm equally not interested in historical facts, but see the strength of the horror genre in being fantastic.
The irony for me lies in the fact, that The Excorcist is as iconoclastic as the named events (the little blond girls as the demon is hardly an offical image and closer to an inversion, just like the "backwards" eating or the spider scene with the head turned upside down).
Plus, it has a film crew shown inside the film, the only scene shown being filmed depicting students rebelling, but letīs stick to horror and emotion.
*
*
Film-Philosophy salon
After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to.
To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
Or visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
*
Film-Philosophy online: http://www.film-philosophy.com <http://www.film-philosophy.com/>
Contact: [log in to unmask]
**
*
*
Film-Philosophy salon
After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to.
To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
Or visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html
For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
*
Film-Philosophy online: http://www.film-philosophy.com
Contact: [log in to unmask]
**
|