changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.
I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.
Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.
No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.
But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?
I’m like one hour from going to bed so my take is not going to be extensive but my guess is that the social anxiety this is reflecting is the surveillance state. And the fact that private companies (i.e. not just the state) are also doing a ton of surveillance. And even the fact that the way we often use social media – less so Tumblr, which has some anonymity still – is basically internalising that surveillance and performing for it at all times.
It seems like there are two modes going on here: “avoid being perceived by the horror” (Bird Box, A Quiet Place etc) and “perform correctly so that the horror can’t get you” (your trashy nun example). Both of them arise from surveillance logics; one is “avoid being surveilled or it will Get you”, the other is “you are being surveilled, perform correctly or it will Get you”.
And with regard to the social elements it’s all reflecting, I mean – have you seen the state of things? It’s extremely difficult to avoid being surveilled! A monster where you have to not look at it is fucking easy mode by comparison!
(Pretend I cited Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman; they’re relevant but also it’s bedtime.)
Ooh yes, and breaking it down like this made me think:
- fear of observation (surveillance state)
- fear of not performing correctly (purity culture and evangelical backlashes)
- fear of confronting existential threat (climate change)
my contribution to this extremely salient and clever discussion is to say: I think we should call this subgenre panopticonsequencehorror
! ! !
I think there might be an additional element here- the fear of awareness, because if you observe something, you’ll end up seeing something you don’t want to. like, we live in a society where we have more access to information than ever before, and also where the supply chain of things we have no real choice but to use exploits so many people, damages so much environment, and generally relies on a wide variety of harms to get into our hands in a way we can afford. i live in a society where it’s more or less generally accepted that slavery and child labour is bad, but I would say it would be a minor miracle if I haven’t touched something today that used at least one of those, you know? and the thread goes beyond that in a lot of fun ways- like, who hasn’t been a fan of an artist and then found out they were doing horrible things behind the scenes? hell, most people live in countries with governments that are doing awful things to people every day.
it’s the narcissist cookbook’s cognitive dissonance blues. it’s chidi anagonye’s almond milk. being aware of the state of the world is to be in some level of despair at both the situation and the fact that you kind of need to be complicit in it for anyone with half a conscience. and there’s nothing any of us, as individuals or in most sizes of group people are able to amass, can really do about it because so much of this evil is baked into the way the world works at this point. everyone has a vague knowledge that the world around them can’t exist without destroying people and planet, and you’ll know a lot more than you ever wanted to about it if you do a few web searches, and then what? you’ll stop wearing clothes, eating food, or using technology? you’ll switch to ethical options that cost money you don’t have and have a decent chance of maybe the closest link in the supply chain being less harmful but don’t look all the way down? like, it’s notable that in a lot of these movies, not looking at the thing doesn’t make it go away- it just means it doesn’t get YOU.
I realize this is an animal crossing meme but as an astrophysicist I was really excited for a second that someone was finally seeing the light on how fricking difficult and a huge waste of time it would be to try to terraform Mars
obsessed with sokka’s name kinda popping up everywhere in school books years after atla. like yeah ur learning history about the end of the hundred year war? oh right with the avatars amazing team and some non bender named sokka who probably wasn’t all that important. on to gym class where u learn different fighting styles, did you know btw that the first guy to ever train with the kyoshi warriors was some random guy named sokka? oh well. can’t be late for physics where we learn about the invention of the air balloon and the submarine by … sokka? huh okay I guess, on to politics where we learn about all these important decrees over all the different nations which were first proposed by.. ah man, sokka? again? anyway art class now, here look at these paintings made by sokka
![35mmproject:
“Shanghai Hotel
Relevant GMaps location
[Check out our vintage photography store on Redbubble]
”](https://64.media.tumblr.com/88fa6b80fa186d4ea222d7b95d63334d/78303816f9a14d4e-a8/s500x750/0ac2227acebe628dcae25f3ec8ff893ae29be40f.jpg)
ALT
Anonymous
