Horror films refer to the emotional field of fear, but not all of them are frightening enough. What lies at the root of such films? Chris Dumas claims that Freud‘s Oedipus complex revealed in childhood sexuality issues is the key component of the horror films while James Kendrick believes that killer’s pastime including traumas, madness, and offenses play the major part in horror movies. This paper is initiated in order to provide a comparative analysis of two theories and choose the most appropriate one to analyze trauma in horror films.
The development of horror films in the 20th century was closely linked to the theories of Freud, and there is no coincidence. Screenwriters found the most effective approach to the human perception, namely, the language of subconscious symbols and experiences understood by anyone regardless of gender, age, and intelligence. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex does not pass with time turning into the normal sexuality. The child’s fantasies find a real embodiment, and, as a result, a mental “id” component that is responsible for the establishment of links with the outside world and containment of unconscious intentions suffers.
Freud stated that the popularity of the Oedipus complex occurred as it made the viewer reflect on the fact that a similar could easily happen to him or her. According to the theory of the famous psychoanalyst, every child in one form or another contains sexually to his mother and jealous to the father, and it determines all his fears, phobias, and unconscious behavior in general. For example, Robert Bloch created the legendary “Psycho” and turned the idea of the source of evil dared to penetrate deeper in the soul.
He created Norman Bates, who killed his oppressive mother. The film was based not only on events and characters, but, what is more important, on childhood emotions of Norman. It was a starting point for a new trend – horrors as a history of the disease.
In addition, Dumas emphasizes that such issues popular in horror films as castration, feminism, and others are also were discussed by Freud. All in all, Freud considers that traumas occur in the form of symptoms as a result of gender and sexuality repression in childhood.
At the same time, Kendrick suggests another theory claiming that it is the killer’s experience that defines the success of slasher films. It is commonly known that the slasher film involves psycho-killer, who kills teenagers or women.
The reality of the slasher is the reality of inhuman experience – murder for sophisticated sadistic entertainment or for food. The very existence of negative characters, as a rule, geographically issued abroad of community life produces a symbolic boundary to the human consciousness and social order. They live in abandoned towns, homes, standing apart from the other human habitation, on remote farms, or even in the forest, where the usual normal people can get only having lost the right way both literally and figuratively. Slasher movies’ plots are similar in many ways, but the content of plot varies: who, where, and how lost his way and went abroad of the human society.
Films shot in gore genre can be regarded the second source of the slasher. It is a mixture of terror and fierce sensuality. The peculiarity of this genre is that the main subject of the film is a human body that is subjected to a violent sophisticated transformation connected to the painful sexual pleasure. For gore characters, a normal human body is nothing but a white sheet. A sexy body is a body covered with horrific scars, cuts, punctures of all kinds of pins, needles, and implanted metal constructions – the product of a madman-artist. A distinctive feature of the perception of such type of film is that characters on the screen are psychologically akin to the viewer. This idea is hidden deep in the subconscious and is not formulated clearly. However, it makes the viewer suddenly forget about the game and to feel real fear.
Among slasher and gore films, there are villains and victims. There is the only opposition: the real ruthless world full of evil and the average person in the role of the victim. According to Kendrick, the killer is also the victim of his pastime emotions and feelings. The main hero becomes a hostage of his experiences, which occurred a long time ago, and begins to take revenge. Thus, Kendrick argues that not only childhood but also adulthood trauma lies in the core of the killer’s behavior.
In conclusion, such a controversial science as psychoanalysis, in particular, the Oedipus complex has played a pivotal role in the development of the genre. Directors have found a powerful ally in the manipulation of human consciousness. Likewise, Kendrick’s theory of the pursuit of emotions and revenge is worth turning one’s attention. Speaking of the best theory to identify trauma, I consider that Freud‘s Oedipus complex is more relevant.
First, it might be applied to all the people as all of them were children. Second, it seems that this theory is properly developed and affects plenty of horror films stressing the root of the madness. Nevertheless, the second theory looks more specific in the framework of slasher and gore films. I believe that it is also rather helpful to identify horror movie character’s behavior and trauma.