The Postmodern Concept of the Monster in the Contemporary Horror Film

Chapter 1 – Introduction & Methodology Such modern classic horror films as The Exorcist (1973), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Don’t Look Now (1973) probe deeply into our fears, playing on them to provoke genuine re- sponses of terror. Beyond that, fictional horror has an impact on modern culture through con- sumption. It is a common belief that overconsumption of horror leads directly to real-world vio- lence and terror (Cooper 8). Others feel that critical arguments “that find violent fictions culpable for real-life violence are problematically deterministic: they strip agency away from the vio- lence’s human perpetrators and assign it to inanimate causal factors” (Cooper 8). As such, it is necessary to analyze works of modern horror in order to understand this blurring of reality and fiction within the genre, not only to understand horror’s place within the creative context of film but also to understand the role that horror plays in understanding ourselves and the world around us....Show moreChapter 1 – Introduction & Methodology Such modern classic horror films as The Exorcist (1973), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Don’t Look Now (1973) probe deeply into our fears, playing on them to provoke genuine re- sponses of terror. Beyond that, fictional horror has an impact on modern culture through con- sumption. It is a common belief that overconsumption of horror leads directly to real-world vio- lence and terror (Cooper 8). Others feel that critical arguments “that find violent fictions culpable for real-life violence are problematically deterministic: they strip agency away from the vio- lence’s human perpetrators and assign it to inanimate causal factors” (Cooper 8). As such, it is necessary to analyze works of modern horror in order to understand this blurring of reality and fiction within the genre, not only to understand horror’s place within the creative context of film but also to understand the role that horror plays in understanding ourselves and the world around us. The type of horror that is most associated with this blurring of reality and fiction is found nestled within postmodernism. Postmodern horror succeeds at playing on our fears as the “uni- verse of the contemporary horror film is an uncertain one in which good and evil, normality and abnormality, reality and illusion become virtually indistinguishable” (Pinedo, “Postmodern Ele- ments” 85). Postmodern horror plays on the viewer’s fear that they are themselves a monster – they see elements of their personality reflected in the character of the villain on the screen. This thesis focuses on the blurring of the distinction between being human and being a monster, or between good and evil, in postmodern horror cinema and critically explores the creation of the postmodern monster, which is not the “Other” but contains recognizable elements of ourselves.Show less

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The Postmodern Concept of the Monster in the Contemporary Horror Film