On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears by Asma Stephen T

Author:Asma, Stephen T. [Asma, Stephen T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2009-09-15T20:00:00+00:00

The monsters from the sequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Warner Bros.). Image courtesy of Jerry Ohlinger.

Though from a very different perspective, some liberal monsterologists also see civilization hanging in the balance. But now the danger comes not from too little self-control but from too much. Too much repression can cause neurotic individuals and societies, so horror films come to the rescue to release the pent-up pressures. The director of Hostel, Eli Roth, has defended his sadistic films on what appear to be Freudian grounds. Interviewed frequently in the media, Roth argues that horror films tend to crop up more when the country is undergoing severe social stresses; the Vietnam era produced the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left, and others, and the post-9/11 and Iraq war era also corresponds with an influx of violent horror films. (In contrast, according to Roth, the Clinton era produced fewer such films.) Political correlations aside, Roth argues that human fear and anxiety are held in check during our day-today functioning, but sometimes we need to exorcise these troubling emotions. Horror films allow us the opportunity to scream and release anxiety in a cathartic manner;33 according to Roth, they have a therapeutic effect. “There are soldiers in Iraq,” Roth explains, “that write me and tell me that Hostel is one of the most popular movies in the military.”

They love it. I wrote back and asked, “Why on earth would you watch Hostel after what you see in a day?” And he wrote back and said that he was out during the day with his friends and they saw somebody’s face get blown off, and then they watched the movie that night with about 400 people and they were all screaming. But when they’re on the battlefield, you have to be a machine. You can’t react emotionally. You have to tactically respond to a situation. And these guys are going out every day seeing this horrible stuff, and they’re not allowed to be scared. But it all gets stored up, and it’s got to come out. And when they watch Hostel, it’s basically saying, for the next 90 minutes, not only are you allowed to be scared, you’re encouraged to be scared because it’s okay to be terrified.34

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