Cine-Games: The Relative Merits of Horror
On Moralists
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Horror films have often been the source of righteous indignation of moralistic film critics and also venerated for their reflections of modern society. In art, there is an imitation of life, and thus, depending on a film's execution, its relative merits may be ascertained, upon how well it is able to reflect that reality. Luke Thompson's 2007 LA Weekly article “Why Torture Porn Isn't: Notes on the Contemporary Horror Film,” focuses on the former aspect of horror films, without considering the latter, incensed that Kenneth Turan, Roger Ebert, or any other critic looks at some of these contemporary horror films with over-scrutinizing eyes. It is true that some of these critics have unjustly criticized contemporary horror films without looking at the similar criticism of earlier horror films that are now worthy of veneration, such as The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, this is irrelevant, as his defense of the contemporary horror film misses the point entirely.
What Torture Porn Really Isn't
Thompson states that “torture porn” or “violence porn” are a non sequitur, and do not apply to the form of the contemporary horror film. This simply misunderstands the terms. It is as grave as the misunderstanding of horror that Thompson attributes to the criticisms of contemporary horror films. “Violence porn” refers to the idea of gaining sexual pleasure from violent acts, and when applied to violent acts on the screen, it does not necessarily constitute a sexual experience, but one that is metaphorically sexual in nature. This pleasure may be gained through the violent domination of women, or merely through an orgy of violent images. Thompson himself states by the standard of the dictionary definition of torture that “pretty much every action or horror movie in cinematic history contains ‘torture.’” But the content is not the issue. Rather, it is the presentation of such images within the dogmatic frame of cinema. Torture porn, contra Thompson, is not merely the act of someone receiving sadomasochistic torture pleasure—“pain for pleasure” as the saying goes. To call it this is a reductio ad absurdum. The notion of torture and viewing pain from others has been examined by many perspectives. One could apply it as a logical extension of Christian Metz’ examinations of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's mirror stage in film.
Dreaming Babies and Their Celluloid Mothers
According to Metz, film is inherently something that imbues images on people, who receive them in a dreamlike state. The images that are constructed via mise-en-scene and editing, in a closed system, but are looked upon by the audience through a system of identification—like the baby to its mother. In other words, the images impose meaning of their own, but are taken in as representations of the viewer's reality. Therefore, there is certainly a case to be made to criticize derivative films like Hostel, or Saw for inculcating the audience into the forced viewing of the torture of human beings. It is curious that Thompson has not cited horror films that were reviled upon their initial releases, but later were interpreted to be inward critics of the form of the horror film. He has neglected John McNaughton's cinema verite-esque Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer, Michael Haneke's Funny Games, and in a much broader, wide-reaching sense, David Cronenberg's Videodrome. Within the horror genre, there are self-criticizing films which formally adopt these practices for the sole purpose of rebuking them.
Mirror Stage and Murder
Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer is the most glaring example of a self-criticizing film, based on the real life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. Henry is played by Michael Rooker as cold, distant, and practical murderer. In the film, Henry and his friend and accomplice Ottis rape and murder people with such a randomness that it becomes a recreational act. In fact, murder becomes so routine that they must eventually videotape the acts to derive any pleasure from them. Henry and Ottis murder an entire family, the film taking the perspective and mise-en-scene of their camera. This traps the audience, forcing them to watch the results. Henry is the focus of the film, by all accounts its protagonist and his actions of murder and violence are highlighted. This takes on a sexual meaning, especially considering that— as a child— Henry was forced to witness his prostitute mother have sex with men other than his father. When Ottis and Henry attack and murder an entire family, Ottis rapes the mother, and snaps her neck. As the camera does not move, except when unintentionally kicked by Henry, Ottis is shown to kiss her passionately after she is dead. Afterward, almost every scene with Henry and Ottis involves the two watching the tape over and over again in slow motion. If this were not enough of an effective description of the scopic drive—which is reflected in the spectatorship of the contemporary horror film—it should be noted that when Henry is introduced, he is followed by scenes of murders that Henry is not filmically shown committing, but shown in extremely close up detail.
The very first shot of the film is a murdered woman in a meadow, without knowledge of her character whatsoever. She is a mere dead object. The film then associates Henry with seemingly unconnected images of murder. The first: two store clerks stabbed and shot after Henry buys cigarettes; the second, a prostitute murdered in a hotel room, a broken soda bottle jammed in her mouth (one should not dwell on the Freudian symbolism of this scene).The third involves a woman wrapped in plastic being dumped off a bridge, after Henry is shown driving down that very same bridge.
Finally, Henry inspects a house, as an exterminator, as the woman lets him in. The next shot, the final direct implication of Henry's murders without his character's filmed action of the murder, shows a television being watched by the same woman. The camera swivels around, showing her wide-eyed gaze still watching in death after she has been strangled with metal wire. Repulsive indeed, but wholly within purpose in its critique of spectatorship.
Fucked By Television
These filmed images within the larger film that the characters— living and dead— watch, are constantly associated with acts of murder. First, they are attributed to the audience through the introduction of these murder sequences, and then to the killers, thus implicating the viewer in the violence. This is inherently of greater value than something which refuses to acknowledge its inculcation of an audience by its imagery. David Cronenberg's Videodrome communicates a similar artistic statement, by allowing the audience to see only through the protagonist's viewpoint, when he is made sickened and possibly insane from hallucinations that create a new organ inside his head, committing crimes, programmed by a VHS inserted inside his stomach. As Cronenberg himself would say, he is “fucked by television.” These films, made in the 1980's, had already established a self criticism that the contemporary horror films of today ignore. They showcase, through a guise of horror, the damaging spectatorship that potentially exists in film itself.
Michael Haneke's Funny Games is similar in its presentation of audience participation. Employing the same principles that Henry uses to a greater extent, it extolls the inculcation of the audience in violence, through the killers' direct address. While Henry allies the viewer to the act via the television, the television is used in Funny Games as a set piece that is thematically allied with violence. When the sociopaths kill the son of the family they have captured, they watch television—the blood from the boy still on the screen. In a further elevation of image, the mother—tied up—laboriously gets up. She inches her way over to the television, making sure to turn it off before reaching her ailing husband—also bound—lying on the floor at the opposite end of the room. The connection between image and violence is then made clear: she deals with the image before attempting to assuage the violence done to her husband.
Then, the killers appeal to the audience, looking directly into the camera. They ask how the next part of their murderous schemes should commence, appealing to their base sense of narrative: “You want plausible plot development, right?” one asks. The killers constantly have their audience in mind, appealing to the scopophilic, and voyeuristic tendencies of the audience, using "entertainment" as an excuse for their transgressions.
“It's boring when mutes suffer,” says the smarter of the two when a family member refuses to speak.
“We want to entertain our audience— show them what we can do.”
The less intellectually inclined killer responds to the mother's inquiry of why she hasn't been killed yet:
“You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment.”
The rebuke is thus made of entertainment as spectacle an as an excuse to showcase human suffering, by employing an exaggeration of the scopophilia inducing techniques of the average horror film. The audience is captive—yet plays the game, much as the family does. This film plays upon what contemporary horror uses to seduce the viewer into submission— as all art does. It is strange that Thompson would defend films that simply repeat the formulas that films like Funny Games, Henry, and Videodrome have already established as seductive and absurd to the point of parody.
The best horror films reflect depravity, but they need not necessarily be depraved themselves. The self-reflexive films by Haneke, McNaughton, and Cronenberg are indeed indicative of depravity, but use the conventions to criticize a pervasive media obsession with violence that now comprises the work of Eli Roth, et al. It is frustrating that the evolution of the horror film into something that can recognize itself and understand cinema's effects, has not touched the most popular contemporary horror films. A notable exception is Haneke's US remake of his film, but its reception indicates that some people are unable to decode its message. Actually, most critics are able to discern its message, but are still highly critical of the brutal experiment inflicted on its audience: stay and watch the terrible things you want to see, or leave. The experiment, regardless of its effectiveness, has been criticized, dividing audiences and doing one of two things to those audiences. It either creates a cult following that destroys its message, or is rejected by fans of Hostel and Saw. These films have been rendered by Haneke and others as redundant, derivative, and indeed formally amoral.
The criticism of contemporary horror films may not be the endless moralistic screeds they seem to be. Much of the criticism of the scopophilic need to see people die or be put into pain—getting sexual pleasure from death by virtue of the gaze—may be legitimate. Identification with an image, the need to see suffering is inherent to the horror film. It's just a matter of which ones are intelligent enough to recognize it, or at least cognizant of how they reflect their images on the mind. This is best summed up by the two killers at the conclusion of Funny Games, while they are discussing the counterposing universes of reality and fiction.
“Is the fiction real?”
A blank stare.
“You can see it in a movie, right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then, it's as real as reality, because you can see it too, right?”
“Bullshit!”
“Why?”
