All this sex is killing me.
If you ask people to explain the subtext of horror most would reply the genre is a metaphor for death. Or to be more
precise, the preparation of death. I mean it’s obvious isn't it? All that
stabbing and hacking. All the falling from roller-coasters and being chased by
masked men wielding blood soaked chainsaws.
Wait, let’s stop a minute and pull away for a moment
to think about this. Yes murder is obviously about the stalking reaper lurking
in our shadows, just as torture is about the stresses and pains of life. But
what place does sex have in all of this horror business? Well the French have a nice little euphemism for orgasm, La petite mort, or the little death. Sex and death may not be obvious bedfellows, but they never seem too far apart.
So let me spin the TV in your direction and show
you some examples of what I think it all means, or at least why I think it’s
there in the first place. You may be surprised, you may be shocked, but I guess
you’ll just think I'm as mad as old Leatherface.
"The art of creation is older than the art of killing." Edward Koch
From the very origins of horror cinema the themes
have included pursuit and murder of beautiful women. Not to mention recreation.
In the 1910 version of ‘Frankenstein’ we first see man as God. The devilish
doctor creates life without needing to bother with all that messy sex business.
No, he prefers stitching together a jigsaw of stolen cadavers that have been
marinating in amniotic fluids. Nice work
if you can get it.What about ‘The Island of Lost Souls’, ‘Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde’, ‘The Mummy’ and the constantly thinning ‘Frankenstein’ franchise?
See a pattern emerging? This is about science creating life, or reanimating it
at least. But there’s a problem in all of these, they all go horribly wrong. In
the pursuit of scientific creation without sex we end with a hell of lot of
death. And this is only horror up to the 1930’s!
Okay let’s jump forward a few decades. The 1950s and
‘60s continued the roll out of the tired tropes and dull franchises. We did see
the emergence of the creature feature that the paranoia of falling A-bombs
produced. Dracula was still hanging around and zombies still did their soft
shoe shuffle. But these were remnants of a horror past. Their identities now
represented penetration and infection.
 |
Steve and Norma accidently built a BBQ and ate burgers as the bombs fell. |
Yet something stirred beneath the nuclear paranoia
and drug induced Cultural
Revolution. The master himself, Alfred Hitchcock
brought horror to the mainstream in the first year of the flower power decade.
He didn't use monsters, zombies or vampires; though in many ways Norman Bates
was all of these things. With the cinematic release of ‘Psycho’ horror became
not only mainstream but intelligent. Of course it still had the jumps and
scares to make your terrified date hold you close in fear. It also had the
power to keep you awake long after the salty taste had faded from your tongue
that night. From the popcorn I mean. Go clean your dirty minds.