In the last post, I took a closer look at what holds up the powerful theme of demons and demonic judgement. This is just one facet of the "Demonic" theme.
Just how many Haunting/Exorcism movies are there??
The Exorcist
The Exorcist II - the Heretic
The Exorcist III
Dominion - Prequel to the Exorcist
Exorcist: The Beginning
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
The Last Exorcism
The Rite
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal Activity 2
Paranormal Activity 3
Paranormal Activity 4
Insidious
The Skeptic
Constantine
Exorcismo
The Devil Inside
The Others
Devil
Prince of Darkness
The Haunting in Connecticut
The Haunting of Molly Hartley
An American Haunting
The Haunting
REC (remade as Quarantine)
REC 2
REC 3: Genesis
The list goes on and on. There is no doubt that the theme is a popular one, and that it can support the trend of horror movies to spawn many sequels. But why are they so scary and/or popular?
It could happen to anyone
By choosing children and characters that are part of tight-knit families and who are loved, parents, children, and the rest of the population are affected by the threat that anyone could potentially turn evil. This also holds emotional weight in families with abusive family members, where a parent can become abusive at the drop of a hat, as can ordinary children.
They prey on the sense of security that people have, which is one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the movie or game makers. By keeping them off balance, and out of their comfort zone, the audience is much easier to scare.
Your house may be haunted too!
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs suggests that safety and habitat is high on the list of things the audience needs to be content. By merely suggesting that a participant's house may become possessed can be completely unnerving for the audience.
Source:
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, pp. 370.
In last week's infographic post, I looked at what themes scare people the most. It was a close race between two categories: demons and exorcisms, and ghosts and hauntings. Both are spiritual or religious in nature, and as I pointed out in that post, it isn't surprising; considering that over a third of the United States is part of a Christ-based religion. This is not to say that demonic themes are not scary to non-religious people, or to people who don't believe that that particular manifestation of evil exists.
Demonology and the Bible
“The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” - (The English Standard Bible - Revelation 12:9)
This passage from the Bible is one of many that mentions demons directly. From these passages we know that demons were angels that fell with Satan because of the sin of pride. While the Bible doesn't speak extensively on them, demons and Satan have been the subject of many films, paintings, books, and games. The quintessential description of demons and hell comes from Dante Alighieri, in the second part of his Divine Comedy, Dante explores the nine circles of hell in great detail. It describes what each inhabitant did to deserve their place in hell. From the perspective of a horror story writer, this is a fantastic way to exploit the insecurities people have about their habits.
Demons and Film
Many demonic films focus on punishment, where even the slightest indiscretions are judged severely (See the film Se7en). Other films choose to widen the scope of the judgement to all of mankind, which takes the control out of the participant's insecurities (See the film the Prince of Darkness). If the participant feels a nagging worry that they might be a target of such a beast for their transgressions, they at least have the possibility to rectify their lives. When they're judged on other's actions, they have much less control, removing the "fight" response as a possibility, which as I discussed in the previous post, elevates the anxiety in the participant.
Regardless of our religious alignments, or whether they are real or not, demons and demonic themes scare us.
With Halloween just around the corner, many of us are asking, "What is scary?". Humans, like most animals, react to perceived danger in one of three ways: Fight, Flight, or Paralysis (Or as Walter Bradford Cannon put it, "fight-or-flight-or-freeze").
"Fight or flight" is a more common factor in games than in films. Unlike films, where the audience is just along for the ride, games lend the participant a certain amount of control, allowing the "fight or flight" choice to be made. Film makers attempt to keep their victims participants in a constant state of shock, or "paralysis", raising their anxiety to astronomical levels.
For games, it depends greatly on how much control participants are given. Action horror games tend to be a more tame experience, as the makers are inclined to give the participant a means to battle the perceived fear, returning the "fight" option missing from films. Survival horror games on the other hand, tend to be more conservative with the amount of control they allow participants.
Case Study: Arcade Action Horror Game - Dead Rising (1 and 2)
The game Dead Rising is an arcade style action horror game, in which the participant wanders around an enormous mall, filled with thousands of zombies, and experiments with ways on how to most creatively dispose of them. There isn't a lot of fear or anxiety to be had when the game character is walking around a well lit mall with two chainsaws strapped to a hockey stick (as shown in the game's cover art). Because of the lighthearted nature of the game, this gives players more room to relax and have fun. Read more about it in IGN's review.
What makes Dead Rising different from many in the horror genre is the sense of power that participants have. They can kill hordes of zombies with a dizzying array of weaponry, and even in the game-world, it is all just a game (a reality TV game-show).
Dead Rising removes the possibility of running,
but compensates by giving participants an abundance
of power, making it far less scary than others in the genre.
Case Study: Survival Action Horror Game - Resident Evil (1-6)
The Resident Evil franchise is well known in the gaming community as a scary, and fun, game. The game makers limit the ability of the participants to "fight", by limiting the amount of ammunition and guns. They also limit the amount of "flight" the participant can do by only providing a small amount of 'health', making encounters with zombies a bigger risk.
The Resident Evil franchise is primarily a shooting game, with a secondary focus on an RPG survival element.
Case Study: Survival Horror Game - Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia is a relatively new take on the horror game genre, giving participants little or no ability to fend off attack. Most of the gameplay is puzzle based, but with the constant threat of being attacked by the various monsters. The only options when faced with a monster, is to run, hide, or... The game is as renowned as the other two games, but Amnesia is famous for the terrifying effect it has on people. Just have a look at the video below if you don't believe it.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a game
where you have almost no power
and your only option for many situations
is to hide.
WARNING: CURSING AHEAD. (Audio and in Subtitles)
Sources:
Walter Bradford Cannon (1915). Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
IGN. Onyett, Charles. Dead Rising Review. Updated August 7, 2006, Retrieved October 26, 2012, from http://www.ign.com/articles/...
IGN. George, Richard. Resident Evil 6 Review. Updated October 1, 2012, Retrieved October 26, 2012, from http://www.ign.com/articles/...
Starting our analysis at the top of the graphic, we see an interesting phenomenon: religious fears, for a majority of those surveyed, creates the strongest emotional response. That's not surprising though, as the CIA World Factbook claims that 33.5% of the world population is Christian (at least a faith based in Christianity).
Most interesting to me is the correlation between the themes of the movies, and their ratings on both the survey and on RottenTomatoes.com. It suggests that the ranking of the themes is accurate, in that the scariest movie has the scariest theme, and so on. That trend also continues for the top 5 movies. Moreover, the movies that are the scariest aren't necessarily the best. We could also consider the evidence that movies which mixed their themes got significantly more critical acclaim, but there isn't enough data to prove that hypothesis.
HorrorBid. (2012). The Best and Worst Horror Movies of All Time Survey - Fans Speak!. Updated October 12, 2012, Retrieved October 25, 2012, from http://www.horrorbid.com/blog/blog1.php/...
Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his First Inaugural Address: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". That may explain why you don't like the idea of scary movies, but doesn't explain what drives the fear you experience when you're watching one. Fear is your body's way of getting you out of the way of a perceived threat - much like disgust, which is the body's way of avoiding exposure to diseases. You may have questions regarding this, and I myself have posed some question I intend to address succinctly and analyticaly.
What is fear?
Why do our brains, which evolved to run from large cats with big teeth, enjoy being scared?
Is thrill seeking purely a group activity?
What sub-genres of scary thrillers exist?
Why does each affect us the way it does?
Which techniques generate the biggest "scare" factor?
What are some examples in movies and games?
Why should you care?
Knowing the underlying factors of fear is of prime importance in creating art and narrative, especially manipulating the emotions of your audience. As artists, we are expected to convey our thoughts to our audience; to do this, we must first understand what they feel, and why. Of course there is already a large amount of literature on the subject, but this method aims to succinctly unify the various sub-genres of horror and thriller using a set of basic, primordial fears, and identify why people enjoy them.
How am I going to do it?
By comparing the success of movies and games to their various sub-genres and methods of terror, I am expecting to find general, though perhaps not perfect, equations for creating successful thrillers. By observing factors that make a thrilling story, it will also be interesting to see how the equation can be used to break the mold, and create more innovative thrillers.
What can you look forward to?
To figure out what we are most scared of and which of these things thrill us the most, you can expect a series of breakdowns of each sub-genre and aspect of fear, compared to the success of popular films, games, and stories. I'll attempt to do this with around ten posts, the aid of charts and infographics, interviews, and podcasts.
