Overview

Eco-horror is a distinct horror genre that stems from the turbulent relationship between humans and nature. The subject as a whole deals with our destructive tendencies and overt disregard for nature throughout history, and it encapsulates our fear regarding nature’s capacity to fight back. Eco-horror covers a breadth of environmental issues and generally mirrors the historical climate of the time. As such, the rise of climate change eco-horror has been especially relevant in recent years as the environmental damage becomes more and more apparent across the globe. The rise in popularized, climate-change ecohorror media comes from the latter half of the twentieth century as a result of the environmentalist movement in the 1960s. Though public sentiment regarding the issue was still mixed at the time, the need to address growing climate concerns has only become more important as compounding environmental disasters and news of new research reaches the public.

The mechanisms by which popularized media capture the fear of climate change are diverse, and our group is interested in showcasing the methods by which these entertainment outlets get under our skin and highlight the devastating potential of climate change. To do so, we will be covering various mainstream interpretations of the ongoing climate crisis in the form of books, video games, and blockbuster films. Through an in-depth analysis of each text, we hope to extrapolate the ways that these creators use the capacities of their chosen form of media to influence consumers and shed more light on the climate change crisis.

Historical Significance

According to Elon University, the major introduction of climate change eco-horror stems from the environmentalist movement in the 1960s. During this time, ground-breaking research was reaching public audiences through revolutionary means: the television was a household staple, and it became a useful and important mechanism by which news could travel rapidly. By the 1960s, 45.7 million U.S households owned a television set, and this new technology would serve as the primary receptacle for news, entertainment, and other media for years to come. As such, visual propaganda was widespread, and news was taking on a different form than it had in its past. For instance, the Vietnam War, also considered the “First Television War,” was the first time that people could truly see the detrimental and horrific fallout from war. As such, the younger generation was heavily incensed by the horror playing across the screen, and this along with many other historical issues would lead to the Counterculture Movement in the early 1960s (Elon University). In later years, this movement would transform into the Environmentalist Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of government policy and popularized research. 

According to Naomi Booth, the government had made small changes in an effort to preserve the environment: in 1967, the government passed the first Clean Water Act and the first federal emissions standards. Public sentiment, however, was wavering as a result of a number of ecological catastrophes, such as the Union Oil Spill in January 1969. Despite the traction from the Counterculture Movement, these younger revolutionaries found themselves entrenched in legislative hindrances, and it would take a few years to fully push this movement into the spotlight. With the work and help of established senators such as Gaylord Nelson and ambitious revolutionaries such as Denis Hayes, the first Earth Day would take place on April 22, 1970. In the face of all the opposition and difficulty, thousands of people across the United States stood in favor of Earth Day (Booth).

According to Robert Bruelle, global warming and the ever-present climate change issue would finally make its name as a national issue on June 23, 1988. In the face of worrisome research describing the depletion of the ozone layer and the subsequent warming of our planet, the international community fretted about what could be done to reverse the damage. As such, the United Nations would later sign a treaty called the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” an international treaty that was designed as a method by which countries could work towards limiting carbon emissions. The issue, however, is that systemic change has still not taken place to the extent that it needs to in order to properly combat climate change. As a result of differing opinions and polarizing views, the United States is one such country that has been struggling to come up with an efficient and long-term plan that can be helpful to the ongoing crisis. This contention has only grown since the Environmental Movement in the 1960s, and the result is a gaping divide between climate change activists and governmental officials or corporate authorities (Bruelle).

The Rise of Climate Change Eco-Horror Media

In the 1980s, slasher films were extremely popular in the horror genre, as they were able to encapsulate the fear of home invasions and the growing concern for the wild, unpredictable younger generation. Slasher films stemmed from the contentious relationship between the younger and older generations, highlighting the “idiocy” in teenagers and discouraging irresponsible drinking, underaged sex, and a number of other concerns. Though it is relatively new, climate change eco-horror also shares common themes with its popularized predecessor: the inherent ignorance of man in the face of growing environmental concern leads to irreversible damage that could possibly ruin humanity in the process. This trope is important to the integrity of climate change eco-horror because it delves into the relationship that we humans have with our environment. In the face of widespread political discussion and polarizing opinion, climate-change eco-horror sought to bind humans together under a common, unescapable emotion: fear. The dramatization of the “what-if” factor leads to a disorienting and absurd genre that builds on our fear of losing control to something much more powerful and immortal, such as Mother Nature. In an effort to bring attention to the growing climate change concerns and also to profit off the discussion and political fervor, major producers and directors such as M. Night Shyamalan, Stephen Spielberg, and Davis Guggenheim brought climate-change eco-horror to the big screen and harvested nightmares from the world around us. And though movies are a popularized form of media, climate-change eco-horror extends beyond the typical visual format into books, shows, and even video games as producers sought to build off of our generational fear and negligence of the climate change crisis and global warming.