The Claws We Crave
When editing this paper, I went back and reread the entire paper for grammatical errors. I also went back to and changed sentences, for example I changed the first sentence from a question to a statement. I added sentences to better explain aspects and examples I used to explain my points. I also added some integrated sentences to introduce quotations. I also added in media to help explain individual aspects that present in my paper. I also went back and alphabetized my sources.
The Claws We Crave in Horror and Grotesque Films.
Every time a horror film comes out, so many of us flock to the theaters voluntarily to watch the blood, guts, and gore. A classic horror film such as A Nightmare on Elm Street by Wes Craven became so popular it produced eight films in the 80’s and 90’s and a remake in 2010. This series of movies kept the audience on the edge of its seats for another. Wes Craven’s main character, Freddy Krueger encompasses both horror and the grotesque. He is a villain you can't run from and his appearance is straight out of hell. Many horror movies like this one have been recreated over the years. Horror and the grotesque films produce reflections of the viewers' cravings in watching these films, few as the murderer, while others ensure they are smarter than the victims, and an overall fear of death itself.
Freddy Krueger is a great example of what horror movies encompass for all audiences. The villain is horrifying in that he can kill you in your dreams. His appearance adds to the horror as a burned victim with long knives for fingers which results in an audience that is revolted and scared. As the audience watches, Craven does a great job of connecting us with all the characters, even Freddy. A horror movie should draw you in, allowing you to view fear from a safe place, observing all aspects of the film and multiple perspectives of the characters.
Freddy Krueger is about revenge, which many that have been wronged can relate to. Revenge motivates many horrific things in our reality. But for Freddy revenge and fear are his fuel in the afterlife. The “mirroring- effect” (Newell, 2012) that Craven uses in which the audience knowingly understands Freddy as the villain but learns he was also a victim of burning. For some rare viewers Freddy, can be the unknowingly hero that is able accomplish his goal of revenge.
One person became obsessed with the villain in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Daniel Gonzales, 25 of London went as far as to stab ten people to death. When he was apprehended he “told police that he wanted to spend a day in the life of a violent star of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films.” (Bird, 2006) In 2004 this man must have seen something of Freddy in himself to go as far as a three-day killing spree. Gonzales said “killing was the best thing he had done.” (Bird, 2006) This behavior on the big screen and in reality, is horrific to any social norms. Gonzales' stabbings is like Freddy's knife gloves, his signature. These gloves added to the fear and his obsession with revenge.
Craven’s use of merging reality to dreams, makes it confusing for the audience at times to realize the differences. When people like Gonzales brought Freddy Krueger to life from our own personal nightmares, it bridges the gap between fear and reality. “As John Mack has argued ‘the analysis of nightmares regularly leads us to the earliest, most profound, and inescapable anxieties and conflicts to which human beings are subject” (Carroll, 1981). For others it can relate to the violence they see on a day to day basis such as crime wars or times of war, “The horror is not merely among us, but rather part of us, caused by us" (Dana Poland, Rathgeb, 1991). Freddy Krueger in death was created by the parents of the teenagers he is killing. The parent’s burning of Freddy Krueger accounts for his grotesque form in the deadly nightmares. The way society treats people that are different than normal in a sense can create deadly monsters within our communities. We also create horror as well by means of war and gangs, making fear a reality in normal life.
The grotesque image of Freddy and his nightmare world add to the horror of the film. For “Thrill and gore seekers” this movie is perfect. “Horror films cannot be constructed as completely repelling or completely appealing” (Carroll. 1981). We seek that balance to lure us in. Craven’s ability to blend reality with nightmares over the course of the film is what makes it more terrifying for the audience, the unknowing of what is about to happen.
Horror and slasher films are mostly seen by young audiences. For them it’s almost like a rite of passage from innocents of childhood to the adult world full of dangers. Men over women tend to enjoy these movies more, because men are more desensitized to gore and violence. “Zillman argues that enjoyment of suspense is at least partially a function of the arousal created by distress” (Sanders, 2004) Arousal for the viewer is higher mostly when it seems like the victim will not escape. We as the viewers anticipate the violence and become excited, anxious, or terrified for the character in peril.
Some viewers might see Freddy the way Sanders describes him, “Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street series is presented as horrendously evil, yet he also possesses an insightful wit and biting sense of irony that many viewers may find somewhat attractive.” (Sanders’ 2004) Freddy uses our fears and dreams against us. Our beds once thought to be a safe place is the scene for most of his kills. The irony of “just a dream mom” (Craven, 1984) compared to saying “if you die in your dreams you die in real life.” (Unattributed) Craven’s creation of the more recent Freddy gives the audience a more direct perspective of the villain’s background and how he became the infamous boogie-man in one’s dreams. Freddy drives his perception home with his famous words “Welcome to my world!”
Victims in these types of horror films are mostly perceived as dumb, doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and getting killed. As a boyfriend cowers in the corner as his girlfriend is sliced and diced in front of him, thinking it was just another one of his own personal nightmares. This makes a viewer want to scream at him to get up and fight or get help, not just sit there screaming helplessly. Much like the GEICO commercial, where the victims are trying to decide where to hide or get away, there are a few options, hide in the attic, basement, behind chainsaws, or in a running car. is a running car. Of course, the victims decided to hide behind the chainsaws; even the killer has the infamous face-palm expression of a “duh” moment.
As the viewer watches the movie unravel from the safeness of their seats, one can contemplate a better way of getting away from the danger. At first the characters keep saying repeatedly that it is just a dream, notice that it is causing actual affects and know that they should not just ignore the pain. One example is the bathtub scene where Nancy’s mother warns her of falling asleep in the tub, you could drown. Instead of letting her mother know what is going on she lies and says she fell, Nancy wants to figure out on her own how to defeat this bogeyman. Most people look to others for help with fear unlike these teens in this movie who don’t realize till it’s too late. After Tina and Rod die it is up to Nancy to figure out a way to stop it all.
When she finally tells her parents about her nightmares, as a viewer you feel it is too late for them to help her. Nancy has already become part of Freddy’s obsession. But one can also tell from the expression on her parents faces, they know more then what they are letting on. The secrets being kept from the teens of their past repressed memories could have helped saved them from this hellish torment. These teens should have realized and come together sooner to defeat their fear, instead of going about their normal lives. Nancy is smarter than most in these horror/slasher films, in the way she wants to figure out the truth, but as the viewer, we wish she could have got it together sooner to save her friends lives.
Nancy and her friends still do cliché things that even the “thrill-seekers” and “gore-seekers” say don’t do that. Tina in her last nightmare before she dies goes outside to check on a noise. We as the viewer get a sense of the cringing feeling of knowing something bad is coming out of the darkness to get her. The excitement we get out of knowing something will happen along with the initial jump factor releases dopamine in our brains. The initial scare that we crave and desire that allows us to experience it without the reality of it. That feeling also allows a sense of confidence when the movie is over, that we can walk away thinking we are smarter than the victims.
Death is a normal part of life. Horror and grotesque films place the viewer where they can see and connect with each death in the film, but at a distance to remind us that death is looming over all. It also serves as a warning of going against social norms. “Elm Street films had been transformed in the early 1980’s from an anodyne youth-oriented story-telling device into a thematic and aesthetic affront to middle class values” (Nowell, 2012). The hidden secret of the parents killing Freddy comes back to haunt their children. Death has no preference for its victims. A Nightmare on Elm Street gives us that “unsettling sense of intrusion it creates” (Nowell, 2012). The intrusion is that of our own mortality. Death can come at any moment, for any reason.
A Nightmare on Elm Street shows us the “moral blemishes” of reality such as teens being sexually active. The sins of the parents taking the law into their own hands. Like Michael Slade’s Ghoul, Craven uses “personal identity, troubling our assumptions and urging us to examine our self-delusions, psychological incongruities, and fractured subjectivities, and to reflect on our materiality and morality” (Newell, 2013). In the film we see the sins of the victims and the killer. Freddy and the parents both divulge into horrific sins. The parents sin of killing someone. Freddy’s sin of being a child molester. Our society’s values go against both sins are harsher than the premarital sex of the teenagers, though they are the ones being killed.
Freddy Krueger embodies the religious form of a demon on earth. His world of nightmares being a hell within itself. With the chorus of a sadistic nursery rhyme pulling you in to find out what is going on.
One, Two, Freddy’s coming for you Three, Four, better lock your door Five, Six, grab your crucifix Seven, Eight, better stay up late Nine, Ten, never sleep again.
Craven tying religion with this horror shows that all succumb to death despite their pleas for life. Many believe Christ can save us from our fears. Tina grabs the crucifix in hopes that these hellish nightmares will come to an end. The image of the crucifix itself is one of death of someone for our sins. Much like the teens are experiencing in the sins of their parents but unknowingly and unwillingly. Death comes for us all. Nancy ‘s feelings to solve this problem of the Bogeyman alone leads her into more of the reality of a past traumatic and real nightmare that her mind has tried to repress.
Freddy made from sin takes on the form of death in these character’s reality. In Nancy’s English class, they are discussing,"what is seen is not always real"-Hamlet, Shakespeare. But death is real even though we do not see it or even know what comes after. We like to be scared and think horrible things will not happen to us, but bad things happen to good and innocent people all the time.
Not only this film but the entire genre of horror demonstrates the ideals of the viewer as the murderer, smarter than the victim, and our sense of death. We watch horror movies not because we want to kill people or be killed; but to prepare for our true fear, death. Many choose not to watch horror and grotesque films because of the scare factor or the realistic gore. The concept of death is the ultimate fear for all. That sense of permeate unknowing for eternity, what happens next, is always on our mind whether we realize it or not. We know death is inevitable for all. But we can learn from
Work Citied
1.Carroll, Noel. "Nightmare and the Horror Film: The Symbolic Biology of Fantastic Beings." Film Quarterly 34.3 (1981): 16-25. Web. 25 Oct 2014.
2. Newell, Jonathan. "Gleefully Gory: The Aesthetics Of Horror And Michael Slade's Ghoul." Horror Studies 4.1(2013): 91-107. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web 25 Oct. 2014.
3. Nowell, Richards. "Between Dreams And Reality." lluminace 24.3 (2012) 69-101. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web 25 Oct. 2014.
4.Oliver, Mary Beth, and Meghan Sanders. "The Appeal of Horror And Suspense." Horror Film (2004):242-259. Film & Television Literature with Full Text. Web 25 Oct. 2014.
5. Rathgeb, D.L. "Bogeyman From The Id." Journal Of Popular Film & Television 19.1 (1991): 36. Communication Mass Media Complete. Web 25 Oct. 2014.
6. Roche, David. "Making and Remaking Horror In the 1970's and 2000's: Why Don't They Do It Like Used To?" Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014. ebook collection (EBSCOHost). Wed. 25 Oct. 2014.
7. Steve, Bird. "Horror Fantasy of killer 'obsessed by Freddy Krueger.' “Times, The (United Kingdom) n.d. Newspaper source Plus. Web 25 Oct 2014.
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