Philosophy and Film: The Paradoxes of Horror

I feel that I am in a unique place to discuss the genre of horror, mainly because it is probably my least favorite and least watched of all genres. It is my hope that this fact will allow me to discuss the paradoxes, which Noel Carroll discusses in The Philosophy of Horror, in a much more Cavellian fashion. This should be possible due to my very limited experience with the genre of horror and the relatively small number of horror films that I have seen. I should, therefore, be able to concentrate on my responses to the films that I have seen during what was, in most cases, my one and only viewing of a horror film.

The first paradox mentioned by Carroll in The Philosophy of Horror is the way in which one can still be frightened by something that he/she knows not to exist. Carroll claims this to be because of the thought processes that arise as a result of, and during, the viewing of a horror film. This is in opposition both to what he calls the "Illusion Theory of Fiction," which is the theory that a viewer is deceived into believing the horrific sight to be actually real, and to what he calls the "Pretend Theory of Fictional Response," which is the view that so-called emotional responses to horror films are not actual emotional responses, but that the viewer is "pretending" to have such a response. I do agree with Carroll's assessment of both the "Illusion Theory" and the "Pretend Theory." When reflecting upon my own limited experience with horror films, despite the fact that I was often so tense and agitated by the sights on the screen, I do not recall, even for a second, feeling deceived into believing the horrific sights to be real. Nor do I sincerely believe that my emotional responses were somehow not genuine.

For example, having never viewed Child's Play before a section of it was shown in our Philosophy and Film class, I found myself becoming very tense, aggravated, and anticipating and preparing myself for Chucky to come to life. In support of Carroll's claims, it did in fact seem as if the emotional responses, i.e., becoming tense and aggravated, were caused by my own thoughts, such as the anticipation of something I knew to be coming. Thus the immediate linkage between the image and the emotion is broken in favor of a more indirect link between image and emotion via thought. Such the situation has been in the other horror films I have seen, such as Lord of Illusions, Vampires, Sixth Sense, and Jaws 4.

In my own experience, it seems as though the film is more of the catalyst for the emotions rather than the object of them. For example, after having seen Vampires, I was walking across the Solano Mall parking lot with a friend, imagining Vampires to be just around every corner, just out of my sights, waiting to attack me. I became horrified of the notion and remained so throughout my entire drive home. It seems in hindsight that I was more fearful of my own imaginings than of anything I had seen on the screen that night, which leads me to believe that it is one's own imagination that causes the emotional responses, not to the movie, but to the content of those very imaginings. Thus, it does not seem accurate to say that I was fearful of the movie, but more so that I was fearful of the fictions I had created in my own mind, both during and after the film.

This having been said, however, does not the question still remain of exactly how I myself could be frightened of the fiction I had created in my own mind, in exactly the same way as the question of how the fiction on the screen could frighten me? It seems as though I have simply moved the locus of the fiction, and consequently it seems that the question still remains unanswered. I have a firm conviction that the answer lies in the exact ontology of one's anticipation, for it seems that the fear that I have experienced while viewing horror films is deeply intertwined with anticipation. But anticipation of what? Of actually being attacked by vampires en route to my car? It does not seem likely. If the anticipation is not anticipation of some actual event that may occur in which I, qua viewer, would be placed into actual danger by the monster (in Carroll's sense), then what is the anticipation of? When one is startled, it produces what could be called negative bodily effects, e.g., sweaty palms, increased heart rate, et cetera. Invariably, horror films have an element of surprise to them. We know that the monster is just around the corner, but we do not know which corner or when we shall reach it. Could the anticipation simply be of the negative effects on one's body that are produced by the sudden and chilling appearance of the monster? That does seem much more likely than one's being in anticipation of the occurrence in reality of something that had hitherto been purely a fiction, be that fiction in the mind or on the screen. Thus, it seems that Carroll, at least in my horror-viewing experience, is exactly correct in saying that it is one's thought that produces the emotions, by means of anticipation of bodily responses that themselves produce their own bodily responses in the viewer of a horror film.

The question of the second paradox of horror remains, i.e., why anyone would voluntarily subject himself to something like a horror film when it will obviously produce such negative responses. Given Carroll's claim that the horror genre may be considered to be the dark side of the enlightenment, and also given the suspicious way in which Americans typically view intellectualism, it seems reasonable that the average American would gravitate to something that is definitionally in opposition to the goals and knowledge of the enlightenment. If the enlightenment created the notion of a rational view of nature, and hence allowed a judgement of what is to be viewed as unnatural, and if the populous is skeptical about the value of rational endeavors, then there should be little wonder that people are so open to the effects of horror films. It may be argued that this shows that the average viewer is more comfortable with fear than with what he/she views to be elitist, intellectual pursuits. I myself have always valued intellectualism, and given this interpretation of horror, i.e., as the dark side of intellectualism, it does seem to follow that I would not be much of a horror fanatic, which is most definitely the case. While this may be somewhat of an oversimplification, it does seem to be on the right track to explain why the general public is so ready to subject themselves to the negative bodily effects that horror can produce.

While I have made out the effects of surprise and suspense in horror films to be unpleasant and negative, it must be noted that, on average, these effects are relatively harmless. They do not pose any real life-threatening danger to the viewer. The person going to see a horror film is obviously aware of the harmless nature of these effects, and may in fact just like to have his system surprised, just as one may sky-dive or ride a motorcycle for the same reason, purely for the thrill. I am wondering if this provides some justification for the "Pretend Theory of Fictional Reaction." If someone goes to see a horror film for the sake of having his system startled, how can the emotions produced be said to be genuine fear? Is the viewer in this case simply pretending to be afraid, or is there an actual level of fear involved? It seems to me that the emotions produced, regardless of whether they may be defined as fear, are in fact real, not pretend, emotions. The anticipation that our hypothetical viewer feels is undoubtedly real, not pretend. So it seems that this case does not in fact provide support for the "Pretend Theory," but rather for Carroll's "Thought Theory." For anticipation is not only able to be characterized by its associated bodily responses, but also by the sense of worry and dread that are invariably associated with anticipation of a negative thing.

Carroll's explanation of the horror genre as the dark-side of the enlightenment has endlessly fascinated me throughout the reading of his book. It so elegantly explains why earlier forms of literature that include monsters, e.g., Dante's Inferno, Greek mythology, et cetera, are not considered to be included in the horror genre. Prior to the enlightenment, there was no structured sense of the natural world, making it easy to view such monsters in a way other than Carroll's sense of art-horror. Such creatures were undoubtedly threatening, but they could not have been viewed as a violation of the natural world, and hence as unclean or impure, until the fixation of the natural world into a rational system during the enlightenment.

In conclusion of this paper, I do not feel that Carroll has significantly added anything to, or clarified what we are to call horror. Neither the "Illusion Theory" nor the "Pretend Theory" seems to be very plausible. One has only to reflect on his/her own viewing experience as I have done here to show this to be the case. However, the validity of Carroll's entire project seems in question, due to the changing nature of the genre. In order that the genre may not become formulaic, the creators of horror films must constantly be adding new twists to the methodology of horror, which, after time, seem to be able to invalidate prior Aristotelian definitions of the genre. I feel this to be the case somewhat with Carroll's work. Considering the increasing popularity of such, as I call them, "Teenager-Slash-'em-up movies," over the last decade or so, e.g., Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, et cetera, it seems that the genre is beginning to change sufficiently that Carroll's definitions seem too precise and narrow to encompass everything we want to call and include as horror. Thus, while his definition of horror is extremely useful in describing the origin of the genre in the enlightenment, it does not seem to be quite accurate or all-encompassing enough to be a complete description of the current state of the horror genre.