ARTICLE

The Role of the Madman
by Dan Swensen

One of the most powerful, and most often abused, archetypes of horror cinema is that of the madman. Insanity is one of the deepest and most powerful wells that horror fiction can tap, and yet it has consistently been mishandled and abused in many modern American horror films.

American cinema has always feared the intellectual. Classic horror movies of the 40s and 50s, more often than not, feature amoral scientists who charge blindly into the arms of scientific progress with no regard for the ethical implications of their work, and so are ultimately destroyed by their own creation. Given that
such movies came out in the era immediately following the development of the atomic bomb, this sort of cinematic sentiment should come as no surprise; however, those classic movies have left behind a legacy of fear -- not the overt fear of the psychotic killer or the mutated beast, but a deeper, more subliminal
fear of the intellectual. In some sense, the "intellectual scientist" stereotype has always been depicted as a certain breed of madman; the quiet individual who seems intelligent, but ultimately holds no regard for human life.

Modern action and science fiction movies have always been a staple of low-brow entertainment, and therefore have often featured lowbrow everymen as their lead characters. This is altogether fitting; the idea of a spectacled researcher "reasoning" the monster to death has admittedly little box-office appeal. However, modern genre movies in general, and horror films in particular (prior to the worthless and barely mentionable Kevin Williamson / Scream phenomenon) have increasingly featured brawny, Aryan Sun Kings ruthlessly smashing all that the Remorseless Intellectuals have built up.

Take, for example, the triple threat of Alien, Aliens, and Predator 2. In all three films, a monstrous alien presence looms. In all three movies, faceless government entities order the Everymen to deal with the situation, then double-cross and betray them in order to more effectively (and amorally) use the alien threats for military applications. Such scenes always culminate with the immortal exchange: "Just look at it. It's perfect," to which the Everyman replies, in moral indignation, "You admire it... don't you!" Invariably, however, the government scientists make a misstep, disaster ensues, and it's up to the gun-toting ubermensch to clean up the mess.

Of the intellectual madmen of cinema, two examples come readily to mind. The first is Jeffrey Combs in Re-Animator, a largely forgettable film adapted from Lovecraft's "Herbert West: Re-Animator." Combs plays the unflappable Herbert West, a soft-spoken young man who takes room and board with a dull young suburban couple. When the couple begins finding traces of his gruesome handiwork (dead cats in the refrigerator and so forth), and express their horror and revulsion, Combs doesn't bat an eye -- he softly chastises them for their childish behavior, and goes on about his work. They destroy him, of course, to preserve their idyllic middle class existence; it's Suburbia Uber Alles in modern american horror cinema.

Another effective, and far more chilling, intellectual madman is the psychologist Decker in Clive Barker's Nightbreed, played by David Cronenberg. Cronenberg plays his role perfectly; casually committing murders while he gently and subtly lays the blame on one of his patients. When his madness comes to the fore, it does so only briefly; his voice wavers as he describes his murderous actions, then quickly drops back to a stage whisper. Like any good intellectual madman, Decker rarely betrays emotion, and when he does, soon brings it back under control:

Old Man: You're crazy!
Decker [deadpan]: No, I'm death. Say it!
[Old man says nothing; after half a second, Decker stabs him to death]
Decker: Then don't say it.

More vexing than this first type of madman -- the quiet intellectual -- is the second type, which is the "gibbering madman" or "Giggler", as we shall call him.Unfortunately, anyone who has seen a lot of horror cinema has seen far too much of this particular archetype. The first example that comes to mind is in the
forgettable Sleepwalkers, where the villain, whose demeanor in early scenes has been appropriately sunny and deceitful, suddenly transforms mid-sequence into a giggling loon shrieking "Cop-Kabob!" at the top of his lungs, and otherwise embarrassing himself. Likewise, the character of Freddy Kreuger from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, who has a gruesome and fascinating backstory, relies heavily on dull one-liners and dime-store psychosis. While not precisely cinema, the Sierra PC game Phantasmagoria
also offers a prime example of the "Giggler" phenomenon. The character Jack (the husband of the protagonist), begins as a kind, loving husband, then slowly transforms into a menacing lout, drinking heavily and knocking off the telephone repairman. The end sequence, in which the protagonist Adrian discovers Jack's darkroom, filled with photographs of her -- all decapitated -- is a chilling and effective scene. Unfortunately, it is all too ruthlessly spoiled by Jack's arrival, in which he shrieks and capers like a hyperactive drama major. Jack is really the quintessential Giggler; he laughs constantly, and badly, when nothing is really funny.

Perhaps the only effective madman of the Giggler archetype is nearly an archetype in himself: Jack Nicholson's character in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Almost everyone is familiar with the axe-wielding "here's Johnny!" routine that occurs at the climax of the film, but the far more interesting
development is Jack's slow spiral into madness; his brutal admonishment to Wendy never to enter his workspace (rather similar, humorously, to his conversation with Simon in the opening scenes of As Good As It Gets), leading up to one of the movie's most effective scenes: Wendy discovering the endless sheets
of paper reading ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY. The final scene of
Jack stumbling through the hedge maze, axe in hand, bellowing, puts any other Giggler-type madman to shame. Nicholson has an opportunity to develop his character over time, to "go mad," and his descent from smiling, collected Jack to howling, axe-swinging animal is a sight to behold.

There are, of course, other well-done madmen in horror cinema, but they are rarer by far than their infantile, boring counterparts. Two figures stand out above the rest: Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

Norman Bates, as played by Anthony Perkins, is neither an intellectual madman nor a Giggler archetype; he is his own animal, shy and withdrawn, soft-spoken and likeable. His sinister nature doesn't reveal itself until the end of the film, when he, not Mother, is revealed as the true villain. Up until that point, he is Mother's unwitting dupe, doing her bidding. That we realize, only later, that Norman's conversations with Mother were only conversations with himself, lends a certain chill to the experience, and to Bates' insanity.

Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, as played by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, is much like the intellectual madman, but is so cunning that he defies all categorization. Even bound, guarded, and behind steel bars, he is so wily that his words and knowledge have greater power than weapons. Unlike the typical intellectual madman, who is generally something of a cold fish, Lecter is emotional and passionate -- a clever, well-rounded human being who just happens to be quite mad. As far as examples go, horror cinema can aspire no higher than Hannibal Lecter.

To the genre's misfortune, recent horror movies have not only continued to fear the intellectual and misuse the madman, but to erase them from the pantheon algogether. The brooding scientist or the cackling lunatic have been replaced with the silent, remorseless killer, right out of the Tale of the Hook; Jason, Michael Myers, and the Gorton's fisherman from I Know What You Did Last Summer. These icons are not truly characters, but figures out of a contemporary Jungian mythology; the post-modern boogeyman. Even as audiences and critics berate and bewail the death of storytelling, pointing frantic fingers at formulaic scripts and unabashed marketing, the characters of the movies themselves slowly decompose in personality, becoming ever more bland, forgettable, and homogenous. Perhaps this demonstrates, as in all eras of cinema, that the movie monster is only a reflection of ourselves.