COLUMN

From the Editor

Fear creates in us primordial emotions.  That is an accepted fact.   Fight or flight.  Anxiety paralyzes us because in some ancient jungle, not moving was the best way to avoid being eaten.  If this fascinates you, it is time for you to take a few classes in psychology and biology.  What this bit of writing is about is what frightens us.

In the late 80's and early 90's, we saw a decline in supernatural horror.  What was scary wasn't ghosts and goblins, but axes, chainsaws and psychopaths.  This could be due to the American fear of the present.  At any moment Ronald Reagan was going to blast the Reds to hell, or they were going to do that to us.  I can't clearly recall.  All I remember is a ghost story wasn't as frightening as "The Day After".  Or the idea of a John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer living next door.  A thump in the night isn't as scary as going into McDonalds and getting shot by a guy who isn't even espousing a political agenda, he's just pissed that he doesn't have a job.

Now we exist in a world of uncertainty again.  We still have the legacy of that time with us, as in phrases like 'going postal', but our coffins remain unsealed. 

Somewhere around the beginning of the "X-Files" (I'm not sayng the "X-Files" was the cause, it is merely a point of demarcation), the shift between tangible horror to the supernatural horror began to occur.  Supernatural horror never went away, but it did get pushed to the background.  "Prince of Darkness" was a good example but was clearly atypical.  More People remember "Cujo", "Carrie", "Christine", "Jaws", and the classic "Friday the 13th".   Movies like "Poltergeist" did occupy our cultural memories but it was riding out the last of the great supernatural movies like "The Omen", "Rosemary's Baby", and "The Exorcist".  Many of you will say I am glossing over a lot.  I may be, but I do recall more movies like "Fatal Attraction" in the 80's than movies like "The House". 

More people were frightened by Hannibal Lector than by demonic forces or ghosts.  And the reasoning behind the fear these movies caused was because these things could really happen.  Stalkers, rapists, and cannibals...oh my.

And then the box office really slapped horror up side the head with "Seven", "Scream", "I Know What you Did Last Summer", "Scream II", "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", and "Urban Legends".   I'm not going to get into the hip horror debate.  These are just examples demonstrating the finale of 'natural' horror.

Supernatural horror, which never left us, crept its way back in the mainstream slowly.  Bigger budget movies started with the "Fallen" with Denzel Washington hunting a fallen angel. "The Relic" and "the Virus" revived the terrifying monster movie.  In the Summer and Fall of 99, "The Haunting" a revival itself, revived haunted house stories.  "The Blair Witch Project" reshaped teen horror.  "Sixth Sense" continued the trend towards supernatural horror which is furthered by "Stir of Echos" and "Stigmata".

Maybe millennial fear is driving this trend or perhaps the American public is tired of waiting for their neighbors to go psycho.