I thought for Halloween that I would write something on death and society, about how society resists change because to change is to be as good as dead. I missed the post date for that. I was under pressure to write, and let’s just say I don’t always put out my best work under pressure. All the same, I have to continue to attempt to write, or else I might always be under pressure. So I decided to save that topic for a later post. I still wanted to write a late Halloween post though. The topic made itself clear after watching the movie The Eyes of My Mother on Netflix one morning. It was a perfect storm, the movie, and the thought. Why do we love horror movies so much? I believe our collective interest in horror is something that should be looked at, as it is valuable for our self-awareness.
I was ten when I first became interested in horror films. Like forbidden fruit, I was not allowed to pick them out at Blockbuster. My mother wished that I might stay a child for just a while longer. However it was too late, when I was nine I had been disillusioned and that’s when my innocence left me. The movies were nothing sophisticated, in fact, I grew up on the same spooky stuff that many millennial children did. I watched Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. When I was eleven I went through my pop horror phase, and at twelve I adored anything based on Stephen King books. After that, I got very much into paranormal things in real life, which is a tangent best left for another posting. I loved horror movies as a teenager. I would fall asleep to whatever was playing on Chiller, the horror movie channel. I would scour for B-movies to find underrated indie films; those ones were the best. The ones where the videographer is overqualified and the writers are all very niche. Then I might find something shadowy, and contrasted; disturbing in the idea more than anything. My taste in horror finally refined itself as I went through high school, becoming familiar with my own mortality as people of that age often do.
Horror movies are seldom very scary unless the concept itself is scary. I never got frightened by The Ring, or Halloween, or Saw. I can understand why they were popular movies, but to me, they seemed diluted. I could dismiss fright with statistics, I’m not going to be chosen by some serial murderer, ghosts don’t work like that, and no one’s going to torture me unless I tell them to. The best horror movies are the ones that say something about society because these are horrors that I either already have been subjected to, or if I have not, then I will be by the time that I die. To be treated as an object by a man, or to be driven insane by absolute loneliness. The best horror movies are the ones that force us to look at ourselves.
I am watching humanity become self-aware, which some might call divine, but I will call it art.
I find that this is something that defines me. I read poetry, learn languages, analyze art. I am interested in why society acts the way it does. Most indie horror is art and sociological by nature. I often wondered why I pursued this kind of horror in my life, at times I wished that I could live without it, live peacefully, but I found it necessary. It was a part of myself that I liked, why? I think the fact that it exists is the possibility that I am not alone in this thinking. It is comforting to know that someone else in the world is aware of this atrociousness. Do not get me wrong, I am an optimist at heart, it is every love before me that have had their doubts about society. I am an optimist, but I am not naive. I know what is wrong with us now, how sick society can be: I have experienced it first hand. However, I believe since I am willing to look at it, and I am part of society, so society will come to look at it too: we will improve. When I watch a horror movie, what I am watching is not the horrors of our society. I am watching someone become suddenly aware of the problem, making an attempt to fix it by alerting others to the problem. I am watching humanity become self-aware, which some might call divine, but I will call it art.
I just watched a movie called The Eyes of My Mother, and I thought it was beautiful. I nearly cried at the end of it and was deeply disturbed the entire way through. The videography was in black and white, paying special attention to contrast and texture. As a black and white film photographer, I can appreciate how every bit of every frame was planned out. It works like visual poetry: the angle has to work with the light which has to work with the texture. In other words, it was a perfect storm or a stroke of genius. Thought latching onto thought and pulling. The deliberate nature of the visuals in the movie, even the main actress’s movements, graceful yet unpredictable, is metered control over our perception of the topics under scrutiny. Visually, the movie was contrasted, I found myself really wanting to trust the characters, but it rendered me ultimately unable to.
The best horror movies are the ones that force us to look at ourselves.
The majority of the dialogue is in Portuguese because it gives us the feeling of being in a foreign country, which could be a lonely experience for anyone. The television set was even thought out, speaking in English, clear to us: almost physical. In fact, all of the main character’s interactions with greater society are in English, which not only creates a divide of her living two lives but also stands as a contrast. It almost says to us that she knows better, which disturbs us even more. However, when she is alone, it seems foggy, sort of delusional, as the darker half might be. Even in essence, the movie is contrasted, and the character moves between shadow and light with etheric ease.
All of this together gives us a perfect portrait of loneliness. The control of it gives us the feeling of lack of control, lack of balance. These are themes that can be associated with mental illness, but what defines mental illness? The society which deems it ill. If that is the case, then does mental illness even exist? If society was not sick, then perhaps humanity wouldn’t know such illness. We are forced overtime to identify with this character, or at very least empathize with her. It wasn’t her fault she turned out this way after all. I think in some ways that’s the point: we are murderous animals, but it’s not our fault we came out this way. We are victims of circumstance, but we know better. The isolation of this movie is highly symbolic, using the legend of St. Francis of Assisi, who died blind. This is an essential part of the movie, which speaks at large about loneliness, but also symbolic blindness.
So why do we love horror movies? Morbid curiosity aside, it is because we would sacrifice our sanity for the sake of our sight. It is better to be alone, and aware of what is happening before us than to be blind and bound in a barn, nothing more than a wretched animal. The fact that these kinds of movies exist tells us that we are not, in fact, alone in this thought. It is a hopeful message: we see, so we can change. That is more than might otherwise be expected. This is the true purpose of horror in our lives, it is a means to heal our collective wounds. It’s mental alchemy, we take our traumas and our problems, and we make art of it. Like Francisca, we dance in the face of death.
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