The latest Brad Pitt block-buster movie World
War Z - about a zombie apocalypse sweeping the world -
has just opened in the UK. But does the immense global popularity
of horror genre films like these reveal something dark lurking in
our psyches?
In a paper entitled Monsters
Evolve: A Biocultural Approach to Horror Stories, Mathias
Clasen from Aarhus University, recently argued that evolution has
programmed our brains to be alert to, and fascinated by, violent
danger in our environments. There was survival value in such
hyper-vigilance.
The paper published in the academic journal Review
of General Psychology, points out that the best way to get a
sense of what life was like for hundreds of thousands of years for
our ancestors, is to look at the everyday experiences of modern day
so-called, primitive, hunter-gatherer tribes. A recent study of
such foragers in Paraguay found 55% of all deaths were due to
violence in one form or another.
Horror films, according to this theory, exploit our brains being
wired up by our evolutionary past, to be gripped by any possibility
of violence.
What is particularly powerful about this evolutionary theory is that it follows that what scares us is remarkably similar, no matter what culture across the world we hail from. This is very different from what makes us laugh.
If you try watching a comedy film in a foreign language and from
another culture, you're unlikely to find it anywhere near as
amusing as one where you understand the language and the way of
life. However, try watching a horror film under similar conditions,
and even if you know nothing of the speech or society about which
it's made, you're still likely to become scared.
But are there even murkier psychological reasons for why horror
films are regarded within the industry as the most consistently
performing Hollywood genre at the box office?
A study of 50 'Slasher' Horror films released in North America
between 1960 and 2007, entitled Sex
and Violence in the Slasher Horror Film: A Content Analysis of
Gender Differences in the Depiction of Violence, found female
characters were more likely, compared to male, to be victimized in
scenes involving a concomitant presentation of sex and
violence.
The study by Dr Andrew Welsh, from the Department of Criminology and Contemporary Studies at Laurier Brantford University in Canada, argues that the origins of the modern 'slasher' movie can be traced back to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho(1960).
It's infamous shower scene introduced the basic plot elements of
the male killer and the helpless female victim. These were to recur
again and again in subsequent lucrative Horror film franchises
including the Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween,
and Friday
the 13th.
Welsh argues that frequent depictions of nudity and immoral
behaviour by victims, unfamiliar locations, sudden death scenes
designed to maximize shock, have defined the slasher film formula
since 'Psycho', and were all present in the original.
Welsh's study selected randomly 50 slasher horror films from the
Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and 1960 was chosen as the starting
point because Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho,
generally regarded as the first 'slasher' horror film, was released
then.
The findings of the study, published in the Journal
of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, include that forms of
psychological aggression, such as intimidation, stalking, or
chasing, disproportionately involved female characters compared to
male. Violent interactions involving female victims were
significantly longer in duration as compared to those involving a
male victim.
The study concludes that female characters in slasher horror films
are significantly more likely to be victims in scenes involving sex
and violence, as compared to male characters. Female characters are
far more likely to be partially or fully naked and, when sexual and
violent images are present, a woman is more likely to be the victim
of attack.
This study of slasher horror films, reinforces concerns about women
being frequently depicted in states of abject terror and
helplessness.
But the slasher horror 'formula' also includes the final surviving
character usually being a woman. This is so common that she is
referred to as the 'Final Girl'. Welch points out that other
researchers are concerned that the surviving female character tends
to possess 'idealized virginal qualities', distinguishing her from
other non-surviving female characters. The underlying message is
that female characters who defy traditional gender roles by
engaging in assertive and/or promiscuous sexual behaviour, are
punished.
This plot device appears to be echoed back in the original horror
slasher movie -Psycho.
Zombie movies have also been subject to similar psychological
analysis, and it's notable that ancient evolutionary fears of
predation, contagion and the dead are all neatly combined by
zombies. Such creatures being unequivocally bad and requiring
terrific violence to dispatch them, might also appeal to
unconscious aggressive motivations within us.
Christian Jarrett writing in The
Psychologist, published by the British Psychological Society,
points out in an article entitled, 'The lure of horror', zombies
actually originated in Haiti. In reality they appear to have been
the seriously mentally ill.
The fact horror films violate all everyday moral codes may be
precisely their attraction. They provide a playground where we can
indulge in the fantasy of not being governed by ethical complexity
and rules.
Because when you are facing death, life becomes refreshingly
simple.
END
If you are interested in joining a conversation on the theme of mental illness in the movies, visit http://www.meetup.com/The-UK-CBT-Group/events/213809652/ to book tickets for a screening of ''A Dangerous Method' starring Kiera Knightley followed by a discussion open to the public chaired by Raj Persaud. In the audience will be members of the public as well as psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, at the Royal College of Psychiatrists HQ, Prescott Street, Aldgate London, on 9th December at 6.30 for 7.00 pm - wine and canapés will be served.