Open Water, Again (This Time With a Realist Horror Model)

Last week as a commenter, my primary critique (as well as many of yours) was that Carroll’s definition of a monster and classical model for understanding horror did not account for horror film featuring main characters like those in Psycho or Funny Games, or speak to the entire premise of films like Open Water. In her essay “Realist Horror,” Cynthia Freeland shares our concerns about the less than applicable classical theory when it comes to assessing realist horror. 

Freeland critique’s Carroll for the same reasons that we did through either posts or comments last week-- his definition of a monster is too narrow to account for realist horror films, the emphasis does not seem to be on the plot at all, and there does indeed seem to be a human interest in the spectacle of horror. 

Freeland explains that Carroll’s premise reflects Aristotle’s theory for understanding the value of tragedy. This theory breaks down to essentially three qualifications (page 264):

1. We as viewers must acknowledge the film as imitation.
2. We describe the construction of the film with an emphasis on plot and narrative. 
3. We describe the emotional response to the film that the film aimed to produce. 

This creates a problem when discussing realist horror films because:

1. Too often these films are based on, albeit sometimes loosely, real-life serial killers. Freeland cites examples of The Silence of the Lambs and Henry, both of which featured characters based on real life monsters. Clearly, these characters are not ‘impossible’ to use language from Carroll’s definition, as their real-life counterparts are just that-- real-life. She explains that these stories get just as much attention in the news as they do when they are converted for feature films, thus that there is some innate interest in monstrous displays of violence and those who commit those acts. 
2. Freeland argues that the construction of the realist horror film is fundamentally different than that employed in tragedy and classical horror, with an emphasis not on plot but on spectacle and the aftermath of spectacle instead. 
3. These previous two elements do not allow for the classical understanding of an aesthetic response; Freeland proposes that this is not a shortcoming of realist horror films, but that this allows for more nuanced readings into the purposes of films. She argues that deeper meanings can be read into the presentation of these violent films, citing the depiction of male violence towards women and gender identities as one example. 

Now that we have this more applicable model for understanding the subgenre of realist horror, I thought it prudent to see if the films we insisted did not fit into Carroll’s model would be better understood using Freeland’s model. Open Water, as our classmate Anna Lockhart quite succinctly put it last week, is a tale in which “the direction of the narrative is clear: couple goes diving, couple gets left behind, couple is attacked by various species within the ocean, and couple ultimately perishes.” 

In this quick summary, Anna already had pointed out two elements of the realist horror model-- first, that the ‘monsters’ of the films were various ocean predators and second, that the plot of the film is predictable (and thereby, fairly irrelevant to the success of the film). Everyone knows that the animals that attack the young couple, jellyfish and sharks, really exist; most of us have probably seen such creatures in aquarium visits. Furthermore, not only is this plot familiar and predictable, it is incredible simple. The entirety of the main action of the film falls neatly into Freeland’s proposed construction of gruesome acts ( in this case, probably the boat crew leaving them behind), the spectacle (the sharks attacking Daniel and Susan, perhaps also Susan drowning herself at the end of the film) and the aftermath (obviously, that Daniel and Susan are dead). 

To the third aspect, though, there is much to be considered. Anna also jokingly mentioned the blatant lesson of the film: don’t scuba dive, or more specifically don’t stray away from the group when scuba diving. However, we can easily sift out some of those more profound philosophical lessons that Freeland suggests from this film. I think it is possible that this film, released in 2003, speaks to humankind’s susceptibility to the natural world; in an age when we control more and more of the world around us, natural disaster and death at the hands of creatures have become increasingly terrifying as we understand just how little control we have over such things. Furthermore, I think the motives of the couple to take their vacation (to get away from their hectic lives) and the nonchalance of the fishermen who find Daniel and Susan’s camera in the stomach of the shark near the end of the film speaks to a social trend as well. 

Needless to say, having read Freeland’s article, I have a renewed appreciation for philosophy in horror films that Carroll’s article last week did not provide.