Poltergeist and Freud's "The Uncanny"

I enjoyed watching Poltergeist; it is well acted and it has its truly frightening parts, including a scene where a man is pictured ripping his own face off in the mirror. Only recently have I started to enjoy the horror movie genre, and in the past few years I have noticed that the movies that do the best job of scaring the living hell out of me are the ones with the least-bad (in my own eyes) quality acting and cinematography. Supernatural horror movies still have to sell me their ideas, even though I am going into them with a mostly firm disbelief in the supernatural. My curiosity, as Noel Carroll talks about extensively in his work on the horror genre, must be stimulated, and if I cannot engage in the situations that a movie poses, I will not be scared and the movie will have failed.

There is a bit of a special effects gap between Poltergeist and what is being shown in theaters today, however, although the effects look "fake" now, surely they were perceived with just as much terror as a movie like Insidious or The Fourth Kind is today. I was not as frightened during parts of Poltergeist as I would have been if the movie had been made with today's technology. For the purpose of this blog post, let us assume that I watched the movie with no historical context for special effects, and that I was extremely frightened by the on-screen action. Beyond the rush of adrenaline and beyond the movie's ability to string along my curiosity, what makes it a quality film/piece of art? I believe that the answer (for Poltergeist as well as any other well-made horror flick) lies in its ability to reveal truth.

Freud talks about the necessary quality that "uncanny" works must have in their capturing the viewer's perspective and making it one with the main character's. This caught my attention along with the part of his essay that explains the concept of "unconcealment" as it relates to horror. In "The Uncanny," Freud claims that part of what makes something uncanny, aside from it being unknown and horrifying, is its ability to reveal the concealed. It is in this way that I believe the value of horror movies reflects the value of art in general. To clarify, the relationship where substance is revealed to the viewer of the "uncanny" is similar to the relationship that a subject has with any "higher" piece of art; something must be shown to the viewer that was either formerly suppressed or unknown to him or her. That unconcealed substance, and the relationship itself, are truths. This is a Heideggarian concept which I will not go into for sake the sake of space on this blog post, but it is a concept that I firmly believe in.

Horror movies are interesting in this regard (that is, with respect to unconcealment) because they often revolve around things that are not real. Because they cannot show us the truth behind ghosts or monsters, they have to show us the truth behind our reactions to those things; therefore, the truth that a scary movie has is a self-reflective one - a scary movie shows us, among other things, how fear works in the human psyche and how the relationship between a film and it's viewer operates.

So, what is the truth that Poltergeist reveals? Well, if I had been truly scared by the movie, it could have possibly shown me something about what makes me, as an individual, afraid. What the film did do, however, was successfully create an accessible perspective (that of the parents of Carol Anne) that I could absorb while watching the movie. Looking back on the few hours that I spent viewing the film, I recall nothing out of the ordinary in my movie watching experience. That experience however, is out of the ordinary when compared to the goings-on of my everyday life. There is not one moment of my day where I sit down and participate in an activity that is remotely like watching a movie. Both my body and mind become vegetables and like slaves to the director's intentions (depending on the quality of the execution). You could tell me about the plot of Poltergeist and I would not be scared, but present it to me in a way in which I start to cognitively participate in the plot, and I become terrified. Surely there is some truth present in that relationship. This post must come to a close, but any ideas from you all would be most appreciated.

Curiosity Killed the Human: The Fascination With Things May Kill You

A classic horror film, Poltergeist (1982) characterizes the supernatural, home-based horror genre that has become so popular today through films like Paranormal Activity. A genre-defining film in nearly every way, the movie hits on a huge variety of horror-film staples ranging from children in contact with spirits to telekinesis to ectoplasm. The movie’s storyline follows that of a young family and their daughter’s connection to a supernatural entity that resides in their house. In traditional horror-story form, the demon-being, or in this case, the poltergeist, begins its contact in a fairly benign fashion that consists merely of playful telekinesis and seemingly harmless interactions with the family. The encounters with the poltergeist quickly turn sour, however, and ultimately result in attempts on the lives of the entire family and the destruction of their house. Of course, such events occurring to anyone would be likely emotionally scarring and at the very least ruin their evening, so naturally the question arises – why do people like horror movies so much?

Noel Carroll, with her work “The Paradox of Horror”, claims to have the answer. Not merely a result of just extreme repulsion or of some metaphorical relationship with real life, Carroll claims that humanity’s fascination with horror has a deeper, more complex root.

According to Carroll, one of the main reasons that horror is so appealing stems from its usual narrative style, not solely its connection with the disturbing. Much like any other story told in a narrative style, the audience is interested in how the characters and the setting interact with each other as a whole, not necessarily the characters themselves. While the monster in Poltergeist is both frightening and fascinating, the plotline itself is equally intriguing.

Also of huge interest to the audience is the way in which details of the antagonist are revealed. The process of discovery, according to Carroll, is both thrilling and satisfying as viewers piece together information regarding a movie’s monster much as they would in real life. In Poltergeist, for instance, the viewer is fascinated not by the poltergeist itself, but by the mystery surrounding the being. At first only knowable through its effects on the physical objects in the house, the poltergeist exists merely as an unknown energy source. Its sentience is only realized through its initial playfulness and eventual malevolent behavior. The viewer is continually drawn into the story as more details about the poltergeist and its purpose are uncovered.

That said, a deeper, more instinctual “magnetism” towards the ideas of horrible things does exist, a pull that still is present even after removing the storyline that goes along with every horror story. The poltergeist and supernatural occurrences, for instance, would still be incredibly fascinating even if they were presented without the detailed storyline that the movie presents. Carroll pegs this phenomenon as a result of humanity’s innate connection with the “anomalous.” Ideas of things that are counter-culture and abnormal fascinate us, and while much of our own culture is focused around conforming ourselves to a pre-existing status quo, we often find ourselves desiring a something that can’t be seen in everyday life.

Just as we enjoy an action movie for its ability to give us a glimpse into a seldom-seen life of fast-paced shootouts and life-or-death situations, we enjoy horror films for their similar ability to provide us with a twist on what would otherwise be a normal life. The “normal life” idea is key here, and in fact finds its way into every successful movie. By incorporating aspects of living that most humans are already familiar with, a movie is able to bridge the gap between the viewer’s experiences and the fictional or fantastical experiences in the movie. Of course, horror films are usually a twisted perversion of “normal life”, but they begin with a normal life all the same.

However, one can draw an interesting distinction between horror films and films of other genres. While the viewer may wish that they were the action hero on the screen, few people would wish themselves to be in the shoes of Diane as she struggles to escape the dead bodies come to life in the pit of her swimming pool. Why, then, do people submit themselves to viewing such traumatizing scenes? Perhaps the answer can be found in the degrees of separation that a movie provides for the viewer. While movies can certainly seem frighteningly realistic, the constant knowledge that the movie is merely a story that has been written, filmed, and presented on your TV screen merely for your entertainment can act as a buffer of sorts that protects the viewer from overstimulation. Of course, for some viewers (like myself), forgetting that the movie has little connection to reality is easily done once the film is rolling and that buffer quickly becomes frighteningly ineffective.

A word of advice: Never just move the headstones.