The Case for Scary Movies by Gretchen Jackson

It’s almost Halloween, and everyone will be watching scary movies. Even if they don’t like them. There’s something about the season, about Autumn. It’s a time of transition between things that are living and things that are dead. Samhain, the Fall Harvest, even All Soul’s Day in the Catholic calendar – they all represent the observance of things that have passed.

A couple weeks ago, I was watching a very scary movie with my oldest son. He’s fascinated with all things dark and taboo; much as I was when I was his age. But as I’ve gotten older (and especially after having children of my own), I find that I no longer possess the emotional tolerance for scary movies. They “get to me” in a way they never did before. Maybe it’s because now that I have a husband and children of my own, a family that I treasure and value beyond measure, now I have something to lose.

Scary movies are largely a young person’s game. Teenagers, those challengers of rules and explorers of boundaries, thrive in the face of cinematic scares. And why shouldn’t they? Scary movies do more to prepare them for life-cycle challenges than any lecture we parents can give to them. Scary movies actually show them the worst-case scenarios that can cause them harm – emotionally, spiritually, physically. And because they’re young, teens don’t have spouses or children to occupy the emotional space necessary to be truly frightened by what scary movies regularly attempt to prepare us for: the concept of loss. The concept of loss is just that to most teenagers – a concept. As we get older, loss becomes something more tangible, more real. We’ve experienced it in one form or another through the loss of a parent, a sibling, a friend. Hopefully, for teenagers, loss is still something of a mystery.

After my son Christian informed me that he had watched Ari Aster’s film ‘Hereditary’ (2018) with friends at summer camp – a film that I was too afraid to see myself – I asked him if he would watch it with me again. Part of me was playing the role of the responsible parent, making sure that my son had processed the violent content in a healthy way. But the other part was curious – just how scary was this movie, really?

It was scary. To be fair, it was more disturbing than scary. So that got me thinking:

What makes a scary movie scary?

My college film professor described the horror movie as a film that explores the collapse of boundaries between two clearly-defined states.

For example: Frankenstein; he’s alive, and he’s dead at the same time. The Werewolf; he’s a wolf, but he’s also human at the same time. Ghosts; we can see them, but they have no substance. You can use this formula on any scary film you watch. More recently, ‘The Ring’ (2002) shows a demonic girl emerging from a television that’s playing a VHS tape. So that would make her part screen image and part physical entity.

(Spoiler Alert for those who haven’t seen ‘Hereditary’. )

When we watched the film ‘Hereditary,’ I noticed that there was more than one boundary that was challenged. Rotten Tomatoes sums up the film in one sentence: “When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited.”

The ‘Hereditary’ demon passes through each of the family members, invited to do so by the matriarch of the family, the grandmother, who has just died. Several characters are possessed – Mom (Annie), daughter (Charlie), and finally, son (Peter). Following my professor’s horror formula, two distinct boundaries are crossed. 1) These “possessed” characters are as they appear to be – specific human beings – and they are also, at the same time, this other entity: a demon named Paimon. And 2), the grandmother, who should be the family’s caretaker, has become the evil-doer, someone who has invited harm to come into her own family.

As I watched the demon Paimon wreak havoc, physically and emotionally, on the family, I wondered what good could possibly come of my son watching this film. Then it hit me. Films like this one, exaggerated examples though they may be, provide a sort of preparation for the pitfalls of the real world. They’re cautionary tales. Do I think my mother would inflict a demon upon me and my children like the grandmother in ‘Hereditary’ did? Probably not. Hopefully not. But parents visit harm upon their children every day, unintentionally or not, and kids have to process that. (It’s important to mention that mature kids and even teenagers should both be of an appropriate age and possess the proper temperament to recognize and appreciate the fantasy world of film. Parents should be warned to protect those too young to understand and sensitive children from the mature thematic tones and scary symbolism shown in most horror films.)

The concept of the scary movie as a cautionary tale actually serves the audience well. By taking a cue from the main character’s suffering, the discriminating viewer can form careful opinions to apply to their own lives. John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ (1978) – beware of strangers. Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ (1980) – don’t overestimate your ability to handle stress. James Wan’s ‘The Conjuring’ (2013) and Stuart Rosenberg’s ‘Amityville Horror’ (1979) – don’t purchase that scary house just because it’s super-cheap. Toby Hooper’s ‘Poltergeist’ (1982) – respect the dead and don’t relocate a cemetery to build a housing development.

Many people view scary movies as the lowest form of cinematic art, made for jump scares and shock value. But maybe scary movies offer us glimpses into the multi-layered values that we, as a society, have created for ourselves. Could it be they illustrate concepts of right and wrong that include dire consequences to make a point? Might they even be quasi-instructional? At the foundational level, every scary movie out there pushes the idea that we should all do the right thing.

And if we don’t, we die!

Eventually, the evil-doer in the scary movie becomes accountable. The innocent person (or the final girl) survives. She/he lives to tell the tale. And the audience gets the chance to take the film’s advice, to make the right choice out there in the real world. To live another day.

Unfortunately, in the case of ‘Hereditary,’ there is no final girl. The dysfunctional Graham family failed to come together to save itself from the invasive entity. But the film still communicated the fact that the family that pulls together survives.

‘Hereditary’ represents a new wave in horror that began after Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ (1996) succeeded in exposing the done-to-death formulaic horror trope. ‘Scream’ made fun of the final girl concept while also questioning what constitutes a psychotic killer. So ‘Hereditary’ is more of a nouveau horror film, if you will. It’s probably the best of the bunch; thankfully we have moved past Eli Roth’s decade (or more) of “gore”-nography – films that merely attempt to gross out the audience with disgusting imagery. The special effects industry probably made a mint on developing props for them, but I strongly advise you to avoid these films. They might have a message, but it’s buried under imagery that will disturb and depress.

I don’t know about you, but when I look around at all the garbage out there in our society, fed to us through countless streams of social media and instantaneous “news” channels, I have trouble finding sources that celebrate people who do the right thing. People who open the door and help that babysitter hide from Michael Meyers. People who vet that caretaker more thoroughly before throwing him and his family to the wolves at the Overlook Hotel. People who consider the environmental impact before they put up that housing development in Cuesta Verde.

All in all, it’s right to give scary movies a chance! You might be pleasantly surprised at how positively the themes of perserverance, community, and invention affect you. Maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about survival or self-preservation or the importance of working as a team. At the very least, you and your friends can get together and laugh at each other for startling at the jump scares. (They are pretty fun). Scary movies are definitely meant to be enjoyed together. So, what are you waiting for? Call a friend! Meet them at the theater!

Just avoid those Eli Roth movies. Yuck!

(Sorry, Eli.)