1. Horror is like Ancient Tragedy
(n.b.: I am a classical scholar)
Similarities:
- Depictions (or at least descriptions) of graphic atrocities
- Oedipus blinding himself
- Pentheus' head carried on a stick by his own mother after she kills him
- Philoctetes' gaping and stinking wounds
- Medea killing her children and then Jason's bride with a fiery garment
- Regarded as "evil" or "debased" by some philosophers
- See Plato, Republic Book X: The ban on tragedy in the ideal city
- But "justified" by other philosophers
- Aristotle, The Poetics: Katharsis through fear and pity
- Noel Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart (Routledge, 1990): Katharsis through "art-horror"
2. Horror is interesting for Feminists
(n.b.: I am a feminist)
For a start, see these books, both of which I have reviewed or written about:
- Carol Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton, 1992).
- Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine (Routledge, ).
And see my introduction to the film series curated for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 1992, Fatal Subtraction: Three Decades of Women in Horror, 1960-1990.
3. Some people just like horror movies.
(n.b.: I am one of them.)
My favorites:
- (Naturally) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
- All of the Alien movies.
- All of David Cronenberg's films, but especially Scanners.
- The original Nosferatu and the Werner Herzog remake.
- The somewhat overlooked Mexican horror film Cronos.
- And of course, other classics like King Kong and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.