Mother Knows Best: The Psychotic Alteration of 1960

by Andrew Jupin

Continued from Chapter 1: Putting the Monster Away - The Foundations of Classic American Horror

When Psycho was released on June 16^th, 1960, Alfred Hitchcock ushered in a new era for the American horror film. Based on the novel by Robert Bloch, Psycho tells the story of a young woman who steals a large sum of money from an employer to run off with her lover. What starts out as a very conventional, and none too horrific story, turns into something so ghastly, so shocking, audiences and critics were left terrified. A lot of what made this film so different from the horror films of the thirties, forties and fifties, was that this one hit very close to home on many levels. As Linda Williams writes, “the film represents the moment when horror moved from what is outside and far away to what is inside us all and very close to home.” Drastic changes in setting, themes and especially the monster of the film, are all things that flipped the horror genre right on its head. With these changes came a kind of relation. Audiences were brought closer to terror than ever before. Watching the film, it is easier for a spectator to relate to the subject matter simply because the film spends more time making them feel at home. They feel closer to surroundings, people and objects and it is this familiarity that allows people to perhaps, let their guard down just a bit. With the audience set in an incredibly vulnerable, yet comfortable mental state, the shock is infinitely greater when the time comes.

Structurally, Psycho is a very different kind of horror film. The alteration of the film’s structure was crucial to the change the film was taking horror. The slight turn away from Carroll’s Complex Discovery plot played a large part in Psycho’s influence over later horror films. The Complex Discovery plot outline is still somewhat noticeable, but with a few alterations to it. First of all, the Onset is very late in the film. It is almost an hour before anything terrifying even happens. The murder of Marion in the shower is the first true sign that there is anything horrific going on.

In place of the Discovery portion of the structure, there is instead a detective type story involving the search for Marion. As Arbogast, Lila and Sam start to trace Marion’s steps, they are not at all thinking that there is a psychopathic serial killer on the loose that may have murdered Marion. For most of the film Sam and Arbogast keep their cool, while Sam comforts the quick-to-jump Lila. While the investigation is still under way, the audience moves along ahead of the characters when Arbogast is murdered. The spectators have seen the monster strike again while the two other searchers are back at the hardware store waiting.

The film provides two points for Confirmation. The first is when the sheriff informs Lila and Sam that Mrs. Bates has been dead and buried for many years. This turn of events tips off the audience and the characters that something bizarre is going on up at the Bates house. The second part of the Confirmation (and the long-awaited unveiling of the true monster) does not occur until after the Confrontation. As Lila snoops around in the Bates’s fruit cellar, she stumbles across the corpse of Mrs. Bates. As she screams, Norman barges in, dressed as Mother, and tries to attack her, only to be foiled by Sam. Before the audience can even begin to start to piece together what has happened, the film jumps to the police station where a psychiatrist explains the whole end of the story to the characters and the audience; it is finally confirmed that it was in fact Norman that was the monster going the killing and not Mrs. Bates.

Throughout the entire film, Psycho stays away from looking like the Universal monster series’ structure. In the end, the monster is merely captured and sedated, not destroyed and put away. There is still the chance for Norman to break free (or as we find in Psycho II (1983), be released) and unleash his terror once again. But Psycho was not just revolutionary in its structural elements. Thematically, the film deals with many, many issues never before addressed in horror.

One of the first ways Psycho is able to deliver such a different horror experience is through its use of audience/character association. With regard to the type of people this film encounters, David Skal writes, “Psycho is a keystone of modern horror, articulating the dread of ordinary people feeling trapped and immobilized in a world otherwise full of rapid change.” As the film begins, we are immediately introduced to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). She is young, beautiful and blonde; she is everything one has come to expect from a female protagonist in an Alfred Hitchcock film. The film begins with her in a (perfectly safe) hotel room in Phoenix with her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin). We follow her also to her place of employment, a real estate brokerage, where she works a normal, nine-to-five job as a secretary. When we meet her boss, he entrusts her with $40,000 to take to a bank on her way home from work. So far we see nothing wrong with Marion. We understand her plight and when she steals the money and flees the city, we don’t completely condemn her. After all, we are still victims of the repressed society and as such, we know that stealing is indeed wrong. She’s a perfectly nice girl, just trying to marry the man she loves. If this money will get him out of debt and allow the two of them to wed, so be it. When she begins to be hounded by a curious, Arizona state trooper, we worry for her. We want to see her make her way to Sam and give him the money and live happily ever after. We are connected to this character. Being with her from the beginning, as spectators, we relate to her. Which is why, when she is brutally stabbed to death forty-eight minutes into the film, we are at a complete loss. The loss of a main character in the middle of the film was something audience members were certainly not used to. Especially since after her death, the only other person the audience can turn to is the unstable, nervous Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). In his book, Hitchcock’s Films Revisited, Robin Wood writes, “At the time, so engrossed we are in Marion, so secure in her potential salvation, that we can scarcely believe it is happening; when it is over, and she is dead, we are left shocked, with nothing to cling to, the apparent center of the film entirely dissolved.” Hitchcock explains this to us in one continuous shot right after Marion is murdered. Starting with Marion’s lifeless eyeball, Hitchcock slowly pulls away and the camera leaves the bathroom. Turning so slightly, Hitchcock tracks over to the table and we see the newspaper with the forty thousand dollars inside. After pausing on the money for just a moment, the camera tracks up and out the window and we see the dark, looming Bates mansion with two or three dim lights on. As the camera stops we can hear Norman shouting, “Mother! Oh, God, Mother! Blood! The…blood!” Immediately after the words are spoken we see Norman run out of the house and down the stairs. This shot is an attempt to make the transition a bit smoother for the audience. We see the victim, dead on the floor. Then we move to the reason she had died, the money. She has been killed because of her decision to take the money. Had she gone to the bank, she would have made the deposit, gone home and never encountered Norman or his murderous ‘mother’. Then we move out the window to our last saving grace, Norman himself. Wood again: “Norman is an intensely sympathetic character, sensitive, vulnerable, trapped by his devotion to his mother (a devotion, a self-sacrifice, which our society tends to regard as highly laudable.” He is the only other character the film has spent any time on; the audience was allowed a lengthy scene where they were given Norman’s background, a little about his hobbies and even a little family history. We know Norman and recognize him so unfortunately we’re stuck with him as well. Hitchcock leaves us with no other choice. By the time we meet any of the other characters such as Marion’s sister, Lila (Vera Miles); the private detective, Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), or even the previously introduced boyfriend, Sam Loomis, we are too engaged with Norman. We have a whole ten minutes with Norman while he cleans up the bathroom, wraps up the body, tidies up the motel room and dumps the car (with body inside) into the swamp somewhere behind the motel. During this time, no dialogue is spoken and no new characters are introduced; we are left alone with Norman Bates.

The audience’s relation to Norman is not really that uncomfortable, or at least not as uncomfortable as it should be. After all, it isn’t quite yet known what Norman’s big secret is. All the audience knows is that some older woman ran into the shower and killed off their main character and they’re stuck with this man-child to relate to for the rest of the film. This of course works even better when it is revealed that Norman is actually the killer. The audience feels terrible when they realize that they have been siding with a psychopath. It is all the more shocking when they sit back and realize that the psychopath in question was a person; he was a human being all along, no vampires or werewolves in sight.

Perhaps the most important shift that Psycho brought on was the appearance of the monster. So used to foreign counts and giant bugs, it was very jarring for audiences to see a human being (an American no less) taking the role of the killer. Tony Magistrale writes, “Because of the director’s attention to visualizing the workings of diseased psyches, it is neither a surprise nor an exaggeration to suggest that Psycho altered irrevocably the landscape of the horror film.” Psycho is a film that deals deeply with the psychological problems of its villain. We never got to see what troubled Dracula at the end of the day, or whether or not Dr. Frankenstein had maternal issues. Magistrale again: “Norman Bates bears little in common with his horror cinema ancestry; in fact, he is the harbinger of the monster of the future: the serial killer.” Thanks to Norman, human psychopaths were finally getting the credit they deserved.

Something that makes the concept of the normal man being the killer so terrifying is that finally horror was being put into probable scenarios. It is more conceivable that a man can take a knife to several people dressed as his mother than it is for a vampire to morph into a wolf or a bat and travel around drinking people’s blood. There is no fantastic element in Psycho. The fantastic or paranormal elements of the Universal terrors was what put them at that comfortable distance. Now they were right next-door. “While resembling one of us on the outside (Norman = normal man, the norms of man), Norman seethes on the inside.” The fact that Norman is a man also eases the acceptance of the loss of repression. Here the myth of the monster is somewhat lost because Norman himself does not possess any sort of ability unknown to humans. The one thing he does have the most people do not is the ability, the willingness to take a life. Even though he is not a vampire or a giant bug, Norman is not bound by his surplus repression.

While Dracula stares into his victim’s soul, or the Frankenstein monster roars and charges, there is no telling what can and will set Norman off. The ‘mother’ part of his brain functions as the murder engine. The ‘Norman’ personality is for the most part, fine. It is the mother side that Norman uses to justify the body to do the killing. However, even though he convinces himself that his mother is the one doing all the dastardly deeds, there is no way his actions directly reflect the actual personality of the deceased Norma Bates. As Magistrale points out again, Norman isn’t completely innocent. “As oppressive a figure as we suspect her to have been, there is no evidence that she ever committed murder.”[i]

In other words, because Norman’s horror is an internal, rather than an external one (that can be recognized by some sort of bizarre costume or accent) it is harder to recognize that there anything wrong. However, Hitchcock does give one brief moment where we are clued in. Immediately after Norman watches Marion through the wall (a voyeuristic and fetishistic affair) he walks out of the motel office and glances nervously up at the Bates house. He stops short and pauses, as if he is making a conscious decision. What the decision is we cannot be sure. He rushes up to the house and prepares to climb the stairs. He stops at the first step and wanders into the kitchenette. He looks down the hallway, almost as if he is watching the camera, waiting for it to leave. Hitchcock cuts back to the motel room where Marion is doing her accounting. Repeat viewers know that this is where Norman is changing into ‘Mother.’

The decision to kill is made as Norman stands outside the motel office, and his eyes dart back and forth. That is the only sign we get as a spectator that somebody is going to do something. And on first viewing, it isn’t even acknowledged and you don’t even recognize it while watching the scene. It is so quick that the shot itself is insignificant. This is a much different reaction than the Frankenstein monster roaring as he runs down a flight of stairs or the Wolf Man’s dramatic transformation into the furry killer.

The monster being identified as an average man is indeed a big shift in the structure of the horror film. However, the look of the killer means nothing unless his settings are changed as well. Psycho starts out in Phoenix, Arizona. Already the move has been made. Norman was born and bred in America, making him even more like the rest of the people in the audience.

The first shot of the film is a beautiful scenic shot of downtown Phoenix. We see skyscrapers, cars, factories; it is everything an American city should look like. As the frame fades in, we can see this entire city with a small mountain chain in the background. It’s almost as if the foreground for horror has become America and in the background, are the faded images of the mountain towns of Transylvania and the eerie hilltop that is home to Castle Frankenstein. White titles appear that tell us right away that we are in America; they simply read, “Phoenix, Arizona.” We are given the date and time as well. All of these things produce the feeling of familiarity. We are already becoming able to relate to the situation. It’s a town, during the week, in the afternoon, all things we have been a part of. As Wood puts it, “Arbitrary place, date and time, and now an apparently arbitrary window: the effect is of random selection: this could be any place, any date, any time, any room: it could be us.”

Many of the thematic elements and motivations in the film are also very much a commentary on the lives of post-war America. The first major discussion that Sam and Marion have is one about marriage. I am not trying to suggest that marriage is something only Americans experience; however the immediate situation they are in certainly brings to mind 1960’s America: Sam is divorced.[ii] Marion and Sam’s relationship is not the only marriage mentioned in the film. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bates is discussed briefly toward the end; it is the death of Mr. Bates that is suggested to have pushed Norman over the edge. Unhappy with the suitor Mrs. Bates finds for herself after becoming a widow, Norman poisons the both of them and begins his semi-incestuous/psychotic ‘marriage’ to his mother.

Not only is Sam divorced and wanting to marry Marion, something frowned upon in the Catholic church, an institution of great power in classical horror (Dracula’s damning of the cross, Dr. Frankenstein sinfully playing God) but his ex-wife is also demanding he pay a large sum in alimony. These new ideas of divorce and re-marrying signify a shift in social values. With this change in social values, there must ultimately be a change in the values of horror. Horror cannot function as a device that goes against the norm if it does not keep itself up to date with what is and is not considered normal. As Marion and Sam argue about whether or not to get married, Sam insists that he cannot afford the union at the moment. Marion on the other hand thinks they can make it and imagines a scenario where Sam moves in with Marion and they have a nice cooked meal at her home with her sister at the table and a portrait of her mother looking over the proceedings. Sam wins the argument with his position that their lack of money is a serious concern with regards to their future.

Financial gain, the biggest of American dreams, is the focal point of evil in this film. Money and financial security is looked at as the solver of all problems in this incredibly shallow, materialistic view of America that Hitchcock paints for his audience. The film is a direct criticism of 1950’s consumer society. Marion believes that with the help of a little extra cash, she will be able to move to California with Sam, pay off his ex-wife, get married and start a new life somewhere. It is this financially motivated fantasy that drives her to steal the $40,000 from Mr. Cassidy that day at her office. It is by this little one decision that she unknowingly signs her own death sentence. Hitchcock of course is not subtle about this. Her brutal death is technically because of her theft. If she had deposited the money at the bank and gone home to take a nap, she wouldn’t be lying at the bottom of the swamp behind the Bates motel, shoved into the trunk of her car wrapped in a shower curtain.

Marion’s burial is another interesting social commentary that Hitchcock slides in past the viewer; yet another hint that our possessive American way of life might not be all that it is made out to be. Instead of burying the body in the ground, or simply hiding it away some place, Norman puts Marion’s remains in the trunk of her car along with the $40,000 that he does not know to exist. As the car sinks to the bottom of the aforementioned swamp, so does Marion and her American dream of living the sweet life in sunny California. Her shiny, new automobile that she just traded in becomes her coffin; her factory-built, American-made possession becomes her final resting place.

Aside from the materialistic commentary found within the film, it is also important to note the film’s many nods to American domesticity; something that really helps the audience identify with the characters and in turn brings them even closer to the terror. The murder weapon is a perfect start. When ‘Mother’ enters the shower to murder Marion, she is not strangled or shot or bitten on the neck, she is stabbed by an everyday, household kitchen knife. The same knife used to cook the Bates family meals is turned around and used to viciously take a life. Not to mention that the murder occurs in the one spot in the home where residents are the most vulnerable: the shower.

When Norman returns to the scene of the crime (actually as Norman) his first instinct is to clean up the mess that has been made in the nice, white bathroom. He neatly wraps Marion’s body in the damaged shower curtain and sets her aside. He starts for the office where he grabs a mop and bucket, classic tools of domestic responsibility, and begins washing the floor and tub and sink areas, removing any and all blood. Norman cleans the floor perfectly as if he is just carrying out one of his daily chores, as if just cleaning another motel room after a guest’s long stay. In one classic shot, Hitchcock shows Norman wiping down the floor and also happens to catch Marion’s slippers as they sit by the side of the tub, never to be worn again.

At the same time that Norman shows the responsibilities of domestic life seeping into the now too real world of the American horror film, Hitchcock too shows us that while this horror may have infested Norman’s work ethic, it also has affected his quality of life. One aspect of the family that begins to be featured in horror starting with this film is its very collapse the disintegration of the holy, American family. The first example of this is of course the death of Norman’s father and the imperfect replacement that Mrs. Bates finds for herself. The act to follow, the killing of the mother, is the response to the replacement of the father. Sons killing their mothers: as the psychiatrist at the end of the film points out, “Matricide is probably the most unbearable crime of all, most unbearable to the son who commits it.” The ‘most unbearable crime of all’ and it is being committed by one American, onto another. The Bates family collapses in on itself first with the death of the patriarch, the fall of the provider and protector, and then collapses even further with the murder of the mother, the only stability for the son.

Ultimately, all of these things are run down because they are not essential to Norman’s existence. The motel exists outside of Norman’s main focus. He acknowledges this at one point in the film when he says that most of the time he forgets to turn the neon sign on. He forgets because the business of the motel is not important in his mindset. The only thing important to Norman is taking care of his ‘mother’. This is why the inside of the house is left in immaculate condition. This is the area where ‘mother’ can exist; this is what was important to her.

Mrs. Bates’s bedroom is well kept by Norman. Magistrale writes, “Her room is still impeccably maintained by Norman as a kind of shrine or sanctuary to her memory, and when Lila pulls down the bedcovers the two lumpy indentations in the mattress eerily suggest the ghostlike silhouettes of the murdered corpses that Norman poisoned years earlier.”[iii] Mrs. Bates’s well-kept bedroom is a drastic contrast to Norman’s bedroom. In the small closet-sized room Norman sleeps on a small sofa with one blanket and a ratty pillow. The room clearly shows the point in his life when Norman’s development ceased and the places where he tried to fill his life with more adult elements. Stuffed animals and children’s toys are scattered throughout the room; a giant rabbit sleeps with Norman in his bed while Beethoven records and pornography sit on a table across from his bed.

The familial deterioration depicted in Psycho is one of the many reasons why the film was the starting point for the horrific revolution of the 1970’s. As explained above, the film altered the way American audiences thought about horror. As Donald Spoto writes, “Psycho postulates that the American dream can easily become a nightmare, and that all its facile components can play us false.” This film turned horror inward, targeting American audiences specifically. With the entrance of Norman Bates onto the scene, no one was safe. Hitchcock had audiences looking over their shoulders, suspecting everyone. Thanks to Norman, anyone could now be suspected of being the monster and the thought of one’s neighbor being a disturbed psychopath is an incredibly unsettling idea to accept.

Continues with Chapter 3 – Larry and George:
The New Model Family

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[i] Magistrale goes on to write, “It is Norman’s interpretation and reconstruction of her fury filtered through his own unconscious desires—to possess and vanquish Marion sexually, to thwart the masculine authority figure that Arbogast represents, and Norman’s own Oedipal guilt and rage toward self-destruction, all operation simultaneously—that constructs the deadly amalgamation Bates summons from the unfathomable swamp of his unconscious.”

[ii] The bond of marriage also brings to mind another huge relationship: family. Familial relations is something that horror began to take on with Psycho but became more prevalent with films of the later 1970’s as we will see in the next section.

[iii] Magistrale is incorrect on one important detail. When Lila pulls back the bed covers, there is only one lump, the one belonging to Mrs. Bates. One indentation being there no longer suggests a silhouette of the corpse, but leads one to believe that Norman still puts Mrs. Bates to bed there every night.

Jack and Warren: Hollywood's Justified Bad Boys

by Brett Parker

In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, reporter Sean Smith has written a cover article entitled “Summer of Scandal,” which focuses on the recent slew of Hollywood starlets who have been frequenting the tabloids with their excessive and reckless behavior. Of course this article is aimed mainly at the exploits of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, and Britney Spears. In the article, an anonymous Hollywood executive makes a rather interesting analogy, “We seem to have entered the age of the bad girl…in the 70’s, we had the bad boys-guys like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty…this is something new.”

Indeed, the tabloid frenzy over these bad girls can remind one of the days in which the bad boys of the 70s filled the scandal rags with now legendary stories of Hollywood excess. However, one can’t help but feel a difference in emotion towards the two parties of scandalous stars. Why do we smirk over Jack and Warren yet cringe over Lindsay and Britney? Why has the behavior of the boys become something of legend while the behavior of the girls is considered something of shame?

One of the most persistent theories is that people are more accepting of seeing male celebrities acting wild than they are of the female ones. For Hollywood has traditionally been a male-dominated organization, one that prefers to see its women as proper, well-behaved pretty faces than as hard-partying sex beasts. Tara Reid once famously pointed out that people are more accepting of Colin Farrell being promiscuous than they were of her. There is undoubtedly truth to this theory and I’m sure feminist writers could pen many accurate essays out of this idea. Yet I feel there just might be a deeper reason as to why we let Jack and Warren off the hook yet are still hard on Lindsay and Paris: solid credentials.

When it comes to Hollywood achievements, none of these current Hollywood starlets hold a candle to Nicholson and Beatty. By the time the 70’s rolled around, Jack Nicholson had already been established as a screen icon with his wonderful supporting performance in Easy Rider. Instead of indulging in obvious commercial affairs, Nicholson decided to focus on more artistic and significant projects such as Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, Chinatown, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Throughout this decade, Nicholson garnered numerous Oscar nominations before finally winning one for Cuckoo’s Nest. His Oscar glory not only established him as a major Hollywood presence, but also displayed a new image of an American rebel that would forever influence modern cinema.

The 70s also saw Warren Beatty become a major creative force in Hollywood cinema. His producing and star efforts on the 1967 classic Bonnie and Clyde had helped to usher in the historical “New Hollywood” cinema that became a staple with the 70s and forever changed the landscape of Hollywood filmmaking. While Beatty was established as a major movie star, it was his behind-the scenes efforts that had earned him several Oscar nominations. His producing, writing, and directing skills had earned him nominations for Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, and Heaven Can Wait (he won his first and only Oscar for Best Director for the 1981 film, Reds).

These two Hollywood giants were not only friends, but also neighbors who lived on Hollywood’s famous Mulholland Drive (Marlon Brando was another famous neighbor as well). Together, these two grew a tabloid reputation for being excessive Hollywood partiers. While they were said to have indulged in several vices, the dominant view was that Nicholson and Beatty went through women the way most people go through laundry. It was an era that was riding the coat tails of the free lovin’ 60s and Nicholson and Beatty were obviously still playing ball in the sexual revolution. However, it was the sudden awareness of STDs and the fizzling of the revolution that caused the two stars to grow more socially responsible. Nicholson himself once stated in an interview that a TIME magazine cover story on Herpes ruined the party for him.

A definite difference in time periods play a significant part in this argument of 70s bad boys vs. contemporary bad girls. The sexual revolution of the 70s had a certain “ignorance is bliss” quality that brought about a general acceptance of it in Hollywood. It wasn’t until the STD awareness in which a certain mellowing began to take place. The starlets of today’s Hollywood occupy an era in which certain vices and their consequences are strongly highlighted in the American consciousness. There have been several movements in education to help properly educate people (especially young ones) on the tragic dangers of binge drinking, drug use, and driving under the influence. It seems very unlikely that these women are completely oblivious to the facts on their excessive behavior. For them to keep indulging in it is not only scandalous, but rather stupid. While Nicholson and Beatty undoubtedly broke hearts, the starlets of today are a growing danger to themselves and to others. In an era in which people have seen John Belushi, River Phoenix, and Chris Farley lose their lives in Hollywood excess, it is no longer fun to see celebrities dancing on the edge.

I’m reminded of a scene in Hollywoodland in which Bob Hoskins’ ruthless studio chief snarls at a disgraced star with “faces change!” That’s basically what it comes down to: Lohan and Spears are easily replaceable, but there’s only one Jack and one Warren. With their countless awards and unforgettable cinematic achievements, it’s hard to picture what Hollywood history would’ve been like without them! While Lohan was great in Mean Girls and Spears scored some memorable pop songs, they haven’t done anything that the next It girls waiting in the wings can’t do the same or even better. Sure, these girls probably partied just as hard as Jack and Warren, but at least the boys knew when to start the party and when to end it. Jack and Warren made you feel that after some truly hard work, it’s okay to enjoy life. With Lindsay and Britney, you feel that spoiled rich girls are just plain out of control.

Brain Damage: Neo Noir in the Nineties (Part II)

by Eric Szyszka

(continued from Part I)

The Usual Suspects functions as a "cool" movie through the mental landscape and usage of a disjointed narrative structure through flashbacks. The style of the film is clearly in the hyper style, as there are multiple montages, including the one we looked at, that just cut and cut and cut. We are presented with information in this film at break-neck speeds. However, in this the movie takes on a new aesthetic path far different from classic noir. There are a few shots with shadowy figures but in general the film is rather clear and straight-forward in its camera work. Instead of showing Soze in a shadow, we simply see his mid-section; it is the same ideal as the original film noirs but executed differently. While this effect, used consistently in the film, does make Keyser Soze and crime seem glamorous, it is different than the classic look and is not being retro for simply retro's sake, but rather an attempt to take a retro idea to a new level. However, Memento (2000) directed by Christopher Nolan has even less of a visual homage to classic noir but remains still heavy on gimmick. Memento yet has a much deeper and more complex anxiety than neo-noirs of the early 90's or any other time could have maintained.

While it can be terrifying to realize you were just suffocated in a web of lies, it is far worse to realize that you were actually the one lying to yourself. Noir protagonists are usually single men emotionally burdened with betrayals or losses suffered somewhere in the past, often psychologically flawed or wounded and sometimes fatally incapacitated. This summary of the noir leading man defined by critic Ray Pratt rings true for the neo-noir picture Memento (2000). In Memento we are presented with Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) who is a composite of the standard private investigator of film noir fame, a regular Sam Spade or Mike Hammer, but cross-bred with someone like completely flawed insurance salesman Walter Neff from Billy Wilder's 1944 masterpiece Double Indemnity. What is the result of this mixture? A brain damaged insurance investigator. It was Leonard Shelby's job to investigate insurance claims and the profession alone is extremely fascinating but Nolan one-ups it once more by making Shelby a serial killer that is unbeknownst to his own wake of murder. He also has no short-term memory what-so-ever since the rape and murder of his wife by the alleged "John G," whom he is hunting across the Californian country-side. He had been knocked in the head by a rapist and murderer giving, him severe head trauma, and almost completely destroying the function of memory making, save for the fact Leonard can learn through instincts and repetition, a.k.a. conditioning. In a typical "noir"-ish fashion, Shelby is surrounded by people who may be aiding him, deceiving him, or doing a little of both. Though the film teasingly simulates the authority of the hardboiled private-eye by granting him a voice-over narration, his debilitating condition of short-term memory loss subverts any claim he makes to producing a sustained, coherent narrative, either about himself or others. Shelby is an incredibly unreliable narrator who does tell us through voice over what is going on in his head, yet most of this serves to guide us through the fact he does not remember what is happening. The voice-over is not an effective or integrated storytelling device as it was The Usual Suspects (1995). It mostly functions for laughs during moments such as when Shelby is seemingly chasing a man. ("Okay, what am I doing? I'm chasing this guy. ... Nope. He's chasing me.") The film is also run backwards, scene by scene, as the protagonist actively lies to himself. Leonard's condition makes self-deception not only possible, but potentially deadly.

Memento (2000) is perhaps the most accurate and compelling neo-noir that works through the mental landscape. Leonard Shelby's condition of not being able to make new memories has been an actual documented phenomenon and his case is similar to one recorded by noted neurologist and author Oliver Sacks. The patient being referred to by Sacks as Jimmie G could be the source name the prey of Leonard he has been hunting ever since the demise of his wife. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) did a report on movies that deal with memory and concluded that in Memento (2000), unlike most films in this genre, this amnesic character retains his identity, has little retrograde amnesia, and shows several of the severe everyday memory difficulties associated with the disorder. The fragmented, almost mosaic quality to the sequence of scenes in the film also cleverly reflects the "perpetual present" nature of the syndrome. However, the film is not simply an illustration of a neurological disorder – like any noir it also helps reinforce the white male dominant perspective. This is done specifically by introducing a vicious femme fatale by the name of Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) who uses Leonard with his full knowledge only because she knew the memory would fade. This makes Leonard completely victimized and a very sympathetic protagonist. There is also a strong undercurrent of misogyny that develops through the character of Natalie: just as The Usual Suspects (1995) exploits the Far East for its cool factor in the modern Fu Manchu ironically portrayed by a white man, Memento (2000) does the same with women.

Towards the end of the film there is a scene that takes the audience and puts them into Leonard's shoes so we don't know what to believe. Do we believe our guide, Shelby himself, who admits to being unreliable, or John "Teddy" Gammell who admits to lying to Shelby? As William G. Little who has written extensively on the film, notes that Leonard's "lengthy exchange with Teddy is so heavy with layers of possible fabrication as to make it impossible to know the truth," and that's the dilemma we're faced with. As in The Usual Suspects, here the active role of the viewer takes on the role of detective in an attempt at deciphering the narrative truth.

And here too, as in The Usual Suspects, one scene in particular stands out in the realm of flashback and memory. This is a scene towards the climax of the film where Leonard is told by Teddy that there was no Sammy Jankis (another man with memory problems who through them accidentally murdered his wife) and that Leonard made him up through conditioning his own memory and thereby changing it post-facto. Much as in The Usual Suspects (1995) we're given a series of flashbacks that change from moment to moment. We do not know what to believe in. We are unsure if Teddy is lying or Leonard is lying to himself. However, since we have been limited to his perspective for the whole film it is jarring to see him second guess himself but nevertheless that is what he is doing. The flashbacks in this film are not the made-up ideas of another person like David Kujan's ideas conquering Verbal's flashback story. Here neo-noir has hit the ultimate level of paranoia, with a protagonist who can never trust himself and instead must leave himself a postmodern maze that he has to weed through several times a day. The scene in question follows:

We stare into the shocked eyes of our bumbling protagonist, Leonard, as Teddy starts to explain a version of "the truth." Which neither we nor Leonard know how to even begin to decipher. "It was your wife who had diabetes," Teddy says with almost a smile. We get a fast cut to Mrs. Shelby blinking under the shower curtain in which she was raped. We cut closer to her as she pulls off the curtain. We get even closer to her once she is uncovered; it is all done in a very kinetic style. Back to Leonard with Teddy as they just look at each other for a moment. We then get another flashback of Mrs. Shelby brushing her hair, she says "Ouch," and looks down. It is revealed that Leonard just finished injecting her with insulin. Onto Leonard again, "My wife wasn't diabetic." The series of shots are fast, quick, and in the MTV style. Suddenly we are back on Teddy's face: "you sure?" Close on Leonard, yet again, and then we see her again saying, "Ouch," but this time Leonard is simply pinching her. Leonard steps back, "She wasn't diabetic. Think I don't know my own wife?" Leonard begins to lean on the wall then squats down to the ground, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he asks. Teddy responds, "Well, I guess I can only make you remember the things you want to remember."

This is another case of flashbacks being unreliable but instead of just being presented with a lie we honestly don't know nor will know the actual truth. Indeed, Memento (2000) deals explicitly with the mental as it was the focal point of the film and its selling point. Shelby has been the most interesting and multi-dimensional character to come out of the recent noir world. Out of the classic period, Memento probably most resembles a little known film gris, Fear in the Night (1947) starring a young DeForest Kelley. This particular story involves a man with amnesia trying to solve a crime he can not remember, but while Fear in the Night ultimately ends happily, Memento does not. We get a bitter view of the world with Memento, where the only escape Leonard can see is to force himself to murder once more simply to complete a self-destructive cycle and once and for all end his relationship with Teddy, a corrupt cop, who is using him to murder people for him. Out of the many people that take advantage of Leonard Shelby and his condition, the character of Natalie stands out. She tests his memory by getting everyone in a bar, including Shelby himself, to spit into a beer. She then serves him the beer. After this she forces him to hit her by constantly teasing him and characterizing his dead wife as nothing more than "a fucking whore." She also attempts to get Leonard to kill a drug dealer for her own personal, presumably financial, gain. Natalie is a classic femme fatale: brutal, cunning, and out for only her own interest. This is a common noir portrait of women and has continued throughout the ages. Memento's substance does not only lie in the detailed information on this particular type of condition but in the supposed fact that women are evil. Again this is far from a progressive message, but all these types of films work as ideological reinforcement for the audience.

Neo-noir in the 1990's and every incarnation of noir had to adapt into every historical phase as it grew. The mean streets of contemporary America have nothing do with guys in trenchcoats on rain-slicked pavement, nothing to do with martinis and smoke rings. The field of imagination and memory seemed like a logical leap as films like The Usual Suspects (1995) and Memento (2000) sprang up. While both of these are on a new chartered plane of the mental for this "perspective" on cinema, some may argue that even basic murder shows a sign of mental illness and is within nearly every noir narrative, including the classic period. The 1970's, however, took it much further by attacking institutions and governments in thrillers like The Parallax View (1974) and the institution of city life in movies like Taxi Driver (1976) and Death Wish (1974); but the 1990's then brought us to a level beyond distrust of those around us (classic period) and distrust of institutions (70's) and into a realm where the protagonist can't even trust himself. The noir had transcended the physical world to that of the mental. Some may argue that this jump was only done for low-budget reasons as according to Village Voice writer Paul Arthur, "[neo-noir] has emerged as the missing link between classical and postmodern moviemaking and a virtual rite of passage for indie directors," (Bryan Singer director of The Usual Suspects himself stated, "Film noir, especially the heist film, is a cheap way to make an action movie. That's what makes it so attractive to new filmmakers.") However, the amount of money involved in a project does not necessarily mandate the substance it provides or sticks to the classic period's meditations on foreigners and gender relations, nor is it the sole reason for a journey into the head. The mental was the final frontier in the 90's. The films also had to find a way to make themselves fresh in an increasingly tired and aging category known as "noir." However, as we do continue into the new millennium, the noir style will continue to surface – call it "neo-noir" or "new noir" or "film après noir," there will always be a woman dragging a weak man down, using her sexuality as a weapon to make him commit criminal acts – and he won't get the money or the dame, just punishment, legal or self-inflicted, for his stupidity. The world of the film noir will endure as long as there are ideological struggles within culture and the urge for those threatened to find a creative outlet for it. The biggest question for the future is the following: if and when the noir of the mind is over, what will be the next step? What can exist beyond the realm of thought?

The Graduate: Still Relevant After All These Isolated, Socially Awkward Years

by Brett Parker

2007 marks the 40^th anniversary of what most recall as the most important year of the flower power era. 1967 brought about the “Summer of Love” in which the hippie culture came into full blossom and new ideals on love and freedom were forever embedded into the American consciousness. To mark the anniversary of this crucial point in history, I’ve read countless articles this year on all things ’67. This includes The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, the legendary Monterey Pop Festival, and all of the hippie happenings in San Francisco.

With all the press ’67 is getting, it’s enough to make one ask, why does it matter so much? The reason, perhaps, is that the art and ideals that came about in this year still hold up a strong relevance to today’s era. Sgt. Pepper undoubtedly still influences how pop/rock music is seen and created, music legends such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin forever set the standards for musical icons, and free-spirited hippie ideals are still thrown around whenever the subject of the environment or politics is brought up. With all of this emphasis on 1967 and its creations, it is curious that little has been written lately about The Graduate, the ’67 Mike Nichols classic that probably holds the most relevance for our time.

The Graduate was a film that most still feel defines the ‘60s. With its underlying themes of free love and freedom from conformity, the film was very much of its hippie-themed era. Yet if one observes the picture today, they will find the film holds strong reflections of the world we occupy right now. Many of the film’s feelings and situations mirror those of 2007 so closely; it helps strengthen a connection between the Hippie era and the Myspace era.

A lot of modern familiarity can be spotted in Benjamin Braddock, the film’s main protagonist. Benjamin has just graduated from college and is feeling indifferent about his world and confused about his future. He has no idea what he wants for himself, all he knows is that he wants his future to be “different.” Benjamin wrestles with his indifference, but has difficulty in obtaining any form of meaning. This is strongly felt in a conversation he has with his father:

MR. BRADDOCK: Would you mind telling me then what those four year of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?

BENJAMIN: You got me!

I’m reminded of something my college advisor once told me. She explained to me how on class registration day, students would pile into her room yet have no idea what classes they wanted or needed to take. They expected her to choose everything for them. The students’ lack of perspective and goals are very reflective of Benjamin’s. Like Benjamin, these modern day students lacked a clear idea of what they want out of life. It is also worth noting that Benjamin comes from a privileged family in a pleasant suburban lifestyle. Despite his good fortunes and strong social status, Benjamin still finds things to be discontent and off-put by. Perhaps most privileged young people of today feel this way. If one were to watch TV’s Laguna Beach, they would find countless teens in an upper-class lifestyle who do nothing but bicker, complain, and feel sorry for themselves.

One peculiar aspect of the film is Benjamin’s constant need for isolation. Benjamin is at his most comfortable when he is cut off from everyone and everything in his world. He is constantly immersed in his parent’s pool, swimming and drifting about. It is in this pool in which he is free to just think and relax without any distractions or stress. Benjamin takes pleasure in being cut off from other people. One could find Benjamin’s attraction to his pool as rather strange, yet if one looks around today, they will find countless people participating in behavior just like this. Instead of immersing themselves in a swimming pool, most people immerse themselves in a popular invention called the iPod. With its endless supply of music and playlists, the iPod allows a listener to immerse into a zone of soothing relaxation and a space to think freely. As a result, the device can cause a person to perform a self-isolation that makes social interaction almost obsolete. The wild popularity of iPods solidifies a modern need for an isolating comfort zone. Perhaps we’ve all become a generation of Benjamin Braddocks retreating to our swimming pools.

When it comes to the film’s relationships, its very obvious how the relationship between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson still holds up today. There may have been a time when a young man dating a much older woman sounded offbeat and new, but in an era where Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore absorb the tabloids, age gaps in physical relationships have become commonplace. However, there is one relationship in the film that proves to be the most reflective of contemporary times: the one between Benjamin and Elaine Robinson. Benjamin and Elaine Robinson are attracted to each other, yet they lack a strong foundation for a lasting relationship. They only have one good date before it is discovered that Benjamin slept with her mother. Elaine grows outraged and cuts Benjamin out of her life. Benjamin pursues Elaine to her college campus in an attempt to win her over. At first, Elaine resists but then grows more affectionate and forgiving of Benjamin. Why? Well, perhaps she shares Benjamin’s feelings of indifference towards life. It is then Benjamin and Elaine contemplate marrying each other. This is not because they have lots in common and they truly love each other, but because they feel getting married will free them of their overwhelming feelings of inadequacy.

There are many couples in 2007 who think the same way. How else does one explain the astronomical divorce rate in today’s world? If one were to watch Dr. Phil or any talk show, they would see countless couples who wrestle desperately with each others’ flaws because they feel marriage is the end all be all of human happiness. Just look at MTV’s Engaged and Underage. The show features a new couple each episode who eagerly and relentlessly want to move forward with marriage despite everyone around them carefully explaining why the marriage won’t work out. Benjamin and Elaine would make perfect subjects for that show. Like so many young people today, they feel marriage will bring about happiness and end all of their personal problems without taking the time to think things through and sort themselves out.

There is one central idea throughout The Graduate that holds resonance no matter what era you occupy: you cannot run away from your inadequices. The film shows characters who try to elude their inner feelings through external factors, such as sex and marriage. Yet, as the film’s final shot confirms, it is very unlikely one can escape them. The film doesn’t offer any solutions to dealing with inadequacy, but we don’t always go to the movies for answers, we go to see characters who experience the same pain and feelings we do. Most college graduates experience feelings of inadequacy that create post-graduate anxiety. The Graduate nails those feelings perfectly. In high school, I used to roll my eyes when Benjamin pounded on the church windows, making a fool of himself. As I look back now, several years later, I know whole-heartedly where he’s coming from and have recently felt like doing that myself. So if you’re one of those people who currently feel nostalgic for 1967, make sure you throw a copy of The Graduate in with that Jimi Hendrix CD and that Tie-Died T-Shirt. Like the rest of that groovy art, it matters just as much.

Putting the Monster Away: The Foundations of Classic American Horror

by Andrew Jupin

Before 1968, the majority of American audiences were used to classic horror narrative themes and structures often seen in the films of the Universal monster series. When summing up the thematic structure of these films, Robin Wood simply describes it as, “normality is threatened by the Monster.” While a simple statement, Wood is very much correct. These films start with a quiet village or town (usually European) where everything is happening just as it always does. Wood is careful to note here that when speaking of ‘normality’ he is meaning a society where all members are behaving appropriately and complying with the accepted social norms. In other words, they are a repressed society.

Wood makes it clear that we understand the concept of repression found in the horror film. Wood’s theories on repression are basic Freudian theories developed more thoroughly by Herbert Marcuse. There is a difference between what Wood calls ‘basic’ repression and ‘surplus’ repression. He sums it up by saying, “basic repression makes us distinctively human, capable of directing our own lives and co-existing with others; surplus repression makes us into monogamous heterosexual bourgeois capitalists¾that is, if it works.”

Basic repression is something that is ingrained in all of us as human beings. Wood calls it that which “makes possible our development from an uncoordinated animal capable of little beyond screaming and convulsions into a human being.” In other words, basic repression is what keeps us, for lack of a better word, a ‘civilized’ people. This kind of repression is what keeps us in control of our selves and allows us to accept the ‘postponement of gratification.’

Surplus repression, by contrast is something that is formed on a culture-to-culture basis. Wood says that this kind of repression is ingrained in us from “earliest infancy to take on predetermined roles within that culture.” So for example, we are taught since childhood that hurting people is wrong. The killing of one human being by another is called murder and in our society that is terribly unacceptable and punishable under the law. So we grow up (most of us anyway) knowing that whatever urge we have to do fatal harm to another person is wrong and that we must quell these urges immediately.

Another aspect of our culture that is repressed is sexuality. Wood says that first and foremost, sexual energy as a whole is repressed in our society. The poster-boy or girl for our sexually repressed society is one who is satisfied with their simple heterosexual unity with their one and only partner who they engage in intercourse with simply for means of procreation. The sublimated sexuality of this person, which Wood associates, with the creative side of a person¾stating that sexuality is “the source of creative energy in general”¾is stunted by labor. In other words, any sort of creative urge these people feel through their sexuality is decimated by their compliance to work their daily nine-to-five jobs. But it is not just sexual energy in general that is repressed in our society.

According to Wood, female sexuality has been severely repressed. In addition, the creative potential fueled by sexual energy has also been repressed. This is due to the expectation of women to be the passive counterpart to the heterosexual man. Wood writes that this is, “…the attribution to the female of passivity, and her preparation for her subordinate, dependent role in our culture.” While the men go to work and earn money, women are expected to sit home and wait to get pregnant. Female sexuality plays a key role in the analysis of classic American horror.

Repression is a key thematic component in the horror film. The societies found in these classic horror films need to be repressed in order for them to be affected by the monster when the time comes. In a way, the monster is able to show them things that they would not even dream of doing in their lifetimes. He is that mythological figure that possesses powers greater than anything they have seen before. The monster in horror is almost the personification of that mythological figure. It is the creature that acts on its animalistic instinct. It is not some fairy tale anymore, it exists right before their eyes. The monster in a horror film is capable of exploiting these forms of repression by showing the repressed citizens what it is like to act on urges normally deemed unacceptable by the dominating cultural ideology.

In James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), the monster itself is created from the corpses of those once repressed by dominant ideology. The film opens with Henry Frankenstein and his assistant, Fritz, anxiously waiting for a funeral service to finish so they can dig up the deceased and take it back to his laboratory. They also cut down a body from the gallows that has been left to decompose. In a way this is an emancipation of the man who was hanged for reasons possibly relating to the violation of the social norm. Fritz also steals the brain of a man who was in life a deranged murderer, someone who acted on urges that went against what we are taught through surplus repression.

Henry Frankenstein himself is a character most repressed by society without even knowing it. He hides himself away in his abandoned castle working long into the night on his special project. Frankenstein is also a Romantic character. His own personal ideologies have moved him far beyond that of the Enlightenment way of thinking. To him, science and critical thinking will take him farther than God ever could. He thinks that by succeeding in creating life, he will elevate himself into a new state of success and accomplishment. Through science and technology, Frankenstein can become God. But all he is doing by locking himself away is preventing himself from experiencing life outside of work and repression. He is the prime example of a person possessed by post-romantic fear. Enlightened, faithful thinking can only take our society so far. Frankenstein is the scientist determined to use technology as a gateway to the next level of thinking, a higher echelon of existence.

He has a fiancée, Elizabeth, who he is set to marry. Instead of spending healthy time with her, he ignores her and keeps her at home, preventing her from entering his castle of ignorance and repression. He expects Elizabeth to lay in wait for him until they are to be married, at which point he will most likely leave for the castle again to continue his work away from her.

When the monster comes alive, the repressed lives of first Henry, and then the rest of the village are put into question. Made with the mind of a criminal, the monster is quick to resort to violence when cornered or put in danger. Henry and Fritz wave burning torches in the monster’s face; their torches serve as phallic symbols of repression as well as a tool to repress the monster’s violent tendencies. At first when the monster is exposed to the torches, he immediately backs away and hides from his attackers. With every time this happens however, the monster gets more and more used to them and eventually works up the courage to push right past Henry and Fritz. Henry and his former teacher, Dr. Waldman, decide that the monster must be sedated and eventually destroyed. As they let the monster out of his cell, Henry antagonizes him and distracts him from Dr. Waldman who is wielding a syringe. As the doctor sticks the monster with the debilitating liquid (a reference to female insemination, an act that women are exposed to as their part of heterosexual repression) the monster falls to his knees and succumbs to the repression that the rest of the town lives with. In the eyes of the repressors--society as a whole--his “health” has now been maintained.

While Waldman stays at Frankenstein’s castle to examine the monster and eventually take it apart, Henry returns to the village to rest and be with Elizabeth, as their wedding date grows closer. As if sensing the possibility of a heterosexual union happening, the monster wakes up during Waldman’s examination and murders him, strangling him to death with the hands Henry Frankenstein gave him. As the monster breaks out of Frankenstein castle, the normality of life is put in danger for the villagers as the bumbling, but strong monster makes his way down the mountain and closer to town. The monster, while becoming the personification of these animalistic instincts, is not allied with the villagers in any way. Even though he is showing them how to act on these urges, the villagers are far too repressed to act on their own.

In a tragic scene, the monster demonstrates how the boundaries of right and wrong, what is socially acceptable and what is not, are clearly blurred to him. As he makes his way to town, he accidentally comes across the home of a lumberjack and his wife and child, young Maria. As the father leaves, the monster slowly comes out of the brush and stands next to Maria. The innocent child, filled with the knowledge that violence is wrong and that people don’t hurt other people, thinks nothing of the monster’s grotesque appearance as he sits down next to her by the bank of a lake. Maria is playing a game where she throws the flower tops of daisies into the lake, making them look like little boats. The monster is excited by the game and, not confined to right and wrong, decides to throw Maria into the lake as well. A young child, Maria inevitably drowns in the lake and dies. Not only is this a scene depicting the act of murder, it also hints at the monster acting on another repressed urge, that of pedophilia. Before he throws her into the lake, the monster appears to almost be flirting with her.

Had the monster been ingrained with any sort of surplus repression, he would have realized that his actions would probably wind up taking a life and that that would be morally wrong and socially unacceptable. The monster also lacks much of the basic repression put into the minds of human beings because he is exactly that, a monster and not a human. Had his mind and conscience been filled with any sort of basic repression, he would not have had to rely on surplus repression because the basic would have prevented him from acting out his initial desire in the first place.

The most important aspect of the classic horror structure is the ending. The only way to make these films suitable for the time was to make sure that in the end, all was right with the world. To say it another way, things were put back to normal. As Wood puts it, “… the happy ending (when it exists) typically [signifies] the restoration of repression.” In the case of Frankenstein The villagers trap the monster inside the large structure and begin to light the base on fire. As the structure burns and eventually collapses, so too does any chance the town had at emancipation. Yet ironically, at the same time they are putting the monster back where he belongs, the villagers themselves are in a sense committing an act of murder and thus, are able to participate in an animalistic act just once. The repression is put back into place with the torching of the windmill.

The film concludes with Henry lying in bed, being cared for by his sweet fiancée. Servant girls come to the door to give him a glass of wine, just one little bit of alcohol to relax him. Baron Von Frankenstein takes the glass instead: “Mr. Henry doesn’t need this,” he says. As the door closes behind him, the Baron shuts in Henry, sealing him from the influential outside world. Locked in with his bride-to-be, Henry is toasted to by his father, “Here’s to a son, to the house of Frankenstein!”

With the monster now dead, sent back to wherever he first came, life will go on as usual; men will marry women, women with have children, fathers will become grandfathers and then they all will eventually rest eternal. The normality of life has been returned. Of course, it would be ignorant to pretend like this film--like all the films of the Universal monster series--did not have an endless string of sequels. James Whale himself went on to direct Bride of Frankenstein in 1935. The main difference between these Universal sequels and the sequels of the slasher films, however, is that with the endings of each of these sequels, the monster is always put away; it is always destroyed. The endings to these films never set up the following film. The only time the other films are mentioned is when the sequels start with some sort of recap of what happened in the previous film. But the endings always contain a return to normalcy.

This return to normality in Frankenstein occurs during the final stage of the classic horror structure. Every horror film from this time follows a basic narrative formula; Noel Carroll, in his book The Philosophy of Horror, outlines several variations of horror plot structure. The most common structure that Carroll outlines is what he calls the, “Complex Discovery Plot.” This plot outline is structured in four parts: Onset, Discovery, Confirmation and Confrontation. This structural device can be better examined through a brief deconstruction of Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931).

Onset kicks in at the beginning of the film when the audience is able to acknowledge that something is going wrong. Carroll describes this as the first time “the monster’s presence is established for the audience.” At the beginning of Dracula the audience is introduced to an element of fear in the first few lines of dialogue. A stagecoach carrying several passengers is traveling at a rapid pace through a terrifying mountain range. The Englishman aboard the coach, Renfield, asks the driver to slow down because the road is a bit rough. As soon as he suggests slowing down, a man lashes out at him, citing that this night is the ‘night of evil’ and that they are in the presence of a ‘nosferatu.’ The evil presence and Dracula are connected as being the same; the story of the monster begins.

For the rest of the first act the monster is allowed to wander once his presence has been established, wreaking havoc on whomever he can find. In the case of Dracula, he makes his way to London and sets himself up in a house adjacent to an asylum. As he begins to terrorize the people of the city, there are those who begin to suspect something is wrong. Carroll points out that this is the start of the ‘Discovery’ plot and it begins to occur just as the monster starts terrifying his victims. In the scene following Dracula’s attack on Mina Harker, she describes her experience with Dracula to Jonathan. She thinks that the attack on her was just a dream. As she describes this, Professor Van Helsing, the established vampire expert, overhears her description. After noticing that Dracula casts no shadow, Van Helsing confirms his discovery. What is interesting here is that here we have a slight twist on Carroll’s explanation of the Discovery plot.

Carroll insists that the person making the discovery will not be taken seriously, often times by people of power or “authority figures such as the police, eminent scientists, religious leaders, government officials, or the army.” What we see in Dracula, however is that there is an ‘eminent scientist’ who makes the discovery. This is another nod towards the Romantic way of thinking. Van Helsing uses science over faith. He is indeed a respected man of science; however put in the bourgeois setting of London, England, this Eastern European doctor’s opinion does not hold much weight.

Because of his ethnic background, the other English characters in the film see him as another form of the Other and do not immediately believe what he says. Van Helsing explains to Harker and Seward his case for the Count’s vampirism. Even with evidence such as Dracula’s reaction to the Wolf Bane and his non-existent reflection, Harker does not believe him in the least. “I don’t mean to be rude, but that is something I’d expect one of the patients here to say,” says Harker to the doctor. Now Van Helsing, the sole individual with knowledge of the Count’s dastardly secret, must set out and prove what he knows to the rest of the characters. Carroll refers to this as the ‘Confirmation’ plot.

By now the audience is aware of the monster’s danger, as well as a few of the major characters within the narrative. However it is up to those characters¾or in the case of Dracula a singular character¾to confirm what they know to be true. Carroll explains that, “the confirmation function involves the discoverers of or the believers in the existence of the monster convincing some other group of the existence of the creature and of the proportions of the mortal danger at hand (some of these monsters are often said to spell the end of human life as we know it).” Now, the threat of Dracula is not exactly a global one--that is to say, he is not a threat to humanity in any real way (yet)--however, he is an immediate threat to the Harkers and the other innocent inhabitants of London.

The confirmation of Dracula’s power is actually helped along by the actions of Dracula himself. As he attempts to transform Mina Harker into a vampire, she begins to grow more and more insane; she starts spending lots of time outside in the dark, speaking with animals, certain things that she would not normally do unless she were under control from some outside influence. As her condition worsens, the belief of her father is strengthened. The confirmation is ultimately completed when, after actions taken by Van Helsing, Mina admits that Dracula has attacked her and that he opened a vein in his arm and forced her to drink his blood. This revelation upsets Jonathan and the others and the search for Dracula is on.

With the threat of Dracula confirmed, the final stage of the complex discovery plot is set in motion. Now that there are more people who are willing to believe in the power and threat of Dracula, there is nothing left to do but confront the monster. As Carroll puts it, “…the complex discovery plot culminates in confrontation. Humanity marches out to meet its monster and the confrontation generally takes the form of a debacle.” In the case of Dracula, Van Helsing and Harker chase the Count down to the basement chamber of Carfax Abbey. He pushes Mina aside as he hides inside his coffin. Van Helsing, in a rather unsatisfying victory, rams the stake through Dracula’s heart and break the spell he holds on the young girl.

With the destruction of the monster, the complex discovery plot has completed itself. Things in London return to normal. Again, the structure of these classic horror films always ends with the monster being put away; it is either permanently destroyed or simply laid back to wherever it came from. In the case of these Universal monster chillers like Frankenstein and Dracula and even in The Mummy (1932) or The Wolf Man ten years later in 1941, the monsters are all eradicated.

Structurally and thematically, the horror films of the 1930’s and into the 1940’s all dealt with monsters the same way. They were different looking than humans. This made it easier for audiences to distinguish between the monsters and the innocents. If they held any kind of human form, they were always foreign, or built by foreign influence. They most certainly were not American. Once again, detecting any kind of different accent clued in audiences as to who the monster was. But in the end, no matter how dangerous these monsters were they were always destroyed by the end of the film. The “return to normalcy” was always achieved and the monster was put away. Audiences experienced these same themes and structures for almost twenty years without any sort of change. This is why when Alfred Hitchcock presented his horrific contribution to the world in 1960, Psycho shattered everything about conventional American horror.

Continues with Chapter 2 – Mother Knows Best: The Psychotic Alteration of 1960