{"id":24160,"date":"2023-10-31T16:05:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T16:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=24160"},"modified":"2023-10-31T16:05:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T16:05:04","slug":"halloween-horrors-feel-the-fear-and-watch-it-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/halloween-horrors-feel-the-fear-and-watch-it-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween Horrors: Feel the fear and watch it anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the nights draw in and the spooky season is here, many of us turn to scary stories on screen to indulge in a little bit of supernatural fright so we asked Dr <\/em>Mark Fryers<\/em><\/a>, lecturer in Film and Media at The Open University for his top spooky film recommendations. <\/em><\/p>\n

Once derided as infantile at best, or downright dangerous at worst, Mark says that the modern horror movie genre is increasingly being recognised as a fertile arena to explore societal fears, contemporary anxieties, or subjects otherwise considered taboo.<\/p>\n

His conclusion is that watching horror films could help with emotional regulation and provide safe spaces to exercise our fight or flight instincts and explore our deepest, darkest fears.<\/p>\n

And he points to research from 2021<\/a>\u00a0that suggests horror movies can \u201cfunction as inoculation against the stresses and terrors of the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

The researchers said that intentionally scaring yourself through the horror genre can emulate exposure therapy and prove beneficial, even comforting, to those with anxiety disorders. So here are Mark\u2019s recommendations:<\/p>\n

Grief –\u00a0The Babadook\u00a0(2014)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On the face of it,\u00a0The Babadook\u00a0is a terrifying story about a monster conjured from childhood fear, but Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent\u2019s film is more complicated than that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Monstrosity becomes a metaphor for our darkest thoughts and fears, particularly following the death of someone close, which are explored through the relationship between a widowed mother and her young son as they face life without a husband and father, alongside more inexplicable events.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike the Victorian era, for example, when grieving mechanisms and practices for bereavement were much more visible and open, grief remains something of a societal taboo.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Babadook\u00a0is part of a number of recent horror films that deal openly and directly with sickness, grief and loss such as Mike Flanagan\u2019s\u00a0Before I Wake\u00a0or the more extreme films of Ari Aster –\u00a0Hereditary\u00a0and\u00a0Midsommar. The Babadook is available on BBC iPlayer.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Race –\u00a0Get Out\u00a0(2017)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Jordan Peele\u2019s\u00a0Get Out\u00a0took film-goers by surprise when it was released in 2017. Not only is\u00a0it full of memorable images, from lead actor Daniel Kaluuya\u2019s expressive eyes to his descent into \u2018the sunken place,\u2019 the film itself was a smart, witty but terrifyingly believable satire on contemporary race relations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Exemplifying the view that there are two Americas \u2013 one for middle-class white people, and one for Black citizens \u2013 Peele\u2019s film takes this dictum to the logical and horrifying extreme.<\/em><\/p>\n

More recent films have also used the horror genre to offer a sympathetic and nuanced examination of race and immigration, such as the recent\u00a0His House\u00a0(2020), seen through the eyes of two refugees of the Sudanese conflict and their experience of being \u2018othered\u2019 on their arrival in England. Get Out\u00a0is Available on BBC iPlayer.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ageing –\u00a0Relic\u00a0(2020)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Japanese-Australian director Natalie Erika James\u2019 feature-length debut is an exploration of death, ageing and female relationships through a contemporary horror lens.<\/em><\/p>\n

The film explores the impact of dementia on three female generations of an Australian family, as supernatural events highlight the general theme of disconnection.<\/em><\/p>\n

While dementia is often detrimentally linked to conceptions of \u2018zombiism\u2019 in a number of recent films (Old People,\u00a0The Elderly), James\u2019 film is more nuanced and sympathetic.<\/em><\/p>\n

It supplants the comforting environs of the familial home for one infected by a mysterious mould, and which becomes an unfamiliar and oppressive labyrinth. It becomes an active metaphor for the increasing sense of fear and frustration dementia can have on both the afflicted and their loved ones. Available on BBC iPlayer.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Environmentalism –\u00a0Cthulhu\u00a0(2007)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cthulhu\u00a0is a film fusing contemporary headlines of climate change with the \u2018cosmic horror\u2019 of HP Lovecraft, as well as navigating LGBTQ+ issues, as a young man returns to his insular maritime community to fulfil a strange prophecy.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a long history of destructive human activity stirring up dormant monsters from the Leviathan in the horror film, dating back at least to the nuclear mutation films of the 1950s, seen as responding to societal fears of nuclear destruction. <\/em><\/p>\n

Indeed, the Japanese\u00a0Gojira\u00a0(Godzilla, 1954) in which nuclear testing in the Pacific awakens the giant prehistoric beast, directly references the actual incident in which the Japanese fishing vessel the \u2018Lucky Dragon\u2019 was caught in the fallout of American \u2018H-Bomb\u2019 testing in the Bikini Atoll.<\/em><\/p>\n

By the 1970s, similar films began to reference the burgeoning environmental movement with tales of polluted nature going awry, such as\u00a0Doomwatch\u00a0(1972),\u00a0Frogs\u00a0(1972) and\u00a0Long Weekend\u00a0(1978). Unsurprisingly, in the age of climate crisis, this has accelerated.<\/em><\/p>\n

These texts do not simply position nature as \u2018horrific\u2019 but tend to favour an anthropogenic view of the world \u2013 one in which humanity is forced to consider the impact, or take responsibility for, its actions.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Picture: Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the nights draw in and the spooky season is here, many of us turn to scary stories on screen to indulge in a little bit of supernatural fright so we asked Dr Mark Fryers, lecturer in Film and Media at The Open University for his top spooky film recommendations. Once derided as infantile at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3],"tags":[860,869,888,1023,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-24160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-literature-music","category-arts-social-sciences","tag-faculty-of-fass","tag-fass","tag-films","tag-halloween","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}