Carroll (2003) and King (2010) discuss how the “monster” is really a defining feature of a horror story. Using references, explain in your own words how a monster in horror differentiates from monsters in other popular genres.
Monsters have been a prevalent theme and feature of the horror genre long before the horror genre was even clearly defined. Ghosts and ghost stories alike have been around even prior to civilisation. Using monsters as a mark of horror can be useful, however, the term can be broad as many different genres incorporate their own sense of a supernatural being. An article by Bell (2017) identifies four broad categories of monsters found in films, plays, novels, and other media, such as monsters from nature, which embodies the human fear of an uncontrollable force in the natural world (e.g. King Kong, the Loch Ness Monster), they are often elusive and mysterious. Monsters associated with the fear of science are also prominent, such as Frankenstein’s monster. The Jekyll and Hide type monster eludes to a psychological aspect which presents that people have double lives or selves, and their monstrous qualities are of one’s repressed self. Lastly, there are monsters from the past, such as Dracula, which take revenge on modern living and progress and provide unconventional ideas (e.g. promise of immortality).
Monsters are typically found dispersed in more than just the horror genre, and where it is a very large aspect of horror content, it also plays a big role in sci-fi, fairy tales, myths, and odysseys (Carroll, 2003). However, many sci-fi experts explain that monsters in this genre are secondary to the imagination and fantasy of alternate universes/technologies. Monsters can either be supernatural beings or have sci-fi origins, this often distinguishes horror from other stories which are called tales of terror, for example, William Maginn’s ‘The Man in the Bell.’ The presence of monsters helps clarify what is horror from terror – which can incorporate other features like abnormal psychologies. In relation to fairy tales and myths, monsters also inhabit these worlds greatly, however they are not considered horror. This often has to do with the attitudes of the surrounding characters and their encounters with the monsters. Horror fiction depicts that humans find the monsters abnormal and unnatural, but in fairy tales, monsters are an ordinary characteristic of their universe. For example, in Star Wars, the beast-like character Chewbaca is regarded as one of the ordinary characters, but in a film like The Howling, a similar beast-like character that resembles a wolf would be regarded as a dangerous monster by the human characters. In myths, creatures like griffins, chimeras, dragons, and satyrs are common and bothersome creatures in their worlds, but are not implied to be unnatural, instead they are explained by the metaphysics and cosmology that creates them. Carroll (2003) simplifies this argument by demonstrating that monsters are extraordinary characters in our ordinary worlds, and in contrast, monsters in fairy tales are ordinary creatures in extraordinary worlds.
Moreover, prior to horror becoming a more prolific genre for books and movies from the 80’s, there was a thread of gothic tales that were prevalent in the 1960-1974. One of its defining features was the usual terrified women running away from a dark, brooding house, and the genre was known as “gothic romances,” that were mainly adult-based fairy tales. These paperback novels took inspiration from the 18-19th century gothic literature, and involved themes of murder, confinement, and ancient curses, with the major plot of a young woman falling in love with a dark, handsome, but brooding master (Hendrix, 2018).
Overall, horror movies and novels have always been popular to some extent, and sees a cycle of increased popularity and visibility every couple of decades (King, 2010). These periods often coincide with serious, real-life events of economic or political strain, and the fictional narratives often reflect those anxieties. The over-arching theme of a ‘monster’ takes on a different shape according to the anxieties felt by the people during these periods, and are often symbolic and allegorical. The idea of escapism thrives on the horror genre as the grotesque and scary features of the genre can be appealing to the public, and provides a space to indulge dark fantasies. Monsters are almost always prevalent in these horror stories, and depending on the genre, have differing encounters with the human characters.
References
Bell, S. (2017, October 30). Monsters on our minds: What our fascination with frightful creatures says about us. https://news.usc.edu/130364/monsters-on-our-minds-what-our-fascination-with-frightful-creatures-says-about-us/
Carroll, N. (2003). The Nature of Horror. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Hendrix, G. (2018) Paperbacks from Hell.
King, S. (2010) Danse Macabre.
Pop Genres 2020 