Bleeding Heart Horror: A look at the socially conscious side of scary movies

frankensteinUandUlittleUgirl ad Bleeding Heart Horror:  A look at the socially conscious side of scary movies
It almost seems inevitable that the horror genre would gravitate toward social commentary. I mean really, there’s only so much you can say about zombies or psycho killers on the loose. Then again, some filmmakers might need to feel as though all of their hard work could really mean something at the end, as if a message behind the madness can justify all the mindless gore that goes along with it. Still, if there is to be a story behind the depravity, it often comes down to the basic struggle of good vs. evil and what defines each. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the quintessential horror/social commentary that asked who the monster was really: the deformed creature or the mad scientist with the God complex who created it and the society that shunned it for its physical appearance.

There have actually been quite a few horror movies over the years which dared to hold a mirror to society at large. Here’s a look at just a few of them….

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George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Shot in black and white, the casting of an African-American as the hero in an era where segregation was still running rampant across the nation was a bold statement indeed. The zombies were supposed to represent the new generation taking over the old one. I can see that there were major shifts in society at the time, what with the protesting of Vietnam and such, but was Romero’s message that these changes were as bad as some flesh-eating viral plague? Maybe in the eyes of the status quo. Who knew that zombies could be socially relevant?

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While we’re talking about Romero we might as well go ahead and mention his sequel to Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, which came out 10 years later. This one is in color and takes place in a shopping mall with the hungry zombie mob oddly resembling the hoards of consumers on Black Friday, the first shopping day after the feast of Thanksgiving.  Dawn of the Dead reflects a sort of dog-eat-dog mentality and dislocation which is endemic of a consumerist society trained to insulate themselves behind their material possessions and turn a blind eye to the human suffering happening right outside their door.

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Speaking to the horrors of land developers encroaching on natural animal habitats, the classic and underrated horror Wolfen (1981) is about a pack of murderous wolves running rampant in New York. Wolfen manages to satirize itself in a way, being that the wolves’ favorite meal is the gluttonous scumbag slumlord.  Even the cinematography plays a part in the social commentary as the stark landscape grows vibrant and colorful when the action is shown from the wolves’ point of view, and the bluest blues and greenest greens of nature overcome the muted hues of the dilapidated buildings. Love the line from the trailer “They can hear a cloud pass overhead, the rhythm of your blood…” Wolfen, there is no defense!

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Out of Korea in 1998 comes Whispering Corridors, a ghost story that takes place in an all girls’ school. Whispering Corridors makes a statement about a lot of ugliness behind the Korean education system. Proponents of Korean Ed tried to block its release through the courts but their lawsuits were unsuccessful. The movie was a hit, #2 at the box office that year. Hey, if I had to be at school at 7am and didn’t get out until 9pm like kids do in South Korea, I’d be loving a movie like this, too.

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre released in 1973 is said to be making a statement (believe it or not) about class structure but I’m not quite sure what the message is.  Is it that the poor will devour the middle class?  If it’s about the destruction of the middle class then perhaps they should have had Leatherface wear an Armani suit and drive around in a Bentley.

 Bleeding Heart Horror:  A look at the socially conscious side of scary movies

This brings us to American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis’ most explicit and gory commentary on the wealthy upper crust. Patrick Bateman is a trust fund baby who literally runs amok through New York city murdering people left and right and like a lot of rich criminals do in the end, gets away with it all. The real estate agent who’s selling the apartment of one of Bateman’s victims apparently cleans up the crime scene and covers up what Bateman did in there so she won’t lose out on her commission. Of course there’s that off-hand chance that it all happened in Bateman’s mind, but the physical ambiguity of Bateman’s friends and coworkers (to the point where they mistake one for another) speaks volumes to the lack of individuality inherent in this aspect of society. They all try so hard to look like each other, in the end, no one knows who anyone really is nor do they even care, and these are people who actually have power in society.  That’s way more scary than the blood-soaked, naked guy running around with the chainsaw screaming.

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