Author’s Note: the following piece contains spoilers for “28 Days Later” and “It Follows”
In 1993, author Stephen King gave a speech to the National Press Club in Washington DC. By this point, he had already established himself as an international icon of genre fiction, with novels such as “Carrie,” ”The Shining,” “Misery” and “IT.” Live on CSPAN-3, he traced his career from being a fantasy-obsessed kid, to paying his way through college by publishing adult romance novels, to the release of his first hit, “Carrie,” which changed the trajectory of his life forever. At the end of the segment, he peered up from the podium with a wry smile, and semi-ironically asked the pivotal question of the night. How does a “nice guy like (him) write stories like this?”
Chuckles were heard throughout the starstruck audience. He didn’t have a perfect answer. Perhaps there isn’t one. He didn’t have the “how” of horror figured out. What he did have was the “why.”
Later in the speech, after a series of jokes and references to various successes, his signature smile suddenly softened. He said, in a warmer tone, “I’ve experienced it firsthand. The power of fantasy, to heal fear and help people cope with their own mortality, and their own terrors of daily life. Even more than that, to try and discuss on some level the seeming randomness of daily life, and why things happen the way they do.”
“…help people cope with their own mortality and their own terrors of daily life.” Incredible.
Today’s terrors are a global community sheltered indoors, attempting to flatten the curve of a viral pandemic. World leaders in science have insisted on social distancing as we’ve never seen before. The pandemic has forced the more privileged to work from home for months at a time, and the less privileged to lose their livelihoods, their savings and occasionally their loved ones.
Real-life tragedy is not the same as horror-fiction. Tragedy has consequences. Horror is not a photograph of humanity; it is an expressionist painting. It highlights emotion by exaggerating context. Fundamentally, horror is an emotional analysis of extremes of the human experience.
The question is this: What is horror able to teach us about these extraordinary times?
The history of infection in the horror genre is a long one. Movies about infectious diseases and brain-altering illnesses have cluttered the basement of the low-budget market for decades. Rarely do these films ever achieve the coveted cult-hit status, likely because they lack a traditional antagonist. When the threat to humanity is existential instead of personal, the heroes must come to terms with their own existence to face it.
Existential conflict in horror is best understood with Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later.” A bicycle courier, named “Jim” (Cillian Murphy), wakes up from a coma to find the city of London abandoned. He learns that he is weeks into a zombie outbreak that triggered the catastrophic collapse of humanity. In the famous opening scene, Jim explores a desolate downtown London. He is in the center of modern civilization, yet totally and irrevocably isolated. In his search for guidance, he enters a chapel. He is met with dozens of dead bodies littered over the pews. Just as tears start welling from Jim’s eyes, he sees the priest emerge from the dark: slowly at first, then quickly with violent swings and bloodshot eyes. The priest has been infected, and Jim is terrified.
“28 Days Later” teaches us that the social systems we devote our lives to are fragile. We depend on governments to protect us, yet they are not invincible. They are a shield with the potential to crack. When our social systems do fail us, it is easy to lose our footing at an existential level. In the movie, Jim faces his new reality with uncertainty. In the wake of losing the society that gave him meaning, he goes on an intimate journey to fill that void with his own leaders. He looks to his father and fellow survivors for support. Each time, the person he looks to for help dies. Only when he learns to look inward, is he able to find a reason to live.
We use our context to justify our existence. Our place in society gives us meaning. When society fails, we must find our value elsewhere. Usually, we can find that meaning in each-other.
“It Follows” was a 2014 critical darling, directed by David Robert Mitchell. Nineteen-year-old “Jay” (Maika Monroe) is chloroformed by her new love, “Hugh” (Jake Weary), after their first sexual experience together. Jay wakes up in an abandoned parking garage, bound to a wheelchair. Hugh approaches her with a dim flashlight and says “This thing, it’s gonna follow you. Someone gave it to me. I passed it to you back in the car. It can look like someone you know, or it can be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you. It can look like anyone, but there’s only one of it.”
Jay is being stalked by a sexually transmitted monster. She’s the only one who can see it, and if it reaches her, it will kill her. Then it will hunt the person who passed it to her. Jay is horrified. In the first act, Jay’s sister and best friends have little reason to believe her. At face value, she appears to be paranoid and delusional. Her friends choose to trust her, not based on evidence, but because they’re her family. That’s their job. They believe in one another.
Jay and her friends proceed to embark on a quest to outrun the monster and hopefully kill it. The team is on a journey of empathy. Her friends are not personally at any risk. The monster has no interest in their lives. They use the privilege of safety in the pursuit of protecting and cherishing their friend. At the end, when it becomes clear the monster is impossible to stop, Jay’s childhood friend and admirer, “Paul” (Keir Gilchrist), convinces her to pass the virus to him. If he can’t take the threat away from her, he can at least share her burden. In the final scene of the movie, Paul and Jay walk together silently, their hands touching. They are followed closely by the monster.
Tragedy can be hard to respond to with sensibility because tragedy itself is senseless.
In the closing of his speech for the National Press Club, Stephen King referenced the release of a collection of short stories, “Nightmares & Dreamscapes.” One of the stories in this collection, “The Moving Finger,” features a man haunted by a finger gradually emerging from a bathroom drain. The finger causes the man to spiral into mental collapse, which results in a stress dream featuring the man as a contestant on “Jeopardy” with Alex Trebek. In the dream, the man has just arrived at “Final Jeopardy.”
The “Final Jeopardy” answer, posed to the man, is “Because they can.”
The “Final Jeopardy” question is “Why do bad things happen to the nicest people?”
Horror movies are scary. Tragedy is scary. All we can do is find our purpose in taking care of each other and move forward hand-in-hand.
That’s interesting!!!! WOW