Displacement of Image & Self Security: Disfigurement in Horror Cinema
When one thinks of horror they usually conjure images of murder, serial killers, the supernatural, or jump scares. While iconic, horror as a genre has a much further reach than its associated stereotypes. A great horror flick should get under your skin, provoke deep thoughts, and make you feel a bit queasy. Today we’ll be looking at two vastly different films and talking about how influence carries on across the generations. The films in questions? Nosferatu and Gerald’s Game.
Arguably one of the most influential films in the history of horror cinema, Nosferatu would go on to lay the groundwork for countless films in the decades to follow. Count Orlok, the first “vampire” to grace the big screen also acted as a major catalyst for effective monster design. To this day the Count still rings through as iconic, jarring, and outright horrifying. Although the count is humanoid, his body is slightly disfigured with elongated fingers, pale skin, and unnaturally skinny frame.
These physical features are interesting in that they’re recognizably human but different enough to fight against the conformity of human nature. Flashing forward through horror film history these physical characteristics would go on to reappear through figures such as the Leper, the Crooked Man, the Slenderman, and the Babadook to name a few.
In crafting the perfect horror monster one need not create a creature with multiple heads, or severed limbs, instead I feel the slight altering of the average man to be miles more effective. It’s through the imagery that we’re fed a displacement of image and self-image, and extimacy is explored. In a world of monsters and people safety will stem from those like us. When we create monsters which heavily resemble us we can be fed into a false sense of security only to have our backs stabbed or throats slashed when we least expect it. Nobody suspected the count until it was too late.
One of my personal favorite horror films is Gerald’s Game. Mike Flanagan’s take on a Stephen King classic. This film follows Jessie, a young woman handcuffed to a bed left to fend for herself after her husband suffers a heart attack while trying to spice up their sex life. This film brings a lot to the table, and while there is so much too unpack I will instead be focusing on the main “antagonist” of the film, The Moonlight Man.
Throughout the film the audience is fed various hallucinations from Jessie’s perspective, some appearing more real than others. At some point we’re greeted by the presence of an estranged figure with glowing red eyes. The man stalks her from afar and throughout the film we’re left to wonder whether he’s real or not. While the idea of being stalked while handcuffed to a bed is a terrifying prospect, what makes the encounters even more eerie is this Moonlight Man himself. He stands at seven feet tall, is scarily thin, and has features which are best described as disproportionate to the point of disfigurement. I think it’s fair to say he bears a bit of a resemblance to Count Orlok.
The most terrifying prospect and twist comes at the end of the film when we learn that this Moonlight Man was in fact real. It’s revealed that the man was actually a serial killer, and a necrophile. Although not entirely clear, it’s implied that he spares Jessies because he prefers the mutilation of male victims; which only makes his stalking even eerier.
In his essay Children of the Light, Bruce Kawin says “The effect of the good horror film is to show us what we are not comfortable seeing but may need to look at anyway. As a strategic aspect of its programmatic project — its intention to show us what we are comfortable ignoring — the horror film often turns reflexive, reminding us that we are watching a movie…” (Kawin, 338–339). In dissecting this in relation to what we’ve discussed I think it’s fair to say that the monster designed created by Nosferatu is a reflection on our negative outlook on those who are different from us.
In looking at Gerald’s Game I’ve come to realize that anybody could’ve stalked Jessie, and played the part of this serial killer/necrophile but it’s so much easier to alienate the audience from this man who rapes and mutilates corpses by further dehumanizing him and designing him around that traditional Count Orlok monster mold. Is it fair to cast this light of judgement on those not like us, or perhaps we should be more conscientious of those who differ from conformity?