Voyeurism: Playing God

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman, Author

In voyeurism, the keyhole is a symbol of spying. Intended for the introduction of a key by which a door may be locked or unlocked, the keyhole is emblematic of the means by which to ensure privacy. By locking a door, an individual establishes a private space which is supposed to be inviolate. Behind locked doors, in the privacy of one's home, whether “home” is a house, an apartment or a condominium, or a hotel or a motel room, one is supposed to be sequestered; what goes on behind a locked door is supposed to be private.

The key phrase, of course, is “supposed to be.” In reality, little is truly private anymore, especially in an age of surveillance by camera, drone, and Internet spying mechanisms. Nevertheless, we resent the violation of our privacy, and one's peering through a keyhole, into our private space, into our private lives, into our private behavior is not something most people would accept. Voyeurism is a violation of the law because it is a violation of personal privacy.

There is another reason that voyeurism is, and should be, off limits, horror movies suggest. Peering through a keyhole can violate not only the privacy of the person or persons within the room, but also the voyeur's sense of propriety, of rationality, or even of reality itself. As Hamlet cautions Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” or, as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warns us all, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

Most horror movies which incorporate an element of voyeurism don't use a literal keyhole as a plot device. Instead, as in Psycho, Peeping Tom, and 13 Cameras, the voyeurism occurs through a hole in the wall or a hidden camera's lens, and the voyeurism as such, like the nudity (when nudity occurs), is incidental; the central part of the story, its theme, deals with the causes or the effects of such an invasion of privacy. The cause, although it may be related, superficially, to the voyeur's sexuality or lack thereof, is, on a deeper level, related to his or her (almost always his) emotional state.

Insecurity, a fear of women or of rejection, or a desire to know all and to be all places, including private ones, is often the basis of the voyeur's spying. In a word, whether the word is “omnipresent,” “omniscient,” or “omnipotent,” the voyeur's sin is a variation upon that of Adam and Eve: he wants to be like God.

However, their desire to be like God is, of course, ludicrous, for human beings are finite, fallible, and mortal; only God can be infinite, infallible, and immortal. Such a desire, the height of arrogance, is also a sin. God suggests as much to Adam and Eve when he warns them, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” but they, like the voyeur, prefer to believe, as Satan told them, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

The keyhole, the hole in the wall, or the hidden camera's lens allows the voyeur to spy in secret, to know that which he is not supposed to know, to learn that which, ordinarily, would be hidden from him, and it allows him to violate his victims' privacy with impunity (as long as he is not caught). Armed with such secret knowledge, he may blackmail, kidnap, torture, rape, maim, or kill, as he chooses, crime begetting crime, as sin begets sin.

The keyhole is a modern-day equivalent of the Biblical forbidden fruit, allowing secular filmmakers to tap into Judeo-Christian themes from a perspective outside religious faith, transposing the external, supernatural world of Satan and God with the internal, natural (i. e., psychological) environment of the self.

The temptation to be omnipresent, to be ominiscient, to be omnipotent, begins long before one looks through a keyhole, drills a hole through a wall, or hides a camera. In all likelihood, it is a desire that develops over years, slowly, until it becomes an obsession, but it is born of the inclination to know more, to be with, and to be more powerful than one's victim.

Maritime Monster Menaces

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

 Chrissie Watkins, about to meet her fate

To make their characters more vulnerable, horror movies often not only isolate them, but also take them out of their element. One of the most effective ways to accomplish both these goals is to have them do battle with an undersea monster. There's nothing, except another planet, as remote as the bottom of the ocean, and, as air-breathers, human beings are totally out of their depth when they're submerged thousands of feet below the surface of the great deep or, sometimes, in shallower, but still challenging rivers, bogs, or lakes.

Chrissie Watkins (still) about to meet her fate

Over the years, as the sheer number of the following titles indicates, quite a few horror movies have featured underwater creatures, a few of which are the Jaws series, Tentacles, the Piranha series, including Piranha 3-DD, the Megalodon series, the Crocodile series, Orca the Killer Whale, Barracuda, Leviathan, Endless Descent, Beneath Loch Ness, The Lock Ness Terror series, the Octopus series, the Megashark series, Demeking the Sea Monster, Sea Beast, The Beast, Monster from the Ocean Floor, the Shark Attack series, Ghost Shark, Creature, Proteus, the Moby Dick series, Malibu Shark Attack (even the rich aren't safe!), 2-Headed Shark Attack, Bait, Black Water, The Crater LakeMonster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon series, The Rig, Deep Rising, Deep Blue Sea, Tintorera . . . Tiger Shark, The Eye of the Beast, Behemoth the Sea Monster, Island Claws, Bering Sea Beast, SheCreature, The Host, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Deep Evil, Dinoshark, Sharktopus, SwampShark, Blood Waters of Dr. Z, Sector 7, The Thing Below, The Deep, The Neptune Factor, Supershark, the Lake Placid series, Shark Night, Red Water, The Last Shark, Primeval, Croc, the Dinocroc series, Snakehead, Frankenfish, Kraken: The Tentacles of the Deep, Jurassic Shark, TheReef, Shark Zone, OpenWater, Shark Swarm (never mind the fact that sharks don't “swarm”), Marina Monster, 12 Days of Terror, Amphibious 3-D, TheBermuda Depths, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Shark Week, Up from theDepths, Demon ofParadise, Bloodtide, the Humanoids from the Deep series, Gamera vs. Zigra, Razertooth, Alligator, Island of the Fishmen, The Fishmen and Their Queen, Pacific Rim, Atlantic Rim, Attack of theCrab Monsters, Hammerhead, Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, The Jaws of Death, Shakka, TheMonster That Challenged the World, Dagon, Rogue, and Deep Shock. 

As the titles to these movies suggest, fighting an underwater monster takes characters out of their element; isolates them; plunges them into darkness; subjects them to intense pressure, both physical and emotional; endangers them; and introduces a strange realm full of bizarre and fascinating, but massive, powerful, and monstrous, creatures.

Of course, such an approach also offers an opportunity for scenes of nudity or near-nudity, especially with regard to female characters. There are female skinnydippers and plenty of bikini babes whose curves and bare skin suggest women's power to replenish life, through sex, but this possibility is often quickly and decisively prevented by the menace of the maritime monsters, as dead women can't conceive, bear, or (with rare exceptions) deliver children. Death, embodied in the beasts from below the sea, is victorious over life, for male and female characters and the latter's potential progeny.

Human beings, who, on land, are apex predators, are, in the water, easy victims. They who, on dry land, prey on every other creature, become the prey of underwater creatures which, although less intelligent than they, are typically bigger, faster, stronger, and more agile. They have great stamina, breathe in water, and are difficult to injure of kill. The predator-prey table is turned, much to the shock, horror, terror, anguish, and destruction of the helpless men and women who find themselves at the mercy of merciless maritime monsters. It's one thing to horrify and terrify; to do so after having stripping one of the confidence, power, and status that he or she takes for granted is nothing less than devastating.

Tentacles is out to get you!

Horror movies about underwater monsters can offer additional commentary on the human condition and, occasionally, on society or civilization itself. In Tentacles, a 1977 movie, a seaside resort is the scene of horror when a giant octopus attacks the beach. A place of pleasure becomes a place of pain, a vacation retreat a site of horror and suffering. The cause of the anguish is technology: the octopus is driven mad by illegal “levels” of radio signals. The theme seems clear: unregulated technology can have a devastating effect on natural locations that, otherwise, would be like paradise. Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws (1975) also provides some social criticism, suggesting that, for some powerful people, the bottom line is more important and valuable than human life.

Unknown (i e., imaginary) creatures of the sea can become even more terrifying because of their horrifying appearance and their bizarre abilities. In Stephen Sommers's Deep Rising (1998), a never-before encountered, tentacled maritime monster covered in spikes liquefies its prey, the passengers and crew members aboard a disabled luxury liner that's been attacked by pirates who later plan to destroy the vessel. Three of the survivors of the monster's attack, Finnegan, Trillian, and Joey, take refuge on an island, only to discover it's not deserted: a thunderous roar from the forest alerts them to the fact that the island they've landed on is primeval and, apparently, inhabited by other fierce, unknown creatures. In this film, the ocean setting allows the surviving characters to flee from one to yet another danger, as trapped on the island, they have nowhere to go.

In another creature feature with an underwater setting, Paul Joshua Rubin's Deep Shock (2003), the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear submarine, is attacked by a monstrous beast armed with an electromagnetic pulse. As a result of the attack, researchers in an underwater station observe, the Polaris Trench has become hot enough to melt the polar icecap and to incinerate the men and women in the research station, without having damaged the facility itself. 

As these examples suggest, the permutations on the underwater monster menace are vast. Not only are there many natural freshwater and maritime predators from which to choose—alligators, barracudas, crocodiles, kraken, octopi, piranhas, sharks, and whales—but there are as many imaginary beasts as one can imagine, including those which result from congenital cephalic disorders (2-HeadedShark Attack), fantasy beasts (the Loch Ness Monster, fishmen, and humanoids), and hybrid monsters (Sharktopus, Dinocroc, and Dinoshark).

The underwater setting can be used again and again, each with a new plot twist, theme, and, to some extent, cast of characters. The underwater monster, long a staple of both sci fi and horror stories, cinematographic and literary, is here to stay, it seems.

Nudity in Horror Films: More Than Just Gratuitous

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Displays of nudity, partial nudity, or near-nudity in horror movies are often decried as gratuitous. Nothing more than cheap ploys, they're meant merely to sell tickets, such critics contend, and increase box office receipts for low-budget, less-than-spectacular films. Many a second-rate flick would have lost money had it not been for a bare breast, a flash of buttocks, or, at the very least, a bikini-clad victim. No doubt, these charges are frequently true—in part. But they're not all always entirely gratuitous. In fact, they often have a purpose other than mere titillation.

Consider this full-page print ad.

The model, wearing a braand panty set and a pair of light-tan high-heeled shoes, sits, her posture erect, arms at her sides, right leg slightly forward, left leg slightly to the rear, gazing directly into the camera, as though she were making eye contact with the advertisement's viewer, whose eye probably starts with her face, which is framed by her dark, luxuriant hair, travels down and over her breasts, down her slender midriff, turns to trace her right thigh, and detours, at the bend of both knees, to continue down her left calf.

In the lower left corner of the photo, the product's brand name, in elegant white font against a cream-colored carpet, awaits the viewer's gaze: Fayreform, above smaller text in a different style of font that reads, as though it were a subtitle, the command, “Work your curves.”

As this bidding suggests, the ad is all about the model's curves, curves which any woman who purchases and wears the same bra and panty set as the model wears could likewise “work.” As the eye moves along the model's body, it perhaps takes in the photo's suggestions of the opulence of her surroundings, the enormous gilt-framed painting, the mahogany doors, the hardwood floor, the expensive carpets, an upholstered armchair, and some sort of furniture, only vaguely represented, in the back of the room.

It is only afterward that the viewer may (or may not) notice the other white text, in the same font, under the product's name, as that which issues the command, “Work your curves”: “Bet you didn't notice the armadillo.” If the ad has succeeded, as it often does, the viewer is apt to think, What armadillo? It is only by searching diligently that the viewer is likely, at last, to spy the animal standing in the luxurious armchair. The advertiser wins the bet—and implicitly makes the point that the model is so bewitchingly beautiful, commanding attention so completely, that the armadillo, although undeniably present, remained, as it were, altogether invisible. By implication, the woman who buys and wears the bra and panty set the model is wearing will command equally engrossing attention from her admirers.

To be fair, the armadillo's color is similar to that of the chair, resulting in a sort of camouflage effect. On the other hand, the white text is fairly noticeable against the contrast of the mahogany doors. Had the viewer not been distracted by the near-nakedness of the beautiful model, he or she probably would have seen the text and, alerted by the question it poses, have been looking for the armadillo as well as at the model.

The ad uses the same technique that magicians use to fool their audiences: misdirection. The viewer is too busy admiring the model to notice the armadillo (or the text that references the animal). As a result, it is only after he or she has admired the model, if ever, that the viewer does see the text, the armadillo, or both.

 

Linnea Quinley in Silent Night, Deadly Night

In horror movies, displays of nudity, partial nudity, or near-nudity have the same purpose and the same effect as the near-nakedness of this ad's model. Bare breasts or buttocks or a tantalizingly brief bikini distracts the audience, and, while they are appreciating the display of a lovely young lady's bare flesh, the monster, killer, or other horrible villain abruptly appears, slashing, hacking, skewering, stabbing, shooting, or otherwise spindling, folding, or mutilating the beautiful victim or one of her friends or acquaintances. Titillating displays do titillate, but they do more than simply stimulate the audience's libidos; such exhibitions also draw attention away from the bogeyman who's about to appear. The result is a contrast between the sleek, nude flesh of a beautiful young woman and the same flesh, a moment later, after it's been suddenly slashed or otherwise mutilated. The contrast both conceals and reveals the horror, first distracting from it and then emphasizing it. 

Scream queens help us to vicariously experience (and feel) the terror, the pain, and the horror that the scream queens experience. There's a reason scream queens are called "scream queens," and there's a reason that scream queens are usually naked or only partially dressed. Besides that of selling tickets, we mean.

Breasts as Emblems of Horror

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Bare breasts are big in horror movies, which begs the question: what's so horrific about mammary glands? 

Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb) devotes several pages to listing “Most Popular 'female-frontal-nudity,' Horror Feature Films.” There are a lot of them on the list: 665, in fact, to date. Perhaps these films may indicate why filmmakers consider women's breasts terrifying enough to feature prominently in the movies they make, if the exhibition of breasts is not merely gratuitous—in other words, presented only to sell tickets.

In TheShining, Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer who is earning money by taking care of a vast hotel that's closed for the off-season, sees a naked succubus. The female sex demon appears to be a beautiful young woman, but she soon reveals her true self, taking on her actual appearance as a withered old crone. Is Jack hallucinating, or has the succubus actually transformed, shedding her youth and beauty? Does her change in appearance have a psychological or a supernatural cause? In the words of Tzvetan Todorov, is she, respectively, a specimen of the uncanny or the marvelous?

In a sense, the succubus embodies the crux of the matter investigated by Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of Stephen King's novel. The producer believed in the possibility of the survival of death. His succubus suggests this state of existence in the presence of the sex demon. However, Kubrick leaves room for a psychological explanation of the female sex demon: maybe Jack is psychotic and she's merely an hallucination. Since the succubus can be understood in either natural or supernatural terms, depending on one's world view, her presence in the film is not gratuitous, but symbolic and thematic.

But what about her nudity? Must she be naked? Again, the answer to this question will be determined by the individual viewer's view of the nature of ultimate reality. If she is regarded as being of a supernatural origin, her nudity is not gratuitous, for it accords with the legend of the succubus, a female sex demon who invariably appears in the altogether as a temptress intent upon collecting human semen. Once successful, according to some stories, she assumes the form of a male sex demon, the incubus, appearing to women, usually during their sleep, to seduce and inseminate them—with the demon (or female sex demon) collected from human males in his (or her) previous incarnations as a succubus. (Demon sex is more complicated than we might have imagined.)

If she is a succubus, though, it is difficult to imagine why she gives herself away by transforming her appearance as a beautiful young woman into a shape that's not merely undesirable, but repulsive. As a succubus, she would be intent upon collecting Jack's seed in order to inseminate a woman. Assuming the appearance of someone who's undesirable doesn't help her to achieve her goals.

Perhaps, then, the succubus isn't a sex female demon, after all, except in Jack's own tormented mind. She is his version of a succubus, a demonic Galatea fashioned in his own image of a desirable woman. As such, she is far from the reality of womanhood embodied by his wife, Wendy, who is portrayed by Shelley Duvall, the same actress who played Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams's Popeye. Wendy is not undesirable as a woman—Jack married her and fathered a son by her, after all—but, in Jack's twisted mind, if the succubus is a hallucination, Wendy (and all women) becomes so: her transformation isn't real, but a projection of Jack's own thoughts about women, Wendy, perhaps, in particular. Seductive one moment, women can transform themselves (or be transformed by Jack's fears of women) into repulsive monsters—or female sex demon—the next instant. Woman, Jack's ambiguous thoughts about the opposite sex seem to suggest, thy name is mutability.

The scene in which the succubus makes her appearance suggests Jack's ambiguity concerning women, female nudity, and sex. His hand appears from the left, as he slowly opens a bathroom door. The slowness with which Jack opens the door highlights the moment, dramatizing the revelation that is now at hand. This slow movement, like the lighting during the first half of the scene, gives an ethereal quality to the picture, emphasizing the ideal way in which Jack views the nubile young woman.

As the door opens, Jack sees a bathtub and a half-drawn shower curtain. The tub occupies an arched niche at the rear of the bathroom, which, with the shower curtain, gives the alcove the appearance of being a theater, if not, indeed, an altar. Jack has entered a forbidden (or sacred) zone, symbolized by the closed, if not locked, door. He is about to see something half-hidden from his consciousness, as the half-drawn shower curtain suggests. His staring eyes and a close-up shot of his throat as he gulps, his Adam's apple rising and falling, shows his anxiety. The half-drawn shower curtain opens, as a beautiful young nude woman draws it aside. She is wet (with Freudian significance and otherwise), as her breasts are revealed. Again, the slowness with which the curtain is drawn aside focuses viewers on the revelatory aspect of the moment.

Jack's expression changes from one of anxiety to one of enchanted. He smiles, Slowly, the woman rises. Jack's look of enchantment. changes to one of lust, as his gaze intensifies, Slowly, the woman steps out of the tub, one long leg advancing, the other, just as slowly, following. Jack's gaze is riveted. His smile broadens. The seductive woman advances, her gait slow, measured, as if she is walking in tandem with the wedding march. Her gaze is locked on Jack. Returning her stare, he seems transfixed, but then he walks, slowly, to meet her, as the camera turns slightly to view her from a three-quarters angle. Her breasts and pubes seem to fill the screen, as they do Jack's consciousness.

As they face one another, staring into one another's eyes, the woman's fingertips make contact with Jack's abdomen, gliding upward, across his chest. Her movement, as has been typical throughout the scene, is slow and deliberate. Her hands continue to glide, over Jack's shoulders and around his neck. He has not moved, but stands as if he were a statue. Then, he responds, encircling her waist with his hand. She turns this way and that, offering viewers a glimpse of her buttocks, before she kisses Jack, who now fully embraces her. Jack's eyes close. Theirs is a long kiss, an extended kiss, a passionate kiss.

Jack opens his eyes. They widen, as he sees something over her shoulder. The camera shares his view, in a mirror on the wall behind him: the body of the woman he holds in his arms, as revealed in the looking-glass, is scarred. Her upper left arm, her lower back, and her right buttock are marred by massive discolorations and hideous blemishes. Astonished and horrified, Jack begins to back away from the transformed woman.

For a moment, his shaken son Danny's discovery of a dead older woman, lying, partially submerged in the bathtub, scabrous discolorations and blotches on her body, is interspersed.

Jack continues to retreat, his head shaking, just as Danny's head shook when he saw the drowned, older woman's corpse. As he backs through the doorway, the portal of revelation, the hideous crone follows, her arms parted, as if to embrace Jack.

The scene is interrupted again by Danny's sight of the drowned woman, lying, partially submerged in the bathtub, her body displaying terrible scars and bruises.

Jack retreats down the steps, into the suite's living room, followed by the succubus.

Danny trembles, uncontrollably, as the dead woman's body sits up.

Outside the suite, Jack locks the door to the rooms, leaving the key in the lock, as he staggers backwards, down the hall, away from the rooms,leaving the scene of the revelation behind.

It seems apparent that the nude woman whom Jack encountered is the same one Danny encountered, but Jack saw the woman in her beautiful and desirable guise, whereas Danny saw her as an apparition of a drowned, older woman. For Jack, the woman was a female demon; for Danny, a ghost. Danny is too young to conceptualize women sexually; Jack is not. Therein lies the differences in their conscious understanding and their unconscious depictions of the opposite sex. Danny can see a woman in her physical aspect as a body which, despite the presence of breasts and genitalia, is primarily, or even exclusively, merely anatomical. Jack can see a woman as both physical and sexual, and it is to the latter image that he is anxious, while, at the same time, himself sexually responsive.

Essentially, Danny is frightened of death, a it is represented by the female corpse he encounters, whereas Jack is terrified of something other than death. Jack is horrified by female sexuality itself, which is alive with beauty and sex appeal, but, at the same time, diseased and repulsive because capable of transforming in various ways. A woman can become pregnant, deliver a baby, suckle an infant, and age. She seems to be in transition, as she undergoes transformations throughout her life. She is manifold in function and in appearance, seemingly unstable and mutable—in a word, from Jack's point of view, monstrous and demonic.

His encounter with the beautiful nude young woman shows Jack's feelings about women as desirable, but his attraction to them, as they are represented in particular by his wife Wendy, is contradicted by his revulsion of them. He seems to think that, beneath their apparent glamour, they are diseased and hideous.

The sexist dichotomy of women which separates them into virtuous and charming companions versus untrustworthy sluts is alive and well in Jack's subconscious mind. In the hotel, whether through supernatural or psychological influences, this unconscious view of women become conscious, at least until the locks the succubus in the hotel suite (his unconscious mind) by repressing the knowledge, which he finds too threatening to embrace, or accept. Therefore, his view of women, and of Wendy in particular, remains dualistic. At the same time, he sees them as beautiful and desirable, seductive temptresses and as hideous and unwelcome, destructive female sex demons.

In The Shining, as symbols of femininity, of female sexuality, of pregnancy, and of motherhood, breasts, as synecdoches of womanhood, are horrific for Jack because he is unable to come to terms with women as they are in themselves. Women are too complex for him, too changeable, too mysterious, too other. He can conceive of them only as beautiful seductresses or as monstrous female sex demons. Despite his marriage to Wendy, he is unable to view women, including his wife, as they are in and of themselves, as human beings, complex and, yes, in the final analysis, mysterious, as all life is ultimately mysterious.

For viewers, watching the movie through more objective eyes, Jack's behavior, stemming, as it does from his beliefs, is insane. However, from his own point of view, his delusions and hallucinations are real. From his perspective, he sees things as they are. When he acts upon his own understanding of reality, horror results. It is this horror, resulting from his monstrous ideas of women, his wife included, that the true horror of Kubrick's film arises.

Of course, plenty of other horror movies feature breasts as symbols of the particular horrors with which they are concerned. While such horror, in general, centers upon women, who sport these accouterments of femininity, the precise sorts of horror that breasts, as synecdoches of the physicality and sexuality of women, represent for other characters, in other movies, differ, because every man—and some women—are Pygmalions who fashion their ideas of women into psychological and, sometimes theological, representations of women. When those concepts of womanhood are irrational, horror can, and, unfortunately, often does, result. Future essays will consider the additional ways in which, in such movies, breasts are emblems of horror.

Cover Art

copyright 2014 by Gary Pullman

It may be true that one cannot tell a book by its title, but, fortunately for those of us who enjoy visual as well as literary art, publishers keep trying to prove this maxim wrong.

As a result, they—or the artists whom they hire—occasionally offer us some aesthetically pleasing cover art.

This is especially true when the novel between the covers is erotic horror.

Here are a few cases in point.

Dark Seduction: Talesof Erotic Fiction, an anthology of short stories edited by Alice Alfonsi and John Scognamiglio, shows a woman's hand, holding a single, long-stem rose against her bosom, the ample cleavage of which is framed by the decolletage of her black dress. The background is also black, so that her hand, her cleavage, and the rose alone are visible, which emphasizes them, both in themselves and as parts of the composition as a whole. Her flesh is pale, so the sleek skin highlights the crimson drop of blood that the piercing of her right breast by the rose's thorn produces. The red letters of the subtitle match the red of her blood, connecting the rose and her vital essence. Why, one may wonder, is she—whoever she may be—surrounded by darkness? Just as the color of the rose matches that of her blood, the black surroundings match her black dress, suggesting that she is one with the night, as she is one with life and beauty. She is a dark figure who inhabits a dark world. Surely, though, she is more than a lady of the evening; she is a queen of the darkness, a vampire, perhaps, a femme fatale whose beauty lures the unsuspecting and the unwary to their deaths. A beauty who feeds upon the lifeblood of her victims, she is a monster, a creature of the night, despite her apparent tenderness and loveliness. She is herself the embodiment of the “dark seduction” which awaits the reader between the covers of the book she adorns. Several of the titles of the short stories in this bouquet of flowers, as the word “anthology” literally means, suggest that romantic passion, not good intentions, may pave the road to hell: “Private Pleasures,” “Dark Seduction,” “Good Vibrations,” “Satisfaction.” Whether the stories can deliver the passion the book's cover art implies is a question that each reader must answer for him- or herself, but the pale woman in the black dress certainly promises the reader good times.

Blindfolded, the topless blonde raises a hand, to block someone or something, as she stands in an inverted triangle, blackbirds in flight through the fog that obscures a tangle of treetops behind her. Her other hand covers her lower abdomen. Has she escaped mysterious captors? Is she a sacrifice, about to be sacrificed? Is she prey, awaiting the attack of a predatory man or beast? Any of these scenarios is possible, but none is certain; the painting of the damsel in distress leaves open all these alternatives and as many others as a reader might imagine. However, the title of Selena Kitt's volume, Shivers, suggests that the reader may quiver as much with fear as with lust. . . if he or she dares to open the book to find out what waits inside.

A naked shoulder, arm, breast, and side is all that is visible in the darkness, these parts of the female anatomy and the author's name (“Polly Frost,” in white), the tagline, (“Extreme Erotic Fantasies,” in tan), the main title, “Deep,” in black, and “Inside,” in white), and, deeper down, the subtitle, the first four words in fleshly tan, “Ten tantalizing tales of,” and the remaining two in white, “supernatural erotica.” The piecemeal presentation of author and the main title, above, and the subtitle, below, the breast makes the woman's torso a striptease act, of sorts, which communicates, piece by piece and word by word, the message of erotica and horror that the cover art promises is in store “Deep Inside” the covers, where such stories as “The Threshold,” “The Orifice,” “The Pleasure Invaders,” “Viagra Babies,” “Test Drive,” and “Visions of Ecstasy,” among others, wait.

For authors, these images of sex and death may do more than suggest good times. The can also suggest how carefully planned design and composition can speak volumes in and of themselves. A writer, however, can provide such images only through description. He or she should plan his or her depictions of invitation and danger, of promise and peril, of temptation and destruction as meticulously as the artist paints his or her visions. By studying light and intensity, hue and shade, color and contrast, size and shape, density and texture, direction and distance, perspective and space, background and foreground, color and effect, depth and focal point, the writer can maximize his or her descriptions, making them do more with less to shock, terrify, disgust, and horrify. Cover art, like advertisements and posters, offer good ways for writers to study and to see, just as written texts can teach visual artists how to allude, be ironic, use hyperbole or understatement, wax metaphorical, be symbolic, or personify.

Trailer Tease

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The text is minimal, mostly phrases, interspersed with film footage, which has a cumulative and climactic effect:

A small town. . .

A way out. . .

A helping hand. . .

A new breed. . .

. . . of evil

is on the hunt.

In the example shown above, which constitutes the trailer, or preview film clip, of Prowl, young adults (the ladies wearing bikinis, of course) leap into a swimming pool, enjoying themselves at a party.

Text--“A small town”--appears on the screen, above an image of a two-lane blacktop cresting a hill between stands of trees, a mountain in the distance.

The characters talk excitedly. A van travels down a snowy road, away from the camera, as the words “A way out” appear on the screen. The driver and passengers are shown enjoying their ride before their vehicle breaks down, leaving them stranded alongside the road. They wait, impatiently, inside for a few moments before deciding to flag down another vehicle.

As “A helping hand” appears on the screen, a big rig stops for them, and they climb inside the trailer, where they resume partying, dancing and drinking. Two of the women, one half-dressed, attempt to kiss, but the big rig slams on its brakes, and the passengers are thrown about inside the trailer. One of the ladies tries to make a call on her cell phone, but to no avail. Another attempts to peer through a hole drilled through a wall of the trailer, and one of her companions discovers blood on the floor of the trailer. The occupants bang upon the walls of their mobile prison, demanding to be let out. The door to the trailer is lifted, but it is dark outside.

The scene shifts, and the young adults are inside a large, cavernous building, which turns out to be an abandoned meat-packing plant, and the words “A new breed” appear on the screen as a figure leaps from several stories. He seems to be disfigured or to be wearing a mask.

“Of evil” appears on the screen as another figure glides below the ceiling of the vast building, looking like a flying squirrel. He tackles a fleeing woman. A third figure scampers down a wall. Several of the group are lifted into the air. A woman stabs one of the predators in the eye with a knife. The bloody blade falls to the floor.

“Is on the hunt” appears on the screen, followed by a small army of predatory figures. Two of the victims hide around a corner, their backs to the wall, crying and lamenting their fate. A male victim looks upward, following the beam of his flashlight. A spread-eagled figure leaps from above. Someone on fire runs through the building. Two of the young women kick at panels in the wall, seeking escape. More images of flight and pursuit are displayed. A fire sweeps through the building.

The film’s title, Prowl, appears on the screen. A young man and a young woman are buried up to their necks inside a bin. He places his hand over hers, reassuring her. There is a blurred movement, and she screams. “In 2011” appears on a screen gone black.

Examined from the perspective of narrative or dramatic structure, the teaser has a beginning (a problem is indicated: the young adults become bored with their lives in a small town); a middle (a possible solution is proposed [seek an apartment in Chicago]; another problem is introduced [their vehicle breaks down, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere], a possible solution occurs [a trucker stops to offer them a ride]); and an end (the horror begins [vampires hunt the trapped travelers inside an abandoned warehouse]). The trailer also sets the scene--or scenes--”a small town,” rural countryside, and a meat-packing plant--introduces the characters--bored young adults who take a road trip together, encountering a trucker who leads them to a building infested with vampires--and establishes the basic situation--the victims are hunted by vampires (who happen to be in training).

Like paperback novel blurbs, horror movie trailers are useful tools, when analyzed, in illustrating the elements of plot that intrigue fans: a problem-solution approach, characters involved in a personal undertaking, an encounter with evil, and a fight-or-flight sequence in which young adults strive to survive against all odds. (A little sex and/or nudity is, for horror movies, if not paperbacks, prerequisites, too, of course.) By making sure that one’s own story contains these elements, a writer is likely to interest his or her readers or moviegoers in similar fare. What is more, carefully chosen phrases, like those displayed in the Prowl trailer, provide a skeleton that can be fleshed out, so to speak, with cause-and-effect-related action sequences unified by purpose and theme. By studying horror movie trailers, writers can become more adept in grabbing audiences or readers by their throats and holding on for dear life until the last foot of film or the last page of a novel.

Don't Answer the Phone

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

It’s cheesy and it’s sleazy, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. Don’t Answer the Phone (1980) is about a female psychiatrist, Dr. Lindsay Gale, who, in addition to her practice, hosts a radio talk show during which she advises callers as to what to do concerning their emotional and personal problems.

One caller, Vietnam War veteran Kirk Smith, a sadistic serial rapist and killer, takes a liking, of sorts, to her and begins to stalk, rape, and kill her female clients. Hiring a prostitute, he strangles her while she is on the telephone, talking to Dr. Gale, and the psychiatrist hears the victim’s terrified cries as she struggles for her life.

Finally, the sociopath invades Dr. Gale’s home, binds her to an armchair, and beats her as he shouts and curses at her. Fortunately, the police are on his trail, and Lieutenant Chris McCabe arrives in the nick of time, grappling with Smith, into whom the lawman empties his revolver, leaving him lying in a pool of blood as he frees the captive psychiatrist.

Of course, despite having been shot full of holes, the villain isn’t dead, and he seeks to kill the detective. More ammunition is enough, finally, to send the dead vet into the good doctor’s swimming pool, bloodying the water.

The low-budget thriller is impossibly tacky, tasteless, and tawdry, which is why, pretty much, it’s become a cult classic. The nudity doesn’t hurt, either; most of the damsels in distress--no, make that all the damsels in distress, including Dr. Gale--wear lingerie at some point in the film, offering viewers a glimpse or two of their more or less buxom charms.

Not-So-Gratuitous Nudity, Part 2

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Context helps to determine how onscreen nudity registers--how, in other words, a moviegoer interprets its significance--and the context depends, in large part, upon the movie’s genre. For example, nudity in a romantic movie will be interpreted quite differently than nudity in a horror movie. However, context is more refined than simply a type of fiction would determine. The setting of the movie and other elements also suggest how onscreen nudity should be interpreted.

In Re-Animator, Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton) is shown lying on her back, upon a steel examination table that is covered with a light-blue sheet. She could be in a hospital, coming to, or going from, surgery, but her situation is actually far worse: she is in a morgue, an unwilling potential participant in a madman’s quest for reanimation.

Surgery is frightening because its outcome is uncertain. Often, patients survive operations and thrive. Sometimes, however, they die on the operating table or, if they survive a botched surgery, they live out their days horribly disfigured or disabled.

As frightening as a hospital tends to be, however, a morgue is much more unnerving, for morgues are, by definition, associated with death. To be on a metal table in a morgue is anything but reassuring--especially under the conditions in which Megan finds herself.
 

Whether her attacker is a demon or a poltergeist is unclear, but Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) emerges from an assault by an invisible rapist with bruises and injuries (The Entity). Her psychiatrist, Dr. Sneiderman, believes that Carla has caused these injuries to herself and that the “entity” whom she contends attacked her is but a delusion. As a child, she was sexually abused, becoming pregnant as a teenager. She also witnessed the violent death of her first husband. Her psychaitrist believes that these traumatic events have caused Carla to hate herself and to take her hatred out upon herself in violent displays of hostility and rage. However, moviegoers witness the attacks that Carla claims occur, seeing, before their own horrified eyes, the deep indentations in her breasts that the invisible entity makes during one of its terrifying assaults.

The juxtaposition of an invisible predator and a flesh-and-blood victim--and a nude one, at that--creates great tension, as audience members wonder whether they, too, could be similarly attacked by a ghost or demon that no one but they themselves can see--or feel. The indentations in Carla’s breasts, like the bruises and injuries to her body, witnessed by moviegoers, make it abundantly--and horrifyingly--clear that the entity is real, for, if it were not, it couldn’t grip Carla’s breasts, bruise her flesh, or injure her body. By reflecting the reality of the fleshless and invisible monster that assaults her, Carla’s nude and battered body magnifies the viewer’s own fear and dread, for, were the entity’s presence not revealed by these signs of its attendance, it would be easy to suspect, as the psychiatrist does, that Carla is hallucinating. The film does not allow this option. The entity is known by its effects upon Carla’s flesh and is as real, therefore, as she herself. The reality of the entity is the movie’s source of horror.

Evil can appear attractive. This idea seems to be the theme of Innocent Blood, in which Anne Parillaud plays Marie, a lovely, modern vampire. Her lovely, bare body seems to ask, Do bad things come in beautiful packages? Her slender frame, her fetching beauty, and her vulnerable nudity all seem to suggest the same thing: a beautiful young woman--or vampire--is too beautiful to be hazardous to one’s health. Evil is ugly, after all. The beautiful people are not dangerous--even when they are undead. The truth is, of course, altogether different, and much of the film’s horror, revulsion, and suspense is based upon this paradoxical and ambiguous depiction of evil as attractive.
 



In Cat People, legend has it that a werecat transforms into a leopard when it has sex with a person, regaining its original human form only when it kills a person. The film plays upon fears of both incest (the werecats are incestuous) and bestiality, with the nude and sensual bodies of Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) and zoologist Alice Perrin (Annette O’Toole) temptations that Irena’s brother Oliver, who is also Alice’s colleague and boyfriend, is unable to resist. Their nudity gives flesh, as it were, to the horrific temptations of incest and bestiality that haunt the decadent Oliver--indeed, their nakedness may well likewise tempt the viewer who, as voyeur, more or less willingly watches these dark and twisted, if sensual and seductive, sexual obsessions and acts.

Good girls don’t have sex. They don’t get naked, either, except in socially sanctioned places and situations, such as the shower or their doctors’ offices. This belief, whether founded in reality or naiveté, is the basis for the shock that moviegoers feel when an actress with a wholesome image like that of Katie Holmes (The Gift) disrobes onscreen, and this shock, one may argue, is transferred to the girl-next-door character that she portrays--or, at least, appears to embody, as Holmes does in playing the innocent-looking, but sexually promiscuous, Jessica King, the local high school principal’s wholesome (-looking) fiancée. Her nudity and her innocent image contrast sharply, reminding filmgoers, once again, that, far from always inhabiting an ugly form, evil can, indeed, cut a strikingly beautiful figure; appearances can be deceiving.

Mathilda May may look a bit pale, but she also looks the very picture of health. Young and beautiful, she seems far too innocent and lovely to be a bloodsucking fiend, but, as a female vampire in Lifeforce, she is just that--as she proves again and again, flitting bat-like, from one host to another to relieve them of their life force. Beauty is, once again, a red herring, or false clue, suggesting that, in seeking evil, one must look elsewhere than the lovely face and form of Mathilda May, when, in fact, in her beautiful countenance and figure, they have encountered both true and deadly evil.

In horror films, nudity is a reminder of humans' (including moviegoers’ own) mortality; as a blatant exposure of the flesh, nudity can also highlight its opposite, the invisible spirit; nudity can signify the attractiveness of evil; and nudity, especially the nudity of a beautiful young, but wicked, woman, can suggest the absurdity of believing that beautiful people must also be good people.

The display of naked bodies in horror movies can, and does, accomplish more, as I will demonstrate in additional, future posts concerning the genre’s not-so-gratuitous nudity.

Not-So-Gratuitous Nudity

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Nudity is popular in horror movies, as it is in other films. Why? One might suppose the answer to this question to be, like the equality of human worth to Thomas Jefferson, self-evident. It is, too, of course--or, at least, one of the reasons for the frequent inclusion of nudity in films, horror and otherwise, is obvious: displays of female flesh (and, perhaps, to a lesser degree, of male bodies as well) is titillating.

Nudity is popular in film for other reasons, too, though. Its promised display, for example, is a means of creating and maintaining suspense. Moviegoers of both sexes are curious as to what an actress looks like beneath her clothes. Men and women want to catch a glimpse of a famous female’s breasts, pubes, and buttocks, to see all (or almost all) there is to see, to observe the “bare truth” or the “naked truth” concerning the performer’s true outer beauty. To lay bare the body is, we believe, to lay bare the secrets of the soul. By suggesting that, eventually, this, that, or the other actress is likely to shed her clothes keeps moviegoers on the edges of their seats. When, where, and under what conditions will the screen siren reveal her charms, in all their gorgeous glory, are questions that sustain suspense.

Besides the creation and maintenance of suspense, nudity also reminds moviegoers of female characters’ femininity. Even clothed, women typically show themselves to be women in several hard-to-miss ways: long, styled hair; cosmetics; frilly attire; shaved underarms and legs; and the wearing of clothing and accessories that are designated by tradition and the dictates of fashion as belonging exclusively to women. Primary sexual characteristics (breasts, wider hips than men may claim, fuller buttocks than men may boast, and female genitalia) are indications as well, of course, and, usually, these characteristics are more or less noticeable in most women. However, when milady is nude, the unmistakable presence of primary sexual characteristics makes the artifices by which women proclaim their sex and gender unnecessary. One need not advertise herself as female and feminine through hairstyles, cosmetics, and clothing when, quite obviously, her body’s nakedness reveals her to be so.

Horror movies have recently become less sexist, offering moviegoers male as well as female victims and female and well as male predators, but the genre, nevertheless, remains largely chauvinistic and, one might argue, misogynistic. Women remain, far more often than men, the victims rather than the victimizers. One reason, besides sexism, for this preference for female over male victims is the relative physical weakness of women as compared to men. Because women typically have less physical strength than men do, they appear to be easier victims than men do. They also appear more vulnerable than men do. Weakness and vulnerability make them more likely to be victims than to be victimizers, for predators stalk the sick, the lame, and the lazy, or, in milady’s case, the weaker of the two sexes. Femaleness and femininity mark characters as relatively helpless and, therefore, as potential, even likely, victims. The nudity of female characters, in horror films, reminds audiences of the women’s identities as prospective casualties or fatalities.

Nudity in horror movies creates and maintains suspense, reminds moviegoers of female characters’ femininity and relative weakness and helplessness, but nudity also often leads to sex, and sex often leads to death or dismemberment. There is something of an unwritten law in the horror genre that taking one’s clothes off, even when it is not an act that is intended as a prelude to sex, is punishable by death; when nudity leads to sex, there is a virtual guarantee that it will end in pain, suffering, and the nudist’s demise. Even in the ultra permissive society in which we live, in which teen sex is rampant, as is teen pregnancy, abortion, and the birth of children to children, premarital sex, like adultery or other forms of sex outside the confines of holy matrimony, is considered taboo (by screenwriters in the horror genre, at least, if no one else), and it will surely be punished severely, with loss of limb, if not life. Nudity, as a precursor to sex, also identifies (often female) characters as likely victims. (The characters are more often female than male because most people believe that women look better in the nude than men do and because women seem more helpless, because they are typically physically weaker than men seem to be.)

We do a pretty good job of hiding our animal natures, but, despite our art, our culture, and our complex social structures, our philosophy and religion, and our humanity, we remain very much mammals who eat, drink, fornicate, sleep, and otherwise exhibit the animal within. We are not simply ghosts; we are ghosts in machines, and the machines we inhabit are made not of iron and steel but of flesh and blood. We are driven by fleshly as well as by psychological and social needs. We have appetites for food, for sex, for dominance, and for blood. The fact that, concealed beneath our shirts, blouses, trousers, and skirts, we have breasts and vaginas or penises and testicles and buttocks indicates that we are not merely human beings; we are also animals who breed and devour and hunt and kill. Nudity is a reminder of our animal natures, and female nudity is a reminder of the seldom-displayed, but always present, nudity of the male of the species. In seeing a nude woman, we understand that men, too, have “private parts” that disclose their animal nature, just as the undraped form of the female of the species reveals her own animality. Nakedness is a reminder, too, of our reproductive capability, a capability that we share with the so-called lower animals. Moreover, our nakedness reminds us that we, as much as lions and tigers and bears, oh my!, are (or can be) red in tooth and claw, that we are also potentially predators and prey, that we are, each and all, Drs. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes.

Under our clothes, we are flesh and blood, not the steely selves our aggressive personas sometimes tend to make others suppose we are. We can look daggers at another soul. We can set our jaws. We can give another person the cold shoulder. We can shake our fists and stamp our feet. We can stand tall. In short, we can use our bodies to intimidate others, but doing so while naked might be much more difficult, if not impossible, to do, because our fleshly selves, minus the armor of our suits and dresses, gives the lie, as it were, to the armor of costume and the arsenal of body language cues by which we seek to impose our wills upon others. It is hard to take someone in his or her birthday suit very seriously, no matter how he or she might glower or glare. Nudity renders us vulnerable. In horror movies, vulnerability of any kind is seldom a good thing and is apt, sooner or later, to get one killed. A nude character is a vulnerable character, and a vulnerable character is likely to become--well, a dead duck.

Nudity, we observe, is not necessarily gratuitous. In horror movies, as in other types of film, nakedness can, and frequently does, serve thematic purposes. (Typically, it also identifies probable victims and may characterize them as sexually promiscuous and, therefore, morally weak of perverse.)

In forthcoming posts, I will take up this matter again, exploring, more specifically, the contribution to the horror genre that on-screen nudity makes on a more-or-less regular basis.

Until then, for goodness’ sake, keep both the lights and your clothes on!