Horror in History - JIVE TALK

The Northman - An analysis of pagan scenes

Further to my written review of The Northman (2022), published on this blog in April, I have now created a much longer and more detailed video review of the film. This video includes close watching scene analysis of all the parts of the film which pertain to Nordic paganism. I explain the sources and reasoning behind the stylistic and thematic decisions of the film makers and provide examples of written and archaeological precedents to justify them wherever possible.

Robert Eggers' The Northman is the best Viking film ever made but some of the pagan themes within are too esoteric for everyone to understand. In this review, I explain the origin of the pagan rituals and symbols throughout the film and what they mean. Everything from valkyries, to the raven fylgja, the horned spear dancer, and the Odinic initiation ritual in a Neolithic barrow. I also explain the tension depicted in the film between the cults of the gods Freyr and Odin.

ARTWORK

Most art was by Christian Sloan Hall including Odin, Freya, Starkad and Valkyries
Horned spear dancers by Hungerstein
Wading through Hell by Jack Jones
Hel goddess by Leo Albiero
World tree by Pete Amachree
Spirit of Yule by Christopher Steininger
Mimir’s head by Graman
Vendel helmet cgi by Roy Douglas
Bear spirit and corpse animations by Castor and Bollux animation

MUSIC

Torulf

Hildigaldra

Borg

SOURCES

Primary

• Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus
• Germania by Tacitus
• Risala by Ibn Fadlan
• Egil’s saga
• Njal’s saga
• Vatnsdæla saga
• Eyrbyggja saga
• Landnámabók 
• Sturlaugs saga starfsama
• Gautreks saga
• Grettir's saga
• Saga of Bósa and Herraud
• Víga-Glúms saga
• Heimskringla
• Beowulf
• Hervarar saga

Secondary

• Chadwick, N., ‘Dreams in Early European Literature’, in: Carney, James, and David Greene (eds), Celtic studies: essays in memory of Angus Matheson 1912–1962, London: Routledge, 1968. 33–50.
• Davidson, H.E.,  Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (1964)
• Davidson, H.E., The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature, Cambridge University, (1943). 
• Peter-Schjødt, J., ‘Óðinn - The Pervert?’ in Res Artes et Religio: Essays in Honour of Rudolf Simek   p. 534 (2021: Kısmet Press) https://archive.org/details/res-artes-et-religio-essays-in-honour-of-rudolf-simek-kismet-press
• Ramos, Eduardo, ‘The Dreams of a Bear: Animal Traditions in the Old Norse-Icelandic Context’ (2014)
• Rowsell, T., “Riding to the Afterlife:The Role of Horses in Early Medieval North-Western Europe,” MA Thesis, University College of London, 2012.
• Rowsell, T., “Woden and his Roles in Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogy”, University College London, (2012).
• Rowsell, T., "Religious Continuity in Northern European Boat Burial Practices of the Vendel Period" Research proposal, (2015)
• Rowsell, T., “Gender Roles and Symbolic Meaning in Njáls Saga” Medievalists.net 2012
• Kershaw, K., ‘The one-eyed god: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Männerbünde’ (Journal of Indo-European studies monograph) 2000.

The Northman: Pagan themes explained

Back in 2010 a PR company sent me an advance screener of 'Valhalla Rising' so I could review it prior to its official UK release. I heaped praise upon the film, despite the fact it contained many historical inaccuracies, because I was delighted to see a story set in the Viking age which had an esoteric dimension and which was crafted with more concern for artistic vision than with box office sales. In the 12 years since then, that violent, moody tale of an Odinic hero has set the tone for a wave of Viking invasions of popular media, many of which, including History Channel’s Vikings series and the Assassins creed Valhalla video game, copy the “biker Viking aesthetic” established by Winding-Refn’s bloody offering. Discerning audience members are now justifiably fed up with seeing the Viking age depicted with so much brown leather, tattooed heads, woke casting (a recent fad absent in Valhalla Rising) and punk rock haircuts.

So when Robert Eggers, a director whose previous two films each dealt with pagan mythology and folklore in a nuanced and thought provoking way, announced that his third film would be about Vikings, and when the trailer seemed to signal a break from the biker-viking aesthetic, I wasn’t the only one who dared to get his hopes up. 

Eggers described the film as Andrei Rublev meets Conan the Barbarian; the former, Tarkovsky’s deeply philosophical biopic of a medieval Russian artist, widely praised as a masterpiece of film making, is a personal favourite of mine while the latter is the definitive sword and sorcery fantasy popcorn movie, yet to meet its match even 40 years after its release. Eggers’ boastful claim is of course promotional hyperbole but, I am pleased to announce, not too far off the mark in the sense that The Northman is indeed, consistent with Eggers’ last film The Lighthouse, a work which delves into mythology as a means to explore the dark caverns of the human psyche. Yet unlike any other of his films, it contains impressively choreographed, high octane, (and perhaps a tad gratuitously gory) action sequences which will appeal to an entirely different audience.

In a nod to the first ever story recorded in Western literature, the Odyssey, the Northman also begins with a plot summary in the form of a pagan invocation. While the immortal lines in Ancient Greek invoke the Muse, likely the goddess Calliope, the husky narration of a character later revealed to be a priest of Odin, invokes that god and then reveals exactly what is going to happen with merciless disregard for spoiler-sensitive surprise-enjoyers. This introduction is also highly reminiscent of the opening of Conan the Barbarian which presents the film as a story told by a wizened old yarn spinner, much like this Odinic priest. Right from the get-go, the very pagan theme of fate inexorably leading our protagonist to his end is introduced, and we know what must occur before we finish our popcorn.

Spoilers should not concern anyone who knows the story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet since this plot borrows from the same source Shakespeare referred to; the medieval Danish tale of Amleth recorded in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus. Amleth was previously adapted for the screen in Prince of Jutland (1994), starring a young Christian Bale as ‘Amled’. This formidable adaptation was more faithful to the original plot than The Northman is, but it occupied a more confined cinematic vision, without the much called-for exploration of the Viking world and the dark pagan themes central to the Nordic thought world which make the new film a modern classic. In the original medieval story, the young protagonist, after witnessing his father, the king, killed by his own uncle, feigns madness in order to save himself from the same fate, but is later sent by his suspicious uncle from Denmark to England. Eggers has replaced Denmark with the more dramatic landscape of Iceland, and England with the easternmost colony of the Viking world in Ukraine. But Eggers’ Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) does not feign madness, rather he descends into a very real divine madness after being initiated as a wolf of Odin. 

This transformation is depicted in two scenes showing separate Odinic initiation rituals each of which draws to some extent from historian Kris Kershaw’s work which connects the cult of Odin to the raiding party tradition of the Indo-Europeans. The first scene is early in the film, during Amleth’s childhood, when his father King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) initiates his son into manhood with the help of the court jester, Heimir (Willem Defoe). This ‘fool’ character is not in the original story but his inclusion was a stroke of real genius on Eggers’ part. Heimir is a clear nod to Shakespeare’s Yorick, the court jester who Hamlet remembered so fondly from his childhood, but who appears in the play only in the form of a disembodied skull. The name Amleth itself, in its Icelandic form Amlóði, had come to mean a fool or jester in medieval Iceland, but it is thought to have originated from a term using the suffix óðr, a word cognate with Odin which refers to the divine madness or frenzy with which that god was associated. Since Amleth’s feigned stupidity is replaced by Odinic frenzy in this plot, his feigned stupidity is instead personified as a character who Defoe skilfully portrays in a manner at turns hilarious and terrifying. But Heimir is not just a fleshed out Yorick backstory, but is also a deeply Odinic figure who introduces the young Amleth to the mysteries of the Odin cult in a visually captivating scene which reimagines the world tree of Norse mythology as a family tree on which all the royals of that lineage hang like the hanged god Odin. This interpretation of the world tree as a family tree is also present in stanza 21 of Sonatorrek in Egils saga. Additionally, the Vikings also believed that kings were descended from Odin and the visual device of a family tree also serves to illustrate an unforeseen plot twist at the end of the film. During the first initiation, young Amleth not only becomes a "wolf of the High One", but is also advised by the fool in regards to the mystery of women which he says is connected to the Norns; semi-divine female entities who weave the fates of gods and men. Some Viking-age women practised a kind of shamanic, divinatory magic relating to the threads of fate which was called seiðr - a word which originally referred to a kind of thread like those used in spinning. Odin himself had to learn this magic from a goddess. The theme of the threads of fate is frequently invoked throughout the film with shots of spinning whorls and woollen threads as well as a Norn-like witch played by the Icelandic post-punk popstar Björk. While Shakespeare’s Hamlet agonises over the question of his own being and is thereby delayed from the righteous action of vengeance, Eggers’ Amleth remains almost constantly focused on his vendetta, and when he tries to turn from this path, the threads of fate pull him back to his inevitable end. 

The second Odinic initiation scene occurs when Amleth has become a man with enormous trapezius muscles (row-maxing will do that), employed as a slaver in the kingdom of the Rus in Ukraine. He and a group of men all wearing the skins of wolves are led by a horned priest (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) in a shamanistic ritual which culminates in the men howling and snarling like wolves possessed by Odinic frenzy. Neil Price, Professor of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University, who was an advisor for the film, is likely to have guided Eggers in respect to this well-crafted scene. The priest wears a headdress with horns which terminate in bird heads and this motif is recorded on dozens of Germanic artefacts from Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia all of which are thought to pertain to a cult of Odin, with the birds representing that god’s two ravens. See my video on the subject for more on this. Several depictions also show the horned man dancing with spears and one such depiction from Sweden shows the dancer next to a man in a wolf skin. Thus the priest in this scene struts rhythmically around a ritual fire brandishing two spears in one hand. Kris Kershaw identified this wolf cult, known in Norse as the Úlfhéðnar, as a continuation of a prehistoric Indo-European tradition she called the Männerbünde, in which young men would leave their homelands and live as wolves in raiding parties, preying upon foreign cultures they encountered.

This is immediately followed by a testosteronous, adrenaline pumping sequence depicting the wolf men raiding a Slavic town for slaves. The town’s defenders launch a spear at Amleth who catches it in mid air and returns it in one impressively fluid movement. This seemingly impossible manoeuvre is taken directly from the medieval Icelandic story of Njáls saga in which the Viking hero Gunnar catches a spear and throws it straight back into his enemy. So even the action choreography has benefited from consulting historical sources!

After the raid Amleth receives advice from the Slavic witch Björk who sets him back on his fated path of revenge, stowing away on a slave shipment to Iceland. This part was a bit strange, since Russian slaves are unlikely to have been sent further west than Sweden because Icelanders were able to acquire slaves more locally from Scotland and Ireland.

Next Olga and Amleth live as slaves on a remote Icelandic farm owned by his uncle and Mother who don’t recognise him. This part of the film bears rather a close resemblance to 'When the Raven Flies' (1984), an Icelandic Western about an Irish slave who, having been taken to Iceland by Vikings, seeks revenge on his masters who murdered his parents. Although perhaps partially derivative, there is an innovative and enigmatic sequence when Amleth is led by a supernatural guide in the shape of an Arctic fox to a cave in which he finds a priest of Odin who Bjork had called "the ancient one" - the god Odin was also known as Forni which means ‘the ancient one’ and this wizard is a priest of the god Odin which means to an extent he also is Odin just as the horned spear dancer was in the other scene. The wizard, like Shakespeare’s gravedigger in Hamlet, shows Amleth the disembodied head of the court jester he loved so well as a boy. "Alas poor Yorick" is shortened to "poor Heimir". But this is not merely a skull like Yorick’s, rather the priest has preserved the head with magic, just as Odin preserved the severed head of Mimir so that it could recite to him the esoteric wisdom of Hell. Now we leave Elizabethan courts, descending into the misty realm of telluric pagan esotericism. We hear Defoe’s voice speak from beyond the grave telling Amleth how the sword was forged by dwarves from the bones of a Jötunn. Then the priest tells Amleth to enter a barrow at night to retrieve a legendary sword, ᛞᚱᚼᚢᚷᛦ Draugr the Night blade, with which he shall avenge his father. Heimir, like Mimir, serves as a prophet in death, but in fact he had been a prophet even in life too, for at the start of the film he makes lewd insinuations about Amleth’s Mother the Queen (Nicole Kidman) and her intentions toward her brother in law. A grave warning disguised as bawdy humour.

We never see the lips of the head move, and as with all the supernatural sequences in the film, Eggers leaves open the possibility that these phenomena are only depictions of what the characters imagine or dream they are seeing. This ambiguity regarding supernatural elements is also present in The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019) and permits a more nuanced reading of the text. It is employed again in the following scene when Amleth, beneath the light of the full moon, breaks into a barrow containing a boat burial in order to obtain his fated sword. We see again how faithfully the film adheres to historical accuracy, since the corpse of the great man in the barrow can be dated to the pre-Viking Vendel era based on his shield mounts and the domed mounts of his sword sheath. This is implausible since Iceland was not yet colonised by Norsemen in the Vendel era. There are, however, many stories of men retrieving ancient swords from barrows such as the poem Hervararkviða in which a woman climbs into her father’s barrow to retrieve an ancient family sword called Tyrfing from his ghost. The corpse Amleth encounters is sat upright on a throne, which in Norse lore is a sure sign that he will come back to life as a zombie/ghost which the Vikings called a draugr (confusingly the sword he retrieves from the draugr is called Draugr). Sure enough an intense fight scene between Amleth and the Vendel-era draugr ensues, ending with Amleth shoving its decapitated head between its buttocks - not merely gratuitous Hollywood filth for this too is attested in Grettir's saga. After the battle it cuts back to Amleth standing before the seated corpse as though nothing had happened. Was it all a dream? This may seem an insufferable cliche but here too there is a similar historical precedent to justify it. Barrows were associated with strange dream visions in many cultures. In the Icelandic Flateyjarbók, a Viking named Thorsteinn sleeps on a barrow and dreams of the ghost buried within who reveals to him that there is magic gold inside. When he awakes he discovers there is. So even if Amleth only dreamed that he fought the draugr, that doesn’t mean it didn’t really happen. Exactly the sort of supernatural ambiguity we should expect from Eggers.

Going back to the previous scene with the priest of Odin, though brilliant, it takes liberties with historical accuracy. The grizzled priest wears a sleeveless dress with two so-called tortoise brooches (I call them booby brooches) - typical women’s attire for the Viking age. We know from clear examples in texts like Njals saga and Gautreks saga that it was utterly unacceptable for a man to wear a woman’s garment. Even offering a man a slightly feminine garment would be justification for him to kill you. The idea that Odin or his priests cross-dressed is the theory of Neil Price, but it is strongly opposed by other experts such as Jens Peter-Schjødt. There is no source which proves these priests or Odin himself wore the garments of women for magical purposes, rather the theory depends on Price’s interpretation of Lokasenna in which the wicked god Loki, who is himself severely guilty of transgressing gender roles, accuses Odin of practising magic on the island of Samsø in the same way women usually do, and that he was in the form of a (male) sorcerer (vitki). Loki thinks this is ragr "perverted" but there is no mention of cross-dressing. He is referring to seiðr which was associated with weaving/spinning (a female gendered activity) and the Norns who control fate. Odin does actually cross-dress in another story, but only as a disguise so he can rape a woman. The other problem with the priest’s attire in this scene is that he wears a headdress with some tree bark bearing a magical Icelandic symbol known as ægishjálmur - this is a Christian symbol dated no earlier than the 17th century yet the film is set in the late 9th century. It has nothing to do with Odin.

Later in the story we learn that Amleth’s regicidal uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang) is a devotee of the god Freyr, disparagingly referred to by Amleth as a “god of erections.” The form of ritual devotion depicted draws in part from the same source in which Amleth’s story was originally preserved; Saxo’s Gesta Danorum. Saxo wrote that the hero Starkaðr considered the cult of Freyr in Uppsala to be unmanly due to the associated dances and clattering of bells. Fjölnir doesn’t dance but he does ring bells before the idol of Freyr, and along with his ill-gotten wife, and a priestess, veils his head in the presence of the god. There is no evidence that Germanic pagans such as the Vikings were veiled during rituals, but this practice is perennial among many pagan cultures including the Romans, who even required that the Emperor himself, along with other officiants, would veil his head (capite velato) during a public sacrifice to the gods. This representation of pagan piety was in stark contrast to the orgiastic wolf ritual for Odin depicted earlier, however the priestess of Odin in the first initiation scene at the temple in Iceland is also wearing a ritual white robe and veil. In an interview Eggers reveals that the decision to include the robes arose when he questioned Neil Price about how sacrificers would prevent their clothes being covered in blood, and Price replied that he had never had to think about this in this way before. Fjölnir's devotion to Freyr is also demonstrated through his horse sacrifices at two points in the film offered as part of funeral rituals. This is well established in the archaeological record and is something I attribute specifically to the cult of Freyr in my dissertation.

The dream sequences featuring a Wagnerian valkyrie (Ineta Sliuzaite) are also worth a mention. The mounted woman is adorned with an ahistorical helmet embellished with what appears to be a swan, presumably in reference to the association of valkyrja with the swan maidens of Germanic folklore. People have asked me why she is wearing braces - she isn’t - those are meant to be filed marks on her teeth- a peculiar practice which is attested in the archeological record.

The film is not without its flaws. I was unconvinced by the Slavic love-interest’s accent, fluctuating between faux Norse (all the characters use this ill-advised 'Allo 'Allo technique) and faux Russian, and the Slavic slaves in Iceland felt like a shoehorned incongruence. However, the touching theme of a man driven purely by hatred and revenge who finds salvation in a woman’s love, although cliche, is timeless. It speaks of an eternal truth contrasting the masculine with the feminine and I always prefer what is eternal to what is merely novel. Fans of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk will recognise the hyper masculine, ultra violent medieval wolf-man raised in gore and hate, driven by an obsessive thirst for vengeance tempered only by moments of tenderness in the embrace of the one person he loves. There is even a touching post-coital halcyonic respite in the woods when Amleth and Olga are allowed a moment of peace - a little too similar to Guts and Casca to be coincidental maybe? 

I consider this to be the best Viking film ever made and I expect it will be remembered as such for some time. But while I had hoped this would mark the long awaited end of the biker Viking-age aesthetic which has so permeated popular culture over the last decade, its tawdry mark can still be detected. Not so much in the costumes, but more in regards to the colour palette and score - the former consists of the rather familiar Hollywood medieval drabness with which historical dramas consistently deny the era’s vibrance. The score, while competently composed by Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough, and effective in keeping the adrenaline pumping while the blood flows across the screen, will date the film since it owes much to the recently invented percussion driven fusion of neo-folk, world-music and martial-industrial that has become the stereotypical “le Viking music” of our time. Widely perceived as authentic because it uses medieval instruments, the combination of far flung elements such as didgeridoos, Siberian drums and Mongolian throat singing would have been as unfamiliar to Vikings as it was to anyone before the likes of Hagalaz Runedance and Wardruna invented it some 20 years ago. 

These are, however, minor quibbles with an expertly crafted film which is well cast, with actors pulling off some phenomenal performances (Nicole Kidman deserves particular praise for her role as the detestable Queen Gudrún). Eggers is certainly among the greatest filmmakers of his generation and regardless of how well The Northman performs at the box office, I don’t need to put on a dress to prophesy that it will be remembered as a cult classic of cinema history. 

- Tom Rowsell, April 2022

Film Discussion: Four Films Set in Rural Britain

Film Review: THE LIGHTHOUSE

Film Review: The Seventh Seal

Film Review: Midsommar

The Noble Savage in The Valley (Obscured by Clouds)

A review of an important film with insights into the myth of the noble savage.

Film about the Baltic crusades (Herkus Mantas)

The Teutonic knights invaded the Baltic but were repelled by a pagan rebellion. This film tells the story of Herkus Monte, a Prussian who led his people against the Christian German invaders. It was made in the Soviet Union which explains the anti-German sentiment, but I am surprised they allowed such nationalism to be promoted among Lithuanians. There is also a theme of class conflict among the Prussians, with Monte promoting a serf above a noble, but I am sure this is Soviet influence.

Review of Equus (1977)

"Equus" (with Survive the Jive and John Morgan) - Guide to Kulchur, ep 13

Excalibur (1981) - An Esoteric Analysis

 A round-table discussion of medieval fantasy epic Excalbur by John Boorman based on Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory 1485. I am joined by two Christian traditionalists; Craig New Troy and Mark Citadel.

There are some issues with volume fluctuation in the video above. There is an mp3 version on soundcloud with better audio but then you don't get the visual accompaniment.
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Film: Patriotism by Yukio Mishima

Short Film: The World Is Burning

The World Is Burning (2013) from Oak & Arrow on Vimeo.

A young man returns to a traditional life in rural Newfoundland after tragedy strikes.

Film: Vincent Price Reads Edgar Allan Poe

Film: Within the Woods

Fans of the definitive video-nasty horror flick, Evil Dead by Sam Raimi, will be aware that a remake is about to be released. The new version of Evil Dead is not directed by Sam Raimi, it was made by Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez.

Raimi has been working on his latest cinematic effort, Oz the Great and Powerful which is also a sort of remake, being a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It tells the story of how the magician named Oz came to rule the fantasy world.

The original Evil Dead (1981), about a group of young people tormented by demons in a remote woodland cabin, is clearly influenced by the writings of H.P Lovecraft. It even featured the Necronomicon, a book of evil spells and ancient Semitic incantations written by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred.

Evil Dead was preceded by a pilot version of the film which Sam Raimi made in 1979 called Within The Woods. The entire movie is available to watch online for free. It's only half an hour long so have look if you want to find out how it all started.

The Representation of Isolated Rural Communities in American and British Horror Films

"Your people destroyed our homes and made us what we've become"

Disclaimer: This is an abridged and edited version of an essay I wrote in 2007. My views, and opinions have changed significantly since then. 

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 - mechanised agriculture apparently turns farmers into monstrous cannibals.

Introduction

In the 1970’s horror film directors continued the traditional horror convention of isolation but some focused more exclusively on isolated communities, and portraying them as a potentially dangerous element to mainstream societies. These films portray families, villages and tribes of people living in remote areas, which preserve a contrasting culture to that of the central character(s) in the film which represent the dominant ideology within Western civilisation. Straw Dogs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Wicker Man and The Hills Have Eyes are all examples. The Hills Have Eyes (1977) showed the contrast between a civilised suburban family called the Carters and a feral family of mutant cannibals they encounter when they break down in the desert. The cause of the feral family’s mutations and cannibalistic tendencies is credited to the United States Military for conducting nuclear tests in the desert. Despite the fact that it is the civilised American society depicted as the cause of the problem, the villains in the film are the isolated rural family.

The Wicker Man 1973 




 

The Wicker Man 1973

There are a range of theories that have been applied to the horror genre sometimes utilising psychoanalytical approaches to analyse the text from perspectives frequently associated with gender studies. However, there are few theorists who have fully considered the connotations of the social divisions implicit in the representation of isolated white communities even though they seem to be a recurring theme in horror films particularly in the 1970s and onwards. This is an area that requires research and study, particularly because it is a theme that can be seen in many films, not just in horror films from the 1970’s and onwards. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) is unlike many horror films in style, but it too depicts an isolated rural community, blinded by ignorance and blaming the arrival of an attractive urbanised modern woman for the unnaturally violent behaviour of the local birds.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was a turning point in the genre, subsequent films have drawn horror from characters whose violence is a result of their psychological state. This form of horror could be perceived as being more "realistic", but the characters in such films are rarely as deeply constructed as Norman Bates, and are often two dimensional monsters that serve merely as devices to construct or criticise an ideology just as much as the rubber monsters of old horror did:

“As the capacity or religion and its equivalents to fill this need receded with the advance of technology in the nineteenth century, the simultaneous discovery of the unconscious and the cinema released a new source of imagery for ‘rendering unto film…the immanent fears of mankind:” Cook (1999: page 196)

These psychological monsters can be used effectively to illustrate the failings of the capitalist system, as is evident in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and the Hills Have Eyes (1977). Both featuring families living in isolated rural communities who have been failed by the system and in being left behind have regressed to a primitive lifestyle which parodies the dominant culture of commerce and trade which failed them.

Remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004), one cannibal is a police officer, thus equating the law enforcement and legal establishment of rural America with the backward representation of rural communities which is now prevalent. 

Remake of Hills Have eyes (2006)- white cannibals shown to be genetically inferior by way of their mutations.

Hills have eyes poster (1977)

Notions of otherness and the concept of representation in horror as "fetishist", if accepted, can just as easily be applied to films that are intended to challenge notions of patriarchy and "civilised" behaviour. There is a tendency in modern horror to portray rural, often agricultural communities of white people in developed Western nations as primitive, inherently violent, culturally inferior, mentally deranged etc. Straw Dogs (1971), Wicker Man (1973), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) are just some of many examples that anyone familiar with the genre could offer, but these ones are relevant as they were all released in the 1970's, a time when traditional and conservative values were being challenged by the ongoing counter-culture of the sixties, the members of which were then assuming positions of power in the media. It is telling that ALL of these films have been remade in the 21st century, and all of them have gone even further to sensationalise the violent nature of rural whites, upon whom a protagonist reaps vengeance through violence. There is an underlying message in all these films, that the supposedly cultured urban peoples are in fact no better than these violent rural communities, for when they are required to defend themselves, they resort to the same kind of violence. Though actually a critique of the urban culture, this still implicitly constructs urban culture as superior to the rural.

Remake of Hills Have eyes (2006) - far more graphic violence against the rural community who are in this film even more grotesque in appearance than those in the original. Their mutation is the product of military testing and so is blamed on traditional power structures and the American military itself.

Rather than being a manifestation of an oppressive patriarchal, white power structure intent on suppressing women and ethnic minorities, these films are in fact subversive - intended to defame and demonise traditional cultures of western societies. If an alien were to assess the quality of life in rural and urban parts of the West by watching these films, it would come to the conclusion that the cities were havens for peaceful, cultured intellectuals whereas the countryside is a dangerous place full of rapists and murderers. Crime statistics consistently show the opposite to be the case.
 

Original straw dogs - an American intellectual is set upon by primitive Cornish men.

What is the function of such demonisation and why is it so prevalent now? Hollywood producers certainly know that remakes are a safer bet financially, but the types of films chosen also serve a political purpose intended to redefine notions of western identity and disrupt existing power structures which are based on cultural traditions.In so doing, a system of cultural hierarchy is presented that places communities whose economy is primarily agricultural, beneath those urban protagonists who are forced to correct the backwardness of the rural culture with violence.

The remake of the Wicker Man(2006) is a slight exception to the rule, since in this case the scottish island, now located in Washington state USA, is home to a colony of wiccans rather than pagans. The matriarchal society is shown to be flawed and the police officer is murdered as in the original, but in this version, despite not glamorizing the matriarchal commune, the police officer is brutally violent towards the women, and so is hardly shown to be much better than the murdering cult he fights against.

The nature of Horror

The Horror film genre is one of the most difficult to define. Many film genres like comedy and romance were taken directly from theatre, others like the Western were developed specifically for cinema, but the horror genre had its roots in European art and literature. For this reason many film theorists will not recognise horror as a genre, preferring instead to divide its content into sub-genres such as the ‘slasher movie’ and ‘fantasy thriller’

“a tension remains between older European traditions and Hollywood, producing the problem of relating the forms which developed in the European art cinema in terms of the fantastique or supernatural.” Cook (page 195)

Before the 1970’s the horror genre was rarely awarded serious analysis, however in England it had become one of the most lucrative areas of the film industry resulting in the acclaimed success of British Hammer Horror studios. In America the genre was also successful but was less respected in its own right for its cultural significance, the gothic imagery of German expressionism which is a notable convention of horror was present in films from both sides of the Atlantic. In the 1970’ however, the nature of the genre changed, as there were no longer haunted houses, gothic churches and creatures from ancient European folklore, but rather just psychotic human killers in a modern American context.

“The heritage from German Expressionism was important because ‘the style itself is capable of infecting almost any subject matter with its eerie tone..the sense of mystery, of lurkers in the shadows is the constant factor” Tudor (1974) in Cook (p.195)

As a result of this change, many of the conventions that were previously used to describe the genre, had been made obsolete during the 1960’S and 1970’s. Psycho (1960) could be referred to as the birth of the American slasher movie, however, films such as these still contain many of the visual stylistic conventions of the traditional horror genre such as suspense and the inclusion of a female victim and can be viewed not as the birth of a new genre but as the modernisation of one of the oldest.

“One might say that the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilisation represses or oppresses, its re-emergence dramatized, as in our nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for terror, and for the happy ending (when it exists) typically signifying the restoration of repression.” (Wood, 1986, p 13)

The fact these particular types of horror films are currently being remade may be an indication of their ongoing relevance to modern society, and perhaps shows that they subvert suppressed fears in the collective minds of 21^st century film makers.

Remake of Straw Dogs (2011) in which rural men are shown to be prone to rape and lack respect for women.

Social Anxieties depicted through Horror

The horror genre has always been used to depict the tensions, anxieties and fears of society of the time. Sometimes the films clearly depict situations that reinforce the dominant ideology, while others are more subversive. In The American Horror Film (2002) Reynold Humphries explains how the horror genre can be used as a device with which to communicate the collective fears of mainstream society, whilst simultaneously reinforcing dominant ideologies in the process.

Humphries identifies Dracula (1931) as an example of a traditional horror convention used to portray established ideologies in the form of visual and narrative metaphor. Dracula is an aristocratic monster from the East who preys predominantly on female victims. To Humphries Dracula represents class dominance, patriarchy and the indiscriminate consumer capitalist, who consumes all to satisfy unquenchable sexual desire, and this reading implies that Dracula who feeds on both sexes is bisexual. Humphries applies both Marxist and Freudian approaches to the villain.

“Such is the aristocratic standing of Dracula and the dream of the patriarchal capitalist who has replaced him. He is also society’s inevitable punishment for such forbidden pleasures. Just as the bourgeois thinks he alone has the right to property and luxury, obtained through the labour of those who have neither, and steps in to restrain by any means the lower orders who dare demand their share, so Dracula stands in for the punishment of our guilty desires through the terror he brings, a terror that is the fear of transgressing society’s ‘natural order’.”

Humphries (2002: p.13)

Other traditional horror or sci-fi characters such as Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1931) transformed into cinema by James Whale, can be read as being capitalist characters, as it is his pursuit of capitalist activities that results in the horrific creation of his monster. As with Stoker’s Dracula this reading is critical of capitalism but rather than playing on the fear of transgressing the capitalist hierarchy imposed on society, it is a fear of the technological advances that capitalism requires are made in the name of progress. Frankenstein’s monster is then a symbol of the proletariat rising against its master, after being forced to work against its will, and embodies the worker's fear of redundancy.

“The monster is thus the signifier of alienation as he has no identity outside that given to him by his creator (and Frankenstein behaves like God). He is also its signifier in as much as he is made up of bits and pieces; fragments of other people. Thus does the capitalist Frankenstein live off literally dead workers, getting them to work twice: The first time they get some payment for their trouble, but once dead they can be used at will.”

Humphries (2002: p. 15)

The traditional horror themes of supernatural monsters are less commonly present in modern horror, although just as Frankenstein and Dracula are representations of possible negative products of capitalism, so too are films like the Hills Have Eyes critiques of the alienation caused by industrial progress in the 20^th century and a reflection of associated social anxieties.

“As the capacity of religion and its equivalents to fill this need receded with the advance of technology in the nineteenth century, the simultaneous discovery of the unconscious and the cinema released a new source of imagery for ‘rendering unto film…the immanent fears of mankind:” Cook (1999: p.96)

Psycho (1960) was set a trend in the genre continued in more recent films such as Saw 3 (2006) in which the violence and horror of the villains is a result of their psychological derangement. Rather than seeming more human, the shallow characters in such films are often two dimensional monsters that serve merely as devices to construct or criticise an ideology as much as those monsters of the old horror did.

“When villains and victims are such shadowy, undeveloped characters and are portrayed equally unsympathetically, narcissistic identification on the part of the audience becomes increasingly difficult.” Modelski in Braudy and Cohen (p.770)

Tarratt (1984) writes about the preoccupation such films have with the problem of reconciling the desires of the individual as both sexual animal and social being ( p 348) she writes with reference to The Thing From Another World (1951), another film featuring monsters in an isolated setting, “The Arctic landscape provides an objective correlative for his emotional and sexual life, repressed in the all male disciplined environment of an isolated base” (p338) These psychological monsters can be used effectively to illustrate the failings of the capitalist system, as is evident in two of my key film texts The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and the The Hills Have Eyes (1977). Both feature white families living in isolated rural communities who have been failed by the system and in being left behind have regressed to a primitive lifestyle which ironically echoes the mainstream system of commerce, trade and family values which the narrative implies has failed them.

“This is precisely the fate that befell Leatherface and his family, made redundant when the slaughterhouse became automated, technological progress enabling the owners to increase production and cut down the work force.” Humphries (2002:p.23)

‘Otherness’ in horror.

The image of the female victim is a convention of the horror genre. There is a great deal of theory regarding the feminist approach to the horror genre, as it is a genre criticised by feminist theorists such as Cynthia Freeland for catering exclusively toward a male audience and in the process reinforcing the so called patriarchal ideals of male dominated capitalism.

“The tension arising between the viewers desire to look and the ongoing narrative of the film is especially acute in the horror film. Typically in horror, the woman or visual object is also the chief victim sacrificed to the narrative desire to know about the monster. Horror flirts directly with the threat of castration underlying the fetish or visual appearance of the woman.” Freeland (1994) in Braudy & Cohen (p.43)

Yet she fails to address the fact that the white rural communities, particularly the men, are depicted as the problematic and violent elements in all these films. The family unit is also demonised and is an important part of much horror narrative. The family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre can be read as a criticism of capitalist notions of family values, as it is a critical and fetishist representation of the institution of the family.

“Robin Wood has analyzed the film as embodying a critique of capitalism, since the film shows the horror both of people quite literally living off other people, and of the institution of the family, since it implies that the monster is family.” Braudy & Cohen 2004 (p.768)

Laura Mulvey (1975) is among the first of many feminist film theorists who applied Freud’s notion of scopophilia to a gendered cinematic context. Scopophilia is Freud’s theory (1905) that there is pleasure to be derived in looking at someone as well as being looked at. Mulvey’s critique is based on the claim that the cinematic gaze constructed onscreen is gendered to be that of male observing female.

“The cinema offers a number of possible pleasures. One is scopophilia. There are circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formation there is a pleasure in being looked at. Originally, in his Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud isolated scopophilia as one of the component instincts of sexuality which exist as drives quite independently of the erotogenic zones. At this point he associated scopophilia with taking other people as objects.” Mulvey (1975)

Women are frequently portrayed as an ‘other’ in horror films, and in the context of an alleged patriarchal ideology, the spectacle of the female is there to be looked at in the sense that it represents what Freud identified as the male fear of castration. This means that all forms of cinematic representation are to some extent fetishist in the sense that they are human reconstructions of reality, therefore subject to the psychological fears and repressed anxieties of the human psyche identified by Freud (1905). In King Kong, when the ape looks into the eyes of the central female character, Ann, it is presumed that it is sexually attracted to the woman; Humphries provides an alternative explanation believing that Kong is in fact female, in keeping with the concept of women as ‘other’:

“Kong pursuing Ann is Kong seeing in Ann a kindred spirit; someone exploited by capital and patriarchy. Kong’s ‘love’ for Ann is an early form of female bonding, neglected in favour of its male counterpart.” Humphries (2002: p.24)

This theory identifies both the monster and the women as representative of the male fear of castration, each is symbolic of otherness. The power of the monster may lie, not in its castration, but in its difference to the dominant image of the human male (Williams in Cook, 1999, page 200) just as the women’s power lies in her difference or otherness in relation to the male. The monster functions as a spectacle not only for the male audience but also for the female onscreen.

“This reading of the castration scenario then enables Williams to account for several aspects of the classic horror film. The ‘vindictive destruction of the monster’ the frequent  sympathy of the female characters for the plight of the monster, their similar constitution  as an exhibitionist object by the desiring look of the male,”

Cook (1999:p.200)

When the monster is shown through the eyes of a woman it is an identification of their shared difference. Isolated white rural communities in horror films are, by this same logic, constructed as ‘other’. The ‘monsters’ in The Hills Have Eyes, for example, although technically human, can be interpreted in the same way as King Kong.

“Film monsters should be regarded as embodiments of women’s virginal sexual fantasies-a cross between fear and desire.” Tarratt (p.330)

The theme of otherness and difference and the concept of representation in horror as a fetishist concept is central to the study regarding the representation of the isolated communities.

The Theme of Isolation

The theme of isolation is recurrent in the horror genre. Its origins may be attributed to the intent of the genre itself to ‘horrify’. An isolated setting puts the protagonist in a situation where they must deal with danger themselves without the aid of the mainstream civilised community on which the character had previously depended.

“Ever since the ghost of Hamlet’s father stalked the battlements of Elsinore castle, the stock in trade of horror romanticism has consisted of the inhabitants, properties and atmosphere of the haunted house.” Tibbetts in Chibnall (2002: p.99)

This convention is manifested in some of horror’s most recognisable scenery, from Carfax Abbey in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) to the eerie Bates Motel in Psycho (1960) but the theme has more significance to this study in reference to the specific films which feature representation of the communities that occupy these isolated settings. Although old films do feature monsters or individuals that are isolated from humanity and society, this is not necessarily the cause of their problematic behaviour. Norman Bates’ mental state is induced by his childhood and relationship with his Mother, whereas monsters like Dracula are not products of their environments, but merely manifestations of subconscious fear, therefore devoid of the direct influence of society.

The families in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Hills Have Eyes are both bi-products of an advancing civilisation that leaves behind those who cannot adapt to change. This type of horror in which a ‘normal’ community are contrasted with a rural isolated one offers parallels and contradictions between perceived notions of civilised behaviour and primitive instincts.

The representation of these communities as being significantly different culturally from the characters representing mainstream civilised modern society is similar to the way cinema portrays racial difference. The appearance and language used by the rural characters betrays an institutionalised belief in the superiority of the urbanised, modern society over the "primitive" rural white communities they oppose. This device of cinematic representation can be used to attack any ethnic group, including the white proletariat. 

“In popular representations, as in the world, identity politics is likely to go both ways, to become either a site for the progressive use of diversity or an opportunity for the conservative management of difference within existing power structures.” Willis (1997: page 2)

Analysis

Texts in Context

The three texts on which this study is focused, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes and The Wicker Man (which will henceforth be referred to as Texas, Hills and Wicker Man respectively) have been selected on the basis of their content, plots, time of creation and tendency to utilise the potential of cinema to offer a critique of capitalism. In each film there is a confrontation between two separate cultures, one of which, on a journey away from home, representing the civilised society from which they came, the other an "otherised" rural white community, isolated from mainstream society and constructed as culturally opposed to those representing the dominant ideology.

“The convention of the civilised man forced to violence is familiar in most manly movie genres, but rarely has it been presented as skilfully as it has here. The heroes of Deliverance and Hills Have Eyes are given no choice but to fight and kill, attacked suddenly by monstrous villains who seem hardly human” Fenton & Flint (p.120)

The isolated rural communities in each film have been used as a device with which to parody the institutions of patriarchal capitalism (family in Hills and Texas, religion in Wicker Man) whilst the plot of each film also offers criticism of such institutions. (The police in Wicker Man and Hills, U.S. Military in Hills, meat production as extension of farming and rural industry in Texas). This study will focus on scenes from each film that provide an introduction to the isolated communities through dialogue. The events on screen during theses scenes combined with the implications of the dialogue can be analysed for the purpose of understanding how the identities of these isolated communities are constructed and represented. The study will then consider the ideological concerns raised by the texts, and whether negative representations of rural white communities in cinema as a device to offer critique of capitalist institutions may paradoxically reinforce dominant ideological discourse with regards to the cultural inferiority of rural communities in comparison to their urban counterparts.

Where Beauty meets Beast

In Hills (1977) there is a key scene in which the history of the feral family and how they came to be is revealed. The grandfather of the feral family, Fred, meets the grandfather of the Carters, big Bob. Bob enters Fred’s gas station looking for help only to be shot at by the hillbilly stereotype character Fred, who is dressed in a poorly fitted plaid shirt and worn jeans, Fred then attempts to hang himself as a result of mistaking big Bob Carter for his murderous feral son Jupiter. At this stage the audience are already invited to make assumptions about the rural community and this display of paranoid mistrust. Fred explains to Bob that this rural community was newly constructed in the 1930’s and he had a wife and child, but his wife’s second child was mutated.

FRED: When Martha had this one something went wrong, this thing she give me…something happened. He was so big he came out sideways and almost tore his poor Mother apart. He weighed 20lbs and was hairy as a monkey. When he was ten years old, he was bigger than I was. Accidents were happening all the time. Dogs falling in the well, I even found chickens with their heads bit off. Then in August in ‘39 I was in town getting supplies, and the whole damn house burnt to the ground, my little baby girl was a cinder when I found her, but this monster kid wasn’t even singed, I knew he done it, I hit him with a tire iron and I split his face right open.

This mutation is attributed to the fact revealed by Bob’s daughter at the start of the film that the area was used by the military as a nuclear testing range. As this dialogue ends, Fred’s son Jupiter breaks through the glass window of the house, pulls his father out, kills him with a tire iron and then nails him to a door. The dialogue between the two father figures is significant, Fred is a parody of Bob, Bob is an ex police officer and a family man, an authority and representative of the system of law that governs mainstream America. Fred reveals that he too had a family, but it was lost as a result of this mutant child. From the actor’s expression and the script, it is likely that Bob is dubious of the existence of Jupiter. The fact that Fred was willing to attempt to murder his own son can be read as a failure of the family as a capitalist institution, it also encourages the audience to perceive Fred as being more primitive and perhaps murderous than Bob. Earlier in the film Bob refers to his career using racist and derogatory terminology. “25 years I’m a cop in the worst goddamn precinct in Cleveland. Niggers shoot arrows at me, hillbillies throw dogs off the roof at me.” Both African-Americans and rural Americans are connected in his speech as being problematic towards the urbanised ideology that the police uphold.

The first meeting in Hills is comparable with a similar scene in Texas in which the ‘civilised’ members of mainstream society come into contact with a member of a family of cannibals. As five fashionable seventies youths travel past a cattle slaughterhouse on their way to visit Franklin’s grandfather’s house in the Texas countryside, after attending a concert, they see a hitchhiker and decide to pick him up.

FRANKLIN:         I think we just picked up Dracula.

JERRY:                 Where're you heading, man?

FRANKLIN:         You work at that place?

HITCHHIKER:    Don't.              

PAM:                     How did you get stuck out here?                

HITCHHIKER:    I was at the slaughterhouse.

FRANKLIN:         I got an uncle that works at a slaughterhouse.

HITCHHIKER:    My brother worked there, my grandfather, too. My family's always been in beef.

KIRK:                   a whole family of Draculas.

JERRY:                 Hey man, did you go into that slaughter room or whatever they call it? Where they shoot the cattle with that air gun thing?

HITCHHIKER:    That gun is no good.

FRANKLIN:         I was in there once with my uncle.                  

HITCHHIKER:    With the sledge! That was better. They died better that way.

FRANKILN:         How come? I thought the gun was better.

HITCHHIKER:    Oh no. With the new way people were put out of jobs

The hitchhiker takes a photograph of Franklin, then when the young people refuse to pay $2 for it, he sets it alight using some powder wrapped in foil, cuts his hand open with a knife then cuts Franklins arm and when he is kicked out the vehicle he paints a symbol in blood on its side. Prior to picking up the hitchhiker Pam had been discussing astrology, there is an obvious parallel between the implied belief in magic of the hitchhiker and the girl’s belief in astrology. Humphries identifies the hitchhiker's belief in magic as being an extension of the capitalist ideal of property.

“it suggests a belief in magic, in the possibility of ‘possessing’ someone, which in turn must be seen as a form of control identical to that of possessing wealth or, by extension, the bodies of the workers whose labour is turned into surplus value. He is no more imbalanced than the girl who believes in the stars and their control over our lives”

 Humphries (2002:p.124)

A similar ironic comparison is at work in British horror film The Wicker Man, in which a Christian Scottish police officer condemns the beliefs of an island of pagans. The first meeting of the mainstream with the marginalised in these films illuminates both differences and paradoxical similarities. Wicker Man provides insight in its opening sequence in which Sergeant Howie arrives at Summers Isle off the West Coast of Scotland. The film depicts the locals' pagan beliefs in contrast to Sergeant Howie’s Christian beliefs, which can be considered as a metaphor for social and political upheaval of the time in regards to challenging the institutions such as religion whose ideology governs the lives of others.

“the conflict between old and new faith was a way of talking about the relationship between the upheavals of the late 1960s – the emergence of youth and ‘counter’ cultures, permissiveness, the possibility of revolution – and the backlash of the 1970s represented, in particular, by the ‘law and order’ agenda of the new Heath government. In The Wicker Man we find a puritanical male authority figure pitted against a Dionysian cult,” Hunt in Chibnall (2002:p.93)

The first shot we see of the island, a flag of the pagan sun god, draws attention to the difference of the community’s religious beliefs from the Christian ideology from which they are isolated. The camera pans down to reveal a plane landing on the water, surrounded by Scottish hills, reinforcing the feeling of isolation created by the montage of lonely landscape shots which the film opens with. Sergeant Howie rolls down the window and shouts to a small crowd of men gathering at the island’s harbour. The harbour master initially refuses to allow the sergeant on the island as it is private property. As they speak, four more men arrive and join the small crowd of old men as if they have nothing better to do with their time than satisfy idle curiosity. The local men at the harbour are quite old, wear old moth bitten clothes and are unshaven; they have weathered faces and grey hair, each fulfilling the dominant stereotypical image of rural British communities.

As the locals send a dinghy, a montage of the island harbour area is shown. The montage illustrates the significant cultural difference of the community from the culture of the mainland which sergeant Howie represents. A man rides a horse through the street without a saddle or helmet, there are no automobiles visible, the houses are traditional Scottish style built of granite. In front of the houses tropical palm trees grow, young girls open windows and lean out to observe the Sergeant's arrival. The wooden dinghy has an eye painted on the side which also seems to be a pagan symbol. When shown immediately after the shot of the women observing the sergeant, it becomes a symbol to remind the audience that the sergeant is being watched by the curious and ‘primitive’ locals.

Just as in traditional horror, where women are constructed as representative of their difference to men, the isolated communities depicted in 1970s horror films like Texas are constructed like women as ‘other’. The ‘monsters’ in Hills, although human, can be interpreted in the same way as Williams’ (Cook, 1999, page 200) feminised reading of King Kong, as mentioned in the literature review. But there is no clear moment when the civilised females appear to identify with the feral family. This is because as urban women they still see the ferals as more other than their own gender. It is significant that in both versions of Hills, the young female feral, Ruby, identifies with the ‘civilised’ family, through sympathy for the plight of the baby, which suggest that she identifies with her urban oppressors, in both versions abandoning her fellow ferals and family members in favour of assisting the civilised family.

Women function primarily as victims in the originals of Hills and Texas, where they are raped, tortured, killed, chased and eaten by the primitive cannibal families whose treatment of women and desire to consume them in every sense of the word, is a reflection of the capitalist society from which they are excluded.

The Wicker Man provides a different representation of women, they are not victims in a conventional sense, rather aggressors who participate in the organised deception of an external authority. They are shown to be sexually liberated in both versions of this film. 

This does not mean that the female characters escape sexual objectification. Britt Elkland’s character, the land lords daughter, performs a ritualistic mating dance naked while the men at the pub all sing a song in tribute to her promiscuity. It is revealed in the school scene that the female children are encouraged to worship the phallus in the form of the traditional maypole. Sgt Howie as a practicing Christian is appalled by this pagan practice, yet one wonders wheher worship of a phallus should be read as female liberation or subjugation. 

Comparison of 1970’s Horror Films and their 21^st Century Remakes

Hills, Texas and Wicker Man were all successful films in their time, and each has also become a cult classic. As mentioned in the literature review, the remaking of such films is a low risk and lucrative area of investment. For these films to achieve success a second time in the 21^st century, their content must be relevant to the experiences of modern audiences. It could be argued that some of the issues raised by these films are still relevant today, issues such as failure of the family unit, fear of the unknown, the advance of technology and its effect on the manual workforce, danger of obedience to violent religion and marginalisation of rural communities.  However each of the remakes includes significant alterations to their originals. It is safe to assume that any changes made would be an attempt to make the films more palatable to the tastes of modern audiences.

The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) considers the fear of nuclear testing more than its original, it starts with a montage of shocking imagery of nuclear explosions and mutant still births, this theme is continued throughout the film as the feral family is replaced by an entire town of cannibals who are also hideously mutated. The inclusion of a more prominent nuclear theme in this version can be read as a reflection of increasing fear of nuclear war in the 21^st century. The cause for the existence of the feral community is not a result of a dysfunctional family but entirely the fault of the military, and government for allowing nuclear testing in the American countryside, a point made in a speech by one of the mutants to the father of the stolen baby, Doug Bukowski.

“Your people asked our families to leave. So we hid in the mines, and you brought out your bombs and turned everything to ashes! You destroyed our homes and made us what we've become.” Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Other significant changes made to the plot include a far more frictional relationship between Bob the ex -police officer and his son in law Doug, which is perhaps a reflection of the decomposition of family ideals in the West. The gas pump attendant who tries to save the family in the original deceives them into taking a wrong road in this version which leads to the caravan crashing,  the crash is caused by the military in the original but in this version the cannibals have a specialised device for immobilising vehicles.

The cannibals are more violent, more grotesque and less human in this version; the parody is made less significant between the two families, as the cannibals do not exist in a single family unit but as an entire community. The female cannibal known as Ruby assists the ‘civilised’ family in this film as well as the original, the original film implies that Ruby will join the mainstream society for a new life, in the remake she kills herself and her brother in order to save the life of the ‘civilised’ family’s baby. This selfless act seems less plausible than the ending of the original and is certainly less optimistic in its outlook with regards to the reincorporation of marginalised communities into the mainstream.

Both films end with Doug brutally murdering members of the isolated rural community, the original ends with Doug smashing the skull of the feral named Mars, the screen freezes and turns red, then the credits roll accompanied by chilling music, as the audience realises that the so called civilised family are no different to the ferals who have adopted violence as a means of survival. In the remake, when Doug kills the cannibals and retrieves the baby, there is triumphant fanfare as if he has done something noble. This ending is more in keeping with the Hollywood convention of a happy ending; the final shot is a POV looking at the family through binoculars, thus opening up the possibility of a sequel, but making no conclusions about the issues the film raises at the start with regards to nuclear testing and the American military.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) has many significant changes to plot from its original. All the characters and names are different with the exception of Leatherface, however whereas in the original he wears the skin of his mothers face, in a twisted reference to Freudian psychology, in this version his face is attributed to a skin condition he has had since a child, his mask is made from the skin of an anonymous male victim. The young people in the van are returning from Mexico carrying illegal drugs when they pickup a woman who kills herself and as a result they have to contact the local sheriff who is in fact Leatherface’s brother and also a violent sociopath. This is perhaps an indication that the integrity of the police force in America has become unreliable, to the point where modern cinema audiences will accept the concept of a police sheriff who is a member of a family of murderers. Although the film indicates he may be falsely posing as a police officer, the integrity of the police is still being brought into question.

There are several indications that the rural community are more primitive than the ‘civilised’ youths, Leatherface’s mother sells meat and leaves the food un-refrigerated and covered in flies, it is as if she has no knowledge of basic hygiene despite the fact that purveying meat products is her job. Later the youths encounter a young boy, whose teeth are crooked and eyes are crossed, he hides in the shadows, crawling around like a beast. The rural family is much larger than the four of the original, there are seven plus a baby they have stolen from one of their victims, three of them are women, and their motivation for murder is not clearly attributed to being made redundant by the slaughterhouse. When Erin pleads for mercy the mother of Leatherface says to her “I know your kind, nothing but cruelty and ridicule for my boy, all the time he was growing up’ This perhaps implies that the activities of the murderous family are a direct result of living in an isolated community.

Despite a scene in which the grandson in the rural family assists Erin’s escape from the basement of the house, the representation of rural communities in this film is by no means more positive than in the original. There are no positive rural characters like in the first, local men warning the youths of danger in the area, every rural character turns out to be a member of the murdering family. Characterisation of members of the rural community is brief and vague making narcissistic identification on the part of the audience difficult.”(Modelski in Braudy. p.770)

The Wicker Man

The most notable point of difference in The Wicker Man (2006) from its 1973 original is that the island community is a matriarchy. The island is off the coast of Washington state, America as opposed to Scotland in an effort to draw in more revenue from the prioritised American market. Lord Summersisle is changed to Sister Summersisle, and the men are those who are marginalised in this community, serving only the purpose of procreation and obedience to the will of Sister Summersisle as is explained by one male resident “We procreate because it is the will of the goddess.”

“it would seem reasonable for us to expect more recent forms of horror to reflect the current state of public knowledge and scientific theorizing about sex.” Freeland in Braudy & Cohen (p.750)

The scene in which the protagonist Edward Malus arrives in the harbour area is very similar to its original, the script is maintained almost exactly, but rather than a group of elderly men warning the officer away, it is a group of middle aged women. They wear only clothes made of leather and wool and are very crude in style; the clothing serves as a visual indicator to remind the viewer of the cultural superiority of the culture of mainland America over this primitive colony. There are two men present behind the women, they say nothing but hold a bag which drips with blood, and writhes about as if there is an animal inside. This change to the scene illuminates the subordination of men on the island and also hints at the fact that they belong to a violent community. There are indications that the islanders are inbred, there are several women who look very similar, Malus confuses them with each other, there is also a bizarre pair of blind twins and a man covered in boils. This implies that isolated communities are genetically inferior to those of the mainstream society.

This oppressive matriarchy is far more violent than the community depicted in the original, as is shown when the eyes and mouth of a pilot are sewn shut, and also when Edward Malus (who is the equivalent of Sergeant Howie) resists the will of the locals he is attacked by several members of the community. Edward Malus is a police officer like sergeant Howie; he is not brought to the island on police business but as a result of his ex fiancée who is also the daughter of Sister Summersisle contacting him regarding her supposedly missing child Rowan. The scene in the school is similar however the girls are not asked about the maypole, but the image of the male, rather than answering that the maypole represents the phallic symbol, they say it is men themselves who serve as nothing but representations of the phallus.

Malus, just as Howie in the original is representative of state authority and the institution of law enforcement, the fact he is there on private business it could be argued, excuses the institution by whom he is employed of the violent acts he committed against the women of the island. Malus is not the straight laced, Christian virgin that Sergeant Howie is; Malus suffers from hallucinations, anxiety and is far more violent than Howie. There is no mention of his spiritual beliefs but he uses Christian expletives such as “God Damn it.” In the seventies Howie was a valid example of how a police officer could be, the changes made in the remake to the protagonists character are significant as they are most likely an attempt to make him easier for the audience to identify with. Many Americans suffer from depression, take medication and are un-specific about their exact spiritual beliefs just as Edward Malus is.

The depiction of a microcosm society ruled by women, being dysfunctional, violent and primitive could be considered a reaction to the increasing amounts of women who are achieving positions of power in the 21^st century. The matriarchal society is constructed as failing in all the areas that the mainstream patriarchal society of the mainland succeeds and portrays a sexist warning about awarding positions of responsibility and power to females.

Conclusions

The horror films of the 1970s that this study has analyzed all include a community that has been isolated from mainstream society and is then visited by people representative of the mainstream, patriarchal, urbanised capitalist society from which they are marginalised. This style of horror film enables a clear contrast between two opposing cultures and serves the purpose of offering a critique of the dominant ideology and social commentary on a number of institutions that govern the lives of most people living in Western civilisation. What the analysis has shown is that negative representations of those who live on the outskirts of mainstream society, can reinforce the discourse of mainstream society by depicting such cultures and communities as being culturally and even genetically inferior to the culture and people of mainstream society.

The feral family depicted in The Hills Have Eyes (1977) are all negative representations of rural communities, Fred who tries to escape his son and his cannibal family is a negative representation despite trying to assist the Carter family, he is shown to be paranoid and mistrustful, as well as attempting to kill his own child, Fred’s failure as a Father is parodied by Bob Carters failure to protect his family from the cannibals, and his failure as a policeman when he reveals his prejudice for both rural Americans and African-Americans.

The feral female named Ruby helps the Carter family get their baby back, showing instinctive remorse for the culture on which she has been raised and acceptance of her role as a female assigned to her by capitalist patriarchy; at the start of the film she says to Fred that she wants to be a part of mainstream society. Despite her compassion for human life Ruby is a negative rural representation, she has never experienced the lifestyle of mainstream society, yet she still craves it and is willing to help kill her own brother Mars in order to join the ‘civilised’ family and abandon her family and its ‘primitive’ culture.

The film shows that the two families are both essentially savage when forced to rely on their primitive instincts to survive, thus destroying the serenity of the middle class American ideal that the Carter family represented at the start of the film. The mutation of Jupiter and his children is attributed to the United States Military for conducting nuclear experiments in the desert, thus it is the feral family who are in fact the victims, the depiction of these victims of society as aggressors who attack, kill and eat other humans is a paradoxical contrast to the ideals of the capitalist society of which they are victims, capitalism is dependent on consumerism and the feral family take and consume whatever they can without consideration for the moral implications of their actions.

Similar parallels are at work in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). The scene in which the young travellers pick up the hitchhiker outside the slaughterhouse offers a contrast between the superstitious beliefs of the seventies youth who talks of astrology and the belief in magic implied by the hitchhiker who ritualistically burns a photograph of Franklin, an attempt at gaining control of someone, in a sense possessing them in the same way capitalism encourages the possession of wealth and things or of workers whose labour can be used to generate wealth.

The Wicker Man offers a parody of mainstream and marginalised religious groups. Sergeant Howie sees the pagan community’s worship of gods in an effort to achieve a more fruitful harvest as insane; however he does not see the similarities between this small community and the Christian society he is representing. The Wicker Man depicts the pagan community as murderous, deceptive and misguided as a result of the aristocratic Lord Summersisle encouraging the local community to follow the ways of the ‘old gods’ as his father had encouraged them to. There is no mention of the rural community resisting the religion being forced on them, or of them using their knowledge of agriculture to remedy failing crops as opposed to belief in superstition and religion. The rural working class community are completely subservient to their authority. Their planned murder of a police sergeant could be interpreted as a working class uprising against institutional authority if it weren’t for the fact they are only involved in the sacrifice out of obedience to aristocracy and to religion.

Changing Representations

“The radicalism of so much horror throughout the 70s can hardly come as a surprise; the political climate militated in favour of dystopic visions of society. Considerably more surprising is the continuation of this trend into the early 90s, in the light of a conservative backlash represented in aspects of the ‘slasher’ movie from the end of the 70s” Humphries (2002:p.138)

This trend Humphries speaks of has continued into the 21^st century, and if the radicalism of horror in the 1970s was a reflection of the political climate of the time, it could also be argued that the 21^st century remakes of these films are a reflection of the current political climate, and that the films reflect the subconscious fears of modern society.

The fact that all three of the remakes are more violent than their originals is worthy of notation. This can be read as reflecting the rising levels of violent crime reported in both America and Britain or as a reflection of the extreme violence taking place in the Middle East at the hands of the American, Israeli and British military.

The remake of Hills (2006) features the effects of nuclear testing more prominently than the original and may be read as evidence that the threat of nuclear war and the danger of nuclear weapons are still a concern in the collective minds of Western society. The cannibals are not merely one family but an entire community, and are far more mutated and monstrous than those of the original; this makes identification with the rural community difficult for the audience. The grotesque mutation reinforces the fear of nuclear weapons, as it is radiation that has caused the mutation, however depiction of the rural community as monsters dehumanises them, and is therefore a negative representation of a victimised rural community. The female feral Ruby gives her own life to protect the ‘civilised’ in this version thus destroying the potential for uniting the two separate cultures, the violence used by the ‘civilised’ family to protect themselves is glorified whereas the visual language of the original implied it was condemned. There are no positive rural characters in the film.

In the remake of Texas (2003) there are no positive rural characters either, every rural character is a member of the murderous family which is much larger than in the original. The responsibility for the updating of technology in the slaughterhouse being a cause for the family’s marginalisation is not included, the fact that Leather face was bullied in school as a result of a skin condition is shown to be a cause of anger for which the family want revenge, and exact it on those they perceive as belonging to mainstream American culture. One of the ‘primitive’ family is a policeman, this reflects changing attitudes toward institutional authority, although the film is set in the 1970s it still reflects a mistrust of the police, by depicting a renegade redneck posing as a sheriff and killing whoever he chooses without being brought to justice.

The Wicker Man (2006) portrays women as problematic when in a position of power. The matriarchal society is depicted as being entirely inferior to the mainstream American society the islanders are isolated from. The location is changed from Scotland to America in an effort to make the film more relevant to American audiences, and whereas in the original women on the island are subordinate to male domination, in this version the matriarchal society subordinates men as being useful only for breeding and physical labour. This implies that women are less moderate leaders but may also be a reflection of the way women are subordinate in mainstream patriarchal culture.

The community are depicted as being genetically inferior to the people of mainstream America as a result of inbreeding, depicted through the inclusion of multiple sets of twins, one pair of which being blind. The violent oppressive matriarchal society viciously torture and kill Edward Malus who represents patriarchy and law, this may be a reflection of the fear for the increasing power awarded to women as a result of the women’s movements of the 20^th century. Depicting a failing matriarchal society through film can be read as symbolic reinforcement of the superiority of the patriarchal society. The failing crops, violent traditions and primitive religion adopted by the locals all combine to constitute a negative representation of a rural community existing outside mainstream capitalist society although in this case with a more gendered focus than the original film.

This study has shown that the horror genre was reinvented during the 1970’s to reflect ideological concerns of the era, and that the 21^st century remakes of films from this era are significant as they show that the subconscious anxieties in the collective minds of audiences of the 1970s are still relevant to modern audiences. These remakes also show changing perspectives towards rural communities, they are shown to be more violent, less human and more corrupt than the same characters were in the previous films, this may be because modern audiences demand more violent cinema for entertainment, or it may be a result of increasing mistrust towards any culture or community constructed outside the discourse of the dominant mainstream ideology of urbanised capitalism and Christianity.

These films have used examples of isolated small rural communities as a cinematic device to parody the wrongdoings of mainstream society and its institutions of power. The negative representations of rural communities in The Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Wicker Man and their more recent remakes serve the purpose of offering a critique of the dominant Western ideology whilst simultaneously reinforcing the same ideology’s stereotypical views with regards to rural white communities, and the cultural superiority of urban liberal capitalism.

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Filmography

Alien                                                               Ridley Scott                            1979

The Birds                                                        Alfred Hitchcock                    1963

Cannibal Holocaust                                         Ruggero Deodato                   1980

Dawn of the Dead                                          George.A.Romero                   1978

Dracula                                                            Tod Browning                         1931

Deliverance                                                     John Boorman                         1972

The Exorcist                                                    William Friedkin                     1973

Frankenstein                                                    James Whale                           1931

The Hills Have Eyes                                       Wes Craven                             1977

The Hills Have Eyes                                       Alex Aja                                  2006

The House on Haunted Hill                            William Castle             1958

King Kong                                                      Merian.C.Cooper                    1933

Le Manoir du diable                                       Gerorges Méliès                      1896

Nosferatu                                                        F.W.Murnan                            1922

Psycho                                                             Alfred Hitchcock                    1960

Saw 3                                                              Darren Lynn Bousman            2006

Straw Dogs                                                     Sam Peckinpah                        1971

Star Wars                                                        George Lucas                          1977

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre                       Tobe Hooper                           1974  

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre                       Marcus Nispel                         2003

The Thing from another World                       Christian Nyby                        1951

The Wicker Man                                             Robin Hardy                           1973

The Wicker Man                                             Neil Labute                             2006