As a horror fan, aside from having to defend Jason X from most of my fellow fans, there is one thing that gnaws at me more often than anything else. Every person who realy isn’t into horror movies will always as us “Why do you watch that garbage?”  They ask it in as much innocence as ignorance, telling us as much as anything else that they watch ‘real’ films rather than the pathatic blood guts and gore that we watch. It strikes me, very often, that I agree with them that a lot of the films they list are very much both interesting and certainly promote an active lesson in life. Meanwhile, I’m forced to try and defend every film that I watch, from Jason X and Hellevator straight through to Fido and Brain Dead, in some intelligable way, as though they need justification to be watched. Personally I am quite happy to try and antagonize these people. Try and inform them that it is, indeed, nothing but gratuitous violence and nudity for my sick pleasure. But the fact of the matter is that such a response just cheapens what our beloved horror films really are. They are the modern day equivalent of what our ancient literary beacons were. Stories of good and evil. Some of course think that rather than this obviously Manichean interpretation of our stories, I should consider them far more simple. Certainly the writers behind some of our cliched horror movie greats were going for simplicity. Even in its simplest form, there is a very strong tale of good and evil. 

The reason I bring up the Manichean view of good and evil, is because horror movies are intended more often than not to display this in its most base and strongest form. This, more than anything else, is its strong contributions to modern day morality, the discourse about life, and the lesson it tries to teach us. Sometimes, you do have to dig through several feet of intestines, a couple yards of nude chicks and lingerie, but its always there. In the most obviously formulaic horror movies, you will have some kind of evil presence, and you will have its victims and often a hero trying to defeat the aforementioned evil. These formulas are not exactly newly created, nor are their lessons.

Travelling back a bit you can see this concept playing itself out in the literature of its day. My personal favourite is Dante’s Inferno, although you can take any number of old tales, when it comes to ancient horror. Dante’s Inferno creates a tale of a literal passage through hell, in all its gorey madness, in order to come clean through the other side, a ‘hero’ still intact. Though I don’t think that Dante would say that was his purpose, the fact of the matter is that his work was teaching a very valuable moral lesson. Picking a deadly sin, and showcasing what its punishment was, is as strong an endorsement against a sin as anyone can imagine. His very concept that he builds upon is one of punishment of evil and ultimately the hope that good is rewarded, though this of course is a separate book entirely. And Dante is not alone in this formulation. Pick your favourite literary example, and you will doubtless be able to trace the evil and the good side, and how each is played out into. It doesn’t even have to carry with it punishment, evil may indeed triumph, but its triumph is a Pyrrhic victory, as far as mankind is concerned. And thus it is that Good and Evil battle over our ideas in the literary world.

The important thing to take from this is that Horror movies are where that battle continues at its most extreme. A horror movie, in every true sense, is intended to frighten and scare you. The tactic is, however, almost without fail intended to do so by showcasing evil in its most potent form. And it is only when we examine how humanity can fare against such potent, albeit imaginary, evil that we learn something about life, about what choices we should make. I would imagine that at this point it would be wise to give you all an example, lest you think that I am only throwing about a meaningless idea. The most obvious examples are the ones that I would rather not harp on about. Anyone in the world could tell you that Friday the 13th, and its many subsequent sequels, is in fact a showcase of moral preaching which says “Smoke pot, have sex, be naughty, you die” and of course this IS a moral code. This is the idea which I am talking about, horror movies being a part of moral discourse. And I do think that these lessons are showcased very clearly. Even in ‘I Spit On Your Grave’ there is a moral thread, some would argue it very thin, which suggests just what sort of outcome a group of rapists can expect, featuring one of the most gruesome deaths ever filmed. Anyone who doesn’t know need only ask any male friend who does, and his sheer look of terror at the thought should suffice. And of course you’ve already seen 2 different lessons that horror movies will try to drum into you.

The first lesson is that which I think is the more obvious and more superficial reason. People who do bad get punished. This goes for all manner of horror villains as much as it goes for the sexually deviant teens that are cut to pieces. Its a story which ultimately, twist or no, we want to believe. There is a part of even the darkest of us that needs to see Virgil emerge from Hell, that needs to see Jason defeated and one virtuous teen standing tall. The message becomes so much less poignant if nobody lives, everybody dies, and so what if they do. At that point the message seems less clear (though I will deal with that in the next section). Of course horror movies are more than happy to deliver this message of destroying evil. Pick your favourite horror film, and you see if the bad guys don’t as often as not get whats coming to them. Hell, to borrow a line from Clint Eastwood, sometimes “Deserve ain’t got nothing to do with it.” Evil is undone, reasons are not important. How many times have we not seen Freddy Krueger or Pinhead or Leprechaun be defeated, usually by as virtuous a youngster as we can find. My all-time favourite being in Freddy vs Jason, in which the true hero of the day is a blond, blue-eyed virgin who tries to act as a paragon of innocence while the corrupt alcoholic sexed up teens that surround her are mecilessly dispatched. It is almost an iconic symbol of how horror movies are intended to go. And these are lessons, make no mistake about it. They are the obvious lessons that horror movies intend to promote for us.

There is, however, a much more difficult side to horror movies, that still exist in almost every film, and which is included even in some of the sickest creations we can find. That side, which is in a way a lesson, is one which relates much more to our natural state, rather than the consequences of our actions. Rather than the end result, which is so much more obvious, it’s about the journey that we all take, trying ultimately to fulfill our Telos as we pass obstacles, sometimes faltering, and how these obstacles change where we are going, rather than end us with their moral lesson. This story is one which is the true reason why I love horror movies, and why in many senses I love watching horror movies that end badly for all concerned. Many horror films are not about the pure consequences of bad actions, but rather are about putting people through tough and terrible situations in fiction, to spare us doing so in reality. It makes life just that little bit more bearable to see some extremes and how people like ourselves react to them, and through them. I brought up ‘I Spit On Your Grave’ earlier because it is a tale of a woman who is brutally raped by a group of men, and who is then able to extract her revenge on the men. I doubt the writers intended it to be more than a gritty and in some cases disgusting exploitation flick of the highest order, but the fact of the matter is that it tells us a lot about how to progress through life. The first lessons I talked about earlier are the punishments dished out upon the rapists. But this second lesson, that of a journey through life, is the story of the woman herself. In this case, it is a tale of seeing what extreme depravity will force someone to do and to become, and how doing these things can relieve what is in my opinion some clear mental anguish on her part. We see through her actions the kind of distress and confusion which something so extreme has caused, and really we are made more aware of some of the limits and boundaries of human suffering and human sorrow in its entirety through it. I’m sure every horror fan has some film that made you empathise with the victim and made you extremely aware of just what kind of mental anguish such an experience may be. The films are lessons for us about how humanity will react to monstrosities without plunging us face-first into them. In the exact same way as reading Dante may make you mediate not only about avoiding the sin, but about leading the good life for yourself, and seeing that journey take place, so too can horror films make you try and appreciate and value certain aspects you may not have been fully aware of. You were never forced to ruminate upon some of the monstrosities of this world. It is at this point that I return to the title of this little passage.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior as it is known, is a film which really showcases humanity at its worst. It is a tale of a society gone horribly awry, living in a land that has raised oil into a Deity, with everyone worshipping it in its most violent incarnation. Rape, murder, mutilation, nothing is beyond the quest to get gasoline and to control the desert. With the obvious lesson in life being that Rape is Bad, the subtle lesson to even this seemingly gratutitous piece is the exhibition of humanity at its best and worst. We see what paths can be taken, and are given at the very least some hope for the future, even if there is also a danger to it. In the case of Mad Max himself, there is a road that comprises a lot of the virtues of life, even in the face of total adversity. His opponents, on the other hand, have taken the other path and are showcasing that adversity really does breed the strongest kind of vile corruption of the human spirit. BOTH of these lessons, however, are important for us to see as part of the reaction of humanity to circumstance. It is the same with many of our modern horror tales, we learn as much from the bad guy as the good guy, as much from studying good defeating evil as we do from evil asserting itself upon good. They are all lessons about the way we travel through the road of life, the way in which we see the world. Ultimately there is a bias, of course, that we should see the world as good, but it is a lesson which is almost always showcased from two sides. As with any good story, it is the depth of both sides that compels us to read on (or watch on) and hope that the right side wins. Ultimately, it is the showcase of the journey that all parties take, and some of the consequences and lessons they all must learn along the way, that make horror movies so interesting.

Some of you will have agreed with me in principle, but will think that all this talk of good and evil, and the journey through life, and the moral lessons to be had is nothing short of total bollocks coming from a far too wordy ‘intellectual’ who has just sprinkled horror movie references in every here and there to pretend he has a point. If you thought that, I challenge you to look at any horror film you can think of, any one at all, and see if you can’t see a few things.

First of all I challenge you to look at whether there is a good side, and a bad side. If there is good and evil, we’re well on our way to understanding what the horror movie is trying to teach us, even if it is more by accident than anything else.

Next, look to see if you think that those that do bad (in any measure) don’t get adversely affected in some way. This is the first, most obvious lesson.

Finally, look and see if your good guys and even your bad guys don’t all find themselves involved in a storyline that further defines them and whose consequences determine who they truly are when the cards are down.

If at the end, however, you think its too hard to do this exercise, then keep watching horror movies for the simple blood guts and sexy women that you have done up till now. Many will read our literary classics that I started my article with for sheer enjoyment, glossing over morality. Likewise horror films can be pure visceral goodness devoid of thought. If, however, you are like me and enjoy thinking about what films have to offer you, then hopefully this article will have struck a chord with you, and at the very least made you consider how your favourite mindless slasher might indeed be a moral beacon.