Nightmare and the Horror Film: The Symbolic Biology of Fantastic Beings |

Noel Carroll
Film Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3. (Spring, 1981), pp. 16-25.

16

THE EMPIRE�S NEW CLOTHES

Wars; Lucas bowed out as director of The Empire

Strikes Back. Had he wanted to test the impor-
tance of direction to the making of a film, he could
scarcely have designed a better experiment: with
the same story, the same cast, the same producer,
and much of the same creative crew, a film was
made that had everything in common with its
predecessor but conviction, verve, and bazzazz,
the very unreproducible elements that made Star
Wars a success in the first place. In a sense. The
Empire Strikes Back constitutes an ironic com-
mentary on Lucas�s fate. The daring young man
with nothing to lose wrote himself into the first
film as the selfless hero to whom he gave his
name. The name�s the same but the game is dif-
ferent. The gutsy kid battling the Hollywood sys-
tem in the name of all creative spirits is now the
aging wonder battling his individual success, for
it is success that is the dark side of the Force, and

it is success that holds Lucas in thrall. His protes-

tations to the contrary notwithstanding, he has in
The Empire Strikes Back done �the same formula
over again.�� The differences between the films are
sufficiently negligible that had anyone else made
The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas could have sued
for plagiarism and won � plagiarism of everything
but the point of the enterprise, the only thing he
couldn�t copy. It is the essence of my sense of
betrayal not that he didn�t copy himself, but that
he did.

NOTES

1. Quoted in John May, editor, Star Wars � The Empire Strikes

Back, Paradise Press, Ridgefield, Connecticut, 1980, 62

2. Quoted in Paul Scanlon, �The Force Behind George Lucas,�

Rolling Stone. August 25, 1977, 48.

NOEL CARROLL

NiqhTMARE ANd tIie Horror FUm:

ThE SyMbolic Bioloqy oF Fantastic BEiNqs

Whereas the Western and the crime film were the

dominant genres of the late sixties and early seven-
ties, horror and science fiction are the reigning
popular forms of the late seventies and early eigh-
ties. Launched by blockbusters like The Exorcist
dind Jaws, the cycle has flourished steadily; it seems
as unstoppable as some of the demons it has
spawned. The present cycle, like the horror cycle
of the thirties and the science fiction cycle of the
fifties, comes at a particular kind of moment in
American history � one where feelings of paralysis,
helplessness, and vulnerability (hallmarks of the
nightmare) prevail. If the Western and the crime
film worked well as open forums for the debate
about our values and our history during the years
of the Vietnam war, the horror and science fic-
tion film poignantly expresses the sense of power-
lessness and anxiety that correlates with times of

depression, recession. Cold War strife, galloping

inflation, and national confusion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the

basic structures and themes of these timely genres
by extending some of the points made in Ernest
Jones�s On the Nightmare. Tones used his analysis
of the nightmare to unravel the symbolic meaning
and structure of such figures of medieval super-
stition as the incubus, vampire, werewolf, devil,
and witch. Similarly, I will consider the manner in
which the imagery of the horror/science fiction
film is constructed in ways that correspond to the
construction of nightmare imagery. My special,
though not exclusive, focus will be on the articula-
tion of the imagery horrific creatures � on what I
call their symbolic biologies. A less pretentious
subtitle for this essay might have been �How to
make a monster.��

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

17

Before beginning this �unholy� task, some qual-

ifications are necessary. Throughout this article 1
will slip freely between examples drawn from
horror films and science fiction films. Like many
connoisseurs of science fiction literature, I think
that, historically, movie science fiction has evolved
as a sub-class of the horror film. That is, in the
main, science fiction films are monster films,
rather than explorations of grand themes like
alternate societies or alternate technologies.

Secondly, I am approaching the horror/science

fiction film in terms of a psychoanalytic frame-
work, though I do not believe that psychoanalysis
is a hermeneutic method that can be applied un-
problematically to any kind of film or work of art.
Consequently, the adoption of psychoanalysis as
an interpretive tool in a given case should be accom-
panied by a justification for its use in regard to that
case. And in this light, I would argue that it is
appropriate to use psychoanalysis in relation to the
horror film because within our culture the horror
genre is explicitly acknowledged as a vehicle for
expressing psychoanalytically significant themes
such as repressed sexuality, oral sadism, necro-
philia, etc. Indeed, in recent films, such as Jean
Rollin�s Le Frisson des Vampires and La Vampire
Nue, all concealment of the psychosexual subtext
of the vampire myth is discarded. We have all
learned to treat the creatures of the night� like
werewolves � as creatures of the id, whether we are
spectators or film-makers. As a matter of social
tradition, psychoanalysis is more or less the lingua
franca of the horror film and thus the privileged
critical tool for discussing the genre. In fact horror
films often seem to be little more than bowdlerized,
pop psychoanalysis, so enmeshed is Freudian psy-
chology with the genre.

Nor is the coincidence of psychoanalytic themes

and those of the horror genre only a contemporary
phenomenon. Horror has been tied to night-
mare and dream since the inception of the modern
tradition. Over a century before the birth of psy-
choanalysis Horace Walpole wrote of the Castle of
Otranto.

I waked one morning, in the beginning of last June,

from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that
I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very
natural dream for a head like mine filled with Gothic
story) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great
staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the

evening I sat down, and began to write, without

knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate.
The work grew on my hands and I grew so fond of it
that one evening, I wrote from the time I had drunk
my tea, about six o�clock, till half an hour after one
in the morning, when my hands and fingers were so
weary that I could not hold the pen to finish the
sentence.

The assertion that a given horror story originated

as a dream or nightmare occurs often enough that
one begins to suspect that it is something akin to
invoking a muse (or an incubus or succubus, as the
case may be). Mary Shelley�s Frankenstein, Bram
Stoker�s Dracula, and Henry James�s �The Jolly
Corner� are all attributed to fitful sleep as is much
of Robert Louis Stevenson�s output � notably Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.^ In what sense these tales
were caused by nightmares or modeled on dreams
is less important than the fact that the nightmare is
a culturally established framework for presenting
and understanding the horror genre. And this
makes the resort to psychoanalysis unavoidable.

A central concept in Jones�s treatment of the

imagery of nightmare is conflict. The products of
the dreamwork are often simultaneously attractive
and repellent insofar as they function to enunciate
both a wish and its inhibition. Jones writes, �The
reason why the object seen in a Nightmare is fright-
ful or hideous is simply that the representation of
the underlying wish is not permitted in its naked
form so that the dream is a compromise of the wish
on the one hand and on the other of the intense
fear belonging to the inhibition.�^ The notion of
the conflict between attraction and repulsion is
particularly useful in considering the horror film,
as a corrective to alternate ways of treating the
genre. Too often, writing about this genre only
emphasizes one side of the imagery. Many journal-
ists will single-mindedly underscore only the repel-
lent aspects of a horror film� rejecting it as dis-
gusting, indecent, and foul. Yet this tack fails to
offer any account of why people are interested in
seeing such exercises.

On the other hand, defenders of the genre or

of a specific example of the genre will often indulge
in allegorical readings that render their subjects
wholly appealing and that do not acknowledge
their repellent aspects. Thus, we are told that
Frankenstein is really an existential parable about
man thrown-into-the-world, an �isolated suf-

18

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

ferer.�"* But if Frankenstein is part Nausea, it is

also nauseating. Where in the allegorical formula-
tion can we find an explanation for the purpose of
the unsettling effect of the charnel-house imagery?
The dangers of this allegorizing/valorizing tendency
can be seen in some of the work of Robin Wood,
the most vigorous champion of the contemporary
horror film. Sisters, he writes, �analyzes the ways
in which women are oppressed within patriarchal
society on two levels which one can define as pro-
fessional (Grace) and the psychosexual (Danielle/
Dominque).��^

One wants to say �perhaps but. ...� Specific-

ally, what about the unnerving, gory murders and
the brackish, fecal bond that links the Siamese
twins? Horror films cannot be construed as com-
pletely repelling or completely appealing. Either
outlook denies something essential to the form.
Jones�s use of the concept of conflict in the night-
mare to illuminate the symbolic portent of the
monsters of superstition, therefore, suggests a
direction of research into the study of the horror
film which accords with the genre�s unique com-
bination of repulsion and delight.

To conclude my qualifying remarks, I must note

that as a hardline Freudian, Jones suffers from one
important liability; he over-emphasizes the degree
to which incestuous desires shape the conflicts in
the nightmare (and, by extension, in the forma-
tion of fantastic beings) and he claims that night-
mares always relate to the sexual act.^ As John
Mack has argued, this perspective is too narrow;
�the analysis of nightmares regularly leads us to
the earliest, most profound, and inescapable an-
xieties and conflicts to which human beings are
subject: those involving destructive aggression,
castration, separation and abandonment, devour-
ing and being devoured, and fear regarding loss
of identity and fusion with the mother.�^ Thus,
modifying Jones, we will study the nightmare con-
flicts embodied in the horror film as having
broader reference than simply sexuality.

Our starting hypothesis is that horror film imag-

ery, like that of the nightmare, incarnates archaic,
conflicting impulses. Furthermore, this assump-
tion orients inquiry, leading us to review horror
film imagery with an eye to separating out thematic
strands that represent opposing attitudes. To

clarify what is involved in this sort of analysis, an

example is in order.

When The Exorcist first opened, responses to

it were extreme. It was denounced as a new cul-
tural low at the same time that extra theaters had
to be found in New York, Los Angeles, and other
cities to accommodate the overflow crowds. The
imagery of the film touched deep chords in our
national psyche. The spectacle of possession ad-
dressed and reflected profound fears and desires
never before explored in film. The basic infectious
terror in the film is that personal identity is a frail
thing, easily lost. Linda Blair�s Regan, with her
�tsks�� and her �ahs,�� is a model of middle-class
domesticity, a vapid mask quickly engulfed by
repressed powers. The character is not just another
evil child in the tradition of The Bad Seed. It is
an expression of the fear that beneath the self we
present to others are forces that can erupt to oblit-
erate every vestige of self-control and personal
identity.

In The Exorcist, the possibility of the loss of self

is greeted with both terror and glee. The fear of
losing self-control is great, but the manner in
which that loss is manifested is attractive. Once
possessed, Regan�s new powers, exhibited in hys-
terical displays of cinematic pyrotechnics, act out
the imagery of infantile beliefs in the omnipotence
of the will. Each grisly scene is a celebration of
infantile rage. Regan�s anger cracks doors and
ceilings and levitates beds. And she can deck a
full-grown man with a flick of a wrist. The audience
is aghast at her loss of self-control, which begins
fittingly enough with her urinating on the living
room rug, but at the same time its archaic beliefs
in the metaphysical prowess of the emotions are
cinematically confirmed. Thought is given direct
causal efficacy. Regan�s feelings know no bounds;
they pour out of her, tearing her own flesh apart
with their intensity and hurling people and furni-
ture in every direction. Part of the legacy of The
Exorcist to its successors � like Carrie, The Fury
and Patrick, to name but a few titles in this ram-
pant subgenre � is the fascination with telekinesis,
which is nothing but a cinematic metaphor of the
unlimited power of repressed rage. The audience
is both drawn to and repelled by it � we recognize
such rage in ourselves and superstitiously fear its
emergence, while simultaneously we are pleased

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

19

when we see a demonstration, albeit fictive, of

the power of that rage.�

Christopher Lasch has argued that the neurotic

personality of our time vacillates between fanta-
sies of self-loathing and infantile delusions of gran-
deur.� The strength of The Exorcist is that it cap-
tures this oscillation cinematically. Regan, through
the machinations of Satan, is the epitome of self-
hatred and self-degradation � a filthy thing, fester-
ing in its bed, befoulling itself, with fetid breath,
full of scabs, dirty hair, and a complexion that
makes her look like a pile of old newspapers.

The origins of this self-hatred imagery is con-

nected with sexual themes. Regan�s sudden con-
cupiscence corresponds with a birthday, presum-
ably her thirteenth. There are all sorts of allusions
to masturbation: not only does Regan misuse the
crucifix, splattering her thighs with blood in an
act symbolic of both loss of virginity and menstrua-
tion, but later her hands are bound (one enshrined
method for stopping �self-abuse�) and her skin
goes bad (as we were all warned it would). Turn-
ing the head 360 degrees also has sexual connota-

tions; in theology, it is described as a technique

Satan uses when sodomizing witches. Regan in-
carnates images of worthlessness, of being virtually
trash, in a context laden with sex and self-lacera-
tion. But the moments of self-degradation give
way to images that express delusions of grandeur
as she rocks the house in storms of rage. She
embodies moods of guilt and rebellion, of self-
loathing and omnipotence that speak to the Nar-
cissus in each of us.

The fantastic beings of horror films can be seen

as symbolic formations that organize conflicting
themes into figures that are simultaneously attrac-
tive and repulsive. Two major symbolic structures
appear most prominent in this regard: fusion, in
which the conflicting themes are yoked together
in one, spatio-temporally unified figure; and fis-
sion, in which the conflicting themes are distrib-
uted � over space or time � among more than one
figure.

Dracula, one of the classic film monsters, falls

into the category of fusion. In order to identify
the symbolic import of this figure we can begin

�'figures
that are
simultaneously
attractive
and
repulsive'':

Dr. Jekyll

AND

Mr. Hyde

20

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

with Jones�s account of vampires � since Dracula
is a vampire � but we must also amplify that
account since Dracula is a very special vampire.
According to Jones, the vampires of superstition
have two fundamental constituent attributes: reve-
nance and blood sucking. The mythic, as opposed
to movie, vampire first visits its relatives. For
Jones, this stands for the relatives� longing for the
loved one to return from the dead. But the figure
is charged with terror. What is fearful is blood
sucking, which Jones associates with seduction.
In short, the desire for an incestuous encounter
with the dead relative is transformed, through a
form of denial, into an assault � attraction and
love metamorphose into repulsion and sadism.
At the same time, via projection, the living portray
themselves as passive victims, imbuing the dead
with a dimension of active agency that permits the
�victim� pleasure without blame. Lastly, Jones
not only connects blood sucking with the exhaust-
ing embrace of the incubus but with a regressive
mixture of sucking and biting characteristic of
the oral stage of psychosexual development. By
negation � the transformation of love to hate, by
projection� through which the desired dead be-
come active, and the desiring living passive, and by
regression � from genital to oral sexuality, the
vampire legend gratifies incestuous and necro-
philiac desires by amalgamating them in a fear-
some iconography.

The vampire of lore and the Dracula figure of

stage and screen have several points of tangency,
but Dracula also has a number of distinctive
attributes. Of necessity, Dracula is Count Dracula.
He is an aristocrat; his bearing is noble; and, of
course, through hypnosis, he is a paradigmatic
authority figure. He is commanding in both senses
of the word. Above all, Dracula demands obedi-
ence of his minions and mistresses. He is extremely
old � associated with ancient castles � and pos-
sessed of incontestable strength. Dracula cannot
be overcome by force � he can only be outsmarted
or outmaneuvered; humans are typically described
as puny in comparison to him. At times, Dracula
is invested with omniscience, observing from afar
the measures taken against him. He also hoards
women and is a harem master. In brief, Dracula
is a bad father figure, often balanced off against
Van Helsing who defends virgins against the seem-

ingly younger, more vibrant Count. The phallic

symbolism of Dracula is hard to miss � he is aged,
buried in a filthy place, impure, powerful, and
aggressive.

The contrast with Van Helsing immediately

suggests another cluster of Dracula�s attributes.
He does appear the younger of the two specifically
because he represents the rebellious son at the
same time that he is the violent father. This identi-
fication is achieved by means of the Satanic imag-
ery that contributes to Dracula�s persona. Dracula
is the Devil � one film in fact refers to him in its
title as the �Prince of Darkness.� With few ex-
ceptions, Dracula is depicted as eternally uncon-
trite, bent on luring hapless souls. Most impor-
tantly, Dracula is a modern devil which, as Jones
points out, means that he is a rival to God. Reli-
giously, Dracula is presented as a force of unmiti-
gated evil. Dramatically, this is translated into a
quantum of awesome will or willfulness, often
flexed in those mental duels with Van Helsing.
Dracula, in part, exists as a rival to the father,
as a figure of defiance and rebellion, fulfilling the
oedipal wish via a hero of Miltonic proclivities.
The Dracula image, then, is a fusion of conflicting
attributes of the bad (primal) father and the re-
bellious son which is simultaneously appealing and
forbidding because of the way it conjoins differ-
ent dimensions of the oedipal fantasy.

The fusion of conflicting tendencies in the figure

of the monster in horror films has the dream
process of condensation as its approximate psychic
prototype. In analyzing the symbolic meaning of
these fusion figures our task is to individuate the
conflicting themes that constitute the creature.
Like Dracula, the Frankenstein monster is a fusion
figure, one that is quite literally a composite. Mary
Shelley first dreamed of the creature at a time in
her life fraught with tragedies connected with
childbirth. Victor Frankenstein�s creation �
his �hideous progeny� � is a gruesome parody of
birth; indeed, Shelley�s description of the crea-
ture�s appearance bears passing correspondences
to that of a newborn � its waxen skin, misshapen
head, and touch of jaundice. James Whale�s Fran-
kenstein also emphasizes the association of the
monster with a child; its walk is unsteady and
halting, its head is outsized and its eyes sleepy.
And in the film, though not in the novel, the crea-

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

ture�s basic cognitive skills are barely developed;

it is mystified by fire and has difficulty differen-
tiating between little girls and flowers. The mon-
ster in one respect is a child and its creation is a
birth that is presented as ghastly. At the same
time, the monster is made of waste, of dead things,
in �Frankenstein�s workshop of filthy creation.��
The excre mental reference is hardly disguised. The
association of the creature with waste implies that,
in part, the story is underwritten by the infantile
confusion over the processes of elimination and
reproduction. The monster is reviled as heinous
and as unwholesome filth, rejected by its creator
� its father � perhaps in a way that reorchestrated
Mary Shelley�s feelings of rejection by her father
William Godwin.

But these images of loathesomeness are fused

with opposite qualities. In the film myth, the mon-
ster is all but omnipotent (it can function as a
sparring partner for Godzilla), indomitable and,
for all intents and purposes, immortal (perhaps
partly for the intent and purpose of sequels). It is
both helpless and powerful, worthless and god-
like. Its rejection spurs rampaging vengeance,
combining fury and strength in infantile orgies
of rage and destruction. Interestingly, in the novel
this ire is directed against Victor Frankenstein�s
family. And even in Whale�s 1931 version of the
myth the monster�s definition as outside (excluded
from a place in) the family is maintained in a
number of ways: the killing of Maria; the juxta-
position of the monster�s wandering over the coun-
tryside with wedding preparations; and the oppo-
sition of Frankenstein�s preoccupation with affairs
centered around the monster to the interest of
propagating an heir to the family barony. The
emotional logic of the tale proceeds from the initial
loathesomeness of the monster, which triggers its
rejection, which causes the monster to explode
in omnipotent rage over its alienation from the
family, which, in turn, confirms the earlier intima-
tion of �badness,�� thereby justifying the parental
rejection. �� This scenario, moreover, is predicated
on the inherently conflicting tendencies � of being
waste and being god � that are condensed in the
creature from the start. It is, therefore, a necessary
condition for the success of the tale that the
creature be repellent.

One method for composing fantastic beings is

fusion. On the visual level, this often entails the

construction of creatures that transgress categori-
cal distinctions such as inside/outside, insect/hu-
man, flesh/machine, etc.*^ The particular affective
significance of these admixtures depends to a large
extent on the specific narrative context in which
they are embedded. But apart from fusion, another
means for articulating emotional conflicts in
horror films is fission. That is, conflicts concern-
ing sexuality, identity, aggressiveness, etc. can be
mapped over different entities � each standing for
a different facet of the conflict � which are never-
theless linked by some magical, supernatural, or
sci-fi process. The type of creatures that I have
in mind here include doppelgdngers, alter-egos,
and werewolves.

Fission has two major modes in the horror

film.�^ The first distributes the conflict over space
through the creation of doubles, e.g.. The Portrait
of Dorian Gray, The Student of Prague, and
Warning Shadows. Structurally, what is involved
in spatial fission is a process of multiplication, i.e.,
a character or set of characters is multiplied into
one or more new facets each standing for another
aspect of the self, generally one that is either
hidden, ignored, repressed, or denied by the char-
acter who has been cloned. These examples each
employ some mechanism of reflection � a portrait,
a mirror, shadows � as the pretext for doubling.
But this sort of fission figure can appear without
such devices. In I Married a Monster from Outer
Space, a young bride begins to suspect that her
new husband is not quite himself. Somehow he�s
different than the man she used to date. And she�s

Bride of Frankenstein: Elsa

Lanchesler and Boris Karloff

22

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

quite right. Her boyfriend was kidnapped by

invaders from outer space on his way back from
a bachelor party and was replaced by an alien
duplicate. This double, however, initially lacks
feelings � the essential characteristic of being
human in fifties sci-fi films � and his bride intuits
this. The basic story, sci-fi elements aside, re-
sembles a very specific paranoid delusion called
Capgras syndrome. The delusion involves the
patient�s belief that his or her parents, lovers, etc.
have become minatory doppelgdngers. This en-
ables the patient to deny his fear or hatred of a
loved one by splitting the loved one in half, creat-
ing a bad version (the invader) and a good one
(the victim). The new relation of marriage in I
Married a Monster appears to engender a conflict,
perhaps over sexuality, in the wife which is ex-
pressed through the fission figure. Splitting as
a psychic trope of denial is the root prototype for
spatial fission in the horror film, organizing con-
flict through the multiplication of characters.

Fission occurs in horror films not only in terms

of multiplication but also in terms of division.
That is, a character can be divided in time as well
as multiplied in space. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
and the various werewolves, cat people, gorgons,
and other changelings of the genre are immediate
examples. In the horror film, temporal fission�
usually marked by shape changing � is often self-
consciously concerned with repression. In Curse of
the Werewolf one shot shows the prospective mon-
ster behind the bars of a wine cellar window hold-
ing a bottle; it is an icon of restrained delirium.
The traditional conflict in these films is sexuality.
Stevenson�s Jekyll and Hyde is altered in screen
variants so that the central theme of Hyde�s bru-
tality � which I think is connected to an allegory
against alcoholism in the text � becomes a pre-
occupation with lechery. Often changeling films,
like The Werewolf of London or The Cat People,
eventuate in the monster attacking its lover, sug-
gesting that this subgenre begins in infantile con-
fusions over sexuality and aggression. The imag-
ery of werewolf films also has been associated with
conflicts connected with the bodily changes of
puberty and adolescence: unprecedented hair
spreads over the body, accompanied by uncon-
trollable, vaguely understood urges leading to
puzzlement and even to fear of madness. This

imagery becomes especially compelling in The

Wolf man, where the tension between father and
son mounts through anger and tyranny until at
last the father beats the son to death with a silver
cane in a paroxysm of oedipal anxiety.

Fusion and fission generate a large number of

the symbolic biologies of horror films, but not
all. Magnification of power or size � e.g., giant
insects (and other exaggerated animalcules) � is
another mode of symbol formation. Often magni-
fication takes a particular phobia as its subject
and, in general, much of this imagery seems com-
prehensible in terms of Freud�s observation that
�the majority of phobias . . . are traceable to such
a fear on the ego�s part of the demands of the
libido.�^^

Giant insects are a case in point. The giant

spider, for instance, appeared in silent film in
John Barrymore�s Jekyll and Hyde as an explicit
symbol of desire. Perhaps insects, especially spi-
ders, can perform this role not only because of
their resemblance to hands � the hairy hands of
masturbation � but also because of their cultural
association with impurity.** At the same time,
their identification as poisonous and predatory �
devouring � can be mobilized to express anxious
fantasies over sexuality. Like giant reptiles, giant
insects are often encountered in two specific con-
texts in horror films. They inhabit negative para-
dises � jungles and lost worlds � that unaware
humans happen into, not to find Edenic milk and
honey but the gnashing teeth or mandibles of
oral regression. Or, giant insects or reptiles are
slumbering potentials of nature released or awak-
ened by physical or chemical alterations caused
by human experiments in areas of knowledge best
left to the gods. Here, the predominant metaphor
is that these creatures or forces have been unfet-
tered or unleashed, suggesting their close connec-
tion with erotic impulses. Like the fusion and fis-
sion figures of horror films, these nightmares are
also explicable as effigies of deep-seated, archaic
conflicts.

So far I have dwelt on the symbolic composition

of the monsters in horror films, extrapolating from
the framework set out by Jones in On the Night-
mare in the hope of beginning a crude approxima-
tion of a taxonomy. But before concluding, it is

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

worthwhile to consider briefly the relevance of

archaic conflicts of the sort already discussed to
the themes repeated again and again in the basic
plot structures of the horror film.^�

Perhaps the most serviceable narrative armature

in the horror film genre is what I call the Discovery
Plot. It is used in Dracula, The Exorcist, Jaws
I&II, It Came From Outer Space, Curse of the
Demon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, It
Came From Beneath the Sea, and myriad other
films. It has four essential movements. The first
is onset: the monster�s presence is established,
e.g., by an attack, as inlaws. Next, the monster�s
existence is discovered by an individual or a group,
but for one reason or another its existence or con-
tinued existence, or the nature of the threat it
actually poses, is not acknowledged by the powers
that be. �There are no such things as vampires,�
the police chief might say at this point. Discovery,
therefore, flows into the next plot movement
which is confirmation. The discoverers or believers
must convince some other group of the existence
and proportions of mortal danger at hand. Often
this section of the plot is the most elaborate, and
suspenseful. As the UN refuses to accept the real-
ity of the onslaught of killer bees or invaders from
Mars, precious time is lost, during which the
creature or creatures often gain power and advan-
tage. This interlude also allows for a great deal of
discussion about the encroaching monster, and
this talk about its invulnerability, its scarcely
imaginable strength, and its nasty habits endows
the off-screen beast with the qualities that prime
the audience�s fearful anticipation. Language is
one of the most effective ingredients in a horror
film and I would guess that the genre�s primary
success in sound film rather than silent film has
less to do with the absence of sound effects in the
silents than with the presence of all that dialogue
about the unseen monster in the talkies.

After the hesitations of confirmation, the Dis-

covery Plot culminates in confrontation. Mankind
meets its monster, most often winning, but on
occasion, like the remake of Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, losing. What is particularly of interest
in this plot structure is the tension caused by the
delay between discovery and confirmation. The-
matically, it involves the audience not only in the
drama of proof but also in the play between know-

Donald Sutherland in the toils of the delayed-

discovery plot: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

ing and not knowing,^� between acknowledgment

versus nonacknowledgment, that has the growing
awareness of sexuality in the adolescent as its
archetype. This conflict can become very pro-
nounced when the gainsayers in question � gen-
erals, police chiefs, scientists, heads of institu-
tions, etc. � are obviously parental authority fig-
ures.

Another important plot structure is that of the

Overreacher. Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and
Man with the X-Ray Eyes are all examples of this
approach. Whereas the Discovery Plot often
stresses the short-sightedness of science, the Over-
reacher Plot criticizes science�s will to knowledge.
The Overreacher Plot has four basic movements.
The first comprises the preparation for the experi-
ment, generally including a philosophical, popu-
lar-mechanics explanation or debate about the
experiment�s motivation. The overreacher him-
self (usually Dr. Soandso) can become quite mega-
lomaniacal here, a quality commented upon, for
instance, by the dizzingly vertical laboratory sets
in Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Next
comes the experiment itself, whose partial success
allows for some more megalomania. But the exper-
iment goes awry, leading to the destruction of
innocent victims and/or to damage or threat to the
experimenter or his loved ones. At this point,
some overreachers renounce their blasphemy; the
ones who don�t are mad scientists. Finally, there is
a confrontation with the monster, generally in the
penultimate scene of the film.

The Overreacher Plot can be combined with

the Discovery Plot by making the overreacher and/
24

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

or his experiments the object of discovery and

confirmation. This yields a plot with seven move-
ments � onset, discovery, confirmation, prepara-
tion for the experiment, experimentation, untoward
consequences, and confrontation.* But the basic
Overreacher Plot differs thematically from the
Discovery Plot insofar as the conflicts central to
the Overreacher Plot reside in fantasies of omni-
science, omnipotence, and control. The plot even-
tually cautions against these impulses but not until
it gratifies them with partial success and a strong
dose of theatrical panache.

In suggesting that the plot structures and fantas-

tic beings of the horror film correlate with night-
mares and repulsive materials, I do not mean to
claim that horror films are nightmares. Structur-
ally, horror films are far more rationally ordered
than nightmares, even in extremely disjunctive and
dreamlike experiments like Phantasm. Moreover,
phenomenologically, horror film buffs do not
believe that they are literally the victims of the
mayhem they witness whereas a dreamer can quite
often become a participant and a victim in his/her
dream. We can and do seek out horror films for
pleasure, while someone who looked forward to a
nightmare would be a rare bird indeed. Neverthe-
less, there do seem to be enough thematic and
symbolic correspondences between nightmare and
horror to indicate the distant genesis of horror
motifs in nightmare as well as significant similari-
ties between the two phenomena. Granted, these
motifs become highly stylized on the screen. Yet,
for some, the horror film may release some part
of the tensions that would otherwise erupt in night-
mares. Perhaps we can say that horror film fans
go to the movies (in the afternoon) perchance to
sleep (at night).

NOTES

1. Ernest Jones, On the Nightmare (London; Liveright, 1971).

2. M. Katan claims that The Turn of the Screw also originated

in a nightmare. See �A Causerie on Henry James�s The Turn
of the Screw" in Psychoanal. Stud. Child 17: 473-493, 1962.

3. Jones, 78.
4. Frank McConnell, Spoken Seen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
U. Press, 1975), 76.

?Confirmation as well as discovery may come after or between

the next three movements in this structure.

5. Robin Wood, "Sisters," in American Nightmare (Toronto;

Festival of Festivals Publication, 1979), 60.

6. Jones, 79.

7. John Mack, Nightmares and Human Conflict (Boston: Little

Brown, 1970).

8. Rage is always an important component in horror films.

Nevertheless, in the present horror cycle � given its fascination
with telekinesis and omnipotent, Satanic children (and includ-
ing the �psychoplasmic� imagery of The Brood) � rage has an
unparalleled salience. In the America of Nixon, Ford and Carter,
the recurring cine-fantasy seems to be of pent-up, channel-less
anger, welling-up, exploding, overwhelming everything.

9. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (New York:

Norton, 1979). Both Lasch�s and my concepts of narcissism
are roughly based on Otto Kernberg, Borderline Conditions
and Pathological Narcissism (New York: Jason Aronson, 1975).

10. Ellen Moers, Literary Women (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor,

1977), 140-151.

1 1 . The use of mythic types of fantasies to justify the parental

behavior is discussed in Dorothy Block, "So the Witch Won't
Eat Me, " (Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1978).

12. The slave creatures in This Island Earth are examples of the
fusion of inside/outside and insect/human while the last appari-
tion of the monster in Alien� w\i\\ its spring-mounted iron maw
�is an example of the fusion of flesh and machine, as is the
alien�s stranded spaceship.

13. Robert Rogers, A Psychoanalytic Study of the Double in

Literature (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970).

14. / Married a Monster from Outer Space belongs to a sub-

genre of space-possession films including Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, It Conquered the World, They Came from Beyond
Space, Creation of the Humanoids, Man from Planet X, Invaders
from Mars, Phantom from Space, It Came from Outer Space,
Killers from Space, etc. Depending on the specific context of
the film, the possessed earthlings in these films can be examples
of either spatial or temporal fission. For an interpretation of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, see my �You�re Next�� in The
Soho Weekly News, Dec. 21, 1978.

15. Daniel Dervin, �The Primal Scene and the Technology of

Perception In Theater and Film,�� in Psychoanal. Rev., 62, no.
2, 278, 1975.
16. In regard to shape-changing figures, like werewolves, it is
important to note that metamorphosis in and of itself does not
indicate a fission figure. Vampires readily shed human form
to become bats and wolves; yet vampires are not fission figures.
They are allotropic, varying their physical properties while re-
maining the same in substance. But with werewolves the change
in shape betokens a change in its nature.

Another, though connected, difference between werewolves

and vampires hinges on the issue of will. Werewolves� most
often futilely � resist their fate while vampires, especially Dra-
cula, prefer theirs. This is a crucial reason for having the two
different myths.

17. Sigmund Freud, The Problem of Anxiety (New York: Nor-

ton, 1963), 39.

18. The spider, of course, has polyvalent associations. It figures

importantly as a phobic object because of its ruthlessness � i.e.,
its use of a trap, its oral sadism � it sucks its prey, and, for men,
because of its sexual practices� some female spiders feast upon
their mates. In much of the psychoanalytic literature the spider
is correlated with the oral, sadistic mother; its body is asso-

NIGHTMARE AND THE HORROR FILM

25

dated with the vagina; its legs are sometimes glossed as the
fantasized penis that the mother is believed to possess. Some
references concerning spider imagery include: Karl Abraham,
�The Spider as a Dream Symbol� in Selected Papers, trans.
Douglas Bryand and Alix Strachey (London: Hogarth Press,
1927); Ralph Little, �Oral Aggression in Spider Legends,�
Anier. Imago 23: 169-180, 1966; R. Little, �Umbilical Cord
Symbolism of the Spider�s Dropline,� Psychoanal. Quart.; Rich-
ard Sterba, �On spiders, hanging and oral sadism,� Amer.
Imago 7: 21-28. There is also an influential reading of �Little
Miss Muffet. . . .� in Ella Freeman Sharpe, �Cautionary Tales,�
Int'nat. J. of Psychoanal. 24: 41-45. In the preceding text I
have also connected spiders to masturbation. I have done this
not simply because spiders somewhat resemble hands but be-
cause that resemblance itself is part of our literary culture. Recall
the legend of Arachne who was punished by Minerva by being
reduced to a hand which becomes a spider. Bulfinch writes
that Minerva sprinkled Arachne �with the juices of aconite,
and immediately her hair came off and ears likewise. Her form
shrank up, and her head grew smaller yet; her fingers cleaved
to her side and served for legs. All the rest of her is body, out
of which she spins her thread, often hanging suspended from it,
in the same attitude as when Minerva touched her and trans-
formed her into a spider.� Thomas Bulfinch, Mythology (N.Y.:
Dell Publishing Co., 1959), 93.

19. Some typical science fiction plots are outlined in the open-
ing of Susan Sontag�s �The Imagination of Disaster� in Film
Theory and Criticism (N.Y.: Oxford U. Press, 1979). Sontag�s
first model plot is like the Discovery Plot described in this
paper. However, the problem with Sontag�s variant is that she
does not give enough emphasis to the drama of proving the
existence of the monster over skeptical objections. This, I feel,
is the crux of most horror/sci-fi films of the Discovery Plot
variety.

20. The theme of knowing/not knowing is important to horror

films along many different dimensions. In terms of cinematic
technique, it can influence the director�s choice of formal strate-
gies, For example, in recent horror films, there is a great deal of
use of what I call unassigned camera movement in the context
of stories about demons, ghosts and other unseen but all-seeing
monsters. In The Changeling, the camera begins to move around
George C. Scott in his study. It is not supplying new narrative
information nor is its movement explicitly correlated within
the scene to any specific character. It has no assignment either
in terms of narrative or characterological function. But it does
call attention to itself. The audience sees it. And the audience
cannot help postulating that the camera movement might repre-
sent the presence of some unseen, supernatural force that is
observing Scott for devilish purposes. The point of the camera
movement is to provoke the spectator into a state of uncertainty
in which he/she shifts between knowing and not knowing.

CONTRIBUTORS, continued

in New York. MARSHA KINDER, a member of our

editorial board, is the co-editor of the journal Dream-
works. FLO LEIBOWITZ teaches philosophy at Oregon
State University. BARBARA QUART lives in New York,
and teaches at the College of Staten Island. DENIS
WOOD, a geographer and lifelong film enthusiast,
teaches at North Carolina State University Raleigh.

Images of the

Mexican American

in Fiction and Film

By ARTHUR G. PETTIT
Edited with an afterword
by DENNIS E. SHOWALTER

From the beginnings of Anglo-

Mexican interaction; Anglos have
felt physical; cultural; and moral
superiority. Pettit says shifts in
these attitudes have meant only
variations in the use of stereo-
types.

The author examines more than

one hundred years of popular
writing and nearly seventy years of
movies in this study of the re-
sponse of American popular cul-
ture to the Mexican American as
reflected in Anglo fiction and film.
37Z pp. $19.50 cloth; $9�5 paper

Texas A&M
University Press

Drawer C

College Station; Texas 77843