The Psychological Impact of Horror Throughout The 60s & 70s . A Genre Study

The PsychologicalImpact of Horror Throughout The 60s & 70s.A Genre Study By Lily Priestley

Rosemary's Baby & The Wicker Man A young couple move into a apartment with unusual neighbors & happenings. Once the wife becomes pregnant, she starts to get paranoid with the safety of her unborn child which begins to control her life. A police sergeant is sent to a Scottish island for a missing girl who the villagers claim never existed. As well as the weird villagers and rituals that go on there

The Discussions • For my presentation I will be discussing what genre theory is, what horror is, my chosen research of the 60s and 70s and how society reflected on horror films throughout. I will also be discussing my analysis of my two chosen films, their codes and conventions and how each film represented themselves and the message that was put across.

Genre Theory • "Genre Theory is the main body of a film's storyline, it sets the time, style, pattern and structure of a films entirety." Quoted by Nick Lacey. As society changes it is known for genre to change and evolve with society as it modifies constantly. On the site main-vision 'Genre Theory', written by Richard who states "Genre theory is used in the study of films. In using genre theory we create a short cut in how we are able to describe films. Genre theory through its use is a method of shortening academic works" For instance a horror film has its basic code and conventions of the film being scary, having monsters or supernatural entities and gore. • When reading the book 'Genre Theory' by Nick Lacey, Lacey discusses sub-genres and states "the existence of sub-genres is worth noting, for instance Bram Stokers Dracula (1897) is a horror novel that can also be categorised as a vampire novel. This sub-genre has many conventions that are common to the horror genre as a whole but also has conventions specific to itself, such as vampires aversion to garlic, sunlight and crucifixes." Explaining how a sub-genre such as this can be catergorised as two genres but it will always come back to being a horror, you could say a sub-genre is a spin off of the original genre but with a longer detailed story just from reading the title.

Repetition and difference Genre is a subject that goes through changes as society changes which can become quite repetitive or different than anything we've seen before, as usually without thinking label certain genres because of their known codes and conventions. Horror has particular codes and conventions which define them to the genre e.g someone always dies, a monster, jump scares etc. This area of genre is one of the repetitive known subjects for reusing them same techniques over and over again, until the point where we are knowing what is to be expected. The industry being involved with genre theory is something that will always be apparent because of the industry itself, most of the time, the decoder knows what the auidience wants and which genre fulfills their needs. It's a sort of contract between the industry and the audience that continuously goes on throughout time. The industry being the Hollywood studio system wants as Hollywood builds genres they know the auidiences will want to buy. For example, marvel films are sorted for the next 8 years with the same kind of deal as they know this genre will sell really well so they keep making more.

Industry aspect to genre theory Genre theory could be debated as a process because of how it continues to develop e.g sub genres either move forward or fail to do so. For instance the sub-genre found footage horror does this but it has also failed to move forward as it used to be massive in the 2000s but is now not heard of. The auteur Alfred Hitchcock set a new wave of psychological thrillers and sub-genres that never existed. Hitchcock is one of the very few directors to have created a new wave of genre as most of the time directors reuse old genres. Hitchcock brought a new thrilling genre that reflected on society, that spiralled into sub-genres spinning off even more codes and conventions that are used today. It is also known Hitchcock used the concept of the mother and son having an unusual close relationship which could be debated was the 'oedipus complex' theory.

Psycho is one of a kind as when it came out no one had seen anything like it, and it could be debated the film started the sub-genre ‘slasher’ from the famous shower scene. Alexander talks about how his childhood affected his ideas with the mother relationship and how he portrayed women. Rosemary's Baby (1969) is the best example of this as it being a horror/thriller mixed with film noir’s codes and conventions with how women are portrayed and treated by men. • Ideology could be said to be ideas that form around subjects such as religion, capitalism, poverty, attitudes to violence, instinctual fears etc, as films generically create certain belief systems that are relatable and influential with society. Lacey goes on to talk about how film texts can be an ideological sense that "attempted to create a new way of understanding/aesthetics." In terms of the idea religion, it can be argued either way as being peaceful or brainwashing, some film texts want you to understand and give you their ideas.

Horror themes. • Horror themes can also be related to genre as the horror genre is a very wide platform. All horror films have the same goal of running themes with being scary. The article is saying our indentity can be scay sometimes, which is why horror themes play on it so largely. For instance, reading the book 'Horror, the Film Reader' by Mark jancovich, Jancovich states "Rosemary's Baby exercises its own particular fascination of how werewolf stories, while sharing the allures of ghost stories and other horrific tales, have allures of their own. A general theory of horror will say something about the probable roots of attraction and pleasure throughout the genres of horror" explaining Rosemary's Baby is one of the first horror films to incorporate society horrors as the 'horror' is more to the storyline.

Horror themes • From the book ‘Horror, The film Reader’ Jancovich says "if horror necessarily has something repulsive about it, how can audiences be attracted to it? Indeed, even if horror only caused fear, we might feel justified in demanding an explanation of what could motivate people to seek out the genre". To impact what the actors are feeling onto the audiences, a majority crave to be scared and get joy out of these types of films. Another popular aspect of horror is religion, for instance films like 'The Nun' grabs people's attention for its portrayal of religion and how this can be incorporated into horror films. Researching 'Genre Theory: Horror' from the site 'sothetheroygoes.com' the blog comments "religion, vulnerability and semitoics as simple as 'don't trust strangers'. The omen gets under your skin because the horror is supplemented with real-world fears and anxieties" The child in this film has other people devote themselves to him, sacrificing themselves for him and this creates a domino effect where more people rebel.

Society during the 60s/70s • Society during the 60s and 70s had a large impact on horror films. For example, reading the site horrorfilmhistory.com 'Horror Films in the 60s' written by Karina Wilson, Wilson says "Between Psycho in 1960 and the Manson family murders in 1969, the 1960s saw a great sea change in what the public perceived as horrible. The social stability that had marked the post-war years was gone by the end of the decade as a huge rethink occurred in everything from hemlines to homosexuality" once war was over it seemed a new society was forming in terms of women fighting for their rights. However, on collider.com 'The 21 Best Horror Movies of the 70s' written by Haleigh Foutch, Foutch starts off by saying how the 1970s is arguably the most 'fruitful' and consistently excellent decade for horror cinema. Meaning it was now time to realise the bad events that were happening. For instance Foutch states "The horrors of Vietnam war had seeped into the national atmosphere, both intimately in the homes of the millions of men and women who served and on a massive scale where gruesome footage was constantly broadcasted on the airwaves. Radical tensions were at a peak in response to the overdue social revolution of the civil rights movement".

Society during the 60s and 70s • During the 60s and 70s there were also known cults that were becoming popular in society and normal. Reading upon the Manson family on 'A Medium Corporation' written by Kathleen Toohill, Toohill comments that "The Manson family is infamous for captivating the public consciousness and inspiring fear in the wake of the otherwise idyllic summer of love, one Manson used to attract his followers" Manson was very successful as he managed to get his group on some of the biggest killing sprees. Toohill also wrote about the famous 1970s cult 'People's Temple' founded by Jim Jones which ended in 2001 due to the Jonestown massacre known as 'the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster' where 909 people were murdered due to Jones poisoning them. n the article Toohill states "Like the Manson family its origins were tied to Haight Ashby and the summer of love. The peoples temple attracted many idealists who were looking for alternatives to the constraints and shortcoming of contempory America society" both cults are similar in terms of the people people who were vulnerable.

Rosemary's Baby Analysis For my two chosen scenes I have picked the famous dream sequence and the ending sequence of Rosemary finding her baby at the neighbour's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBmGz161_MEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv3p8kIyqLI

Wicker man anaylsis For my Wickerman analysis I will be looking at three scenes as the horror tropes were more to the story and little details were placed throughout the film. I will mainly be focusing on the last sequence of the Wickerman as he's burned alive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SX3lSN9NIYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4COrVzZ1BQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGSirCSeqnQ&t=15s

Rosemarys baby influence on horror • Rosemary's Baby set off a generation of cult classic flicks. This generation moved on from horrors from the gothic style and creatures. Rosemary's Baby experimented with religion as it was a touchy subject in the 60s, many horror film directors then did the same as they weren't afraid of bringing out new genre's. Arguably Rosemary's Baby is what made devil worshipping normalized in society as the representation is of the whole community involved. The oscar winning film 'Get Out' was inspired by Rosemary’s Baby as Loughrey states Jordan Peele commented his film found a source of inspiration in the 'social message' of Rosemarys Baby saying how it's about gender. Loughrey goes on to discuss how it developed films such as A Quiet Place and Mother! Which was a secret direct remake.

Wickerman normalising paganism and the isolation a cult can form. • The Wickerman was one of the first films to incorporate paganism in a community that seemed to be normal in their eyes. Paganism came before religion and Jesus Christ. aganism isn't an exact religion as there isn't a god to worship, pagans worship nature and goes all the way back to the romans who practised it. However, paganism comes from the background of folklore, it is easy to form these stories into horrific tales as some view paganism as a cult. Some could argue this 'religion' is harmless but it's the isollation like the article is saying that is scary. The isolation can become unbearable for people not knowing how to act in normal situations. The Wickerman did its research for the cultural background incorperating things as animals heads throughout, as these animal heads have different meanings e.g a deer resembles fertility and wilderness.

'The psychological impact of horror throughout the 60s & 70s'

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Foutch, H. (2018, 19th October) The 21 Best Horror Movies of the 70s. Retrieved from http://collider.com/the-21-best-horror-movies-of-the-70s/#the-texas-chainsaw-massacre. Toohill, K. (2017, 19th July) By the Decade: Notorious 20th Century American Cults. Retrieved from https://medium.com/s/how-to-cult/by-the-decade-notorious-20th-century-american-cults-d62939b065e5. Loughrey, C. (2018, 13th June) Rosemary's Baby at 50: How the classic is influencing the latest generation of horror filmmakers. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/rosemarys-baby-50th-anniversary-horror-movie-filmmakers-influence-a8395686.html. Covell, A. (2013, 16th September) The Wicker Man – Defining Of The Folk Horror. Retrieved from https://celluloidwickerman.com/2013/09/16/the-wicker-man-1973-defining-of-the-folk-horror/. Anonymous. (2010-2019) Horror Films. Retrieved from https://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html

The Psychological Impact of Horror Throughout The 60s & 70s . A Genre Study