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The kernel for this idea started germinating a little while ago, when I watched "Apollo 18". At one point, it looked as if the astronauts were going to miss theirwindow to successfully leave the moon and come back home to earth. This got me thinking about the prospect facing them, of a slow and inexorable death from suffocation. And that disturbed me. Stuff like that, inevitable stuff, always has.
I'm not talking about things like the impending doom facing the kids in the Final Destination movies. Yes, their deaths appeared certain. But no one could foretell the manner in which their deaths would come, and the kills - contrived & Rube Goldberg as they might be - would be quick. There wouldn't be much time to contemplate the prospect of dying in a particular manner, because it would be so sudden. No, what I'm talking about is a slow, long time in coming and inevitable doom.
I read a short story in some long forgotten anthology years ago, called "The Quest for Blank Claveringi". It was about a scientist specializing in the study of snails, who trvels to a remote island with only a few assistants to hopefully discover a new species. Discover one he does, but they turned out to be the size of small houses, and kill all his traveling companions early on in the story. Not surprisingly, the snails move very slowly, and he can easily outrun them. A few times. After one such, he looks back and thinks the snails seem to be saying: "Escape us a hundred times. Or a thousand. We are relentless,and we will catch up to you eventually". Or words to that effect. That always stuck with me.
This element is present in zombie books and films to a great extent. Well, the Romero rules zombie stories, anyway. In most of thee stories, an ever increasing majority of the world's population has been turned. Nearly 100%, in some of them, like "Day of the Dead". More than anything else, these stories seem to be about how hopeless the protagonists' struggle for survival seems, and how inevitable their doom. It sems like only a matter of time before they too are killed. Or turned. The fact that the zombies themselves are slow moving and easily outrun or overpowered in small numbers seems to add to this tension & fear; "Escape us a hundred times. Or a thousand. We'll still be right behind you", they seem to be saying. I have had recurring nightmares about surviving a zombie apocalypse, and much like Season 2 of "The Walking Dead", the zombies hardly figure into them. I KNOW I'm in the midst of a zombie apoaclypse, and these unidentified people with me are my companions. And there is a sense of "they're gaining on us" fear that prevails as we enter a house, or (once) a school, racing against time to fortify our refuge before the as yet unseen zombies appear. In my opinion, this device is what makes zombie movies so chilling, and it has kept me awake nights much more so than contemplating being eaten alive or turned into a zombie does.
One sees this theme played upon frequently in the slasher subgenre too. Hallloween did it forst - and best - with the unemotional mask of Michael Myers relentlessly walking - never running - after Laurie Strode in the final act. While Jason Voorhees has become a parody of himself over the span of the F13 sequels, the one aspect of the character that is still frightening is the inevitability of his relentless pursuit of the surviviing heroine at the end of whatever sequel you're watching. Even Freddy Krueger, who "lived" - if you can call it that - "only" in the dreams of the Elm Street kids, was as certaiin as gravity. I mean. . . how do you kill an idea? And you've got to sleep some time. . .
I think the reason this device is so effective is because it gets us thinking about our own mortality much more effectively than most other horror does. Think about it: how many of us will meet our ends at the hands of a knife wielding maniac, or an alien, or a flesh eating disease? By contrast, how many of us will die of a slow, wasting age related disease? We all intuitively know this is how we'll most likely meet our end, and the only way we're able to function is to put it out of our minds and get on with the business of living. We repress it, and try as ard as we can not to think about it on a day to day basis.
Inevitable horror throws aside the curtain we've closed over it, and shines a light on it, forcing us to look, and contemplate in a very real sense our own mortality. Most kills, grisly and violent as they may be, HORRIFY rather than terrify. There IS a difference. Gore doesn't leave me lying awake at night. Contemplating the inevitable, slowly approaching & inescapable does.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with me that this device is as universal as I think it is? Or am I ascribing too much to something I subjectively fear?
I'm not talking about things like the impending doom facing the kids in the Final Destination movies. Yes, their deaths appeared certain. But no one could foretell the manner in which their deaths would come, and the kills - contrived & Rube Goldberg as they might be - would be quick. There wouldn't be much time to contemplate the prospect of dying in a particular manner, because it would be so sudden. No, what I'm talking about is a slow, long time in coming and inevitable doom.
I read a short story in some long forgotten anthology years ago, called "The Quest for Blank Claveringi". It was about a scientist specializing in the study of snails, who trvels to a remote island with only a few assistants to hopefully discover a new species. Discover one he does, but they turned out to be the size of small houses, and kill all his traveling companions early on in the story. Not surprisingly, the snails move very slowly, and he can easily outrun them. A few times. After one such, he looks back and thinks the snails seem to be saying: "Escape us a hundred times. Or a thousand. We are relentless,and we will catch up to you eventually". Or words to that effect. That always stuck with me.
This element is present in zombie books and films to a great extent. Well, the Romero rules zombie stories, anyway. In most of thee stories, an ever increasing majority of the world's population has been turned. Nearly 100%, in some of them, like "Day of the Dead". More than anything else, these stories seem to be about how hopeless the protagonists' struggle for survival seems, and how inevitable their doom. It sems like only a matter of time before they too are killed. Or turned. The fact that the zombies themselves are slow moving and easily outrun or overpowered in small numbers seems to add to this tension & fear; "Escape us a hundred times. Or a thousand. We'll still be right behind you", they seem to be saying. I have had recurring nightmares about surviving a zombie apocalypse, and much like Season 2 of "The Walking Dead", the zombies hardly figure into them. I KNOW I'm in the midst of a zombie apoaclypse, and these unidentified people with me are my companions. And there is a sense of "they're gaining on us" fear that prevails as we enter a house, or (once) a school, racing against time to fortify our refuge before the as yet unseen zombies appear. In my opinion, this device is what makes zombie movies so chilling, and it has kept me awake nights much more so than contemplating being eaten alive or turned into a zombie does.
One sees this theme played upon frequently in the slasher subgenre too. Hallloween did it forst - and best - with the unemotional mask of Michael Myers relentlessly walking - never running - after Laurie Strode in the final act. While Jason Voorhees has become a parody of himself over the span of the F13 sequels, the one aspect of the character that is still frightening is the inevitability of his relentless pursuit of the surviviing heroine at the end of whatever sequel you're watching. Even Freddy Krueger, who "lived" - if you can call it that - "only" in the dreams of the Elm Street kids, was as certaiin as gravity. I mean. . . how do you kill an idea? And you've got to sleep some time. . .
I think the reason this device is so effective is because it gets us thinking about our own mortality much more effectively than most other horror does. Think about it: how many of us will meet our ends at the hands of a knife wielding maniac, or an alien, or a flesh eating disease? By contrast, how many of us will die of a slow, wasting age related disease? We all intuitively know this is how we'll most likely meet our end, and the only way we're able to function is to put it out of our minds and get on with the business of living. We repress it, and try as ard as we can not to think about it on a day to day basis.
Inevitable horror throws aside the curtain we've closed over it, and shines a light on it, forcing us to look, and contemplate in a very real sense our own mortality. Most kills, grisly and violent as they may be, HORRIFY rather than terrify. There IS a difference. Gore doesn't leave me lying awake at night. Contemplating the inevitable, slowly approaching & inescapable does.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with me that this device is as universal as I think it is? Or am I ascribing too much to something I subjectively fear?
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