There is a tiny sub-genre of movies I am pretty fond of; "political horror movies".
It's not the 60s and 70s anymore, and movies with a political theme or overt political plots have become pretty rare (maybe they even were already rare back then). Most political movies deal with shady business operations, shady government operations, or both. Horror movies do not seem to fit well to any kind of politics.
Because what would be political to a group of people getting butchered near a crystal lake?
Either way, oddly enough, these movies exist, and a lot of them are pretty damn well!
Let's take a look at some of them. (Major spoilers ahead, so take care if you have not seen these movies yet)
The Serpent and The Rainbow https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096071/
Was Craven is one of the "maestros" of the horror genre, of course. After all, he created the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. And a lot of other classics.
This one stars Bill Pullman and Cathy Tyson. It tells the story of a scientist who is sent to Haiti in the late 70s by a pharma corp in order to investigate the case of people coming back to life due to a "voodoo drug". The business people think such a drug might come in mighty handy for western medicine, too (makes sense, right?).
During these days, Haiti was under the brutal reign of the fascist government by the Duvalier family. But it seems resistance is already growing...
As a non-believer in the occult, and a "western outsider", our scientist finds it hard to penetrate haitian society and it's voodoo underground. It turns out nothing is as it seems, there are a lot of crooks and strange characters.
And it turns out haiti's voodoo elite priests are more or less split into two camps. There are evil, black wizards who are aligned with, support and uphold the fascist government. The good, benevolent voodoo mages on the other hand are unaligned and do not want to have anything to do with the police and government brutality that is happening; they try to stay "unpolitical" though, and are reluctant to join the revolutionary citizens (but will they, in the end?).
as the movie goes on, our protagonist finally gets initiated in the voodoo mysteries of haiti, in more than one way.
It seems the movie is based on a real-world book by an "ethnobotanist" who studied cases of "zombification" in haiti.
The movie itself has its moments of cheese and camp, it's not some ultra-serious, ultra-intellectual dry affair... it's done by wes craven, after all.
But the whole thing is less cheesy than the above description might imply.
The whole portrayal of voodoo and magic is astonishingly complex.
For example, there is a female, haiti-based scientist that tries to explain the syncretism of a scientific worldview, catholicism, and voodoo magic. she is a psychiatric scientist and voodoo practitioner at the same time.
and she shows him, by leading the protagonist to the sight of a ceremonial burial with one of the most beautiful and haunting compositions i ever heard in a movie...
Suspiria Remake https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034415/?ref_=fn_t_1
the original suspiria, of course, is one of the all time great in horror movies. btw, i read somewhere that the "strange" colors of the original movie were there because the director used a recording technique that was already outdated by the time the movie was made! very interesting.
the remake has tilda swinton and dakota johnson. the story and everything is actually quite different from the original. it is more like a completely new movie, that has just some of the elements of the first one.
the movie takes place in 1977 in west berlin. international viewers might not know this, but this was the time of the so called "deutscher herbst". a left wing struggle against the german government. there were armed terrorists groups, but also a lot of more peaceful protests. the scent of revolution really was in the air, and a "comrade" later told me that germany was really a matchstick's length away from revolution in that year... (he was still an infant when all this happened, so what does he know, really?).
and unlike the original movie, this political backdrop is very visible in the movie. and audible, too, as the movie starts with the sound of a left wing bomb attack going off...
but there is not just the left side making their agitation audible. there is also the theme of fascism and post-fascism. buried, dark secrets in the history of germany, the nazi trauma. and our protagonists are entangled in this, one way or the other.
the "witches coven" that is the central part of the movie seems to be the still eye in the storm here, strangely devoid of the politics that is going on in the outside world.
but in my interpretation, there is an intended synchronicity in the plot; the hierarchy, the struggle for power, the brutality, the lies and deceit, well, everything that is going on in this spiritual, symbolic "witched world" actually mimics the themes of fascism, power abuse, struggle for freedom, that is happening in parallel, in the outside world.
and, of course, the witches mirror feminist politics. both in a negative and positive sense.
Pan's Labyrinth https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/
Maybe the most known political horror movie, and one where it is quite clear that it is a horror movie, and a political movie. one where one does not have to fear to be criticized of "dragging politics" into an otherwise normal movie.
it's set in the world and time of fascist spain.
i don't think i need to write much about its content, as i guess most people know this movie already.
but let me add that, just like in the suspiria re-make, the story seems to roll out on two levels.
the magic struggle and quest of the protagonist (a young witch, once again) mirrors the events that happen in the outside world, including the political ones.
Medusa Touch https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077921/
Oh oh, the medusa touch. this movie left quite the mark on me. there is richard burton and lino ventura in it. the entire world of the movie feels very depressing and austere, and i think only 1970s movies can feel this bleak (maybe people actually were quite depressed in that decade?).
there are two protagonists in the movie, lino ventura, the detective, who is called upon to investigate the death of an author, who is played by richard burton. he surprisingly comes back to life, though, and is put into a coma. this is when the mystery begins
in flashbacks we then witness the life of our author, which was quite bleak and depressive too, and reminds me of the hardships "pink" has to experience in pink floyd's "the wall" opera.
he also realizes he has supernatural gifts, but he does not use these to do good things, instead he does very bad things, like telekinetically killing people through accidents. he is haunted by this and feels guilty, to the point he seeks the help of a chirologist and a therapist. he feels he is only capable of doing evil, and wants to get rid of this cursed magic gift.
so where is the politics? well, one day our protagonist has an "epiphany" and thinks he finally found a way to use his dark powers in a good way; by using them to punish the "wickedness" of mankind. he starts by slaughtering a whole crew of astronauts on their way to the moon, because he felt the money of the space program had better been used to feel hungry people or for medical research.
towards the end of the movie, he tries to snuff out the upper echelon of british society by collapsing a cathedral on top of them.
in the end, he seeks to help out the anti-nuclear protesters that we see in the beginning of the movie, by blowing up the nuclear power plant that they are protesting against. which would have irradiated most of great britain, i suppose.
so, in this movie the protagonists are not really aligned with any political movement or group. it is political, because of the "anti-establishment" hatred of our author, which is especially visible in the rhetoric he uses to defend his magic attacks (despite all this evil stuff, he really thinks he is ultimately following a good cause with this mayhem).
which, i guess, makes it a political horror movie, too!
do you know more movies in this weird sub-niche of movies? let me know!
It's not the 60s and 70s anymore, and movies with a political theme or overt political plots have become pretty rare (maybe they even were already rare back then). Most political movies deal with shady business operations, shady government operations, or both. Horror movies do not seem to fit well to any kind of politics.
Because what would be political to a group of people getting butchered near a crystal lake?
Either way, oddly enough, these movies exist, and a lot of them are pretty damn well!
Let's take a look at some of them. (Major spoilers ahead, so take care if you have not seen these movies yet)
The Serpent and The Rainbow https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096071/
Was Craven is one of the "maestros" of the horror genre, of course. After all, he created the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. And a lot of other classics.
This one stars Bill Pullman and Cathy Tyson. It tells the story of a scientist who is sent to Haiti in the late 70s by a pharma corp in order to investigate the case of people coming back to life due to a "voodoo drug". The business people think such a drug might come in mighty handy for western medicine, too (makes sense, right?).
During these days, Haiti was under the brutal reign of the fascist government by the Duvalier family. But it seems resistance is already growing...
As a non-believer in the occult, and a "western outsider", our scientist finds it hard to penetrate haitian society and it's voodoo underground. It turns out nothing is as it seems, there are a lot of crooks and strange characters.
And it turns out haiti's voodoo elite priests are more or less split into two camps. There are evil, black wizards who are aligned with, support and uphold the fascist government. The good, benevolent voodoo mages on the other hand are unaligned and do not want to have anything to do with the police and government brutality that is happening; they try to stay "unpolitical" though, and are reluctant to join the revolutionary citizens (but will they, in the end?).
as the movie goes on, our protagonist finally gets initiated in the voodoo mysteries of haiti, in more than one way.
It seems the movie is based on a real-world book by an "ethnobotanist" who studied cases of "zombification" in haiti.
The movie itself has its moments of cheese and camp, it's not some ultra-serious, ultra-intellectual dry affair... it's done by wes craven, after all.
But the whole thing is less cheesy than the above description might imply.
The whole portrayal of voodoo and magic is astonishingly complex.
For example, there is a female, haiti-based scientist that tries to explain the syncretism of a scientific worldview, catholicism, and voodoo magic. she is a psychiatric scientist and voodoo practitioner at the same time.
and she shows him, by leading the protagonist to the sight of a ceremonial burial with one of the most beautiful and haunting compositions i ever heard in a movie...
Suspiria Remake https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034415/?ref_=fn_t_1
the original suspiria, of course, is one of the all time great in horror movies. btw, i read somewhere that the "strange" colors of the original movie were there because the director used a recording technique that was already outdated by the time the movie was made! very interesting.
the remake has tilda swinton and dakota johnson. the story and everything is actually quite different from the original. it is more like a completely new movie, that has just some of the elements of the first one.
the movie takes place in 1977 in west berlin. international viewers might not know this, but this was the time of the so called "deutscher herbst". a left wing struggle against the german government. there were armed terrorists groups, but also a lot of more peaceful protests. the scent of revolution really was in the air, and a "comrade" later told me that germany was really a matchstick's length away from revolution in that year... (he was still an infant when all this happened, so what does he know, really?).
and unlike the original movie, this political backdrop is very visible in the movie. and audible, too, as the movie starts with the sound of a left wing bomb attack going off...
but there is not just the left side making their agitation audible. there is also the theme of fascism and post-fascism. buried, dark secrets in the history of germany, the nazi trauma. and our protagonists are entangled in this, one way or the other.
the "witches coven" that is the central part of the movie seems to be the still eye in the storm here, strangely devoid of the politics that is going on in the outside world.
but in my interpretation, there is an intended synchronicity in the plot; the hierarchy, the struggle for power, the brutality, the lies and deceit, well, everything that is going on in this spiritual, symbolic "witched world" actually mimics the themes of fascism, power abuse, struggle for freedom, that is happening in parallel, in the outside world.
and, of course, the witches mirror feminist politics. both in a negative and positive sense.
Pan's Labyrinth https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/
Maybe the most known political horror movie, and one where it is quite clear that it is a horror movie, and a political movie. one where one does not have to fear to be criticized of "dragging politics" into an otherwise normal movie.
it's set in the world and time of fascist spain.
i don't think i need to write much about its content, as i guess most people know this movie already.
but let me add that, just like in the suspiria re-make, the story seems to roll out on two levels.
the magic struggle and quest of the protagonist (a young witch, once again) mirrors the events that happen in the outside world, including the political ones.
Medusa Touch https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077921/
Oh oh, the medusa touch. this movie left quite the mark on me. there is richard burton and lino ventura in it. the entire world of the movie feels very depressing and austere, and i think only 1970s movies can feel this bleak (maybe people actually were quite depressed in that decade?).
there are two protagonists in the movie, lino ventura, the detective, who is called upon to investigate the death of an author, who is played by richard burton. he surprisingly comes back to life, though, and is put into a coma. this is when the mystery begins
in flashbacks we then witness the life of our author, which was quite bleak and depressive too, and reminds me of the hardships "pink" has to experience in pink floyd's "the wall" opera.
he also realizes he has supernatural gifts, but he does not use these to do good things, instead he does very bad things, like telekinetically killing people through accidents. he is haunted by this and feels guilty, to the point he seeks the help of a chirologist and a therapist. he feels he is only capable of doing evil, and wants to get rid of this cursed magic gift.
so where is the politics? well, one day our protagonist has an "epiphany" and thinks he finally found a way to use his dark powers in a good way; by using them to punish the "wickedness" of mankind. he starts by slaughtering a whole crew of astronauts on their way to the moon, because he felt the money of the space program had better been used to feel hungry people or for medical research.
towards the end of the movie, he tries to snuff out the upper echelon of british society by collapsing a cathedral on top of them.
in the end, he seeks to help out the anti-nuclear protesters that we see in the beginning of the movie, by blowing up the nuclear power plant that they are protesting against. which would have irradiated most of great britain, i suppose.
so, in this movie the protagonists are not really aligned with any political movement or group. it is political, because of the "anti-establishment" hatred of our author, which is especially visible in the rhetoric he uses to defend his magic attacks (despite all this evil stuff, he really thinks he is ultimately following a good cause with this mayhem).
which, i guess, makes it a political horror movie, too!
do you know more movies in this weird sub-niche of movies? let me know!
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