Film and Media Studies: The Horror Film

            There's a longstanding hypothesis which directs that on the off chance that you dream you kick the bucket, you really pass on, henceforth you generally awaken at the crucial point in time. Endorsers of this hypothesis trust it has something to do with inalienable, subliminal protection systems that forestall you capitulating to the collector basically on the grounds that your picked quick bite is cheddar on toast. What's more, any individual who excuses it as an unshaven old spouse’s story is still presumably very soothed to wake with a beginning subsequent to dreaming, they are tumbling from an incredible stature as opposed to having their doubt scrutinized. A Nightmare on Elm Street who are threatened and butchered in their bad dreams, by a stellar later recognized as Fred Krueger. Krueger, a molester and killer, has been burnt alive by a crowd of rankled guardians living on Elm Street. Somehow, he figured out how to some way or another live on in their kids' bad dreams where he keeps on threatening them, likewise slaughtering them, in actuality, on the off chance that he figures out how to do as such in the teens' bad dreams. Understanding that nightmares are a way of our brain to physiologically cope with the travesties and conceptual challenges that we have faced is vital to overcoming nightmares entirely. Things that we may have been encountered have been compartmentalized and placed into a logical sense that we will be able to understand and present to others. Bad dreams can emerge for various reasons—stress, tension, sporadic rest, drugs, psychological wellness issues—yet maybe the most examined cause is post-horrible pressure problem (PTSD). Bad dreams are a typical grievance among individuals experiencing PTSD and, truth be told, are one of the standards utilized for the determination of the issue. Thus, people who suffer from internalized mental issues often exhibit nightmares as a way to address the illnesses that they refuse to acknowledge and get help for. The last paragraph of The Uncanny by Freud stated, “Concerning the factors of silence, solitude and darkness, we can only say that they are actually elements in the production of that infantile morbid anxiety from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free. This problem has been discussed from a psychoanalytical point of view in another place.” This shows that the feeling of solitude and aloneness can make an individual feel nervous and become lost in their thoughts. Understanding that nightmares are a result of the characters constant trauma is vital to gaining an appropriate understanding of the overall theme of this. In my opinion, The Audition was one of the most horrific movies. More specifically, the sequence after he got paralyzed. The fear came from him being alone led him into a more difficult situation. His need for a companion caused him to fall into a controlling and abusive relationship. Noel Carroll did an excellent job of depicting how drama in the past can fuse with monsters that is generated. Therefore, the monsters in the films seem more realistic.

A Nightmare on Elm Street and Audition both dive into the idea of nightmares and the fine line between our reality and our dreams. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, and demonized pedophile haunts the dreams of a multitude of teenagers and eventually is able to kill them within their sleep which kills them as well in the real-life, and in Audition, a man has nightmares about a girl he has fallen in love with and the potential bad that she has committed and all the horrors she could be capable of.

Freud believes that dreams can represent themselves as memories from the past and that imagery that is seen within dreams is a symbol for something that has happened in the past (5). Personally, I believe that this can be seen within A Nightmare on Elm Street. It is mentioned by Nancy’s mom that Freddy Krueger was a pedophile and that the parents burned him. It is entirely plausible that Nancy may have been one of the children that he molested and that her nightmare of him may represent the psychological drama she is left with in the aftermath. Additionally, Nancy’s mother’s drinking problem may be tied to the guilt of knowing that her daughter was being molested. This could also be seen in an Audition. The audience does not know Shigeharu Aoyama’s relationship with his late wife. However, if she was controlling and abusive toward him, then he might be projecting them onto a future relationship with Asami and see her as a monster as his wife might have been toward him. Noel Carroll writes about the idea of a collective figure that is “dream condensation of uniting factors,” which can be seen in both films (44). In the dreams that the protagonists have, their past drama fuses with these monsters that is created inside their heads. Therefore, these monsters are more believable and make it all the scarier.

Both of the movies leave an open ending on whether it was just a dream or if both protagonists are stuck in this never-ending cycle of horror. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, the audience is led to believe that Nancy defeated Freddy, but the car sequence at the end of the movie leads the audience to believe that she is still trapped in a nightmare and is being toyed with by Freddy. In Audition, the audience doesn’t truly know if the scene where Asami is chasing the son around with the pepper spray is actuality or if Shigeharu is still just dreaming. In relation to the aforementioned point, this open ending could give rise to the notion that trauma is never-ending, and it is not just something that someone can wake up from. Since their trauma is constant, even when they believe that have beaten it or have become healed from their experience, there is always something that brings back the memories and the pain. Instead, it is essentially a nightmare that someone has to live every day of their life.

I think of all aspects of horror. I think the dream/nightmare theme is one of my favorites, and the one I find most scary. I think one of the main responses for this is it is a good excuse to add surreal elements into the film. The surrealist art movement is one of my favorite styles of art, and I think its style lends itself perfectly to horror film. I think this is because surrealism is about this juxtaposition between objects and ideas that usually wouldn't go together. Because we're not dealing with stuff that makes no sense  it becomes hard to ground and orientate ourselves. When we see these contradictions we don't know which one is the base, and which one belongs. We lose the ability to fall back on what's the logical or rational thing to do. We're left confused and having to deal with what happens as it happens. We lose the ability to feel like we could run away. 

The audition is probably the scariest movie we’ve seen so far in my opinion. Which is impressive because there's only one part of the movie that I would say was scary, and that's the nightmare sequence after he's paralyzed. I think the fear comes from how hard it is to tell what's going on. It really taps into the feeling of being uncanny. We can tell for the most part what is going on, but everything, even down to the timeline, is off just enough to be unsettling. I think another aspect that adds to how uncanny the film is the fact it's never too clear if Asami is human or something else. She acts pretty human for the most part, but there is just enough unsettling activation and characteristics that makes you wonder. I love how long it took the movie to get to the scary part. It really took its time building up to it, so there was good tension when everything went south. 

I really enjoyed A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think Freddy krueger Is a very strong villain. I think part of that is the comedic element to his charter. While not all of his jokes land him joking around show a lot of confidence from him.He’s viewing this as a game and not something that needs to be taken seriously by him. This on top of the powers he has really shows that he is in control of the situation and really puts our teen protagonist in a helpless situation. Freddy's comedic side is also flipped nicely on its head when he becomes the butt of the joke once he’s pulled into the real world and is subject to Nacys loony tune style booby traps. The ending was a little wacky, and confusing. I looked into it and apparently it's due to a disagreement between the producer and director. The producer wanted to end on a scare, but the Enter director here wanted a happy ending were everyone lived. Obviously the producer won out. To try and make sense of the ending I viewed its as the mom’s nightmare as Freddy attacks her.

This section was on Nightmares and Fear. I was shocked that I wasn’t terribly scared by Nightmare on Elm Street. I’m sure if I had been one of the characters in the story, it would have terrified me but the idea of someone in a dream being able to kill was so abstract that I didn’t feel like it could happen to me but it definitely makes an interesting movie. In the real world, scary things can make it difficult to fall asleep but once you finally fall asleep, you expect to be in a safe place. Nightmare on Elm Street took what should feel safe (sleeping in your bed) and turned it into the very place you can get killed. “One structure for the composition of horrific beings is fusion. On the simplest physical level, this often entails the construction of creatures that transgress categorical distinctions such as inside/outside, living/dead, insect/human, flesh/machine and so on. Mummies, vampires, ghosts, zombies, and Freddie, Elm Street’s premier nightmare, are fusion figures in this respect. Each, in different ways, blur the distinction between living and dead.” (Fantastic Biologies and Structures of Horrific Imagery) Freddy Krueger is uncanny in that he is supposed to be dead but he comes alive in the nightmares and can kill people. Having that kind of horror come when you are sleeping can drive you to insanity. You either accept the irrational and accept that you can be killed in your dreams (Never Sleep Again) so you can face Freddy or you lose your mind from sleeplessness trying to stay awake. It certainly seems like a hopeless situation. Freddy will always have victims because people must sleep so it’s just a matter of time before you fall into his trap. 

I enjoyed Audition even though I don’t know what was dream and what was reality. The idea that part of it was a nightmare is the only connection that I made between the two films. The “monster” in this film looked normal but her behavior was unsettling. In the beginning, I was expecting the man to be the monster since he was being dishonest about the audition and was just trying to get a woman for himself. But in reality, his fear of being alone led him into a horrible situation. He was so desperate to have a companion that he didn’t recognize what he was getting himself into. After seeing how she acted, it was clear that there was something strange with her. For example, at some point, you see the bag at her place and it moves but you don’t know what’s in it. It is later revealed that it is a live human inside the bag. While I was watching, I assumed that everything was real and that she had actually incapacitated him and performed the gruesome acts. But when he woke up back at the place where they had slept together and she was laying with him, I questioned what was real and what was dream and honestly, I’m still not sure. 

For this lesson we dove into the sub-genre of horror films titled “nightmares and fear”. I am someone who has particularly vivid dreams, and I always absolutely hate nightmares as I’m sure we all do. As a kid, ever so often I would have a nightmare but they were quite different than my adult nightmares. When I was young they were more about monsters and other imaginary things, but as an adult they are just about my real life fears. Just for a quick example, my nightmares changed from having the boogieman chase me as a kid to real fears like being killed by a dangerous person as an adult. Nightmares and fear go hand in hand. Nightmares are dreams of your deepest fears. The two films we were required to watch for this section were Takashi Miike’s Audition (1999) and Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). I really thought both of these films were done well. Audition did get rather confusing at times though. The main thing I was really confused about was what was a dream and what wasn’t one. I am much more familiar with A Nightmare On Elm Street as I am sure most people are. Freddy Krueger is a historic character and they will continue making films with him as the antagonist for at least my lifetime probably longer. 

Audition was the story of a Japanese man who is seeking a new woman to marry as his wife died when his son was a child. This film just had such a creepy feel to it from right off the bat. From the moment I saw Asami’s picture, I knew something was off about her just like some of the other characters in the film thought. I guess the protagonist, Shigeharu, was just desperate to find a new wife. Asami was just so creepy and abnormal, that I really don’t see what Shigeharu saw in her. I will not go into a full summary of the film as we all watched it, but I will just discuss my thoughts about it and how it connects to this section. This film included a long dream sequence that was very confusing to understand. I am still not sure exactly what was real and what was a dream. Either everything after Asami and Shigeharu slept together was a nightmare Shigeharu was having or everything actually happened in the film. I am not a fan of films that have an “it was all just a dream” ending so I hope that is not what Miike intended for this movie to end. If it all was just one long nightmare to end the film, then it was Shigeharu’s biggest fear being played out in his head. His biggest fear was illuminated in his nightmare.

Wes Craven’s A Nightmare On Elm Street is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Freddy Krueger scared me to death when I was a kid. The way he looked, the way he talked, and just his power to kill someone in a nightmare was terrifying to me as a kid. My parents would always calm me down after a nightmare by saying “it’s not real, it was just a dream”. Freddy Krueger was not “real” either as he was just a dream but he could actually murder people in their dreams. This definitely caused me to lose some sleep when I was young. The film was fantastic in my opinion. It did not have a happy ending as the filmmakers had to keep the idea of a sequel alive, and it had many sequels. This film relates to this section because of course it was all about nightmares and fear. All of the characters feared Freddy, but the deeper fear they all had was to die. To me, that is the biggest fear of them all. This film did a great job being just, for a lack of a better word, scary and that is the main goal of a horror film.