We Love to Hate Them

I recently watched Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects for the first time and found myself, to my own horror, rooting for the members of the Firefly family.  How could this be?  These people make Ed Gein look tame.  I couldn't believe some of the monstrous acts they commit in the film, but at the same time they are totally charismatic and sympathetic.  What's with that?

Villains. Bad guys. We love them. And we love to hate them. Think of any Batman film you've seen.  Before it came out, was the anticipation not "I wonder what gadgets Batman will use," but "I wonder who the bad guys are this time!"

Aren't we supposed to be rooting for the heroes?  Don't we want the protagonists to survive? Aren't we supposed to sympathize with the people who are most like us?

The truth, in fact, is that the villains in a story represent everything we always wanted to be, but never could, whether because of moral, religious, or social restraints.  The fact is, if human beings weren't programmed with a sense of morality, we would all be running around wearing hockey masks butchering hot cheerleaders and their dumb jock boyfriends (though I will confess that thought has crossed my mind many a time.)  This does beg the question: are we, in fact, naturally programmed with a sense of morality, or it is just instilled in us by our parents because of accepted social norms that have been shaped over hundreds of years?  Big question.  We'll have it for another post.

On top of that, when we see an actor having an absolute ball portraying someone so satisfyingly evil, it makes it that much more enjoyable for us to watch because we get to live through their joy of giving themselves into their primal urges to portray these horrible people.

Let's take a look at some examples, shall we? *Full of spoilers!*

1. Freddy Krueger - Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

This is a character that everyone, and I mean everyone, loves.  From the initial choice by the producers of Nightmare on Elm Street to market the film to kids, to the continual sequels that allowed Englund to make his lovable serial killer more and more over-the-top and still remain scary - anyone who lived through the 80's knows who this guy is and can't help but get a kick out his craziness.  

The best part is that Englund gets it, and he loves it.  In a recent Q&A at the Toronto Underground Theatre, after rhyming off a great list of A-list actors that he's worked with in some pretty legit films even before he started his stint as Freddy, Englund stated, "I'm fine with horror.  And I'll tell you why.  Because I found you guys.  I found a younger generation.  And not only you here, but in Europe.  Horror - like action movies and science fiction - it speaks the universal language of film.  I could take the three hundred of you here and drop you in Paris, or London, wherever.  Not everyone knows who Jay Leno or Jennifer Aniston is, but they LOVE horror.  They all know Freddy Krueger, they all know Rutger Hauer, they all know The Exorcist, they all know Interview With The Vampire...  You guys, it's this, the universal language.  We're all the same on this level.  This action, horror, fantasy, sci-fi level, we're all in bed together.  This is the big link."

The man's got some pretty solid points there.  In the end, it's people like Freddy who bring us all together.

2. Hannibal Lector - Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs)

Hannibal the Cannibal is a character that audiences fall for, and then are almost ashamed at how much they enjoy the experience of being in his presence.  Why?  Because he's so damn charming and intelligent, you forget that the atrocities he's committing are utterly horrifying.  

By the end of the movie, we're laughing right along with him as he bids goodbye to Clarice by slyly commenting that he'll be "having an old friend for dinner."  Whatever he did to capture the deepest part of our hearts, it worked.  At that moment, we're 100% on his side.  We're glad he was able to elude the FBI, we're impressed by his ingenious escape, and we actually become disappointed when the credits begin to roll because we don't get to see whatever clever trick he devises to lure in and devour his former doctor.  

He loves classical music, chianti, and human liver.  How can you not love this guy?

3.  Catherine Tramell - Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct)

Smart, sexy, confident, successful novelist, elusive serial killer.  She's the epitome of the modern succubus, luring both men and women with her powerful advances and drawing them into her web of sex and death.

Tramell is a brilliant, charismatic sociopath who manipulates everyone around her for her own amusement.  She killed her own parents simply to see if she could get away with it, for crying out loud.  

She is everything both sexes want; she is what we desire, and she is what we wish we could be.  There is a freedom in her sexuality and her indifference to the outcome of her actions that we all wish we could attain in our own lives.

Her power is alluring, her intelligence unwavering.  Truly seductive, truly frightening.

4. Jack Torrence - Jack Nicholson (The Shining)

I think what is equally enjoyable and terrifying about Jack in this film is how utterly free he is in creating this character.  His descent into madness is completely believable, even when he says and does the most ridiculous things.  His iconic line, "Here's Johnny!" could be laughed off the screen if it wasn't for Nicholson's complete commitment to the insanity of this character.  

There is nothing was in the way, there are no judgments, no wrong choices.  It is all truthful, and it is all gold.

5. Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers - The Silent Killers (Friday the 13th Series/Halloween Series)

Ah, yes, it's always the quiet ones.  

There's just something about a hulking figure lurking in the darkness wearing a mask and wielding a sharp instrument of death.  You know they're there, you know it's a bad idea for that character to go running up the stairs when the power's out, but you can't help but cheer on these silent killers.

Granted, the initial killer in the first Friday the 13th film is Jason's mother (which in itself is a stroke of genius - what other petite older woman could have accomplished such creative and brutal killings?  This mom is badass!), but as soon as grown-up Jason finds that goalie mask and begins his vengeful tirade against the camp counselors that neglected him and killed his mother, we fall in love.

And the image of Michael Myers' ghostly white Captain Kirk mask emerging from the darkness behind Jamie Lee Curtis will continue to haunt our dreams - and keep us coming back to this classic film with this iconic villain because we just love him so damn much.

Honourable mentions go to:

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) - Psycho

Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) - Back to the Future trilogy

Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) - A Clockwork Orange

Nurse Rached (Louise Fletcher) - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Zorg (Gary Oldman) - The Fifth Element

The Shark - Jaws

The Alien - Alien

Darth Vader (David Prowse/James Earl Jones) - The ORIGINAL Star Wars Trilogy

Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) - Die Hard

The Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) - Harry Potter films

... okay, so we've established Alan Rickman makes a fantastic villian we all love.

But in the end, it comes down to what effect villains have on their audience.  And as Time columnist Richard Corliss explains, every good villain must do the same thing in order to be fully successful at winning us over: "convince the characters he/she is corrupting, and the audience in the theatre, that evil is both plausible and essential, liberating and enthralling."

Welcome to My Journey

Stephen King once wrote in an essay entitled "Why We Crave Horror Movies": The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized... and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark... I like to see the most aggressive of them... as lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath.  Why bother? Because it keeps them from getting out, man.

For as far back as I can remember, I have been fascinated with things that scare me.  Even as a small child I was drawn to all things dark and creepy.  When I was about five or six, my parents got me a small part in a local theatre production called The Woman in Black.  My job was to provide the voice over for the ghost of a child who drowned in the moors.  I had to giggle, cry and scream into a microphone.  Now, I really had no idea what I was doing, I was just playing around.  And I didn't think much of it until my parents took me to see the show (my payment for my services had been comps for myself and my family).  I don't know who thought it was a good idea to bring a child to see that show, because it deliberately intends to frighten its audience.  And I had nightmares for weeks.

But at the same time I was utterly fascinated.  For as much as I imagined that terrifying woman shrouded in a veil with her dark, sunken in eyes hovering above my bed in the dark, I wanted to see it again.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe I wanted to face my fears head on.  Perhaps I wanted to look for the things that confirmed for me that it wasn't real.  I'm not sure, but her image lingered in my mind for a long time, almost forgotten...

... until BBC released a made-for-TV movie version of The Woman in Black about a year later.  Silly me, I watched it and spent the next few weeks crying to my parents before going to bed, hiding under the covers and leaving the lights on to scare that terrible woman away.

Flash forward to my college years and the invention of a wonderful tool called ebay.  For whatever reason, I found a DVD copy of The Woman in Black, the same one that had terrified me as a child, so I bought it and it was shipped within days.  I put it in and watched it with my then-girlfriend, who had politely humoured my fascination with horror on numerous occasions.

There was one particular scene that I knew was coming (and those of you who have seen this film know of the scene that I am referring to).  In the minutes leading up to that scene, I could feel my heart begin to race, my hands go clammy and my breath come in quick gasps.  My girlfriend looked at me like I was nuts.  But when the scene arrived and scared the crap out of us, I had finally faced a demon that had been haunting me for over a dozen years.

And it made me want more.

Why do we love horror?  Stephen King's essay does make a lot of great points and I agree with the notion of "feeding the gators."  But I think there's something more.  In examining my own feelings and experiences, I don't particularly feel like I'm fending off starving gators for fear they may be unleashed upon the world.  Not consciously, at least.  I do, however, find a fascination with things we can't explain.

To make sense of the world, humans have always tried to provide explanations.  This is why we have the Bible and the vast array of different religions that populate the world.

"How did we all get here?"  "Well, God breathed us into existence in six days."  "Oh, well that explains it."

But no matter how hard we try to fit the physical world we live, breathe and see every day into our own little boxes, there are still things that occur in it that we simply cannot comprehend.

Like lights in the sky that cannot possibly be any man-made aircraft.

Like strange occurrences in creepy old houses.

Like large, frightening beasts living in mountains or lakes that elude our modern tracking technology.

Like how one man can inspire a nation to murder over a million Jewish people.

Like how a person can believe in and defend their beliefs so much they fly a plane into a building.

Like how people who are supposed to serve and protect us overseas end up defiling and torturing their prisoners.

These are just a few things the majority of us who are just trying to get through the day can't always comprehend and truly evoke fear in us - for ourselves and for the state of the world.  And what this blog will explore through interviews, experiences, reflections and the reviewing of films, books, articles, video games etc. in the horror genre is the idea that by creating and consuming horror as entertainment, we as individuals are trying to make sense of the things in the world that don't make sense.

Whether it be Jack Nicholson chopping down a bathroom door or Linda Blair levitating and spewing pea soup, this genre depicts and represents the things in this life that are unfathomable to us.  The horror genre not only offers possibilities as to why these things occur, but also challenges us to accept that these things happen in real life whether we like it or not, and makes us ask ourselves how we can better ourselves so we don't end up like one of Michael Myers' victims - or Michael Myers himself.

And it's all done within the safe confines of a screen or a page in a book.  You can stop it at any time, take a breather, or walk away from it entirely.  You're in control.  You're in the drivers seat.  That's the appealing part.  Because sometimes in life, you don't get to be the driver.

And that's where the real scary stuff begins.