Horror Talk Hacked Off More Than It Could Chew

The panelists for UC Irvine’s “A Symposium on Horror: It’s Alive!” Wednesday night peered into the shadows of an American phenomenon and came away with a splattering of creepy notions.

They talked about the link between horror movies and religion. They speculated on the tradition of woman as victim. They considered the fact that boys go to gore flicks more than girls. They even reflected on why monsters rarely hold good-paying jobs.

What they didn’t do was fully explain just why people love to be scared witless.

Carol J. Clover, a UC Berkeley professor and author of “Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film,” had an inkling, and it wasn’t pretty. Much of the attraction is masochistic, that we like what’s bad for us: We crave fear because . . . well, we crave fear.

“The pleasure of horror is the pleasure of pain,” she said. “It’s that masochism that’s the rush.”

While these academicians may not have come up with any definitive answers, they did provide the small audience (about 50 people) in the administration building with an interesting, although frequently didactic, discussion.

Moderator Linda Williams, a UCI professor of film studies and women’s studies, started by describing the symposium as a way “to come to terms with a (movie) genre that is dear to us.”

She then referred to the “icons” placed in front of each panelist as a sign that the proceedings shouldn’t be too stuffy. There was a severed hand, a bloody prop knife, a huge rubber spider and a few other Halloween ornaments.

Neglecting to take the campy cue, Leo Braudy, the author of “Film Theory and Criticism,” presented a scholarly paper on the religious context of horror films. A good example, he noted, is the original “Frankenstein,” which features “a foolish rationalist” of a scientist who decides to play God and create a man.

Braudy also pointed out that vampires can be viewed as a direct “attack on a Christian afterlife.” Because Dracula is immortal, and such an infrequent churchgoer, he’s an ideal symbol for Satan, Braudy said.

After labeling the Academy Award-winning “The Silence of the Lambs” just another “yuppie slasher film,” Clover said it was disconcerting to see that adolescent boys “may identify with monsters (such as Hannibal (the Cannibal) Lecter) more than their victims.”

Women tend to get mixed signals, Clover said. Although many slasher movies portray women as victims, they frequently become empowered and vanquish the creeps in the end.

“There comes a time when they experience a state of triumph. They hold a chain saw or power tool over their oppressor’s head.”

Thomas Schatz, a University of Texas radio-television-film professor and author of “Hollywood Genres, the Genius of the System,” was more interested in talking about “Psycho.” He described director Hitchcock’s technique as “a series of shocks leading to no resolutions, but horror on another level each time.”

Schatz concluded by offering some statistics from his own research into what types of monsters find their way into the movies. About 28% fall into the category of “psycho-killers”; 14% are “mad-scientist” types; and 24% are “creations” and “mutations.”

David Russell, a graduate student from UCLA, presented a pun-filled (“working stiff,” “dead-end job,” and the like) paper on “monsters and jobs.”

Noting that, historically, few ghouls have been steadily employed--most are just “too frenzied to hold down a job”--Russell did concede exceptions. He pointed to the “Leatherface” clan in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

After their slaughterhouse business went under, Russell noted, they made ends meet by “running the local filling station and selling barbecue to tourists.”