SLEZSKÁ UNIVERZITA V OPAVĚ Filozoficko-přírodověděcká fakulta v Opavě

Veronika Hušková

obor: Angličtina

Female Characters in Psychological Horror

Diplomová práce

Vedoucí diplomové práce: Opava 2020 PhDr. Diana Adamová, Ph.D.

Abstract

This thesis deals with female characters in selected horror novels and their film adaptations from 1970 to 2019. Each chapter recounts the development of the horror genre in each decade and then highlights the selected novels in the decade’s context. The analytical part introduces the selected texts’ authors briefly and proceeds to analyze the female characters and their roles in the text, and how the filmmakers managed to translate the essence of these characters onto the big screen. The aim of this thesis is to provide a concise overview of the genre, categorize each female character and determine if and how did the portrayal of female characters change with time.

Key words: horror, modern cinematography, American literature, British literature, Stephen King, Thomas Harris, Clive Barker, Jeff VanderMeer, female characters, Carrie, The Shining, Hellraiser, Misery, Silence of the Lambs, The Mist, It, Annihilation

Abstrakt

Tato práce se zabývá ženskými postavami ve vybraných hororových knihách a jejich filmových adaptacích od roku 1970 do roku 2019. Každá z kapitol nejdříve pojednává o vývoji hororového žánru v jednotlivých desetiletích a poté zasazuje vybraná díla do jejich kontextu. Analytická část nejprve krátce představuje autora knihy, dále se zaměřuje na analýzu ženských postav a jejich rolí v daném textu a jak se filmovým tvůrcům podařilo převést podstatu těchto postav na velké plátno. Cílem práce je poskytnutí stručného přehledu žánru, kategorizace jednotlivých ženských postav a určení toho, zda a jak se vyobrazení ženských postav vyvíjelo.

Klíčová slova: horor, moderní kinematografie, americká literatura, britská literatura, Stephen King, Thomas Harris, Clive Barker, Jeff VanderMeer, ženské postavy, Carrie, Osvícení, Hellraiser, Misery nechce zemřít, Mlčení jehňátek, Mlha, To, Anihilace

Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto práci vypracovala samostatně. Veškeré prameny a literatura, které jsem pro vyhotovení práce využila, řádně cituji a uvádím v seznamu použité literatury a internetových zdrojů.

V Opavě dne: ...... Podpis: ......

Veronika Hušková

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to express sincere gratitude to my supervisor PhDr. Diana Adamová, Ph.D. for her patience, valuable advice and professional guidance.

Contents

Introduction ...... 1 1. The 1970’s...... 3 1.1 Stephen King – the early years ...... 7 1.2 Carrie ...... 8 2. THE 1980’s ...... 16 2.1 Stephen King – the first success ...... 20 2.2 The Shining ...... 21 2.3 Clive Barker ...... 26 2.4 Hellraiser ...... 27 3. THE 1990’s ...... 32 3.1 Stephen King – the dividing decade ...... 36 3.2 Misery ...... 37 3.3 Thomas Harris ...... 41 3.4 The Silence of the Lambs ...... 42 4. THE 2000’s ...... 47 4.1 Stephen King – the digital era ...... 52 4.2 The Mist ...... 53 5. THE 2010’s ...... 58 5.1 Stephen King – the old and new directions ...... 64 5.2 It and It Chapter 2 ...... 65 5.3 Jeff VanderMeer ...... 73 5.4 Annihilation ...... 74 Conclusion ...... 80 Bibliography ...... 85

1

Introduction

The horror genre has been a popular source of entertainment for many years. Ever since the cinematography was born at the end of the 19th century and the first silent films started to grace the screens of film theatres everywhere, horror was an ever-present element accompanying the new-found visual experience. Nevertheless, since the release of arguably the first horror film ever made, the French Le Manoir du Diable (1896), the genre has certainly come a long way, and as the second decade of the 21st century recently drew to a close, it is time to delve into the changes the horror genre underwent.1 Horror comes in many forms and can be divided into countless sub-genres; still, it is the psychological horror that finds itself to be the most versatile and is able to creep its way into most of the other categories. The films that are examined in this thesis are all a part of or influenced by psychological horror, the focus of which are the inner turmoil, emotions and personal growth of the main characters. Surprisingly, while the cinematic horror has its roots in literature, horror adaptations are quite limited to certain areas of the genre; therefore this thesis focuses predominantly on Stephen King’s work, as the most adapted literary source in the genre by far. The limitations are extended by the lack of female characters in numerous other horror novelists’ works, with King being an exception followed by several other authors, some of which are also dealt with in this thesis. Women have always been a crucial part of the genre, ever since its beginnings. The Universal monster films of the early 1930’s usually featured a female victim, a damsel in distress or a love interest in various combinations and this trend continued and was glorified in a certain way through time, especially during the 1980’s slasher craze. Apart from a few exceptions, it was not until later in the 20th century when the female characters assumed a different role in horror films in addition to the already existing one: the one of a strong heroine or the one of an independent villain. King contributed greatly to this occurrence, with his plethora of female characters in different roles in his books; from the shy and outcast Carrie or the brave warrior Beverly to the embodiment of evil in Annie Wilkes.

1 See Phil Hardy, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror (New York: Overlook Press, 1994), 3. 2

This thesis examines nine different female characters in nine films throughout the course of five decades. These characters are divided into three groups – victim, villain and heroine – each containing three characters. All the characters then form nine individual categories. Each chapter first examines one of the decades, with focus on what characterized it genre-wise and what changes were brought into it for the genre’s development. The individual novels and films are then discussed, beginning with a brief introduction of the author and his life, and followed by the introduction of the film, its plot and the changes that were made while adapting the novel into a movie. Since Stephen King is the most prominent author dealt with in this thesis, his life and work are discussed over the course of all the decades, each time only in relation to the said decade. Lastly, the selected female character is analysed at the end of each film segment. The thesis has several aims; to provide an overview of the decades in horror and the most prominent films and directors within each decade, to establish how each selected source material was adapted onto the screen, and to determine how did the depiction of female characters in these films change and evolved through time.

3

1. The 1970’s

This thesis focuses on Noël Caroll’s definition of horror as “the product of a genre that crystalized, speaking very roughly, around the time of the publication of Frankenstein – give or take fifty years – and that has persisted, often cyclically, through the novels and plays of the nineteenth century and the literature, comic books, pulp magazines, and films of the twentieth,”2 which he calls ‘art-horror’, as opposed to the ‘natural horror’ that he describes as an emotion more than a form of art, expressed in such statements as “I am horrified by the prospect of ecological disaster,” or “What the Nazis did was horrible.”3 Caroll further notes that horror is still popular due to our natural fascination with strange and ‘impossible’ creatures or events, and we enjoy unravelling the mystery, satisfying our curiosity in the process. Our fascination also outweighs the fear and stress we experience while being subjected to ‘art-horror’, since the viewer is aware of it being fiction, and that the danger and horrific beings are not, in fact, present with them.4 The decade of 1970’s was a very important decade in terms of the development of horror as a genre. In the previous decades, the world was merely introduced to some of the possibilities the genre might bring to popular culture, most notably with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, who is to this day considered the “father” of modern film horror. His work dealt mainly with the psychological aspect of the genre, creating intriguing characters and following their development in detail – and for the first time in the history of horror cinema, he focused mainly on the female characters. Although he was contributing to the film industry since the 1920’s, the films that had the most significant impact on society and culture were made in the 1950’s and 1960’s. From such films as The Birds, through Vertigo, Rear Window, and Marnie to his most well-known piece Psycho, his heroines are brooding, brave, mysterious, gorgeous, emancipated and most importantly – the centre of the plot. With the popularity Hitchcock’s films gained and with the many cultural changes that happened in the decade after that it was only inevitable the genre would earn more entries.56

2 Noël Carrol, “The Nature of Horror,” in The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York: Routledge, 1990), 13. 3 See Carrol, “The Nature of Horror,” 12. 4 See Noël Carrol, “Why Horror?,” in The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York: Routledge, 1990), 206. 5 See Karina Wilson, “1960s Horror Movies”, 2017, https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/1960s-horror/. 4

The turn of the decade meant a lot of things coming to its end. The Beatles split up in 1970, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died that same year, the year before there was the Tate-LaBianca case that shocked America, all which contributed to the start of the hippie dream falling apart. As opposed to the optimism of the 1960’s, the decade that came after was a grim and sudden awakening to contemporary society. The Vietnam War was at its bloodiest – ultimately ending with the Americans coming home defeated and the sense of utter worthlessness surrounding the entire event. The oil crisis began, the number of divorces started to skyrocket as did the number of anti-depressants sold to the general public. The 1970’s, however, also marked the decade of female emancipation and the feminist movement; its continuation from the years prior not being halted by the social events. The women of the 70’s demanded equality more than ever before, and the film industry seemed to represent this quite well.7 As everything so familiar to contemporary society was falling apart, and most visibly the notion of a whole family and marriage as a holy institution, the horror cinema adapted its portrayal of fear accordingly. From the terror of outer space, aliens, wild animals or the supernatural like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies or the Devil himself, the directors moved the source of fear to where we might feel the safest – to the midst of the family. Suddenly, many of the genre’s contributions featured an evil, deranged or possessed family member, be it the husband in The Stepford Wives (1975), the wife and mother in The Brood (1979), the father in The Sentinel (1977), the sister or brother in Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) and Halloween (1978), the daughter in The Exorcist (1973) or the son in The Omen (1976) and It’s Alive (1974). One way or another, the family was no longer a space where the average spectator would feel protected.8 Naturally, the horror themes explored in previous decades were still an active part of the 1970’s cinema with many entrances concerning the legendary vampire count Dracula and the vampire motif in general. Counting among them also one of the first films based on Stephen King’s novel: Salem’s Lot (1979).9 The zombie was being explored among others in one of the most famous zombie films of all time – George A.

6 See Peter Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008), 163-164. 7 See “The 1970s”, 2010, https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/1970s-1. 8 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 112-113. 9 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 320-322. 5

Romero’s The Dawn of the Dead (1978)10, outer space and aliens received treatment in the form of a remake of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) which ultimately gained more popularity than the original, and of course – Ridley Scott’s cult classic Alien (1979)11, haunted houses and the supernatural being the focus of such films like The Amityville Horror (1979), Burnt Offerings (1976) or The Legend of Hell House (1973).12 The werewolf trope, unfortunately, got only a few entrances of questionable quality during this decade.13 However, one of the themes stood out the most among filmmakers at that time and was explored to significantly more depth than any of the others – the religious theme. Following the wild success of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), the directors and audiences alike also wanted to liberate themselves from the strict concept of religion, especially the Catholic Church. The need for stomping over something considered sacred, sexualizing it or exploiting it persisted as a major trope throughout the entire decade, mainly due to the newly found sexual drive of the time. The fact that contemporary people had terrible memories of their childhood while being raised by the church and oppressive nuns have also had an influence on the theme’s popularity. B- movie creators leaned heavily into the overtly stereotyped symbols of possession, sex- driven nuns, bloody satanic rituals and Satan-worshipping cults, pure, innocent virgins being exploited by something evil, and the devil himself. The religious question, nonetheless, intrigued even serious filmmakers who were looking to contribute to the current collapse of organized religion. Robin Hardy came to the market with The Wicker Man (1973) based on David Pinner’s novel Ritual, which followed a catholic officer searching for a murderer on an island of pagan worshippers; Richard Donner brought to light the terrifying image of a child possessed by the devil in The Omen (1976), Alfred Sole explored a troubled young girl who became a suspect in a murder of her younger sister during her first communion in Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)14 and last but not least, William Friedkin adapted William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist into a 1973 film of the same name, portraying the demonic possession of a twelve-year-old girl and the subsequent graphic exorcism. All of the movies mentioned above starred at that time

10 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema , 346. 11 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 281. 12 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 140. 13 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 331. 14 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 260-261. 6

respectable actors like Gregory Peck, Edward Woodward, and Jason Miller, forcing the general public to take the horror genre more seriously. Additionally, The Exorcist (1973) went on to win two Academy Awards and four Golden Globes in 1974.15 Coincidentally, the 70’s were also the era where the major directors we know today were just finishing film school and went out into the big world with their directorial debuts. Among these directors were such household names as Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and most importantly – Steven Spielberg. They all had a precise idea of what the horror genre looked like and what new elements they could bring into it. Steven Spielberg especially took an interest in expanding the genre with his own creation, and so he assembled a team of professionals and directed a film that defied all horror film expectations. In Jaws (1977), the threat suddenly something realistic, a notion of something we are all very well familiar with, but also something unseen, invisible yet so dangerous and constantly looming around. Spielberg’s unique take on the genre and its immediate large success among the audiences and critics alike started the feeling of need in other filmmakers to defy expectations and implement their own individual and exceptional components into the genre as well.1617 The decade brought one more crucial change for the horror genre, which would define the decades to come – the quick and massive rise of the slasher subgenre. What started as a B-movie movement in Italy called the ‘giallo’ as a subgenre of detective and crime stories with strong tendencies for lurid images, mystery and gore was later taken into the American pop culture specifically as a horror thriller, so only a part of the original concept was translated onto the American screens.18 The American filmmakers, however, intensified the pulp elements of the Italian concept and created a distinct pattern the new films followed: usually a masked or unseen killer that had no clear motive for the murders, young and naïve victims, most commonly teenagers and young adults, a campy setting like a school, small town or a camp, gruesome murders full of gore and violence, inventive killing techniques and original murder weapons and the tendency to hide the killer’s face or identity until the very last moments of the film. As the 60’s and 70’s were experiencing quite the relaxation in term of cinematic taboos and

15 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 109-110. 16 See Karina Wilson, “Jaws (1975)”, 2019, https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/jaws-1975/. 17 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 300-301. 18 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 141-143. 7

general censorship, and extreme films and exploitation horror found its audience rather easily with films like The Last House on the Left (1972) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978) that gave way to future extreme cinema, the slasher still found a wider and more dedicated audience, since the violence on screen was not that excessive, thus making it available to the broader public. Even though technically the slasher started the decade prior with films like Peeping Tom (1960), Psycho (1960) or Violent Midnight (1963), the 70’s saw a true rise in the popularity of the subgenre and contained some of the best entries this category has to offer even to this day. Among the slasher films made in this decade belong Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978),19 Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974), Charles B. Pierce’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) or Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977). All of these films gained a massive cult following by their audiences and keep gaining continuous relevance with their constant remakes and sequels.202122

1.1 Stephen King – the early years

The 1970’s were also an important era for horror literature, as one of the most popular horror novelists of modern times began publishing his novels in this particular decade. Stephen King, a native to Portland, Maine, was born a few decades earlier in 1947 and, according to Tony Magistrale, always knew he wanted to become a writer and was so set on achieving this goal he exceeded even his own expectations. Carrie was his novel debut in terms of publishing, as it was published in 1974 when King was only twenty- seven years old. He remains to this day one of the most best-selling authors of all time, with an estimated 300 000 000 copies sold worldwide in total.23 Despite this fact, the vast majority of people know him primarily because of the countless massively successful film adaptations of his novels. His childhood was tainted with financial issues as his father had left their family when he was two years old, and his mother had struggled to keep their family afloat. King, however, never perceived himself or his family as impoverished due to his great appreciation for his mother and her hard work

19 See Bradley P. Guillory, “Stained Lens: Style as Cultural Signifier in Seventies Horror Films”, 2002, http://www.angelfire.com/movies/gore/stainedlens.html. 20 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 294. 21 See Karina Wilson, “1970s Horror Movies”, 2017, https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/1970s-horror/. 22 See Jack Sargeant, “American Nightmare: The Baying of Pigs: Reflections on the New American Horror Movie”, 2001, http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/festival-reports/biff_nightmare/. 23 Tony Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” in Stephen King: America’s Storyteller (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), 1. 8

and great emotional connection to her children. When he was eleven years old, his family settled in Durham, Maine, where he attended Lisbon High School. In his own words: “My high school career was totally undistinguished. I was not at the top of my class, nor at the bottom. I had friends, but none of them were the big jocks or the student council guys or anything like that.”24 He was bullied quite frequently because of his looks and sensitive personality, which led to his repressed emotions to build up into inner rage – which he later put into his early novels. “King has always had a soft spot for adolescent outsiders, possibly because he empathized personally with the level of cruelty they experienced as victims of their school’s more physically powerful and popular students.”25 He also started seriously writing during his high school era. While attending the University of Maine, he became a passionate reader not only of classic literature but modern American literature as well of which he also became a lecturer despite him still being an undergraduate student. He regularly contributed to The Maine Campus – the university newspaper – where he had his own column titled “King’s Garbage Truck”. King’s political initiative also began during his college years and is still present in his writings and actions to this day. He married Tabitha Spruce in 1971, and the two of them had financial problems, living in a trailer with their then two children; until the immense success of Carrie. After that, King’s popularity skyrocketed, and so did his cultural status.26

1.2 Carrie

Linda Hutcheon explains in A Theory of Adaptation that an adaptation is comprised of three aspects: it is “an acknowledged transposition of a recognizable other work or works, a creative and an interpretative act of appropriation/salvaging and an extended intertextual engagement with the adapted work.”27 She also establishes that the general perspective of adaptations being inferior to their source material is a misconception and that the adaptation is not secondary by any means, and should be viewed as a separate piece of art.28 Since the film industry is significantly more popular

24 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 3. 25 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 3-4. 26 See Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 1-10. 27 Linda Hutcheon, “Beginning to Theorize Adaptation,” in A Theory of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2012), 8. 28 See Hutcheon, “Beginning to Theorize Adaptation,” 6-9. 9

and available to the general public than publishing in recent years, I, therefore, focus more on the film adaptations in this thesis than on their literary counterparts. Carrie is a novel by Stephen King, first published in the year 1974. Initially, King was reluctant to try and have it published due to the streak of rejections he recently faced and his doubts about his success in the writing branch. “The first draft of the novel ended up in the trash and was literally rescued by Tabitha, who noted something interesting in the plot of a confused and tortured female adolescent, and urged him to submit it to Doubleday, a publishing house that had already rejected him on four other occasions. The novel was accepted, and it sold a modest 13,000 copies in hardcover in 1974, but the paperback, purchased by New American Library, which sought to capitalize on the success of The Exorcist (1973), sold 2.5 million copies.”29 Two years later in 1976, one year before Spielberg released the juggernaut of a movie that was Jaws, the book was adapted onto the big screen by none other than Brian De Palma, a freshly out of film school prodigy, who was already stirring Hollywood waters before the release of this film, but it was Carrie that launched him into the subconscious of the population as a household name. The film featured at that time relatively unknown actors and actresses who nevertheless perfectly inhabited King’s characters, especially Sissy Spacek in the titular role. The film’s story follows an adolescent girl named Carrie White, who lives in a trailer with her abusive mother and religious fanatic, Margaret. She is an outcast at school due to her strict upbringing and is bullied for her difference. The first scene opens up with Carrie getting her first period in the school’s locker room, but because she was not informed by her mother what periods are, she thinks she is bleeding to death and starts to panic. Other girls, led by Carrie’s main bully Chris Hargensen, make fun of her and start throwing sanitary pads at her, taunting her in the process. A light bulb in the locker room shatters just as Carrie is in the midst of her hysteria. She is then saved by her gym teacher Miss Collins. Before she reaches home that day, the viewers can see two other cases of her slowly awakening telekinetic powers – one in the principal’s office where she makes an ashtray fall on the floor and the other one outside when a boy on a bicycle teases her, and she makes him fall over. When she gets home, Margaret is outraged about her daughter’s purity being taken away and locks her in a

29 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 9. 10

“praying closet” while quoting non-existent lines from the Bible. Carrie later realizes she might have some kind of powers when she manages to break a mirror in her room. Meanwhile, Carrie’s classmate Sue feels guilty for being one of the bullies in the girl’s lockers and thinks of a way to make it up to Carrie – she makes her boyfriend Tommy invite her to prom. After being quite hesitant, Carrie finally agrees to go. Chris does not go to detention for abusing Carrie, and so Miss Collins slaps her in the face in front of all the other girls. That makes her infuriated, and she assigns her boyfriend Billy to arrange a prank with her on Carrie during the prom night by slaughtering pigs and putting a bucket full of pig blood above the school gymnasium’s podium. Before the prom, Margaret finds out about Carrie’s attendance plans and attempts to beat her, but Carrie is now prepared for such occasions since she researched telekinesis prior to this encounter and she manages to stand up to her mother. Despite Margaret’s accusations of her being a witch, she leaves for the prom. Once there, she seems to finally connect with her classmates who compliment her homemade dress and talk to her like she was normal for the first time in her life, she even shares a kiss with Tommy. Because Chris made her friend rig the voting, Carrie wins the Prom Queen election. When she gets to the stage, Chris pulls down the bucket, covering Carrie in pig blood from head to toe and knocking Tommy unconscious in the process. Even though the audience is shocked and speechless, Carrie has a vivid hallucination that everyone is laughing at her, and she has a mental breakdown and fully unleashes her telekinetic powers, gruesomely killing almost everyone in the room. Chris and Billy managed to escape before the gym’s doors were sealed shut with a fire raging inside. They later see Carrie walking in the middle of a road, so they try to run her over with their car, but Carrie makes it flip over with her powers, and they both die in the explosion that follows. When Carrie gets home, she finally learns from her mother about how she was conceived, that her drunk father raped Margaret and that they both have to suffer because she enjoyed the awful act. She then hugs Carrie in a comforting gesture and stabs her in the back with a knife. Trying to defend herself, Carrie telekinetically launches all the knives and sharp utensils they have at home and proceeds to stab them into Margaret’s body, ultimately killing her. She then loses hold of her powers and sets the house on fire with them both still inside. Sue is the only survivor of the school massacre, and at the end of the film, she has a nightmare that Carrie’s hand rose from her grave and grabbed Sue’s arm while she was putting flowers on her tombstone. 11

De Palma “managed to capture the slippery blending of horror and humor that is often a crucial – albeit elusive – element in a King text”.30 The director, therefore, to be able to achieve this, made little to no changes to the original story, making it quite a faithful adaptation. Just one bigger change was made for the movie, and that was the death of Margaret White, who in the book was killed with Carrie telekinetically stopping her heart, while in the film Carrie impaled her with sharp implements, resembling crucifixion. The several other slight changes that were made by the filmmaking team include cutting out the majority of the secondary characters’ backstory, a more linear narrative without King’s frequent flashbacks in the form of newspaper clippings, witness account snippets, and medical and police records, and a slight alteration to the ending, wherein the book Carries uses her telekinetic powers to haul stones on her house whereas in the film it simply burns down. The film fits perfectly into the wave of horror films that featured a family member as the antagonist, this time it was both Carrie and Margaret, a daughter and a mother, who would ultimately cause havoc and harm someone in the process. Carrie could be put into the classic theme category as well, as it deals with supernatural forces that resemble possession or haunting. Furthermore, it contains strong religious images and themes, and thus follows the trend of the Catholic Church exploitation and warns of overt misuse of religion and its consequences.

1.2.1 Carrie and Margaret White – the victim revenger and the villain manipulator The general definitions of the terms villain and victim provided by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms and the online Oxford-powered dictionary Lexico.com are following: the villain is “the principal evil character in a play or story”31 and is usually the antagonist who counters the protagonist of the story,32 while the victim is “a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.”33 Since, however, the role of a character is not strictly set in most literary and film works, and these roles might change as the story progresses, or the characters may embody more roles at once, the most prominent role of the given character is analysed in this thesis.

30 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 9. 31 Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 272. 32 See Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 272. 33 “victim”, 2020, https://www.lexico.com/definition/victim. 12

Right from the very first scene in the film, we can tell that Carrie is an outcast. She radiates extremely shy and awkward energy, it is clear that she is trying very hard to be a part of the volleyball game the girls are playing. During the game, and later in the locker room, she is mostly ignored by her peers apart from the mean and degrading remarks they aim at her when she contributes to the loss of the game. In the locker room, she does not participate in the overall chatty atmosphere; her eyes are mostly closed when she is taking a shower and when not, her gaze is mainly focused on herself or the ground. The moment she gets her first period, she starts to panic and desperately seeks help from her classmates. They, however, take this opportunity to taunt her and bully her for her naivety, which makes Carrie spiral into hysteria. From the very beginning, she does not seem particularly lovable to the audiences. Even people who went through similar torment in their high school years felt like Carrie was beyond the line for a stereotypical victim. In the words of King himself “Carrie White seemed thick and passive, a ready-made victim.”34 He says she is a loser, has “bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe.”35 He however also says that Carrie can be viewed as a feminist text, as “it is largely about how women find their own channels of power, and what men fear about women and women’s sexuality.”36 We see the root of her character flaws when we get to explore her home life. Her mother Margaret abuses her on a daily basis, completely clouding Carrie’s perception of herself and her surroundings. Because of her mother’s constant belittlement of Carrie, the false information she gives her about the outside world, other people and God, and her never-ending physical abuse, Carrie views herself as someone who does not belong, something out of place and wrong. She does not feel worthy of people’s attention and love, but she tries to connect with them nonetheless. Barbara Creed states that in Carrie “the maternal figure is constructed as the monstrous-feminine. By refusing to relinquish her hold on her child, she prevents it from taking up its proper place in relation to the symbolic.”37 It is quite evident that Carrie wishes to be different and that she wants to break free from her mother’s hold. The high point of these attempts are Carrie’s words from the book when she tries to explain to Margaret that she accepted Tommy’s

34 Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (New York: Scribner, 2000), 76. 35 King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, 174. 36 Stephen King, “Horror Fiction,” in Danse Macabre (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 171. 37 Barbara Creed, “Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection,” in The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 1993), 64. 13

invitation to the prom: “Momma, please see that I have to start to . . . to try and get along with the world. I’m not like you. I’m funny – I mean, the kids think I’m funny. I don’t want to be. I want to try and be a whole person before it’s too late to –“38 before she gets shut down yet again by her mother. Creed suggests that the relationship between a mother and a child here also consists of repressed sexual desires, since Margaret represents a patriarchal figure, a sexually deprived woman, having internalized the patriarchal ideology as her own.3940 Their final encounter can be viewed as a rape, the knife both women use is a phallic object that they insert into each other’s bodies, ultimately humiliating and letting their frustrations out on the other. Creed establishes three major depictions of abjection in a horror film – the showcasing of a corpse and its bodily fluids, crossing the concept of a pre-set ‘border’, and a third category where she also places Carrie – “the construction of the maternal figure as abject”.41 Margaret is depicted as a religious fanatic, she quotes the Bible daily, she forces Carrie to pray constantly, and if Carrie does not follow her orders, she locks her in a small, dark closet where Carrie has to pray or she would not be let out. Margaret never listens to anything Carrie has to say; it is either her way and her beliefs or nothing at all for Carrie; even if her daughter has relevant arguments, Margaret shows extreme signs of hot-headedness and stubbornness in the way she ignores her. She does not stop at threatening Carrie verbally; she frequently uses physical force to abuse her and humiliate her, often beats her or performs other violent acts on her. Even though it seems that Margaret despises Carrie and wants to make her life miserable, she subsequently does not allow Carrie to leave her; Margaret is in this manner extremely controlling and manipulative. Creed explains why Carrie is unable to leave: “Partly consumed by the desire to remain locked in a blissful relationship with the mother and partly terrified of separation, the child finds it easy to succumb to the comforting pleasure of the dyadic relationship.”42 Furthermore, Creed connects Carrie and Margaret’s symbiotic yet spiteful relationship to the notion of ‘vagina dentata’ – “an expression of the dyadic mother; the all-encompasing maternal figure of the pre-Oedipal

38 Stephen King, Carrie (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2019), 94. 39 See Barbara Creed, “Woman as Witch: Carrie,” in The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 1993), 293. 40 See Barbara Creed, “The Medusa’s Gaze,” in The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 1993), 606. 41 See Creed, “Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection,” 58-63. 42 Creed, “Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection,” 64. 14

period who threatens symbolically to engulf the infant, thus posing a threat of psychic obliteration.”43 Carrie fears that her mother will symbolically swallow her identity, but is caged in her mother’s presence. In an attempt to separate herself from Margaret, Carrie accepts Tommy’s invitation to prom. She starts to slowly open up to other people, especially to Tommy. Despite Margaret’s displeasure and warnings, she attends the prom, and here we can observe that for the first time, she actually does start to feel like a part of a whole. It could be argued that if it was not for Chris’ interference, Carrie might have found her place among her classmates during the prom at last. Once the prank is executed, however, she completely disconnects herself from the crowd, believing all of them were in on the joke. In her mind, she reinstates her belief in her mother’s warning, and the scene is connected to the initial scene in the locker room visually as well as in Carrie’s perception.

In Carrie, the film’s most monstrous act occurs when the couple are drenched in pig’s blood, which symbolizes menstrual blood in the terms set up by the film: women are referred to as ‘pigs’, women ‘bleed like pigs’, and the pig’s blood runs down Carrie’s body at a moment of intense pleasure, just as her own menstrual blood ran down her legs during a similar pleasurable moment when she enjoyed her body in the shower. Here, women’s blood and pig’s blood flow together, signifying horror, shame and humiliation. In this film, however, the mother speaks for the symbolic, identifying with an order which has defined women’s sexuality as the source of all evil and menstruation as the sign of sin.44

Female monstrosity in Carrie is clearly linked to the reproductive system and blood. Even Carrie’s telekinesis first emerges when she has her first period, connecting her blood with a monstrous power. As blood takes many forms throughout the film, representing death, sin, and the struggle of mother and child, it also assigns the monstrous aspect to Carrie. She is called a witch by her mother, something she initially refuses to internalize, hoping her newfound powers might please her mother when she searches for the term ‘miracles’ in the library while researching, but she later seems to succumb to her mother’s insults about her powers being of satanic origin.

43 Barbara Creed, “Medusa’s Head: The Vagina Dentata and Freudian theory,” in The Monstrous- Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge, 1993), 399. 44 Barbara Creed, “Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection,” 71-72. 15

With all this in mind, Carrie is driven to the bottom of her sanity, and she executes her revenge. Due to everything she believes to be true at this moment, we can argue she acts in self-defence. However, once she unleashes the full destructive potential of her powers, she finds herself unable to stop. Recognizing Margaret as the source of all her torment, she sets home with a clear intention to kill her. It is at this point that we also have a peek at the root of Margaret’s character flaws. She tells Carrie that Carrie’s father practically raped her and that she enjoyed it – and therefore, Carrie and she must pay for Margaret’s sins. She calls herself weak because she was not able to kill Carrie sooner. She offers an embrace to Carrie for them to pray together and Carrie accepts, desperately hoping her mother would save her from herself. Margaret, however, stabs her daughter in the shoulder and ultimately betrays her trust, or more specifically, the last string of hope she had for redemption. We can observe a major dynamic shift in Carrie’s and Margaret’s characters. Carrie, who is a victim for the majority of the plotline, becomes a villain/hero at the end while Margaret, the main villain of the story, ultimately changes into Carrie’s victim. As an answer to what role does Carrie play in the story, be it villain, victim or a hero, Clover states that “Carrie is all three in turn. Throughout most of the movie she is the victim of monstrous schoolmates and a monstrous mother, but when, at the end, she turns the tables, she herself becomes a kind of monstrous hero – hero insofar as she has risen against and defeated the forces of monstrosity, monster insofar as she has herself become excessive, demonic.”45

45 Carol J. Clover, “Carrie and the Boys,” in Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 4. 16

2. THE 1980’s

The years between 1980 and 1989 saw a number of significant changes not only in the horror film industry but in filmmaking in general. The special visual effects artists finally had the means to create what was until now only in the minds of film directors and moviegoers. With materials like foam latex, hydraulics or fibreglass they were able to bring monsters into the light of day, to haul them from under the beds and dark alleys into the audience’s line of sight, and achieve so with such effect and success that some of the films made in this decade still cannot be outdone even by modern computer- generated imagery. The 80’s are therefore rightly so referred to as “the golden age” of visual effects and have left many entries all over the cinematic library to prove themselves to be so. The area, however, where these new effects had a chance to be fully utilized, was naturally the horror genre. The audiences wanted to see the source of fear straight on, and they were about to receive just that. This newfound fascination with seeing everything right on screen was exploited to the extreme with the arrival of the “body horror” trend; filmmakers explored how the human body behaved in the most unnatural situations, twisting them and turning them inside out just to see what would happen, all the while testing how much is the average spectator able to withstand to witness. As it turned out, the people watching were able to bare a lot. Body horror films, perhaps not as surprisingly, did not experience much of a success with general audiences and some of the films from this category that are now considered a cult classic did not have significant box office success at the time of their airing, even though critics highly praised them for their inventive use of available effects. As examples of this phenomenon, we can use David Cronenberg’s cinematography, namely Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983) and The Fly (1986), the latter often identified as the most gruesome and visually repulsive entry, John Carpenter’s famous take on John W. Campbell Jr.’s novella Who Goes There? with The Thing (1982) containing arguably the most creative use of VFX and body horror in the history of cinema, the follower of the famously brilliant visual effects in 1979’s Alien – Aliens (1986), the more comedic take on the subgenre with Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985) which utilized a novelette by H. P. Lovecraft, or the satirical film about a rich teenager finding 17

out about his parents’ involvement with an elite cult called Society (1989) by Brian Yuzna.4647 With the mass production of videocassette recorders the decade prior and their broad popularity in the 1980’s, people were now able to view horror films in their own private quarters instead of a film theatre full of strangers. This gave way to even fewer censorship restrictions, and no cinematic taboo was out of the question anymore, since the films released on this media did not have to undergo the process of classification by the British Board of Film Classification at that time. Apart from the massive rise of distributable pornography, this fact also introduced the direct-to-video horror films that were too nasty for the big-screen release. Usually films of poor quality but containing an overabundance of gore and violence, they were doomed to be brought before the censorship board sooner or later. Surely enough, the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association accused a handful of these films of violating the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 and shortly after they created a list of prohibited (unless additionally edited or cut) movies, then referred to as “video nasties”. There was, however, one film that stood out among the rest as a pioneer of special effects and pushing the boundaries of acceptable cinema. Released in 1981 and immediately gaining the X rating48 by the BBFC – and that only after roughly a minute of footage was cut, The Evil Dead by Sam Raimi was a unique film that despite its low budget possessed moderately good acting and plot with high quality effects. It ultimately gained a cult following, its popularity leading to successful sequels, a remake and a TV show. The contemporary reviews of the films were largely positive and even called it a “milestone in graphic horror.”49505152 Despite the rise of new technology and the need for new, previously unexplored topics, many of the old classic horror themes still prevailed in this decade. Zombies received treatment in the form of a third entry in the Dead series by George A. Romero – Day of the Dead (1985) and a controversial horror comedy The Return of The Living

46 See Shelley F. Baker, Body-Horror Movies: Their Emergence and Evolution (Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University, 2000), 3-11. 47 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 41. 48 “Passed as Extremely Graphic” by the BBFC, at that time meaning the film was suitable only for those aged 18 and older – later in 1982 renamed to “18” certificate 49 Bob Martin, “The FX of Evil Dead,” Fangoria 27 (1983): 19. 50 See “The Evil Dead”, 2005, https://bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/evil-dead. 51 See “Video Nasties”, 2005, https://bbfc.co.uk/education-resources/education-news/video-nasties. 52 See Andrew Holmes, “Let There Be Blood” , 2002, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/jul/05/filmcensorship.artsfeatures. 18

Dead (1985) made by the co-creator of the original entry in the series and marketed as an alternative continuation of the first film, or Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)53, ghosts and haunted houses were rather scarce this decade, but still earned some memorable items on the overall list with The Changeling (1980) by Peter Medak and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982)54. Werewolves had a great comeback into the genre with numerous noteworthy entries, most importantly The Howling (1981) by Joe Dante and An American Werewolf in London (1981) by John Landis, the second one also serving as a masterful example of the body horror subgenre.55 The alien theme was explored in the aforementioned Alien franchise and The Thing, both of which contained shocking and violent images that the audiences, used to the current trend of a “lovable alien” with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Star Wars, did not appreciate.56 The new trend in filmmaking, therefore, was the so-called PG-13 horror, meaning films that were targeted towards younger audiences. These films involved less blood and violence but were nevertheless based on scaring children with monsters and jump scares. Among such films belong Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984) and Ghostbusters (1984) by Ivan Reitman, also playing on the classic themes of aliens and ghosts.57 We previously established that the 70’s marked a decade of the rise of the slasher subgenre – but it is in the 80’s that the slasher had its true prime. With all the gore and repulsive images the new era had brought upon the screens, horror movie fans wanted to distract themselves - and the distraction came in the form of masked killers, campy settings and premises and not quite highly intelligent teenagers getting murdered one by one. The first films of what are now highly successful and perhaps a little bit overexploited franchises were being released, a considerable number now regarded as cult classics and absolute must-sees for the hard-core fans of the genre. This was the era of the birth of notorious masked killers that everyone still very well knows today, even if they are not a follower of the horror genre. Wes Craven invented the infamous character Freddie Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Sean S. Cunningham introduced Jason Voorhees to the world in Friday the 13th (1980) who went from a side character in the first film to the star of the entire franchise in the movies to come, Rick

53 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 346-347. 54 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 140. 55 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 331. 56 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 281. 57 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 71. 19

Rosenthal resurrected Carpenter’s Michael Myers in Halloween II (1981), and Tom Holland took it a step further in Child’s Play (1988) and brought us Chucky - the doll possessed by voodoo. Nevertheless, even without the presence of a strongly characterized villain, other slasher films were equally popular. In essence, some of the fan favourites include Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp (1983), George Mihalka’s Canadian film My Bloody Valentine (1981), Paul Lynch’s Prom Night (1980) featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, who after her successful debut portrayal of Laurie Strode in the first Halloween film became a regular horror film star often referred to as the “scream queen” of her generation, the Christmas themed Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) by Charles E. Sellier Jr., Mark Rosman’s The House on Sorority Row (1982) and Fred Walton’s April Fool’s Day (1986).58 Since many of the aforementioned films were quite successful, if not in the box office then with the audiences for certain, the movie-making companies took the opportunity to cash in on them even more and started creating sequels. It did not depend on the first film’s quality in particular; any film that was even mildly prosperous gained a follow-up or two. As the companies had rights to the first one, it was not incredibly difficult to create another film with the same or similar characters, often with the same actors as well – even though directors were usually different. During the 80’s this became a big trend among filmmakers that gained so much popularity and additional profits that it remains a common practice today, with directors and companies even creating the first film as a part of the not yet existent future franchise. The most notable examples of the 80’s sequel fever (not considering remakes and crossover films) would be the Friday the 13th franchise with ten films released to this date – eight of which were released during the 80’s, Halloween franchise with eight sequels and one direct sequel that followed the events of the first film without taking into consideration any of the other films released, A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with seven films, Alien franchise with six films – two of which were prequels, Children of the Corn with ten films, Puppet Master with thirteen films, The Howling with eight films, Child’s Play franchise with eight films or the less exploited Poltergeist or Evil Dead film series with three entries each. With some franchises, the exploitation was much more obvious with how many titles were released; others were granted sequels only scarcely with more

58 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 294. 20

thought put into them. It is generally agreed that with endless sequels the franchise loses its quality and the original atmosphere, sometimes regaining it somehow much later with new remakes with original ideas applied to the old formulas, or managing to keep it slightly altered and improved by making only a handful of films much like in the Evil Dead series. A number of these franchises still have films announced to be released in the foreseeable future, and so it is safe to assume this trend is not about to die anytime soon.596061

2.1 Stephen King – the first success

By the 1980’s Stephen King was already a household name. The public was quite fascinated by his creativity, and the majority of his work seemed to become instant best- sellers. The movie industry did not intend to stay behind, and so during this decade, there was an average of two to three films based on King’s work released per year. The Shining was his first bestseller in the hardcover format, and his work’s road to stardom has not halted ever since. Even King himself had to admit at one point he had “started out as a storyteller”62 but later “became an economic force”63. This, on the other hand, allowed both Stephen and his wife Tabitha to leave their current jobs and fully focus on writing as a career, and also to purchase a large historical house and move out of the trailer. This was the decade where King became the huge influencer of all generations of future writers, filmmakers and other artists he is known as today. Magistrale points out: “What the Beatles were to rock music in the 1960s, Stephen King was to horror fiction and film in the 1980s; the influence of both helped to transform their respective genre.”64 In the first half of the 80’s King also assumed a pseudonym of Richard Bachman under which he published five books just to see if his novels would be as popular if his name were not attached – and his experiment was not as successful as he expected as about ten times more copies were sold after the word got out who Richard Bachman actually was. The pressure of success, however, also meant King’s struggles with the now easily available drugs and alcohol. His substance abuse became a big part

59 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 283-285. 60 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 7-8. 61 See Karina Wilson, “1980s Horror Movies”, 2017, https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/1980s-horror- movies/. 62 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 11. 63 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 11. 64 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 12. 21

of his writing as well, be it a driving force that kept him writing or the critical personal traits of his newly created characters. It ultimately led to the near destruction of his personal life and his stay in a rehabilitation facility in 1988, and he has been drug-free ever since.65

2.2 The Shining

The Shining is Stephen King’s third novel first published in 1977, and it became his first hardcover bestseller shortly after. This greatly contributed to King’s popularity with the general public. Tony Magistrale remarks that this particular novel by King is somehow special and stands out from his other work, with a unique kind of terrifying. He continues: “If my various academic colleagues who teach King in high schools and universities around the world are an accurate barometer, this novel remains the King text most likely to find its way into the contemporary classroom. I believe it will be the representative Stephen King book that will endure as the writer’s legacy one hundred years from now.”66 An element that was presumably quite important for this novel to become so memorable is the additional layer of authenticity, as King later realized he unintentionally implemented his own struggles and personality traits into the character of Jack Torrence.67 King published a sequel in 2013 called Doctor Sleep, which was recently adapted into a film of the same name by Mike Flanagan. Three years after the publishing of the original novel, the at that time already legendary director Stanley Kubrick picked up the novel for an adaptation. The Shining (1980) was the director’s fourteenth film, and it is definitely the most memorable ghost-themed film from the 1980’s. Despite the fact that his film became one of the most influential artworks of all time and is repeatedly mentioned in lists of the best films ever made, Stephen King himself continuously makes it known that he did not enjoy Kubrick’s adaptation of his work. He called it “very cold”, did not like how the film portrayed Wendy in the slightest and said it was “misogynistic” and even though he did like the aesthetic representation he still referred to it as a “big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside

65 See Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 10-16. 66 Tony Magistrale, “Why The Shining Still Matters: Revisiting and Reinterpreting the Novel and Films,” in Stephen King: America’s Storyteller (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), 91. 67 See King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, 95. 22

it.”68 He later proceeded to assist Mick Garris with another adaptation in 1997, this time much more accurate, but also much less known. King was nevertheless much more satisfied with this adaptation than he was with Kubrick’s. The Shining was also made into an opera by Paul Moravec in 2016. Kubrick’s film follows the character of Jack Torrence, a middle-aged writer, who is married with a seven-year-old son. He is struggling with his writing, and because he does not want to get his family into a tough financial situation, he accepts a job as a caretaker of The Overlook Hotel for the off-season time of year. He has to move into the hotel with his family as well since its location is high in the mountains and would be inaccessible during winter. Jack is informed about the hotel’s gruesome history by Mr Ullman - the job provider. The previous caretaker allegedly went insane and murdered his entire family, and what is more, the hotel is built on a Native American burial ground. That is where Jack is warned about the dangerous effects of isolation. It is revealed quite early in the film by Jack’s wife Wendy that Jack has a drinking problem, and he unintentionally hurt Danny when he did not manage to contain his anger. She also explains that Danny has an imaginary friend Tony, who we later find out tells Danny certain things. Before they set to move into the hotel, we can see that Danny possesses some kind of power when he has an ominous vision concerning the hotel. In the hotel, the family meets the head chef Dick Hallorann who shows Danny he has the same powers like him and explains to him what they are. He calls it ‘the shining’ and says it is some sort of a combination of telepathy and premonition. Dick also warns Danny to stay away from room 237. The story picks up a month later; Danny and Wendy investigate a hedge maze near the hotel, the phone lines are shut down due to a heavy snowstorm, and Danny keeps having terrifying visions of the twin sisters murdered there by the previous caretaker Delbert Grady. Jack starts to write actively but is starting to behave very strangely in the process. Wendy later finds him screaming from his sleep at his work desk, and upon awakening him, he tells her he dreamt about killing her and Danny in an extremely violent fashion. Danny then shows up with bruises on his neck, and Wendy accuses Jack of hurting him again. Danny tells her later that he ventured into room 237 and a woman tried to strangle him there, which she then

68 Kevin Jagernauth, “Stephen King Says Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ Is ‘Like A Big, Beautiful Cadillac With No Engine Inside It’”, 2016, https://www.indiewire.com/2016/02/stephen-king-says- stanley-kubricks-the-shining-is-like-a-big-beautiful-cadillac-with-no-engine-inside-it-83995/. 23

tells Jack. Jack is already seeing people that do not exist and is speaking to them, more specifically, after he stumbles upon a Golden Room, to a ghostly bartender named Lloyd, who gives him alcohol after Jack has been five months clean. He goes to investigate the room 237 where he sees a beautiful young woman in the bathtub, but when he tries to kiss her, she turns into a decomposing corpse of an older woman. He does not tell Wendy about what he saw. Wendy gets into an argument with Jack, because she thinks Danny should be removed from the hotel, and the outraged Jack goes back into the Golden Room where a ball is taking place. He meets the ghost of Grady among the attendees, who informs him that Danny is trying to connect with Dick Hallorann in order to bring him to Overlook and advises him to “talk to” his son and wife. Meanwhile Dick is on his way to the hotel from Florida because he senses something is wrong. Wendy searches for Jack armed with a baseball bat in his workspace, and she discovers that this entire time Jack was typing the sentence “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over again. Jack confronts her and threatens her, and so she knocks him out with her bat and shuts him into a food storage room. However, Wendy and Danny are trapped, because Jack disabled the snowcat and the hotel’s radio. Grady finds Jack in the pantry and frees him. Danny keeps repeating the word “redrum” and writes in on a white door with a lipstick, but when Wendy sees it reversed in the mirror she realizes it spells out “murder”. Jack arms himself with an axe and continues to hack his way through the doors to get to Wendy and Danny. Wendy locks them in the bathroom, and lets Danny outside through the window – it is unfortunately too small for her to fit through as well. Dick arrives at the hotel but upon entering is killed by Jack. Jack then chases Danny outside into the hedge maze, but Danny manages to outsmart him and he and Wendy escape in Dick’s snowcat after Wendy runs through the hotel and encounters various ghosts. Jack freezes to death. The final scene of the film shows a black and white photograph on the wall of the hotel from a ball in the year 1921 with Jack in the middle of the attendees. In comparison with De Palma’s Carrie, Kubrick made quite a lot of changes to the details of the novel’s story for his film. Among the changes crucial for the plot are firstly the fact that in the book, Danny’s initial vision contains everything that will happen in The Overlook Hotel, not just a bloody elevator and the Grady twins and that his imaginary friend Tony is actually visible to Danny, not just a finger. Secondly, all 24

three major characters from the book were changed for the film – Jack is named John in the book and slowly spirals into insanity, while in the film he is already on the verge of insanity and it only intensifies with time; Wendy’s appearance is completely different, she is very beautiful and blonde, and also much more independent and strong than the movie Wendy; and Danny is five in the book instead of seven and is portrayed as a very smart boy who uses big words. Thirdly, different people are the centre of some scenes in the book: John tell the doctor about how he hurt Danny and not Wendy, Danny realizes what “redrum” means and not Wendy, it is Danny who sees the ghost of an old woman and also his weird reflection in the mirror in room 237 instead of John, Danny assists Wendy with locking John into the pantry and because Dick is not killed in the book, only injured, he plays a key role in saving Wendy and Danny at the end. Lastly, many important details were added or changed about the hotel, the ghosts and the end of the story. The hotel is described as much more obviously haunted; it makes many noises like creaking and banging, while in the film Kubrick chose silence to emphasise on the terrifying; the hedge maze is actually a hedge topiary and both the hedge animals and the hotel’s elevator come alive, room 237 is room 217 in the book, and most importantly, it is explained in the book that the hotel wants to take Danny’s powers. The major theme in the film is the murdered Grady family whose bloodied bodies are seen in the hallways by Danny, but in the book, the family froze in the woods outside of the hotel, and it is never specified that Delbert’s daughters were twins. Additionally, the ghost in the dog suit seen by Wendy in the film has a whole backstory in the book. The end of the story was probably the most altered part of the film. Both famous phrases from the film – “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” and “Here’s Johnny!” – never appear in the book and were added by the filmmakers, John’s weapon of choice is not an axe, but a mallet, in the book John recovers his mind long enough to tell Danny that he loves him and that he must run away and perhaps the biggest difference – John’s death takes place inside the hotel when Danny lures him near a boiler that is about to explode, and he dies by the explosion which subsequently burns the entire hotel down. The black and white photo from the end of the film is not explicitly in the book, although John encounters an unspecified photo on the wall that makes him think he is damned.

25

2.2.1 Wendy Torrence – the victim protector As discussed above, Wendy’s character and appearance are drastically different in the book and the movie. When Mr Ullman first sees Wendy, King writes: “He shook hands with Jack and nodded coolly at Wendy, perhaps noticing the way heads turned when she came through into the lobby, her golden hair spilling across the shoulders of the simple navy dress. The hem of the dress stopped a modest two inches above the knee, but you didn’t have to see more to know they were good legs.”69 In the film, Wendy is played by Shelley Duvall, a black-haired, scrawny-looking actress with a high, soft voice, and although she is not unattractive, she surely is not a sexual being. Jack keeps undermining her character, he blames her for his drinking problem, he keeps shutting her out from his inner thoughts and struggles, he even does not allow her to see his scrapbook, although there is nothing confidential about it at the time. In Magistrale’s words, Wendy is a “model of passive obedience”.70 Her character is way more submissive, shy and terrified in the film than it is in the book; these weaknesses were perhaps infamously enhanced by Kubrick’s mental torture of Duvall during the film’s making. The book Wendy stands up to Jack more firmly, and more often, she is much more decisive and fast to act, and when faced with danger, she does not lose her mind from fear, however, just like Carrie, she is still obedient, frail and introverted. Strengell identifies Wendy as a typical gothic heroine:

“As a modernized gothic heroine, Jack’s fragile and attractive wife, Wendy, who has been raised in the shadow of a voracious mother, awaits her husband’s return home from the job interview. Day’s definition of a typical feminine archetype as a character with childish qualities and with love for as well as obedience to the male figure fittingly depicts her at the beginning of the novel, where we encounter her weeping. unable to protect Danny from Jack’s violent outbursts, unstable condition, and the threat of their divorce, she has a number of reasons for her anguish. However, just as her counterparts in the Gothic classics, Wendy unwaveringly but hesitantly follows her husband to the Overlook, telling her son: “If it’s what your father wants, it’s what I want”.”71

69 Stephen King, The Shining (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011), 70. 70 Tony Magistrale, “Challenging Gender Stereotypes: King’s evolving Women,” in Stephen King: America’s Storyteller (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), 127. 71 Heidi Strengell, “The Gothic in King’s Works,” in Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 98. 26

She also analyzes allusions to fairy tales in The Shinning, especially regarding Wendy. Just like in Hansel and Gretel or Goldilocks, which are hinted at by Hallorann, Wendy is pursued by an unnatural force, something almost comical, taken straight out of a child’s imagination. She also makes a trail of breadcrumbs in order not to get lost in the enormous kitchen and awes the magnitude of its many ovens. “To underscore the imminent threat and the fairy-tale atmosphere of the novel, King has Wendy realize the ominousness of the situation: like fairy-tale creatures, the family will have to stay in the deserted Overlook, eating leftovers.”72 Danny later mentions the tale of Bluebeard and that Wendy reminds him of Bluebeard’s wife, a clear allusion to Jack’s violent nature and Wendy’s obliviousness to the threat he poses. Wendy’s true purpose, both in the book and the film, is to endure the hardships thrown at her by Overlook and to protect her son. Everything she does from the moment they arrive at the hotel, she does for Danny. She takes care of him during the day, since Jack is busy writing, talking to him and thinking of creative ways of entertainment, she is concerned for him when he shows signs of abuse, and she confronts Jack when she thinks he is a danger to Danny. Even though she is fighting for her life as well, especially in the scene where Jack threatens her after she discovers he has not been writing this entire time, their argument is still centred on Danny and his well-being. Since that moment for the entirety of the last act, her only concern is to protect and save her son – even if it meant killing her husband in the process. “Wendy is the last barrier standing between the hotel, its vamped ambassador in the form of her deranged husband, and her endangered son.”73 It is, however, not her who ultimately defeats Jack, it is Danny. Still, it is safe to say that without Wendy’s help, Danny might not have survived. Wendy is a victim of the circumstances, and she overcomes her dire situation motivated by her son’s survival. She is a mother first, a wife second and her own person last.

2.3 Clive Barker

While Stephen King was at the top of his reign in the 80’s, another brilliant young artist proven himself to be a significant part of this decade’s horror scene, as well as of the

72 Heidi Strengell, “Myths and Fairy Tales in King’s Works,” in Dissecting Stephen King: From the Gothic to Literary Naturalism (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 168. 73 Magistrale, “Challenging Gender Stereotypes: King’s evolving Women,” 128. 27

decades that were yet to come. Clive Barker, a native to England’s famous legend- making city of Liverpool, was born in 1952 and by the time he was in his thirties, he was already making his mark on the industry. His first published work was a collection of short horror stories called Books of Blood, that later gained five more entries to the list. This book elevated Barker to the front as one of the leading contemporary horror authors. He worked as a screenwriter for several movies, which he was not satisfied with at all. He decided to try on his own, and in 1987 released his directorial debut Hellraiser, based on his own novel The Hellbound Heart written a year prior. The film was widely popular with horror film audiences and filmmakers alike, gaining favourable reviews and even praise from King himself with his famous quote “I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker”.74 What made this film special were surely the creative and nausea-inducing use of body horror effects and images and the unique mix of horror and dark fantasy Barker managed to create and capture. Since Barker had experience with theatre, transforming his novel to screen was perhaps not as challenging as it would be for another amateur. He later also directed another adaptation of his own novel – Nightbreed (1990), this time not as successfully. His last directing attempt was with the thriller Lord of Illusions (1995). Since then, he ventured into filmography only scarcely, focusing instead solely on his writing. The hardships he struggled with throughout his life were a big inspiration for his work’s themes. Apart from horror, he also wrote several fantasy novels targeting young adults and children, among them being the best-selling series Abarat. He is also a visual artist and often illustrates his own books.75

2.4 Hellraiser

Hellraiser, released in 1987, is a body horror film directed by Clive Barker who is also the author of the novella it is based on – The Hellbound Heart, written and published in 1986. It stars a number of American actors and is set in America despite its British production. The film was widely popular due to its creative use of prosthetics and other VFX materials to create memorable body horror visuals, and therefore was later made into a franchise, sporting nine additional titles as of today. Clive Barker, however,

74 María Isabel Carrasco Cara Chards, “Clive Barker: The Master Of Horror Who Left Stephen King Tongue-Tied Out Of Fear”, 2017, https://culturacolectiva.com/books/clive-barker-master-of-horror. 75 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 29-30. 28

proceeded to distance himself from the franchise as more films were coming out, making a clear statement that the rest of the film series no longer contains his original vision. The films belonging to the franchise are Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), Hellraiser: Deader (2005), Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005), Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) and Hellraiser: Judgment (2018). The films also spawned a large number of comic book series and several video games.7677 The film opens with a scene where Frank Cotton buys a strange box from a trader in Morocco. After that, he can be seen performing some kind of a ritual in the attic of his house. Upon the ritual’s completion, chains with hooks emerge from all directions, get stuck in Frank’s skin and tear him into little pieces. Mysterious creatures arrive into the room and start collecting parts of his face. Sometime in the next month, Frank’s brother Larry moves into the house with his second wife, Julia. We learn from Julia’s flashbacks that she has an affair with Frank shortly before her marriage with Larry. Larry’s daughter Kirsty tells him she does not want to move in with then and rented a room for herself somewhere in the city. Larry wishes for Kirsty and Julia to get along and Kirsty promises him she will try. While moving in, Larry hurts his hand on a loose nail in the wall, the blood seeps into the floorboards, and this resurrects Frank in the attic, but only in a skeletal form. He is soon discovered by Julia, who is still obsessed with him and therefore agrees to bring him victims that when drained by Frank are able to return him to his original shape. Kirsty meets a boy named Steve and starts dating him. She later notices a strange man watching her from afar. When he visits the pet shop she works at and starts eating crickets she begins to get scared. After draining several victims, Frank only lacks a skin tissue now, and he finally explains to Julia what happened to him. He got tired of earthly sensations and believing himself to have reached the height of the pleasures this world can offer, so he began searching for something better. He finally found out there is a puzzle box that when solved, invites creatures from another dimension called the Cenobites who show the solver pleasures that no human have ever experienced. A few days later Kirsty comes to visit Julia but sees her bringing one of her victims home. She

76 See Linda Badley, “Clive Barker Writing (from) the Body,” in Writing Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996), 95-100. 77 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 29-30. 29

follows her inside and interrupts Frank’s feeding session, but before he can hurt her, she manages to throw the puzzle box outside through the window and run away in the moment of distraction that follows. Kirsty collects the box once out of the house and runs away, but soon after she faints on the street. She wakes up in a hospital, still in possession of the box. She fumbles around with it and manages to solve it accidentally. A portal opens in the hospital room, but when Kirsty follows the dark corridor, she encounters a creature called The Engineer who starts to chase her. Kirsty narrowly escapes, but the Cenobites show themselves to her and demand she comes with them into their realm since she solved the box. She negotiates an exchange of her life for Frank’s, but the condition is that Frank has to confess to escaping. Meanwhile Frank and Julia kill Larry and Frank wears his skin. Kirsty arrives at the house, distraught and looking for her father, and at first, she does not notice that it is not really him. Julia and Frank convince Kirsty Frank is dead and show her the bloody remains of Larry in the attic. She then realizes what actually happened, Julia traps her, but when Frank goes to drain Kirsty, he accidentally targets Julia and drains her instead. He then pursues Kirsty, however, before he captures her he tells her he killed Larry and the Cenobites take him away following this confession. The Cenobites then decide to take Kirsty as well, so she starts running. She pries the puzzle box from Julia’s dead hands and begins to solve it backwards, making the creatures disappear one by one. The house is falling apart with Kirsty still inside, but her boyfriend shows up and saves her. They try to burn the box, but the strange man that was following Kirsty earlier appears, steps into the fire to retrieve the box, turns into a flying creature, and carries it away. The film concludes with the boy being sold to another man by the same trader we saw at the beginning. Even though the director was the same person who wrote the novella base, he made some significant changes when adapting the story into a film. Perhaps due to the fact that the decade was filled with slasher clichés full of strong male antagonists like Michael Meyers, Jason Vorhees or Freddy Krueger who pursue young women, Barker changed the book’s lead Cenobite Pinhead from a woman into a man. He both conformed to contemporary trends and subverted them, since the usual phallic-looking weapon of the horror villains of the 80’s was, in this case, a puzzle box, in the book called Lemarchand’s Configuration, which was stroked by feminine-looking gestures in order to be closed. Barker also made crucial changes to the character’s relationships. 30

Larry in the book and is not Kirsty’s father; instead, she is his long-time friend, who is in love with him, but could they cannot be together, because Rory rejected her. In The Hellbound Heart, Julia is still severely obsessed with Frank, but their consensual sexual encounter from the film was in the book described more as a rape. Some minor changes were also made to some of the film’s details: Larry’s name in the book was Rory, Julia’s murder weapon was not a hammer, but a knife and Rory’s blood alone did not resurrect Frank, it was the blood mixed with the semen Frank left on the floor before disappearing. Frank also has a conversation with the Cenobites at the beginning of the book, and before they take him into their dimension, they make him experience a sensory overload, where he feels, sees, tastes, hears and smells everything at once, extremely enhanced, and even his memories come flooding back all at the same moment. The end of the film was critically altered as well. The Cenobites do not chase Kirsty after they claim Frank, they leave her alone and let her keep the box. The strange man who retrieves the box at the end of the film was not in the book at all. Kirsty is left wondering if there are other boxes that lead to other dimensions after she sees the faces of Frank and Julia on the box’s surface, but not the one of Rory.

2.4.1 Kirsty Cotton – the victim survivor As previously discussed, there is a major shift in Kirsty’s character in the book and the film. In the book, there is not much tying her to Rory; she might be a dedicated friend with a mild obsession, constantly mourning his decision to pick Julia over her, but she is not a crucial part of his life. In the film, however, making her Larry’s daughter makes much more sense. Especially, the scene where Kirsty discovers Larry is actually Frank, the sentence “Come to daddy.” that he says to her is much more impactful coming from her actual dad that it is coming from a friend on whom she has a crush. Moreover, her suffering has more depth in the film when she loses her father, than losing her friend like in the book. Her reaction to Rory’s death in the book is much colder – she is more impacted by the horror of Frank’s appearance than by the corpse on the floor. Otherwise, their character traits are more or less the same. Kirsty is a loving person, she cares about Larry, and she later cares about Steve, and she tries her best to get along with Larry’s current wife, Julia. She is a strong, independent character; she decides to live on her own despite there being plenty of space in Larry and Julia’s house for her. She is not a major character, however, until the last act of the film, where she proves 31

herself a crucial part of the story. She is smart and, unlike Larry, suspicious of the people around her, which ultimately leads to her discovering Frank’s secrets and putting an end to his reign of terror. Unlike Carrie or Wendy, Kirsty shows great determination and bravery when the Cenobites confront her, and not only then. She does not hesitate to go into the house when she suspects something terrible is happening inside, she resolutely goes into the portal the box opens in the hospital, she does not succumb to fear and negotiates with the Cenobites. As well as in the book, she manages to keep her wits while encountering Frank for the first time, even going as far as taunting him before she throws the box out of the window: “’One last time,’ he said to her. ‘Then I’ll kill you. Give me the box’ She weighed her chances. What had she left to lose? ‘Say please.’ she said. He regarded her quizzically, a soft growl in his throat. Then, polite as a calculating child, he said, ‘Please.’”78 Even though she does not defeat the villains, nor Frank nor the Cenobites, she leads the Cenobites to Frank – therefore being the reason he is reclaimed, and she then closes the box, temporarily getting rid of the other-worldly creatures. Her wit, courage and perseverance are the reasons she survives.

78 Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 125. 32

3. THE 1990’s

By the 1990’s the people got quite tired of the constant showcase of blood, violence, monsters, and campiness on the big screen. The times were changing, and so were the needs of the audience. Although the Cold War has ended, the problems society was facing were nowhere near gone. With the rise of the more constant newscasting in the TV and other media, people got way more exposed to the happenings in the world than ever before – and how it often is with news, they were way more often bad than they were good. The public bore witness to all the killings and disasters the world had to offer, they saw the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the first Gulf War first hand and they were indirectly a part of all the hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and droughts that ploughed the Earth. Another element that was omnipresent throughout the decade was the imminent arrival of the turn of the millennium, bringing with it menacing past prophecies about the upcoming end of the world. Even the most non-religious people were somewhat afraid, and the speculations about when and what form will the inevitable demise of humankind assume were endless. The mood among people was sombre, and so were the films of the era, both plot-wise and in visual representation.79 The central theme in which the new mood was reflected was the change of the horror genre’s most common murderer – the overexposed masked killers and frenzied monsters with no apparent motive for their killings were exchanged for the “smart and thoughtful serial killer” type of antagonist. Not only were they very well demonstrative of the current social situation, but they also served as a mirror to society itself, showing it what kind of people it is capable of producing. Since the people were overfed by the 80’s horror craze, many filmmakers decided to label their films as thrillers or psychological films rather than horror, even though these films often possessed all the elements that a horror film would. One of these films is David Fincher’s Se7en (1995), which depicts the investigation of a grim case of murders inspired by the biblical seven deadly sins where the serial killer (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) is continuously one step ahead of the detectives until the very last moments of the film. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) by Anthony Minghella also serves as a great example of the deeply personalized

79 See Karina Wilson, “1990s Horror Movies”, 2017, https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/1990s-horror- movies/#Psychos_and_Po-Mo. 33

antagonist that plays mind games with the people around him and even on a larger scale with the entire society. Other prominent films of such nature include Oliver Stone’s highly controversial Natural Born Killers (1994), Ole Bornedal’s chilling Nightwatch (1997), Spike Lee’s account about the infamous David Berkowitz and his crimes’ impact on the local community in Summer of Sam (1999), Jon Amiel’s Copycat (1995) or Phillip Noyce’s adaptation of Jeffery Deaver’s novel of the same name – The Bone Collector (1999).80 The previous decade seemingly managed to squeeze every last drop of invention from the genre, since the directors and screenwriters at the turn of the decade found themselves short of new ideas. Due to this obstruction, some of the elite filmmakers went back to the genre’s roots, way back into the past, namely to draw inspiration from the old-time classics – Dracula and Frankenstein. Francis Ford Coppola brought the world Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) where he attempted to retell the story through his own vision and despite the computer-generated imagery’s rise in popularity he implemented close to none of them into his picture. Following the same pattern of naming his film, Kenneth Branagh released Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein into theatres in 1994, proving that even such classics as the titular monster are not a sure win at the box office or for the film critics.8182 As mentioned before, the 80’s saw all the turns imaginable the slasher subgenre could take. We had all the masked and barefaced killers in all the possible situations, committing murder with every potential weapon, tearing through hordes of mutilated bodies, be it the most common teenagers or any other age, race, religious or gender category in the books. The sense of excessive abuse of the slasher was emphasised even more with the constant sequel treatment, making the contents of the series somewhat of an imitation of itself, often coming off as borderline parodies. But although the excitement from experiencing something new with slashers was dead, the nostalgia prevailed. Thus, the filmmakers tried to replicate the zany feeling they had so well- written into their memories, shift the subgenre into the new modern decade, but lean further into the comedic aspect it had obtained. Wes Craven, who was already one of the great masters of the slasher, came forward with an attempt to subvert the subgenre’s

80 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 285-287. 81 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 107-108. 82 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 127. 34

themes in Scream (1996), which is famous for the awareness the characters have about the genre they are all a part of. Other films belonging to the subgenre include Jim Gillespie’s I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Jamie Blanks’ Urban Legend (1998) and Robert Kurtzman’s Wishmaster (1997).83 The decade arrived and with it the end of the entire millennium. No one knew what was going to happen once we cross into the next century, but some people claimed to have an idea. Religious cults centred around the end of the world were forming rapidly, some of them even committing mass suicides to supposedly transcend into another world and avoid the gruesome events of the apocalypse. Regular religious people started to strengthen their beliefs by practising their religions more. Even people who did not believe in anything were beginning to panic as the media kept mentioning the past proclamations of various prophets about the end of times over and over again. Bunkers were being made, food was being hoarded, weapons were being stocked, and philosophical questions about life, death, and the in-betweens were being asked. Suddenly people were wondering about what was going to come after we die more than ever before if there even was anything after death in the first place, and if there was, whether it would look like the religious texts imagined it would. Many talented filmmakers chose to play into this worldwide panic and made their own rendering of the afterlife, mostly leaning into the horror genre in the process. M. Night Shyamalan debuted with The Sixth Sense (1999) which was nominated for six Academy Awards and immediately established him as a prominent director. The film deals with the compassion we might find even after death and the burdens of our actual life we must face once it ends.84 Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder (1990) puts itself above a typical horror narrative while following Jacob Singer’s journey towards death. Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden” was adapted to screen by Bernard Rose under the name of Candyman (1992), and it dealt not with religious beliefs but with folklore ones. An urban legend comes to life, and a student graduate must decide between living in shame and hiding from crimes she did not commit or an immortal existence with a vengeful spirit.85

83 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 294-295. 84 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 292. 85 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 140-141. 35

The horror genre might have been considered depleted by the general audiences; nevertheless, a rather large portion of filmmakers was willing to try their luck with making new entries into the genre by implementing new elements, trying new and original approaches and applying postmodern principles on the already existing tropes and formulas. The most prominent artist who focused on bringing something new into the industry and who was already an established horror film director from the 70’s and 80’s was Wes Craven. He was already very well aware of the fact that people were tired of the ever-repeating storylines the genre had to offer up until this time since he himself played a huge role in creating some of the juggernauts that brought horror into the spotlight of contemporary culture. The above-mentioned Scream (1996) was filled to the brim with intertextuality, even making references to Craven’s earlier films, and served as a parody of the genre as the characters were familiar with horror films and kept saying out loud what usually happens in such a film in the same situation they are currently experiencing and either following the same fate despite their knowledge or overcoming these situations because of it. There was, however, another film from the auteur that used this self-reflexive attitude which came out two years prior: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994). Being the seventh and final instalment in the franchise, it does not directly follow the franchise in the plot. Instead, the story assumes a unique meta form as it follows the actors that starred in the previous movies, the main villain is a fictional character in this film that transcends the border between fiction and reality and becomes a threat to the actual cast – making the plot a fiction within fiction. Another massively popular director in the genre was none other than John Carpenter, the mastermind behind such influential pieces like Halloween (1978), The Thing (1982), The Fog (1980), Christine (1983) or They Live (1988), who also decided to apply postmodern elements to his 1990’s work, namely In the Mouth of Madness (1994). In this film, a man investigates the disappearance of a famous writer only to realize he is the main character in his latest book that brings the end of humankind. Carpenter also contributed to the rise of pastiche in the horror industry with Vampires (1998) mixing horror with western and action elements. Robert Rodriguez did a similar thing in his From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Ron Underwood’s Tremors (1990) successfully paid homage to the 80’s while simultaneously parodying them, Peter Jackson was just starting his career with Braindead (1992), one of the goriest zombie films ever made that used comedy as punctuation for what was going on the screen, both Tim Burton and 36

Neil Jordan blended horror with gothic elements, fantasy and romance in Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Interview with the Vampire (1994) and Sam Reimi took dark fantasy horror and combined it with comedy in his third instalment to the Evil Dead trilogy – Army of Darkness (1992).8687

3.1 Stephen King – the dividing decade

By the 1990’s, King was already more than just an established writer. The impact he was making on the pop culture in the 80’s only intensified in the next decade. Many of his books were already a set part of schools’ curriculum, even though some academics have protested so much, that the vast amount of schools were not allowed to teach King. His books were redefining the corpus, and the pace in which he was publishing books did not slow down in the slightest. However, the content of his 90’s stories was quite different from his previous work. Magistrale indicates: “In contrast to this macrocosmic examination of America frequently considered from the off-ramps of its interstate highway system, the books that were published in the 1990s show evidence of King’s ability to produce highly circumscribed, tightly wrought narratives bearing few of his earlier epic tendencies toward narrative and thematic expansiveness.”88 He further puts in contrast his epic, layered novels from the previous decades like The Shining and The Stand with his 90’s novels Misery, Dolores Claiborne and Gerald’s Game, in which there are fewer characters who are more intimate with their audience, and there is scarcely a change of the scenic background. The sales of King’s novels in the 90’s dropped since the dedicated horror fans were not quite prepared for such intimacy and the lack of classic horror themes. Still, the Hollywood film adaptations this decade saw were a different story – most of them gained major critical acclaim and are to this day still considered among the best films based on King’s work ever made – most notably Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Apt Pupil (1997) and The Green Mile (1999). Several of these films and the actors that starred in them were nominated for Academy Awards and even won, something the film

86 See Wilson, “1990s Horror Movies”. 87 See Isabel Pinedo, “Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film,” Journal of Film and Video 48 (1996): 17-31. 88 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 16. 37

critics and academics of that time could not imagine a work of a predominantly horror author could achieve.89

3.2 Misery

Misery is a psychological horror novel by Stephen King published in 1987. In 1990 it was made into a feature film by Rob Reiner, a director who had already previously worked with Stephen King on another adaptation of his work – Stand by Me (1986). The film combines the serial killer trend from the 90’s with the deconstructing of the slasher genre in a unique blend with a dramatic atmosphere. Kathy Bates won an Academy Award for Best Actress at the 63rd Academy Awards for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes, and so Misery (1990) to this day remains the only film based on King’s work to win an Oscar. The film also launched her career to the next level, since she was a relatively unknown actress before its release. The novel was also adapted into several theatre productions, the earliest being in 1992 by Simon Moore and the latest American production was a Broadway play by William Goldman in 2015.90 It explores the character of Paul Sheldon, a successful writer most known for his Victorian romance novels with the main character of Misery Chastain, targeted mainly on female audiences. Paul recently submitted what was supposed to be the last novel in the series where he kills off the main character, mainly because he is tired of the character and genre and he wants to start writing more serious novels. He finishes a manuscript for his new detective book and sets off home to New York from his writing place in the Silver Creek cottage in the mountains. He gets caught in a terrible snowstorm and crashes his car, but a mysterious figure saves him. He wakes up with his body severely injured in his saviour’s home, and she introduces herself to him. Her name is Annie Wilkes; she is a former nurse and his number one fan. She even has a pet pig named Misery. At first, Paul is very grateful and lets Annie read his new manuscript. She gets angered by the frequent profanity in it and has a rage fit, spilling the soup she was feeding to Paul on him. Soon, Paul observes that Annie is mentally unstable and has a tendency for violent outbursts. When Annie buys his latest novel Misery’s Child in the store, she is at first delighted by the perfection of Paul’s writing genius, but finally, after she learns Misery dies at the end, she snaps into a frenzy and

89 See Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 16-21. 90 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 186-188. 38

almost hurts Paul in the process. She also reveals to him that nobody is aware of his location and locks him in the bedroom. The next day, Annie forces Paul to burn his manuscript as a punishment, and when he gets well enough, she insists God sent him to her for a reason, and that reason is she helps him write a new book titled Misery’s Return, where he brings Misery back from the dead. Meanwhile, local town sheriff Buster is made aware by Paul’s publisher that he is missing and starts to search for him. He finds the place where the car crashed, and upon closer examination of the car, he realizes someone broke into the car from the outside. Once in a wheelchair, Paul manages to obtain a stray hairpin and uses it to unlock the room’s door and explore the house when Annie drives to town. He discovers a stock of painkillers Annie has been feeding him and takes a number of them to hide in his room. He tries to poison Annie when they have dinner together, but she accidentally spills all of her wine on the table. He later finds a red scrapbook titled Memory Lane, in which there are numerous photos and newspaper clippings with the information that Annie’s parents were mysteriously killed and Annie was later accused of murdering several infants in a hospital but was ultimately released as innocent due to lack of evidence. That night he is visited by Annie who forces him sedatives, and the next morning, she tells him she knows he has been going out of his room and breaks both of his legs with a sledgehammer. Buster finds old newspapers with Annie's trial in the library and realizes she quoted the Misery novels in court. After talking to the local store owner and finding he sold a big amount of writing paper to her, Buster visits Annie in her home. When he finds Paul in the basement, Annie shoots him with a shotgun. She then tells Paul they must die together, and he agrees to do so after they finish the novel in order to bring the character of Misery back into the world. When she goes to fetch his wheelchair, he hides a container of lighter fluid in his trousers. Once the manuscript is finished, Paul asks Annie to prepare him his usual ritual of a cigarette and a glass of champagne. When she comes back, he lights the manuscript on fire in front of her, and when she rushed to save it, he smashes her head with the typewriter, and they start fighting violently with Paul shoving the ashes of the burnt novel into Annie’s mouth and Annie shooting him in the shoulder with her revolver. When Annie stands up to attack Paul, he manages to trip her over, and she hits her head on the typewriter. Thinking Annie is dead, he starts to crawl out of the house, but she jumps on top of him in her last attempt 39

to kill him, and he strikes her in the head with a pig-shaped doorstop. Eighteen months later Paul meets his agent in a restaurant, and they talk about the release of his previously planned detective novel. He refuses to write a non-fiction book about his captivity, due to the fact that he still suffers trauma from his experience. The film ends with Paul seeing a vision of Annie coming to his table, but it turns out to be just a waitress, who tells him she is his number one fan. Magistrale says about the story that it “is an extreme version of the issue that shadows all of his writer-protagonists, as well as King personally: how to balance the creative impulse with a rabid fan base that often in its obsession with its favorite author fails to respect basic perimeters of privacy.”91 Paul Sheldon’s story parallels in certain aspects King’s own; he too is under constant threat from obsessed fans that, on several occasions, violated his and his family’s privacy. In order for the film to be more approachable to the audiences, however, Reiner had to make some changes to the story – mainly to the character of Annie Wilkes. In the book, her mental condition and her subsequent actions are much more severe and brutal than in the film. Instead of breaking Paul’s legs, she cuts off his left foot with an axe and later cuts off his right thumb with an electric knife after Paul refuses to write. The character of sheriff Buster is not present in the book, but there is a state trooper who visits Annie’s house investigating Paul’s disappearance – and again, instead of being shot with a shotgun, he is stabbed by Annie with a sharp cross and then ran over with a lawnmower. These two scenes were considered too graphic for the big screen and were changed by the filmmaking team. Moreover, during the final struggle, after Annie hits her head on a mantelpiece, she crawls outside all the way to the barn for a chainsaw with which she intends to kill Paul before she finally succumbs to her head injury. We can also read more about her past in the book, as well as read a part of the actual book Paul is writing, making it a book within a book. The very end of the story also differs quite significantly, since Paul does not actually burn the manuscript of Misery’s Return, only a decoy, and is able to publish it after. This allows for the reader to think of Annie as a winner of the story because her beloved Misery keeps on living.

91 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 14. 40

3.2.1 Annie Wilkes – the villain eradicator Annie Wilkes is a villain through and through. She is mentally unstable and obviously struggles with some kind of mental illness, she enjoys torturing people and killing them, and this is also her primary way of dealing with not getting what she wants. Her extreme obsessiveness and possessiveness often leak through her words and she is prone to frequent violent outbursts. She is a serial killer, distanced from other people’s psychological processes and emotions, determined to achieve her goals no matter what. This is quite a fresh change of the typically male horror film villain from the decades prior, who prey on young, female victims. Clover writes: “Misery offers an interesting turn on the convention. Here the ‘feminine’ or masochistic position is occupied by a man (one indeed with broken legs) and the position of sadistic, gender-disturbed, serial murderer (who “adores” the object of her attentions in much the way slasher killers sometimes “adore” their female victims) is played by a woman. It is an arrangement that allows for a particularly prolonged and brutal sadistic reversal.”92 Therefore, similarly to Margaret White, Annie is a masculine figure despite being a female. There is also an underlying connection with Annie’s appearance and her maternal instincts towards Paul. According to Strengell, Annie can be considered an object of “incestuous desire”.93

“Like other incestuous mothers in King, Annie Wilkes is a big woman who seems to have ‘no feminine curves at all’. […] A nurse by profession, Annie is doubly linked to the maternal sphere. Having had access to drugs, she turns Paul into a drug addict, and he becomes as dependent on her as an infant on its mother. On the other hand, a sexual tension becomes obvious when Annie brings Paul pills for his pain and he has to suck them off her fingers in a parody of both a nursing child and sexual activity.”94

Annie values her independence; she lives alone on a secluded farm and does not have a figure in her life she would respect or that would have authority over her, yet, on the other hand, she craves for people to be dependent on her and she herself is dominated by the fictional character of Misery. Unlike other King’s female characters and horror film women in general, Annie’s stand in the story does not shift – she holds

92 Carol J. Clover, “Her Body, Himself,” in Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 63. 93 See Strengell, “The Gothic in King’s Works,” 49. 94 Strengell, “The Gothic in King’s Works,” 49. 41

power for the entirety of the story up until her death. Despite the novel not being a feminist text, Annie’s power, independence, intelligence and determination can be interpreted as feminist traits. Hanson even argues that Annie, in fact, helps Paul, making him way more productive and creative under the immense pressure.95

3.3 Thomas Harris

William Thomas Harris III is a Tennessee-native writer, born in 1940 in the town of Jackson. He is most famous for his series concerning the character of Hannibal Lecter, and to this date, he wrote two more novels outside of the Hannibal universe: Black Sunday in 1975 and most recently in 2019 Cari Mora. Harris is a famously reclusive character as he did not allow any interviews between the years 1976 and 2019 and little was known about his life and process of writing at that time. His philosophy is to say everything in his books rather than in interviews. He studied at Baylor University in Texas, where he married his first wife. They had a daughter Anne together and divorced in 1968. Harris stayed unmarried ever since, but he has a long-time partner Pace Barnes, who worked as an editor and the head publisher and with whom he lives. After school, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Waco Tribune-Herald and later in Associated Press in New York. Harris has a great passion for cooking and even underwent the Le Cordon Bleu exams, which is perhaps reflected in Hannibal Lecter’s culinary love, as well as Harris’ drawing hobby. He was recently revealed as a great nature lover, and a regular volunteer in the Miami based Pelican Harbor Seabird Station for over twenty years. He remained very close to his mother, speaking to her every day and letting her read and criticise his work until her death in 2011. His work is known for being thoroughly solid in factual details since Harris puts great effort into research before writing. His psychological horror novels are to this day considered among the best the genre has to offer.9697

95 See Clare Hanson, “Stephen King: Powers of Horror,” in American Horror Fiction: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King, ed. Brian Docherty (Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1990), 152. 96 See Phoebe Hoban, “The Silence of the Writer,” New York 24 (1991): 48-50. 97 See Jason Cowley, “Thomas Harris: creator of a monstrous hit”, 2006, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/19/fiction.thomasharris. 42

3.4 The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs is a 1988 novel by Thomas Harris and is the second entry in his series about the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter – the first being a 1981 novel Red Dragon. It was followed by two sequels: Hannibal and Hannibal Rising published in 1999 and 2006, respectively. Each of the series’ novels received one or multiple film adaptations, and elements and parts of the plot were implemented into the NBC television series Hannibal (2013-2015). Jonathan Demme adapted the second novel into The Silence of the Lambs (1991), a film containing perhaps the most famous portrayal of Hannibal Lecter performed by Anthony Hopkins, making it the most memorable serial killer film of the 1990’s, with the ‘killer on the lose’ trope also resembling a slasher film. The film won five Academy Awards – for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay – at the 64th Academy Awards.98 The film examines the character of Clarice Starling, a student at the FBI Academy at Quantico. Jack Crawford of the Behavioural Science Unit calls her to his office and assigns her to interview the infamous serial killer and cannibal – Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The department believes that since he used to be a psychiatrist, he can be of help with the case of Buffalo Bill, a serial killer that captures and kills young, robust female victims and then skins them and disposes of them in the river. She travels to Baltimore where she meets with Frederick Chilton, the head of the Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and he lets her see Lecter. He is gentlemanly to her until he gets annoyed by her attempts at forcing him to fill out a questionnaire and he tells her to leave. When leaving through the corridor, one of the inmates throws his semen at her. Lecter, visibly appalled by this, calls Clarice back and instructs her to find his former patient. She then discovers a storage shed and inside a decapitated head of a man with an acheronita styx moth inside his throat. She comes back to Lecter who confirms that his patient is linked to Buffalo Bill and offers to create a profile of him based on his case file if in turn he gets transferred away from Chilton.

98 See Raphael Albuquerque De Boer, “The Dangerous Triangle in The Silence of the Lambs: Queer Bill, Cannibal Lecter and the Starling Final Girl,” in Who Is Going to Save the Final Girl? The Politics of Representation in the Films Halloween and The Silence of the Lambs (Florianópolis: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, 2014), 92. 43

Catherine Martin, a daughter of a Senator gets kidnapped by Buffalo Bill, which leads Crawford to authorize Clarice to make a false deal with Dr. Lecter which contains an exchange of information for his presumed transfer. Lecter, however, wants a quid pro quo from Clarice, her personal information for his clues about the case. Clarice tells the story of how her father was killed when she was ten years old. Chilton eavesdrops on the conversation and tells Lecter the offer was a scam before making him an offer himself. Lecter is then transferred to Memphis where he meets Senator Ruth Martin, whom he insults and provides misleading clues on the case, saying Buffalo Bill’s real name is Louis Friend. Clarice deciphers the inaccuracy of the clues including the name’s anagram “iron sulfide”, also referred to as fool’s gold, which is a mockery from Lecter. She meets him in Tennessee and asks for the truth, which Lecter refuses to tell since according to him, all she needs to solve the case is in the case file. He demands more information about Clarice’s personal life, and she recounts a story from her childhood where she awakened one morning to the screaming of lambs being slaughtered, and she took one trying to save it and ran away from her caretakers’ home. Dr. Lecter contemplates if Clarice is motivated to solve the case so she would stop having nightmares where she still hears the lambs scream. After Chilton interrupts them and escorts Clarice outside, Lecter kills his guards, disguises himself as one of them with putting his cut off face on his own and is taken to the ambulance in front of the building, after which he disappears. Clarice thoroughly analyzes the files, and after putting together that Buffalo Bill had to know his first victim, she travels to her hometown and investigates the people he knew or with whom he was in contact. This leads her to the discovery that he was a tailor, and he is attempting to create a skin suit for himself. She calls Crawford, but he tells her he is already on his way to make an arrest since he checked Lecter’s notes with hospitals that offer a sex change and found the name of Jame Gumb, who was rejected by one of the hospitals. The house Crawford’s team enters is empty, and at the same time, Clarice enters the home of Jack Gordon as a part of her investigation. She quickly realizes he is actually Jame Gumb when she spots a moth flying in the room. She draws her gun, but Gumb runs to the basement, where after pursuing him, Clarice finds Catherine still alive, trapped in a well. The lights are then turned off and Clarice fumbles in the dark while being watched by Gumb’s night vision goggles. When he prepares to shoot her, she hears the cock of his revolver and shoots him on the spot. 44

Clarice is made a special agent, and during the celebration, she receives a call from Hannibal Lecter, who asks her if the lambs stopped screaming and tells her he is not going to go after her. He asks if she could do the same, but Clarice answers that she cannot return the favour. Lecter apologizes that they cannot talk longer since he is ‘having an old friend for dinner’, and hangs up. The film ends with Frederick Chilton getting off the plane and Lecter following him into the crowd. While Demme’s film is quite a faithful adaptation of the novel, there were several small changes to the details of the story – in particular, to Clarice’s past. In the novel, her father got killed partly due to his own mistake as he did not properly unlock his gun, and on the farm, Clarice did not steal a lamb, instead, she took a blind horse and alternated between riding and leading it until she reached an orphanage in Bozeman where they let her stay, and the local ranch kept the horse as a kid attraction. The end of the story also slightly differs; we do not know for certain if Clarice graduated, she does receive a call from Dr. Lecter, but he does not stalk Chilton at the airport, instead, he lives opposite a hospital specializing in plastic surgery so he could freely walk around town with bandages on his face without arousing suspicion. Moreover, while the novel frequently refers to the events of Red Dragon, the film is not connected to the previous novel whatsoever. Even though we cannot hear Clarice’s inner monologue in the film, unlike in the book, Demme did an excellent job of portraying her feelings and struggles visually.

3.4.1 Clarice Starling – the heroine guardian The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines the hero or heroine as “the main character in a narrative or dramatic work.”99 Baldick also mentions that the term protagonist is often used instead to establish that the character might not be morally superior and possess admirable courage.100 However, in the case of this thesis, the heroine characters do possess heroic traits to some extent. Clarice Starling has a troubled past, which obviously motivates her to become the guardian of the law and capturer of dangerous individuals. She works in an environment surrounded by men, where she constantly has to fight for her place among them. She is also subjugated to their belittling sexual remarks and prying gazes,

99 Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 112. 100 See Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 112. 45

especially Dr. Chilton’s, who upon meeting her for the first time utters “We’ve had a lot of detectives here, but I can’t remember one so attractive.”101 followed by a snarky remark of “So the FBI is going to the girls like everything else, ha, ha.”102 Even her superior, Jack Crawford, often seems to behave degradingly towards Clarice, particularly with how he behaves as if he is an all-knowing creature. Clover argues that this and other similar films – “come awfully close to being slasher movies for yuppies – well made, well-acted, and well-conceived versions of the familiar story of a female victim-hero who squares off against, and finally blows away, without male help, a monstrous oppressor.”103 She further says this is so because of Buffalo Bill, who represents a typical slasher killer, despite the film’s focus on his sexuality, and puts him in contrast with Clarice, who is striving to be more masculine and is not interested in sex. However, we could argue that the character of Buffalo Bill is not the central point of the story, it is Clarice who pursues him and the roles are reversed, wherein the slasher film it would be vice versa. Clarice is not the typical ‘final girl’ who has to endure the male antagonist’s torment and emerge victorious in her attempts to escape. She is the dominant element between these two characters, she is the hunter, and he is the prey. Even among her male superiors and co-workers, she never succumbs to their advances, she is polite but persistent, and she keeps her sense of self. While Clarice is determined, driven and logical, she is also young and inexperienced, something that triggers Dr. Lecter upon first meeting her. This meeting forms an unlikely bond between them which then helps Clarice become more self- confident and analytical – it is the trust Lecter invests in her abilities that ultimately lead her to solve the case and enable her to grow as a person. She might be put into an inferior position towards Lecter, as he plays mind games with her and treats her as his student, and her superior Jack Crawford puts her into a similar position when he uses her as bait, but neither of these experiences discourages Clarice from her goal. Creed argues that while the film’s ending “might offer a more ‘positive’ heroine to female viewers, it closes down the possibility of exploring the nature of perverse female

101 Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs, (London: Arrow Books, 2019), 9. 102 Harris, The Silence of the Lambs, 9. 103 Carol J. Clover, “Afterword,” in Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 232. 46

desire.”104 She compares Clarice’s and Lecter’s relationship to that of a father and a daughter and explains that Freud would not view this relationship as monstrous, but natural.105 Nevertheless, however the viewer decides to perceive their relationship, it is Lecter who is conclusively her guardian in her journey towards the final sentence from the book – “But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs.”106

104 Barbara Creed, “Freud’s Worst Nightmare: Dining with Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” in Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud’s Worst Nightmare, ed. Steven Jay Schneider (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 202. 105 See Creed, “Dining with Dr. Hannibal Lecter,” 202. 106 Harris, The Silence of the Lambs, 421. 47

4. THE 2000’s

At the beginning of the millennium, the mood of the people abruptly shifted. What started as a slow realization that the end of times is nowhere near and humanity might actually be safe form the death-striking higher powers, quickly escalated into a worldwide panic, horror and subsequent paranoia with the events of 9/11. The World Trade Center attack was highly televised, creating the feeling of imminent danger with devastatingly real dimensions. The terrorist threat was very much a real thing that was a part of everyone’s daily life for quite some time after the attacks. The horror industry was facing one of the biggest backlashes in its history; people did not want to see more terror on screen and the audiences completely discarded the films scheduled to be released around the time of the tragedy. The film creators, however, quickly recovered from the received blow and by the half of the decade, they managed to reconnect with the audiences and make the genre popular again. Nevertheless, the main topics of the previous decade had to be abandoned, especially the serial and mass killer trope which hit too close to home for far too many people. There were two films released before the events of 9/11 that dealt with plane crashes and are today seen as somewhat of a prophecy for what was about to happen – Final Destination (2000) about an unsuccessful attempt to cheat death and Donnie Darko (2001). Both are now considered cult classics, especially Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, which dealt with philosophical, psychological and scientific problems that were so complex and convoluted that people have not figured out the exact meaning of the movie even today. Since other world calamities were also now televised the entire day every day, people were constantly confronted with images of war-stricken areas and soldiers in action. This translated onto horror film screens as a military-themed subgenre with entries such as Dog Soldiers (2002) and Nightwatch (2002) which used elements of the supernatural to subvert the horrors of war.107 In the new century nearly everyone on the planet now had access to the internet and with it to a much more extensive selection of international cinema. The attention was drawn mainly to Asia, more specifically the eastern countries like Japan, South Korea or China. The cinematographers there focused more on the local folklore and

107 See Karina Wilson, “2000s Horror Movies”, 2017, https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/2000s-horror- movies/. 48

consistency with the culture than current trends in the industry and so managed to encapsulate a unique atmosphere of terror only achievable by these filmmakers alone. Naturally, the Western part of the world wanted to try and imitate this phenomenon, and they decided the best way to do so was to remake the movies made in Asia for western audiences. It soon turned out, however, that adapting Asian folklore and filmmaking style was particularly hard due to the lack of common knowledge about Asian culture among the general population. The majority of directors failed to translate the atmosphere into their remakes, not quite grasping the nuances crucial for the film to be executed successfully. These attempts include Walter Salles’ Dark Water (2005), David Moreau and Xavier Palud’s The Eye (2008), Jim Sonzero’s Pulse (2006) with a screenplay by Wes Craven, Eric Valette tried his luck with the legendary Japanese horror movie director Takashi Miike’s 2003 film and made a critically unsuccessful remake of the same name – One Missed Call (2008), the Guard Brothers’ The Uninvited (2009) – a remake of the brilliant Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) by Kim Jee- Woon – was perhaps the best example of just how drastically can the remake miss the meaning and atmosphere of the original film. The director of the first film Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) Takashi Shimizu was hired to do the American remake called The Grudge (2004) and proved that even in the hands of an expert the topic and style does not necessarily translate well into a different setting with American actors. The only notable remake that gained appraise by critics and audiences alike was Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002) which creatively adopted the essence of the Japanese original and carefully applied it to Seattle landscape and people.108 The trend of remaking films did not, however, stop at the international cinema. The area that had even a bigger tendency of being reused and reimagined was that of older, initially mostly American films. The filmmakers in the new century felt a strong need to translate the themes of 70’s and 80’s movies into more modern settings. These films were yet to prove problematic since a lot of them were already deemed to be cult classics, beloved by horror film audiences of all ages and nationalities – and so the viewers did not necessarily crave a modern redoing of them, unlike the ambitious filmmakers. Therefore, most of these films were not popular with the fans of the original movies or horror film fans in general; the overt modernization did not do the

108 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 261-263. 49

traditional themes any good, the cheesy acting styles of the 2000’s did not fit the atmosphere of the originals, and the glossy visuals took away the campiness that defined the previous decades in filmography – overall the critics gave these films mainly negative reviews. Marcus Nispel made an attempt with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and later with Friday the 13th (2009), both of which were considered below average in quality and necessity since they heavily relied on gore and had little to contribute to the original plot-wise. Likewise, Rob Zombie took it upon himself to make a new version of the old classic with his Halloween (2007) and similarly did not bring anything new into the formula. Other such films were The Amityville Horror (2005) by Andrew Douglas, The Omen (2006) by John Moore, Black Christmas (2006) by Glen Morgan, House of Wax (2005) by Jaume Collet-Serra or The Fog (2005) by Rupert Wainwright. Alexandre Aja’s remake of Wes Craven’s film The Hills Have Eyes (2006) received mixed reviews, but still was not considered a significant entry into the genre. On the other hand, there was one film that exceeded everyone’s expectations and gained favourable reviews, even a positive commentary by the original director himself: The Dawn of the Dead (2004) by Zack Snyder. This movie followed the initial plot but brought many new elements to the market, including the redoing of the zombie concept, which elevated the film into another dimension.109 There was one subgenre in horror that significantly grew in popularity in the 2000’s – the found footage subgenre. Its popularity was launched by the release of The Blair Witch Project (1999) at the end of the previous decade. What helped considerably with the audience’s intrigue was the marketing strategy by the directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez that advertised the film as an actual found footage, even going as far as proclaiming the people featuring in the film as missing by the police. Despite the fact that this information was later disproved, found footage films still provided a new level of authenticity to horror, as the viewers perceived themselves to be a part of the story directly and felt as they were watching something truly forbidden. The success of this film was followed by Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity (2007), John Erick Dowdle’s The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007) or his remake of the Spanish horror movie Rec (2007)

109 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 261-263. 50

that he renamed to Quarantine (2008) and Matt Reeves’ monster feature Cloverfield (2008).110 The brand new century brought with itself a brand new technology. This contributed to visual effects in horror films attaining a new coat, and more realistic images could be created with the use of computer-generated imagery. Prompted by the leaked stories and footage of the US military violating the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 and inflicting torture upon war prisoners, the horror film directors used the opportunity to transcribe these images of torture to the big screen. The creative use of materials for special effects from the 80’s and partially the 90’s was swapped with computer effects, allowing for an additional layer of realism. Gone were the funny subtexts, cheesy one-liners and gross-out factors of the past films – the new version of amusement was trying to be as realistic as possible. The emphasis shifted from plot and character development to gore, mutilation, violence, nudity, and torture. Even though the splatter film was a subgenre of horror existing since the late 1950’s that more or less dealt with the same motifs, this new phenomenon achieved a new degree of authenticity. Fittingly, David Edelstein came up with the term “torture porn”, suggesting that the films’ structure was similar to pornography, but the main attraction was not sex; instead, it was torturing people with attention to excruciating details. At first, it was a worldwide sensation, and since major film labels stood by these films, they were widely available to viewers in countless movie theatres. The most financially successful films – and later franchises – were Saw (2004) created by James Wan and Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005). Rob Zombie’s directorial debut House of 1000 Corpses (2003) taps into the torture porn territory; however, its follow up The Devil’s Rejects (2005) adopts the subgenre as its own entirely. Helping with the American reception of these films was the New French Extremity movement that was a massive topic for discussion among film critics and film directors at that time and was stirring audiences’ curiosity. Nevertheless, this subgenre’s content got exhausted quite quickly – Greg McLean’s Australian film Wolf Creek (2005) already gained mixed reception, and by the second half of the decade, torture porn was more a matter of individual standalone films rather than a single thematically connected stream. A controversial film belonging to the subgenre would pop up now and then, capturing people’s attention for a while before

110 See “A Short History of Found Footage Horror”, 2014, https://www.volta.ie/#!/page/509/a-short- history-of-found-footage-horror. 51

fading into the industry’s background. The fall of torture porn contributed to the trend of direct-to-DVD films and sequels that were either very low quality or too gory to be streamed; much like the lack of censorship did for the direct-to-video films in the 1980’s.111 Everything was undergoing a major shift with the beginning of the new decade, and so were the classic themes from the past the directors decided to return to yet again. Its most obvious manifestation was in the zombie subgenre – the zombie was no longer just a corpse coming back to life by whatever forces were in play, now people could become zombie-like with the help of a virus as well. Reflecting the panic surrounding the SARS coronavirus outbreak at the beginning of the 2000’s and simultaneously trying to lighten the mood, zombie and virus outbreak films were both serious and comical. Danny Boyle brought fresh air into the tired subgenre with 28 Days Later (2002) where he used one of the first examples of a fast-moving zombie and created a unique atmosphere of fear and paranoia, George A. Romero released the fourth, the fifth and the sixth and final instalment in his Dead series Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009) all in this decade, Francis Lawrence adapted Richard Matheson’s novel into I Am Legend (2007) and Paul W. S. Anderson based his movie Resident Evil (2002) on a video game series of the same name. Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever (2002) was already on the more comedic side of the spectrum, although it contained a considerable amount of gore and violence. However, Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland (2009) were purely horror comedies.112 Ghosts were given treatment mainly in foreign cinema, namely the aforementioned Asia where the concept of a ghost was compliant with local culture and folklore, therefore proving challenging to transfer to American screens – still, the remakes of these movies were almost entirely the only source of ghosts in horror cinema in the 2000’s with an occasional exception here and there. One such exception worth mentioning is The Others (2001), an English-language Spanish film by Alejandro Amenábar which gained considerable critical acclaim.113 Since the vampire and the werewolf trope found its forte in the fantasy romance genre in the 2000’s, not many directors were looking to make horror film contributions using these topics – and

111 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 314-315. 112 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 347. 113 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 141. 52

those who tried were not very successful, apart from a handful of films like 30 Days of Night (2007), Daybreakers (2009) or Ginger Snaps (2000).114115 Alien themed films were still quite popular since the directors found an excellent opportunity to comment on contemporary social issues using the alien motif. The results were films like Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009), Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of H. G. Wells’ classic novel The War of the Worlds (2005) and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs (2002).116117 The turn of the century also saw the rise of a new monster – a humanoid mutant. These monsters were not quite zombies nor virus epidemic victims, but they still craved for another human’s flesh. This type of monster was made accessible in films like Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers (2001), Rob Schmidt’s Wrong Turn (2003), Neil Mashall’s The Descent (2005) significant for its all-female cast or another video game based entry with countless creatively designed humanoid creatures – Silent Hill (2006) by Christophe Gans.118119

4.1 Stephen King – the digital era

By the turn of the millennium, King was already tired of the orthodox publishing methods and was experimenting with new directions his work’s publishing might take. He tried releasing his first novel of the 2000’s – The Plant – via the web in six parts, hoping the fans would voluntarily pay for each part, but his experiment failed, since by the time the novel was almost completely released, only less than half of the readers were actually paying for downloading it. He also released his 2000 novella Riding the Bullet as an e-book. This decade was tainted by King’s horrific car accident from 1999, when he was hit by a driver leaving him with a broken hip, severely fractured leg, broken ribs and a chipped spine, serious head injuries and a punctured lung. His recovery was long and tedious and psychologically damaged him in the process; he felt like he might not ever write again. He has publically contemplated if he did not have anything more to say and whether he should retire. Nevertheless, he soon returned to his writing career. In June 2000 he published The New Yorker essay “On Impact”, where he recounted: “For me, there have been times when the act of writing has been an act of

114 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 322. 115 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 331. 116 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 281-282. 117 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 292. 118 See Wilson, “2000s Horror Movies”. 119 See Hutchings, Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema, 149. 53

faith, a spit in the eye of despair. Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”120 In this decade, the speed of King’s writing partially halted, but he still managed to release at least one book a year. He published two non-fiction books dealing with his process of writing. He also stated the internet would, in his opinion, soon become the main platform for his work. Equally concerned and fascinated by the speed of technological progress, he wrote the novel Cell in 2006 about the dangers of mobile phones. His 2008 novel Duma Key, the main character also suffers severe injuries from a horrible accident. The longest novel since the release of his fourteen hundred page novel It – Under the Dome – was the last King book published this decade.121

4.2 The Mist

“The Mist”, a short story written by Stephen King, was originally published in 1980 as a part of the Dark Forces: New Stories of Suspense and Supernatural Horror anthology edited by Kirby McCauley. It was later included in King’s collection of short stories Skeleton Crew (1985), where it served as the longest entry. In 2007, it was adapted into a feature film directed by Frank Darabont, and it was subsequently published as a standalone print to assist with the film’s promotion. The film received predominantly positive reviews from the critics, and while the effects used might be considered dated today, the creativity with which the monsters were brought on screen is certainly praiseworthy. It also contains elements of military-themed horror, torture porn resembling body horror corresponding with the 80’s, and a modernized play on classic killer creatures. The novella also served as a source for the recent ambiguous television series The Mist (2017), where the creators opted to focus on the characters of the story and did not show any of the other-worldly creatures. Darabont’s film maps the events happening in Bridgton, Maine, after an ominous-looking mist sets on the town. The main protagonist, David Drayton, sets out into the town’s supermarket with his son Billy and his neighbour Brent to buy supplies after their house was damaged by a thunderstorm the night prior. Before they leave, they see a massive cloud of what seems to be mist slowly rolling across the lake. By the time they arrive at the store’s parking lot, the mist has reached the town. Inside the

120 Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 24. 121 See Magistrale, “The Writer’s Life: A Stephen King Biography,” 22-24. 54

supermarket, three soldiers are informed by their MP that their leaves have been cancelled and a civil defence siren starts wailing outside. A man runs into the story covered in blood and claims there is something malevolent in the mist. Mrs Carmody, a local religious fanatic, tries to convince everybody that this mist is, in fact, the biblical Apocalypse. An unnamed woman leaves to go home to her children, despite all the warnings. David and a few supermarket staff go to the storage room to fix the emergency generator but are attacked by odd-looking giant tentacles disappearing into the mist, and one of the staff is dragged outside. David manages to sever one of the tentacles and proves to the inhabitants of the supermarket that there are monsters in the mist. They barricade the large windows at the front of the building with bags of dog food. Brent and one other man decide not to listen to David’s warnings and set to go outside to find help. Brant’s partner ties a rope around his waist, and they both go into the mist, but something attacks them out of everyone’s vision – and when they pull the rope back they pull only the lower half of the man’s body along with it. The people in the store guard the windows at night, and the light from their flashlights and lanterns attracts scorpion-shaped flying insects, who sit on the windows’ surface. Pterodactyl- like creatures start hunting the insects until they break into the store through the glass. Panic spreads through the people, and three people die fighting the creatures, but they eventually manage to either kill or drive the beasts outside and sealing the windows. During the event, the now revealed to be deadly poisonous insect sits on her, but does not sting her as she keeps praying. This leads to many fear-driven people believing her stories and becoming her followers. A group of seven people lead by David go to the nearby pharmacy to collect medicine and search for possible survivors. They encounter a still alive soldier strapped to the wall by spider webs with bloating blisters all over his body. Moments later, his body falls to the ground, and the blisters burst, revealing thousands of spiders escaping his body. Big, dog-sized spider creatures attack the group shortly after and shoot corrosive webbing at them. They manage to kill two people from the group before the remaining people manage to retreat into the supermarket. The increasing number of victims stirs more fear among the majority of the remaining survivors making them seek Mrs Carmody’s consolation and joining her side. Two of the three soldiers suddenly commit suicide, leading everybody to believe the military has something to do with the 55

mist, and Mrs Carmody and her newly acquired mob of followers force the remaining soldier to confess the truth. They learn that the military has been conducting experiments with other dimensions called the Arrowhead Project, and their research might have opened a portal, releasing the mist and its monsters into our world. After this information is given, Mrs Carmody’s followers beat the soldier, stab him and throw him outside as a sacrifice for the creatures. A giant lobster-like monster grabs him and carries him into the mist. David and a small group of others decide to leave the store in the morning but are stopped at the counters by Mrs Carmody’s mob. They intend to sacrifice Billy and a school teacher Amanda next, but one of the former supermarket staff named Ollie shoots her with his gun, killing her and ultimately disbanding her congregation. Nine people in total leave the store, but Ollie is immediately torn apart by the lobster-like creature, two other people are killed by the spiders wandering all around the parking lot, and one terrified man runs back into the supermarket. The rest make it to the car, and David manages to retreat Ollie’s gun. The group now consists of David, Billy, Amanda, an elderly lady named Irene, and Dan, the older man that warned everyone at the beginning that there is danger in the mist. They drive to David’s house first, but they find it covered in spider webs with David’s wife dead. They proceed to drive south and plan to drive until they either drive out of the mist or until their car runs out of fuel. They encounter an enormous six-legged creature, big enough to not be fully visible in the mist, with tentacles on its underside, seemingly harmless. The car stops soon after, and the group’s adults silently agree to be killed by David rather than being killed by the horrific creatures outside. With the four remaining bullets in Ollie’s gun, David shoots everyone including Billy. He then steps out of the car and desperately calls into the mist to attract any creature to devour him. The mist suddenly recedes, and the military arrives in armoured vehicles, burning the creatures with flamethrowers. David notices a group of survivors on the deck of one of the vehicles, among them the woman who left the store at the beginning with her two children – and realizing he killed his son and friends in vain, he desperately falls to his knees and cries. The biggest change the director made from the original text was the end of the story. While King’s ending was hopeful with the group riding through the mist, not encountering any military members, but with David possibly hearing something on the radio giving him the sense of hope, Darabont opted for a much more bleak, hopeless 56

ending of his story, killing the majority of the story’s protagonists – something that was only hinted in the novella as an option if they ever run out of fuel. King himself famously stated that he liked Darabont’s ending better than his own, and he fully supported the director when he was informed about his intentions for the film’s conclusion.122 Other than that, not many changes were made while adapting the story onto the big screen, except Mrs Carmody getting much more screen time and a few minor details concerning different secondary characters dying throughout the story.

4.2.1 Mrs Carmody – the villain saviour Mrs Carmody is the only person in the novel who is never given a first name, making her stand out from the crowd of people as someone special. As mentioned earlier, there is a difference between her portrayal in the book and the film. The film gives her much more space, unlike in the book where she was a background character, the town crazy that nobody respected, and proved herself to be dangerous only when David and the others tried to leave the supermarket. In the film, however, there is more emphasis put on showing just how mentally deranged and manipulative she is, and how much, just like Annie Wilkes, does she believe in God and herself to be His chosen one. The creatures outside are terrifying, but in the presumed safety of the supermarket, she is the source of fear for the main protagonists. She is, perhaps intentionally, using the newly created atmosphere of fear, panic and paranoia for her benefit. She seeks to spread her beliefs to other people, and since she believes herself to be the vessel of God, she craves for everyone to do as she says, and it pleases her when people follow her orders. Darabont shows Mrs Carmody’s mean side even before she gains any power over the survivors when she insults Amanda, who attempts to befriend her. She is highly judgemental of everyone who does not share her religious convictions, much more than in the novella. Robinson believes that by emphasising this “Darabont is trying to make a specific point about fundamentalist politics in America these days, and how unnerving it can be to see major, life-or-death decisions being made based on convictions that you may not share.”123 There are added scenes in the film concerning Mrs Carmody, specifically a scene where she goes away from the crowd to pray by

122 See “How Stephen King Feels About The Mist’s Wild Movie Ending”, 2017, https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1700429/how-stephen-king-feels-about-the-mists-wild-movie- ending. 123 Tasha Robinson, “Book Vs. Film: The Mist”, 2007, https://www.avclub.com/book-vs-film-the-mist- 1798213030. 57

herself, begging God to let her save at least some of the people in the store – illustrating her undying dedication and derangement even when nobody sees her, proving she does not crave power just for her personal gain, she truly does believe in what she preaches. The scene where she orders the sacrifice of the third soldier was also added by Darabont, probably to intensify her dangerous presence, establishing her as the film’s main villain, as was the scene where the insect lands on her but does not harm her, further convincing her of her god-like nature. In the novella, she was acting more based on her emotions; she was not as cold- hearted and driven as in the film, she was portrayed more as a crazy old woman who, as the situation escalates, truly loses her mind, as depicted in the description of her state right before she was killed: “She was in a frenzy now. Spittle flew from her lips as she screamed at the people crowding up behind her: ‘It’s the boy we want! Grab him! Take him! It’s the boy we want!’ […] She was an apocalypse of yellow and dark joy. Her purse was still over her arm. She began to jump up and down. ‘Get the boy, get the whore, get them both, get them all, get-‘ A single sharp report rang out.”124 In both media, therefore, the seriousness of the situation and the series of events coincidentally corresponding to her preaching eventually lead to her rise in power and ultimate demise – David’s group did not get manipulated by her, and she poses such an obvious danger to them that they are forced to eliminate her.

124 Stephen King, “The Mist,” in Skeleton Crew (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2012), 175-176. 58

5. THE 2010’s

Because the previous decade offered little to innovate the genre, critics and audiences alike did not expect much in the new decade either. The directors, however, felt challenged and somehow obligated to try and bring something new to the table. The result was a whole set of new, original elements brought into the genre, be it plot-wise, cinematography-wise or topic-wise. The film horror was also much more widely available with the rise of streaming services popularity, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO GO or Shudder, an American service that specializes directly in horror and horror-related media. Now, the average viewer did not have to see the movie in the cinema or wait for it to be released on DVD, they could watch it anytime, anywhere and how many times they wished for just a small monthly fee. This fact made the future horror filmmakers even more motivated since their art would reach an incredible amount of people like never before in film history.125 At the end of the 2000’s the world was faced with what is now referred to as the Great Recession. This event, among other issues, caused people to become severely anxious and paranoid, feeling like there is no safe space for them to hide, not even their own homes. The horror cinema reflected these emotions using themes like infection, home invasion or again, just like in the 1970’s, the monster at home. Films about infection obviously included zombie films like Marc Forster’s World War Z (2013) adaptation and pandemic films like Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011), although mainly a much more nuanced and personal approach to infection was adopted by the directors. Henry Hobson’s Maggie (2015) focuses on a father-daughter relationship after the daughter has been bitten by a zombie and is slowly turning into one, Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night (2017) follows an isolated family living in the woods and hiding from an unidentified virus and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) examines a group of teenagers dealing with an STD-like infection causing people to see a shape-shifting apparition slowly walking towards them until they catch and kill them. Home invasion films were made popular with Bryan Bertino’s 2008 film The Strangers, which was followed in 2010’s for example by Mike Flanagan’s Hush (2016), Fede Álvarez’s Don’t Breathe (2016), James DeMonaco’s The Purge (2013) featuring much

125 See Terje Gaustad, “How streaming services make cinema more important”, 2019, https://content.sciendo.com/configurable/contentpage/journals$002fnjms$002f1$002f1$002farticle- p67.xml?tab_body=pdf. 59

larger scale invasions of people’s home, Adam Wingard’s dark horror comedy You’re Next (2011), or Chris Peckover’s Christmas themed Better Watch Out (2016). The domestic monster was best depicted in Jennifer Kent’s Australian film The Babadook (2014), where the monster could be interpreted as the mother’s declining mental health. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit (2015) serves as both a home invasion film and a “monster in your own home” film, as the main protagonists view the invaders as a part of their family.126127 The recent trend with film-streaming partly opened the way for new horror forms to be explored. For the directors that were not looking to make a full-length horror film, but wanted to try and contribute to the genre themselves, there was a perfect solution – an anthology film. Such collections of short films were gaining popularity quite quickly, even though not all the entries were of the same quality. Some horror anthologies worth mentioning would be the V/H/S (2012) and V/H/S/2 (2013) both produced by Bloody Disgusting horror website, Southbound (2015), the more comedic collections The ABCs of Death (2012) and Tales of Halloween (2015) and XX (2017), an anthology directed by women.128 On the other hand, filmmakers that had big ideas and could not convey them into the running time of a film opted for a more extended media version – a series. In the past, the horror-themed television series were popular only with a certain type of audiences. However, nowadays these TV shows are watched by the general public as their featuring on streaming services and return to the nostalgia of the 80’s and 90’s made them trendy to follow. The most popular series of the 2010’s, all of which are still on-going at the time of writing this thesis, include the longest running zombie show made for AMC The Walking Dead, American Horror Story streamed on FX that approached sort of an anthology angle for their series where every season deals with a completely different topic and story, Starz’s comedic Ash vs Evil Dead or the

126 See Joni Hayward, “No Safe Space: Economic Anxiety and Post.Recession Spaces in Horror Films”, 2016, https://framescinemajournal.com/article/no-safe-space-economic-anxiety-and-post-recession- spaces-in-horror-films/. 127 See Zachary Crockett and Javier Zarracina, “How the zombie represents America’s deepest fears: A sociopolitical history of zombies, from Haiti to The Walking Dead”, 2016, https://www.vox.com/policy- and-politics/2016/10/31/13440402/zombie-political-history. 128 See Ian Buckwalter, “Shorter is Scarier: Why Horror Anthologies Need to Make a Comeback”, 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/10/shorter-is-scarier-why-horror-anthologies- need-to-make-a-comeback/263312/. 60

Netflix originals Stranger Things set in the 80’s and filled with nostalgic references and The Haunting of Hill House based on Shirley Jackson’s novel.129 The directors and writers in the 2010’s were yet again asking moral questions surrounding religion, for example, if it is okay to exclude oneself from religion entirely, what moral consequences does religion bring to our daily actions and what does the afterlife look like even for a non-religious person. Moreover, there was a sudden intense interest in unorthodox religious or spiritual cults quite consistent throughout the whole decade. Films dealing with possessions, the presence of biblical demons, beasts and the devil were put alongside pagan rituals, old gods and satanic rites. The Conjuring (2013) created by James Wan and following two demonologists solving cases of demonic possession was probably the most popular and financially successful entry into this category as it spawned one sequel and another is in the making, a spin-off about the possessed doll Annabelle (2014) with two sequels of its own, a spin-off about the demon from the second Conjuring instalment The Nun (2018) with another sequel on the way and a film about the Crooked Man from Conjuring 2 (2016) is supposedly being prepared – making it the most prominent horror franchise of the 2010’s with its own unique expanding universe. Other films concerning Christianity were Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! (2017) filled with symbolic biblical imagery, Daniel Stamm’s found footage film The Last Exorcism (2010), Sean Byrne’s highly praised The Devil’s Candy (2015) or Robert Eggers’ unique take in The Witch (2015), where Puritan Christian beliefs are confronted with paganism and witchcraft. The films that were leaning far more into the darker side with some of them simultaneously containing traces of folk horror were Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) both dealing with unconventional cults and their sinister rituals, Liam Gavin’s A Dark Song (2016), Panos Cosmatos’ atmospheric revenge film Mandy (2018), Gareth Evans’ historical piece Apostle (2018), Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), David Bruckner’s adaptation The Ritual (2017) about a group of friends getting lost in Swedish forests and encountering malevolent forces or Karyn Kusama’s eerie The Invitation (2015).130131

129 See Jack Wilhelmi, “Why Horror TV Is More Popular Than Ever”, 2020, https://screenrant.com/horror-tv-shows-popularity-increase-reason/. 130See “Cults Are Scarier Without Magic”, 2020, https://www.wired.com/2020/02/geeks-guide- midsommar/. 131 See Beth Sawdon, “A24 Horror: Success, Religion and Difference in Modern American Cinema”, 2019, https://www.thefilmagazine.com/a24-horror-success-religion-and-difference-in-modern-american- cinema/. 61

The time was finally right for female directors to come into the spotlight and show what they can achieve. Even though women did venture into horror in the past, many times successfully like Mary Lambert with Pet Sematary (1989) in the late 80’s or Mary Harron with American Psycho (2000) at the turn of the millennium, the 2010’s opened a new way for these directors to show their talent, with the events surrounding the #MeToo movement and the feminists fighting for equal rights more vigorously and collectively than before. The female director wave includes the aforementioned Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, XX) and Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), then Anna Biller responsible for The Love Witch (2016), Sophia Takal with Always Shine (2016), Alice Lowe with her gynaehorror piece Prevenge (2016), Lynne Ramsay who made the critically acclaimed We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Leigh Janiak with the more slow-burning Honeymoon (2014) or Jen and Sylvia Soska, the sisters who co-created the body horror film American Mary (2012).132133 The subgenre that, perhaps quite surprisingly, rose in popularity was the horror comedy. Since people were overfed by the graphic torture porn of the 2000’s and craved some of the silly elements from the 80’s and their 90’s revival, the directors opted to make their horror films lean heavily into the comedy genre. There was a certain amount of gore and even genuinely frightening parts present, but the overall mood of such a film was always humorous and light-hearted. They usually also combined elements from other film genres in unique ways, creating an exceptional blend that could take on many different purposes aside from plain entertainment. New Zealand native Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement chose a mockumentary format for their vampire film What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Eli Craig turned the genre around in their romantic horror comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), Todd Strauss-Schulson made a comedic turn on the slasher subgenre in The Final Girls (2015), Rubber (2010) is a satirical horror film about a sentient tire with psychokinetic powers by Quentin Dupieux, and

132 See Phoebe Reilly, “From ‘Babadook’ to ‘Raw’: The Rise of the Modern Female Horror Filmmaker”, 2016, https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/from-babadook-to-raw-the-rise-of-the- modern-female-horror-filmmaker-120169/. 133 See Mark Kermode, “The female directors bringing new blood to horror films”, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/19/the-female-directors-bringing-new-blood-horror-films- babadook-raw-prevenge. 62

Drew Goddard attempted to deconstruct the genre while simultaneously maintaining the comedy factor in Cabin in the Woods (2011).134 This particular decade took a liking in the ghost theme a little bit more than the previous decades; especially going back to the gothic and trying to recreate the eerie atmosphere of old haunted mansions, long-dead people peeking through the curtain into our world and the supernatural forces making the protagonists’ life immensely difficult. James Watkins’ The Women in Black (2012) which was based on a novel by Susan Hill and Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak (2015) are prime examples of a successful attempt at capturing such spirit. James Wan’s supernatural movie about ghosts and demons from the “other world” Insidious (2010) was a hit among not just horror fans but general film audiences as well. It was later turned into a series as of now containing four entries total. Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson took a different approach and made an ambiguous collection of three stories fittingly titles Ghost Stories (2017), and Mike Flanagan took the ghostly occurrences into the present day in Oculus (2013).135136 The horror industry also brought a few new directors with the arrival of the new decade. The most prominent new blood in the genre was the previously mentioned Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommer) and Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse), but also Jordan Peele who recently turned from a comedian into a serious horror movie maker. His films focus on the racial aspect of the characters and deal with modern social and political problems concerning race. Get Out (2017) was his directorial debut in which he pondered on the opposite extreme of racism and the black skin colour turning into somewhat of a fashion trend. In Us (2019) he deals with home invasion, doppelgängers and the stereotypes about the African-American people in horror movies.137138

134 See Jess Joho, “How the horror-comedy film genre defined the decade”, 2019, https://mashable.com/article/horror-comedy-2010s-decade/?europe=true. 135 See Frances A. Kamm, “A ‘fascinating conundrum of a movie’: Gothic, Horror and Crimson Peak (2015)”, 2020, http://www.revenantjournal.com/contents/a-fascinating-conundrum-of-a-movie-gothic- horror-and-crimson-peak-2015-frances-a-kamm/. 136 See Evangelia Kindinger, “The ghost is just a metaphor: Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, nineteenth-century female gothic, and the slasher”, 2017, https://necsus-ejms.org/the-ghost-is-just-a- metaphor-guillermo-del-toros-crimson-peak-nineteenth-century-female-gothic-and-the-slasher/. 137 See David Ehrlich, “How Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, and Jordan Peele Are Using Horror Movies to Fix Hollywood”, 2019, https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/oscar-worthy-horror-movies-midsommar- lighthouse-us-1202187720/. 138 See Vann R. Newkirk II, “Us and Jordan Peele’s New Horror”, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/us-and-jordan-peeles-reinvention-of- horror/585532/. 63

Apart from the already common themes in the genre, there was one new element that gained much attention from the viewers – horror films based on sensory deprivation. A former star of the widely popular American sitcom The Office (2005- 2013) John Krasinski tested his filmmaking abilities with A Quiet Place (2018), a film that deprives the characters of the ability to speak, mostly relying on sign language and whispering, due to the threat of people-eating alien creatures with highly sensitive hearing looming around. Mike Flanagan made a film about a deaf female character whose home gets invaded in Hush (2016). Another director – Susanne Bier – decided to adapt a novel by John Malerman into Bird Box (2018) about a menace that when seen, forces people to commit suicide and therefore everyone must cover their eyes every time they venture outside.139 The remake craze of the 2000’s continued strongly into this decade as some directors still felt the urge to put their own spin not only on the cult classics but also on the more recently made critically acclaimed international films. However, while the remakes from the previous decade were mostly capturing the audiences’ and critics’ attention by how poorly they performed in the box office, the 2010’s wave of remade films was divided into two groups: the first one continued with the flow of low-quality films with low ratings and the other one contained films that were highly praised and partly accomplished to be original. With the first group, people had high expectations before the films’ release, mainly due to their often stellar cast and original creator’s help with their making, but a deep sense of disappointment followed. These include Samuel Bayer’s long-awaited Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman (2010), Gil Kenan’s Poltergeist (2015), Kevin Kölsch’s Pet Sematary (2019), Travis Zariwny’s absolute critical failure with Cabin Fever (2016), Kevin and Michael Goetz’s unsuccessful attempt to remake the New French Extremity classic Martyrs (2015) or Kimberly Peirce’s ambitious remake of Stephen King’s Carrie (2013), which received only a lukewarm reception from the viewers. Films that on the other hand exceeded people’s expectations and managed to maintain the original theme with a breath of new air, making them solid even as standalone films were, for example, Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead (2013), Breck Eisner’s zombie film The Crazies (2010), Craig Gillespie’s vampire comedy Fright Night (2011), Matt Reeves’ remake of the Swedish vampire romance Let

139 See “The rise of sensory deprivation in films”, 2019, https://what-the-flick.com/the-rise-of-sensory- deprivation-in-films. 64

Me In (2010), or the more recent Child’s Play (2019) by Lars Klevberg and Luca Guadagnino’s artistic remake of the Italian visual masterpiece Suspiria (2018).140141 While the sequel fever was still strong with new franchises forming in the genre and old franchises’ entries like Children of the Corn, Puppet Master, Child’s Play, The Howling or Scream were happily gaining in numbers, filmmakers started to be more curious about what preceded the events of the original movies. They wondered how the franchises came to be, why the villains pursued their victims in the first place, what led to them even becoming villains – in short: what happened “before”? Thus, the wave of prequels started to be formed, starting at the beginning of the decade with the second and third instalments of the found-footage series Paranormal Activity – Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) and Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), both taking place before the events of the original film and followed by Final Destination 5 (2011), the final instalment in the series and a prequel to the entirety of it, The Thing (2011) that follows the story of the scientists found dead in the Antarctic station in the 1982 movie, Ridley Scott resurrected the Alien franchise with two prequels, a quite subtle one in Prometheus (2012) and an openly direct one with Alien: Covenant (2017), the Insidious franchise joined in on the trend with two prequel entries Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) and Insidious: The Last Key (2018), Leatherface (2017) depicted the rise of the main character in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series and The First Purge (2018) maps the origins of the titular Purge.142143

5.1 Stephen King – the old and new directions

In 2010’s, King focused, apart from his own writing, on experimenting with other genres than horror, collaborations, short story collections and comics. He wrote a monthly series for DC Comics called American Vampire, his first original comic

140 See Michael White, “As Horror Franchise ‘Remakes’ Evolve, Let’s Talk About How to Classify Them”, 2019, https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3540681/see-organizing-horror-remakes-reboots- legacyquels-re-quels/. 141 See Hazel Cills, “Why horror remakes almost never get it right”, 2015, https://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/1048-why-horror-remakes-usually-dont-work/. 142 See Siobhan Lyons, “A long time ago... why prequels are taking us back to the future in popular film”, 2019, https://theconversation.com/a-long-time-ago-why-prequels-are-taking-us-back-to-the-future-in- popular-film-115132. 143 See Chris Vander Kaay, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Horror Prequels”, 2017, https://bloody- disgusting.com/editorials/3460802/good-bad-ugly-horror-prequels/. 65

series.144145 In 2011, he published 11/22/63, a science fiction novel about time travelling and preventing the J. F. Kennedy assassination.146 Even though his dark fantasy series The Dark Tower was said to be finished after the seventh volume released in 2004, after being written and released for the course of over three decades, King published an eighth novel titled The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole in 2012, but chronologically set it between the fourth and fifth volumes of the series.147 In 2013 he returned to one of his most famous novels – The Shining – and wrote a sequel about an adult Danny called Doctor Sleep, recently adapted into a feature film. He also published his first purely crime novel Mr. Mercedes in 2014, inspired by true events, which later that decade turned into a trilogy with Finders Keepers and End of Watch.148 In 2017 he collaborated with his son Owen King on a horror fantasy novel Sleeping Beauties.149 Since then, he continues to release novels with horror elements, while often dabbling in other genres like in his crime horror The Outsiders or the science-fiction horror The Institute.150

5.2 It and It Chapter 2

It is the 22nd book by Stephen King published in 1986. The story alters between two periods of time, the 50’s and the 80’s, following the main characters as children and as adults. In 1990, it was adapted into a two-part miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace for The American Broadcasting Company with Tim Curry in the role of the titular ‘it’. It became the network’s biggest success of the year, despite the mixed pre- broadcast reviews. The story was not adapted by an American production again until 2017 when an Argentinian director Andy Muschietti picked up the novel and released two back-to-back films: It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019). The critical reception for

144 See Vaneta Rogers, “Stephen King Brings an ‘American Vampire’ Tale to Vertigo”, 2009, https://www.newsarama.com/4093-stephen-king-brings-an-american-vampire-tale-to-vertigo.html. 145 See Vaneta Rogers, “Rafael Albuquerque Talks American Vampire, Stephen King”, 2009, https://www.newsarama.com/4125-rafael-albuquerque-talks-american-vampire-stephen-king.html. 146 See “Stephen King’s 11/22/63”, 2011, https://stephenking.com/promo/11-22-63/announcement/. 147 See Neil Gaiman, “The King and I”, 2012, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-king-and-i- n7wqcmv5kvw. 148 See Ken Tucker, “A Rare Interview with Master Storyteller Stephen King”, 2013, https://parade.com/15671/kentucker/summers-best-books-starring-stephen-king/. 149 See Larry Fire, “Sleeping Beauties; A New Book By Stephen King & Owen King Due In 2017”, 2016, https://firewireblog.com/2016/06/14/sleeping-beauties-a-new-book-by-stephen-owen-king-due-in-2017/. 150 See Jocelyn McClurg, “Stephen King rules as No. 1”, 2015, https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2015/06/10/stephen-king-judy-blume-usa-todays-best-selling- books/28752797/. 66

the first instalment was mainly positive with the film being nominated for several awards and winning a few of them, mainly for Best Horror Movie. In contrast, the second film was quite a disappointment in the eyes of the critics and viewers, but nevertheless maintained an overall positive consensus on review-aggregation websites. This thesis will analyse Muschietti’s films, due to them being more relevant and modern than Wallace’s miniseries, and thus attracting a bigger audience, while fitting into the 2010’s as a product of the remake and sequel fever, with its horror-comedy vibes, domestic monsters as observed with the protagonists’ parents and unique monster-alien blend featuring classic horror monsters like clowns, zombies, mummies or spiders. It (2017) opens with a young boy Bill Denbrough making a paper boat for his little brother Georgie. Georgie goes outside to play with the boat in the rain on the streets of Derry, but the current on the road is too fast, and it carries the boat into a sewer. When Georgie tries to retrieve it, he encounters a clown who says his name is ‘Pennywise the Dancing Clown’, and he promises Georgie his boat if he reaches for it. As the little boy does so, the clown dislocates his monstrous mouth full of sharp teeth and bites Georgie’s arm off, before he drags his entire body into the sewers. The next year, in 1989, Bill and his friends Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak are making plans for the summer holiday after the last day of school, when they are interrupted by the local bully Henry Bowers and his gang, who threaten them. The loss of his brother still tortures Bill and he shows his father his theory about Georgie being taken to a place called the ‘Barrens’ by the sewers before his father shuts him down and coldly dismisses him. Bill nevertheless still assembles his friends and sets off to search the Barrens. A new kid in town, Ben Hanscom, is spending his days in the library, and he learns that Derry has been experiencing strange events throughout its entire history. Bowers’ gang then targets him and as he tries to escape, he encounters Bill and his friends in the Barrens, after they found a shoe belonging to a missing girl from their school. Patrick Hockstetter, one of Bowers’ gang, searches the sewers for Ben and is killed by Pennywise. Bill later befriends two additional people – Beverly Marsh, a bullied girl, surrounded by rumours about her being promiscuous, and Mike Hanlon, a home-schooled boy also targeted by Bowers – and they call their group ‘The Losers Club’. Each of the club’s members, except for Richie, individually encounters horrifying visions of Pennywise in various forms – Stan sees his father’s scary cubist 67

painting come alive, a headless burnt boy chases Ben, Mike is reminded of his parents’ death with visions of scorched hands trying to escape a burning room, Beverly’s sink spurts blood that fills her entire bathroom, hypochondriac Eddie meets a decaying leper, and for Bill, it is a disturbing vision of Georgie. The club soon understands that they are hunted by an other-worldly entity, which changes into what each of them fears the most. Ben reveals he learned these attacks happen every twenty-seven years before ‘it’ goes into hibernation, and the group backtracks that all the sewers lead into a well in an old abandoned house on Neibolt Street. After being attacked by the clown as a group, they all resolutely head to the house, but once inside, they are separated and hunted by Pennywise. Eddie falls through the floor, breaks his arm and faints. Upon waking up, he sees Pennywise coming out of a fridge and mocking him, but before he manages to attack, The Losers Club regroups, and Beverly impales the clown’s head, forcing him to retreat. The kids, now terrified beyond common sense, turn against each other and split, leaving only Bill and Beverly determined to fight back. A few weeks pass by, and Beverly confronts her sexually abusive father, whom she renders unconscious, but is kidnapped by Pennywise moments later. When Bill finds out, he succeeds in reassembling his friends, and they all go to the old house again to find and rescue her. Henry Bowers is meanwhile driven insane by the clown and murders his father and gang members before he follows The Losers Club and attacks Mike. He is thrown into the well and disappears. The boys find Pennywise’s lair filled with a massive hoard of circus props, toys and other things, with the missing children’s bodies floating near the ceiling. They find an unconscious Beverly, who was exposed to the alien ‘deadlights’ inside of the clown’s mouth and is starting to float as well, but she wakes up after Ben kisses her. Georgie appears, and Bill recognizes it is the shapeshifted Pennywise, but the clown takes Bill hostage and seeks to make a deal with the other kids, that if they leave Bill for it to feed on, it will go into hibernation early. They refuse, fight It in various forms and conquer their worst fears in the process. They finally defeat Pennywise, and it retreats into the sewers to hibernate. Bill then finds a piece of Georgie’s yellow raincoat and accepts the reality of his death while being consoled by his friends. At the end of the summer, they all meet together for the last time before Beverly leaves to live with her aunt, and she tells them she had a vision of them fighting It again when they were adults while she was under the deadlights’ 68

influence. Bill makes them all swear a blood oath that would Pennywise return to Derry, they will all come back and fight it once more. They all say goodbye and leave, with Bill and Beverly being last, and Bill kisses her before she walks away. In It Chapter Two (2019), we move forward in time to 2016 Derry, where Mike is the only member of the club who stayed in town. After the murder of Adrian, a gay man attending the local carnival, Mike investigates the scene and concludes that Pennywise has returned. He calls his former friends Eddie, Richie, Bill, Beverly, Ben and Stan to honour their 1989 promise. Everyone except for Stan, who immediately after the call commits suicide in his bathtub by cutting his wrists, travels back to Derry with close to no memories of the events twenty-seven years ago. They meet Mike in a Chinese restaurant, and he reminds them of everything that happened in the past, they have fun together until they learn about Stan’s death and have a hallucination concerning Pennywise. Eddie and Richie try to leave town, but Beverly informs them about her frequent visions about their death should they leave and not honour the oath. It is revealed that Henry Bowers is still alive, locked in a mental institution, which he escapes with It’s help. The clown kills a little girl at a local baseball game. Mike shows Bill his library; they take odd drugs together through which Mike communicates to Bill that the Native American tribe named Shokopiwah discovered a Ritual of Chüd, which can stop Pennywise for good. Mike instructs everyone to retrace their steps from the summer of 1989 after they split up before the final battle and acquire a personal item for scarification during the Ritual. Beverly finds Ben’s old love letter in her old home, believing it to be from Bill, and has to flee Pennywise in the form of a new occupant of the house. Ben remembers another encounter with It and finds out his artefact is a page from a yearbook Beverly signed for him. Richie’s personal item is an arcade token, and Eddie’s is his inhaler. Pennywise appears to Richie once more and mocks him about his sexuality, making him want to leave again before he remembers Stanley’s bar mitzvah. Eddie also encounters It in the form of a leper, but is not afraid and confronts it, making it significantly shrink in size. Bill finds his old bicycle Silver and recovers Georgie’s paper boat from the sewers before meeting a little boy that lives in his old house now. He tells Bill he hears voices from the drain and Bill tries to persuade him to run away, but the boy gets scared of him and is later lured into a funhouse by the clown. Bill tries to save him, but he fails and has to watch as Pennywise tears the boy apart in front of him. 69

Bowers attacks Eddie unsuccessfully, before attempting to murder Mike, only to be killed by Richie who saves both of them. The rest of the group joins Bill in front of the old Neibolt house and persuade him not to go inside alone. They all go down, find a meteor that brought It to Earth and perform the Ritual inside of it. It seems to trap the deadlights in the ritual jar, but shortly after they escape again and It emerges as an enormous spider-like creature. The Losers Club find out the truth about the death of the previous performers of the Ritual from Pennywise and accuse Mike of lying to them. It places Ben, Beverly and Bill into dreadful hallucinations, but they overcome it once Beverly realizes Ben was the one who wrote the love letter and Bill stops blaming himself for Georgie’s death. Eddie and Richie wander the sewers and come in front of three doors, between which they have to choose. Pennywise catches Mike and Richie buys him enough time to escape but is caught in the deadlights. Eddie rushes to save him, finally gaining enough courage, and he gets impaled by the clown’s spider claws. Seriously injured, he explains to The Losers they need to make It feel small, and it will shrink in size as it did for him before. They taunt the clown and show they are not afraid of it until it dwindles into a small infant. Mike rips its heart out, and The Losers Club join forces in crushing it together. After Pennywise dies, Eddie succumbs to his injuries, and as the sewers’ walls start crumbling, the group has to leave his body behind. Richie is devastated by Eddie’s death, and The Losers comfort him while their palm scars disappear, indicating their oath has been fulfilled. Afterwards, Beverly leaves with Ben as a couple, Mike leaves Derry to start his life over, and Bill, who is now a writer, begins writing his new book. The film reveals that Richie was in love with Eddie since they were kids, as he returns to ‘the kissing bridge’ to re-carve their initials into the wooden railing. In the final scenes, Mike calls Bill that they all received letters from Stanley after his death, in which he states that he actually killed himself to provide them with better chances to defeat It, since he was too scared to face it, and he wishes them all a happy and full life. Since this is a modern adaptation of a relatively older story, Muschietti had to make certain changes in order to translate the story to more modern audiences. The total number of changes he made is quite high, some of them major and crucial to the plot, some of them more minor, concerning the story’s details. The biggest change he made to the story is the time period shift; the original novel was set in the 50’s when The Losers Club were children, and in the 80’s – the time of the book’s publishing – when 70

they were adults. The director moved the children’s timeline to the 80’s and their adulthood into the present day. This means various changes to the portrayal of the characters, contemporary cultural references and other details – namely the different book manifestations of Pennywise some of The Losers see, like a mummy or a werewolf, or the vastly present racial slurs and homophobic and racist undertones in the character’s behaviour absent from the films. Overall, considering all the other changes the filmmaking team made, we can divide them into three categories. Firstly, we should consider the changes to the characters, their actions and their backstory. Mike Hanlon was probably the character that got rewritten the most: his parents did not die in a fire, he was the one who loved books and history and revealed to The Losers Derry’s dark history, and he is present at the final act way more in the film since in the novel he was badly hurt by Henry Bowers and ended up in the hospital for the majority of it. Bowers is framed for all the murders once he gets out of the sewers alive and his father is not a policeman, he is a farm- owner, a former marine, who taught his son the hatred, racism and homophobia that he now represents. Stanley Uris’ religious background is emphasised much more in the film than in the novel, and it is he who makes The Losers Club swear the blood oath. He also never writes his friends any posthumous letters explaining the reason for his suicide; he dies in fear and only manages to write the word ‘it’ on his bathroom wall with his own blood. Beverly Marsh does not cut her hair in the book. He father, in addition to sexually harassing her, also regularly, violently beats her, and Beverly’s mother is still alive, hard-working, and suspicious, but ultimately unaware of her husband’s sexual abuse of their daughter, and she later dies from cancer. Her relationship with Ben Hanscom, especially in their adult years, is much more straightforward than in the novel, and Beverly is aware it was, in fact, Ben, who wrote her the love haiku. It is Eddie Kaspbrak who kills Henry Bowers for good, and while he still dies in both the novel and the film, his death is quite different – he is not impaled, but his arm is ripped off when he tries to poison Pennywise with his belief in the effects of his inhaler, and even his dying dialogue with Richie is completely different. Richie Tozier’s sexuality and his love for Eddie are also not explicitly present in the novel. Two other characters had more significance for the original story: Bill’s wife Audra, who is present in Derry during the final battle, gets kidnapped by Pennywise, is exposed to the deadlights and thrown into a catatonic state, and is the primary motivation Bill 71

goes to fight It; and Beverly’s abusive husband Tom, who plays a major part in explaining Beverly’s life choices. Secondly, we consider the changes made to the details of the story, especially the ones altering its progress and outcome. The narrative of the story was obviously changed from alternating to linear for the sake of the story’s cohesiveness; the first film is concerned with the character’s childhood only while the second film deals with their adulthood with occasional flashbacks. An aspect that was completely absent from the films is the concept of ‘the void’, another dimension which Pennywise also comes from, inhabited by an enormous ancient turtle called Maturin. It is Maturin who reveals to Bill how to defeat It, and he also plays a major role in the Ritual of Chüd. The Ritual itself looks quite different in the book; it consists of mentally biting tongues with ‘it’ and telling jokes until one laughs. When they first defeat Pennywise as children, they do it by using the Ritual instead of physically fighting it, and Beverly shoots it in the head with a silver slug from her slingshot, while in the film Bill uses a bolt gun. From the beginning of the story, Bill is also aware that his brother Georgie is dead because his body is retrieved from the sewers. The group also never splits up throughout their childhood; unlike they did in the film after their first visit to the Neibolt house. A few side characters from the second film are portrayed differently from their source material, especially the little child that lives in Bill’s old house, who does not die in the novel, and they have a much more involved and calm discussion together without Bill scaring the child; and Mrs. Kersh, the woman who lives in Beverly’s old house, turning out to be Pennywise, who does not change into a scary disfigured naked lady, but into the witch from Hansel and Gretel, Beverly’s father who insults her and ultimately into a clown. The group encounters Pennywise in the form of Stanley’s severed head as adults, in the novel, it is situated in a fridge in Mike’s library, it does not move, only insults the group members and then explodes, splashing blood everywhere, whereas in the film the head grows limbs and sharp teeth and runs around attacking everyone in sight. It is also alluded that Pennywise is, in fact, a female, since they find ‘it’’s eggs in the sewers. At the very end of the book, The Losers start to forget everything again, and Mike has to hurry to record the terrifying events into his diary, while in the film they seem to remember everything perfectly. Finally, there are a few events and details in the book too explicit to be put on the screen. The most obvious one is the child sex scene, where after the first battle with 72

It they get lost in the sewers and they all lose their virginity to Beverly to strengthen their bond and find themselves and the way out. For obvious reasons, the filmmakers also left out a smoking session the kids had in their hideout to reveal the truth about Pennywise, and instead put a drug-infused hallucination adult Mike and Bill have into the second movie. Henry Bowers, despite being extremely homophobic has a sexual encounter with one of his gang members – Patrick Hockstetter, who is also a bigger part of the story, he is a disturbed kid showing severe signs of psychopathic behaviour and kills and eviscerates stray cats and dogs, hiding them in an abandoned refrigerator – probably too realistic of a threat to be put into this predominantly supernatural film.

5.2.1 Beverly Marsh – the heroine fighter Despite the time period shift, Beverly’s character development arch stays perhaps surprisingly more or less the same. The book Beverly is a bit braver than her movie counterpart, especially considering the instance that she does not get kidnapped by Pennywise as bait, and goes down into the sewers willingly as a child. She is always determined to fight against It, both in the book and the film, and she never ceases to believe in her friends and the bond they share. When even their leader, Bill, hesitates and seems to have lost his courage, Beverly returns his wits to him by shaking him and screaming “You know what we came for! We swore, and we’re going to do it! Do you understand me, Bill? […] Now we need you! Do you get it? We need you! […] So you stand up for us! You stand up for us like before or none of us are going to get out of here!”151 The film also skips the importance of her father not only sexually abusing her but also abusing her physically, letting out his frustration on her, which further damages her already harmed perception of men. Magistrale observes: “Like the father in “Hansel and Gretel” fairy tale, Bev’s father, Alvin Marsh, has betrayed her. His abuse and neglect have shaped her whole attitude toward men. As a consequence, she comes to identify masculinity with monstrosity, but also inculcates the belief, handed down from father to husband, that she deserves the punishment that men keep claiming is her due.”152 He further indicates that Beverly is haunted by the visions of Pennywise in her

151 Stephen King, It (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011), 1235-1236. 152 Magistrale, “Challenging Gender Stereotypes: King’s evolving Women,” 128. 73

adulthood, but unlike Mike, she cannot choose to leave Derry and forget, she is caged even far away from the town with the sadistic It in her own mind. Just like It and her father, she sought Tom as her husband because she unconsciously craves humiliation and the sexual cruelty from her past.153 However, Beverly is an immensely strong character; she is bold, protective, smart and loyal to her friends. She is the element that brings The Losers Club together after their first fight; she is arguably the only confident member of the group during their sexual encounter, guiding them, consoling and supporting them. Linda Badley labels Beverly in this particular moment as ‘earth mother’ and a ‘symbolic conduit between adulthood and childhood’154, both of which are common tropes in film. Strengell further supports this point by comparing Beverly to Snow White as the bridge to manhood through the act of sex. “Like Snow White, Beverly escapes a parental threat, spending much of her preadolescent period with the dwarves / the Losers’ Club before the evil queen / it disturbs her life again. Moving into adolescence, she faces a time of troubles again – however, now she is no longer a child who must passively suffer what her father inflicts on her, but a person who must take responsibility for her own life.”155 In the book, she is the one who deals Pennywise the final blow the first time they fight it and in the film, it is her again, who collects her wits and impales Pennywise’s head and saves Eddie’s life. Although she seems to be the clown’s victim, much like Clarice seems to be the victim of Buffalo Bill, she keeps fighting to the very end, until she emerges victorious.

5.3 Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer is an American writer and editor, born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in 1968. Both of his parents worked for the Peace Corps, and so he spent most of his childhood years on Fiji. This, among other things, greatly influenced his writing style and content, as he implements nature-oriented and environmental elements into his fiction. Upon his return, he studied at the University of Florida, moved between Florida and New York and underwent the six-week programme of Clarion Writers Workshop in

153 See Magistrale, “Challenging Gender Stereotypes: King’s evolving Women,” 130. 154 See Linda Badley, “Stephen King Viewing the Body,” in Writing Horror and the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Anne Rice (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996), 71. 155 Strengell, “Myths and Fairy Tales in King’s Works,” 175. 74

1992, before he married the Silver Web’s editor Ann Kennedy.156157 Among his biggest influences, VanderMeer states the famous late British writer Angela Carter and her novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, about which the author states it changed his view on life and the course of his writing.158 Starting his writing career early while still in high school with fantasy and horror, he was initially associated with the New Weird literary subgenre. Some of his early stories contained a fictional city of Ambergris, including his 2006 novel Shriek: An Afterword and a 2009 follow-up Finch. He self-published a number of his own books, short stories and poetry collections, collaborating with numerous rock bands for adaptations of his work in the process.159160 The Southern Reach Trilogy, for which is VanderMeer best-known, was published in 2014, containing the books Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance released shortly after one another in a new publishing strategy. It centres on the intricacies of humans and nature, and the writer said his biggest inspirations for this trilogy were his hiking trip through St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Michel Bernanos’ poetry cook The Other side of the Mountain.161162 After the trilogy’s mainstream success, VanderMeer continued to write in the science-fiction genre with the novels Borne and Dead Astronauts and has several upcoming projects in the making to this date.163164

5.4 Annihilation

Annihilation (2018) is a film directed by a relatively new director Alex Garland, based on the first novel from the Southern Reach Trilogy of the same name by Jeff

156 See “Jeff VanderMeer: South of Reality”, 2014, https://locusmag.com/2014/07/jeff-vandermeer-south- of-reality/. 157 See Rob Harvilla, “The Darkest (and Coolest) timeline of Jeff VanderMeer”, 2017, https://www.theringer.com/2017/5/30/16040198/jeff-vandermeer-new-book-borne-95e6ac07bea1. 158 See Jeff VanderMeer, “The Thrill and Pain of Inventing Angela Carter”, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/the-invention-of-angela-carter- review/523326/. 159 See David Pringle, St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers (Farmington Hills: St. James Press, 1998), 611. 160 See “Jeff VanderMeer: South of Reality” 161 See Ian Spiegelman, “Jeff VanderMeer: ‘Power of Nature’ Inspired New Sci-Fi Novel ‘Annihilation’”, 2014, https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2014/02/28/jeff-vandermeer-annihilation/5902023/. 162 See Kati Schardl, “Exploring ‘Area X’: Local author has hit with book series based on St. Marks Wildlife Refuge”, 2018, https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/life/2014/03/29/exploring-area-x-local-author- has-hit-with-book-series-based-on-st-marks-wildlife-refuge/7055811/. 163 See Laura Miller, “Jeff VanderMeer Amends the Apocalypse”, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/jeff-vandermeer-amends-the-apocalypse. 164 See Nina Allan, “Dead astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer review – gloriously innovative”, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/dead-astronauts-jeff-vandermeer-review-nina-allan. 75

VanderMeer. It follows a group of female scientists going on an expedition into a mysterious zone from which no one ever returned to recount what is lurking inside. Upon release, it had only limited screening in the movie theatres and instead opted for a worldwide Netflix release. Although the film’s initial test screening was unsuccessful and it barely earned back its budget in the box office, the film was positively acclaimed by critics, winning several film critic association awards. Especially praised were the film’s visual effects, which are more focused on and are more inventive in the film than in the source material, making the film a truly unique visual experience as well as a generally outstanding piece of art that does not entirely fit into the mainstream trend waves of the 2010’s. Garland’s adaptation starts with a former soldier Lena, who is now a biologist and teaches at a university, being interrogated in a closed isolation chamber about her latest mission. She is the only member of the expedition to return and recounts her story, thus making the majority of the film a flashback. Her husband Kane, also a military man, comes back home after a year of him being reported as missing, but there is something wrong with him as he cannot seem to be fully conscious, he trails off often while speaking and cannot remember how he survived, where he was or how he managed to return. His physical condition suddenly drastically worsens, and Lena has to call an ambulance, which arrives accompanied by military vehicles which take them both to a secret government facility called Area X. Lena learns about “The Shimmer”, a zone surrounded by a shimmering dome, which emerged three years ago from a nearby lighthouse after being struck by something coming from outer space, and from which no expedition ever came back until Lena’s husband, who was also sent there to investigate with his team. The Shimmer is slowly expanding, swallowing everything nearby, and so Lena and four other female scientists, a psychologist Dr. Ventress, paramedic Anya Thorensen, physicist Josie Radek and geomorphologist Cassie Sheppard, are sent on another expedition there. They enter the dome together but lose track of time, suddenly waking up after approximately four days with no knowledge of their current location or their journey there, and realising their scientific equipment does not work. During Lena’s blackout, we learn that she had an affair with her university colleague. Everywhere around them they observe mutated plants and animals, whose DNA is mashed together in what Lena deems impossible mixtures. Josie is attacked by an 76

alligator while investigating an abandoned shed. After the beast is killed, Lena discovers it has rows of sharp teeth like a shark. The expedition reaches a military base and finds a camera with a recording left there by the previous team, which shows Lena’s husband slitting his team member’s belly open and revealing his intestines are crawling around his insides in a snake-like manner. Soon after, they find his corpse, which now only vaguely resembles a human, turning into a massive lichen colony growing all over the wall. Lena is on the watch during the night, and she has a brief conversation with Cassie before they are attacked by a mutated bear which drags the screaming geomorphologist away. The morning after, the team goes looking for her, but they discover her mutilated dead body. The expedition encounters a village full of human- shaped plants, and Josie concludes The Shimmer works like a prism, refracting the DNA of everything that is within it. Anya observes her own body changing and has a hysterical, paranoia-induced breakdown, during which she ties the rest of her teammates to chairs, planning on killing them before they kill her like the previous team killed their member after he started changing. The mutated bear returns, imitating Cassie’s cries for help, and Anya follows it and is killed. Josie manages to free herself from the chair and quickly shoots the bear. That night, Dr. Ventress, suffering from cancer, leaves for the lighthouse, because she feels herself changing too, and wants to get there before it is too late. We establish that Lena’s motivation to go on this expedition is her belief that her husband went because she cheated on him, and she feels guilty. In the morning, Lena tells Josie that she tested her blood at night and saw particles of The Shimmer inside her. Josie then contently walks away and disappears, most probably turning into another human-shaped plant. Now alone, Lena heads towards the lighthouse in Ventress’ steps. Inside, she finds Kane’s corpse and a camera recording showing his suicide by an exploding grenade and his doppelgänger appearing on the screen after his death. Lena then goes down into the crater the meteor created where she has a brief conversation with a kneeling down Ventress who says The Shimmer is planning to expand until it engulfs everything. Right after, she transforms into a levitating, pulsating blob of glowing matter and absorbs a drop of blood on Lena’s face. This creates a humanoid creature, which tries to imprint Lena’s looks and behaviour, but she tricks it by letting it copy her self-destructive tendencies before she places an incendiary grenade in its hand and runs 77

away. The creature, now one with Lena’s suicidal inclinations, lets the grenade explode and once ablaze, returns into the cave and sets the entire core of The Shimmer on fire. The lighthouse collapses, The Shimmer disintegrates, and Lena returns to the facility, where she learns that Kane’s condition improved significantly and he is now healthier than ever before. She visits him, and despite knowing he is not her real husband, she asks him if he is indeed the real Kane. After he answers that he does not think so and asks Lena the same question, Lena does not answer. They hug, and their eyes shimmer in the darkness of the room. Alex Garland made a great number of changes while adapting VanderMeer’s story onto the big screen. The first aspect he altered was the depiction of Area X. In the book, the entire area of the government facility and the Shimmer are referred to as Area X, not only the facility. In fact, the term “The Shimmer” was invented for the purposes of the film, and it does not appear in the novel. Unlike in the film, where there is a clear, visible border between the regular world and Area X, in the book, the Area’s border is invisible. It is also general public knowledge that the Area exists, while in the film it is a secret location. There are important elements that Garland left out of the film, like the place referred to as “the tower” or “the tunnel” – a massive hole in the ground lined with stairs with luminescent pseudo-religious writings on the walls, or the entity responsible for the writings – The Crawler – which plays a major role in VanderMeer’s entire trilogy and is also responsible for one of the expedition member’s death; however, there are also aspects the director added to the film: he focused much more on the visual aspect of the Area, showing the details of the various mutations the Area’s prism created. Additionally, the terrifying bear-like creature able to imitate human voices was not present in the novel. The film’s characters are also vastly different from its source, most importantly in the fact that in the novel neither of the characters has a name. They are simply called by their professions – the biologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist, the surveyor and the linguist. Moreover, the linguist leaves the group before they enter Area X, leaving only four expedition members the story focuses on instead of five. The individual deaths of the expedition members are also very different: the anthropologist is killed by The Crawler, the psychologist disappears, and the biologist kills the surveyor once she spirals into insanity. The double of Lena’s husband Kane dies of cancer in the novel shortly after his return from the Area, making the biologist believe 78

her real husband might still be alive somewhere inside the zone. The reason why Kane and consequently Lena go on the expedition is also altered in the film; the novel does not mention her having an affair and instead hints that Lena and Kane’s marriage hit a rough patch. A few details concerning the story were also altered, for example, the usage of videotape recordings instead of hand-written journals as a recounting of the previous expedition’s experiences, the predominantly linear narrative of the novel changed to a series of flashbacks or the much larger focus on the government agency Southern Reach responsible for investigating Area X, which the film omits for most parts. Even the meaning of the title was modified – in the film, annihilation refers to the process that happens to everything entering the Shimmer, while in the book, the psychologist is instructed by the Southern Reach to hypnotize all the other crew members and programme them to respond accordingly to certain words, with ‘annihilation’ being code for immediate suicide. Perhaps the biggest change was the ending of the story. The novel ends with the biologist deciding to stay inside Area X, fully aware of the effects it has on her body and mind, searching for her possibly alive husband, and investigating her surroundings more. The film does not stop there and instead continues with Lena’s doppelgänger and her subsequent return, which leaves little to no space for a continuation and makes the film a standalone piece.

5.4.1 Lena / ‘The Biologist’ – the heroine seeker Although there is quite a difference between the book and the film, Lena’s character stays the same. Her motivation for entering the Shimmer might slightly differ, but in the end, it is the feeling of guilt that drives her. In the film’s instance, the element of her being unfaithful to her husband only emphasises her need to join the expedition, but in both book and its big-screen counterpart, her marriage is going through serious struggles, and her husband enters Area X because of it. Once she realizes this, she is overcome by the feeling of guilt and self-hatred and tells her unconscious husband she knows what she has to do. Both Kane and Lena were fully aware of the possibility that they will not return from the Area, although some argue Lena went there with hopes of coming back. However, she is the one that lasts the longest under the influence of the Shimmer, which can be explained by her mental state. All of the crew members were given a reason why they went on the expedition – Anya was a drug abuser, Cassie lost 79

her child to cancer, Josie was self-harming, and Dr. Ventress had terminal cancer – yet it is Lena, who outlasts all of them. We can view this from the standpoint of accepting one’s fate. The first to deteriorate and change is Anya, who is extremely paranoid about the rest of the expedition crew trying to harm her or kill her – simply put, she wants to live. Therefore we might argue that Lena lasts the longest because she accepted the idea of her dying, of never coming out of the Shimmer, and is therefore the most mentally stable from the group. She was fully aware that eleven expeditions went in before them, and none of them came back, except for her husband, whose condition is quickly deteriorating, and he is on the verge of dying. Lena even has a conversation with Dr. Ventress about self-destruction, how is it built into all of our cells and is natural to humankind. She is determined to find the truth and save her husband or die, and along with Ventress who dies last, she is content with the notion of death more than all the others. It is her mental stability that hinders the effects of the Shimmer. Yet despite her conviction that she will die, she is trying her best to get to her goal of learning the truth about the area. She states: “Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable.”165 Images of Lena’s self-destructive tendencies are apparent near the end of the film, when she battles her double and destroys it, something Kane did not manage to do because he thought higher about himself than she did. Although, similarly to Beverly Marsh, Lena is intelligent, brave and driven, she does not hold herself to high standards. There is an apparent connection between the duplicate’s face morphing into the original human’s face and establishing an intimate emotional connection, which we can assume from seeing the videotape Kane did, but could not bring himself to destroy it, unlike Lena, who establishes this connection as a trick. She has no problem with killing herself. In the novel, Lena finds a new reason to live at the end, and she is determined to find her husband, dead or alive. In the film, Lena loses the need for redemption upon finding out her actual husband has been dead all along, but she executes revenge upon the alien forces that caused his and her crew’s demise.

165 Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), 182. 80

Conclusion

The horror genre, as established in this thesis, certainly underwent some major development. Be it in terms of special effects that enormously changed with the progress of technical evolution, the social issues of individual decades and their effect on the genre, the different approaches to the classic themes and the emergence of new subgenres and themes or the constantly changing and evolving trends, the genre never stagnated and always kept changing, morphing and evolving. Between the 1970’s and today, horror established itself as one of the leading genres of cinematography, merging with various other genres and appealing to all kinds of audiences. Therefore, what was merely a twisted anomaly in the cinematic industry in the first half of the 20th century, considered perverted and immoral, turned into a trend among filmmakers and audiences alike. Moreover, several respected and acclaimed directors made their own horror films, proving the genre is not an inferior part of cinema, but rather an opportunity to express unique artistic merits. Each chapter in this thesis examined a selected decade in terms of the genre’s development first. In the first chapter, the focus was the 1970’s, where the ties the genre had to the previous decades were established and some social context was provided, and then the most prominent parts of the horror genre in those years were mapped – the shift of the fear source into the midst of a family, the continuation of expanding the classic themes, the religious horror, the big directors of today coming to light, and the rise of the slasher subgenre and extreme cinema. Similarly, the second chapter started with an exploration of the 1980’s, the massive trend of body horror films, the ‘video nasties’, more variations on the classic themes, the prime of the slasher subgenre, and the sequel fever. Chapter three examined the 1990’s, starting with explaining the social turmoil of the time to provide context, and continuing with the serial killer theme trend, the classic themes and the lack of their representation, the deconstruction of the slasher, the ghosts and afterlife as a theme and the implementation of postmodernism into horror. The fourth chapter, dealt with the 2000’s, mentioning the 9/11 and the subsequent paranoia and featuring of the military in horror, outlining the attempts at remaking the Asian cinema as well as the old classics, the rise in popularity of the found footage subgenre, the enormous ‘torture porn’ craze, and yet again the plays on the classic themes. The last chapter dealt with the most recent decade, the 2010’s; it emphasised the important 81

role of streaming services in the development of the horror genre, it mentioned the themes of zombies, home invasion and domestic monsters, it put forward television series and anthologies, films dealing with religion and cults, female directors, horror- comedies, the theme of the gothic and the ghost, introduction of new directors and new filmmaking styles and themes, it briefly mentioned the rise of sensory deprivation horror, and concluded with the continuation of the remake and sequel trends with the newly emerged focus on prequels. The second part of each chapter introduced the author of the selected text, namely Stephen King, Clive Barker, Thomas Harris and Jeff VanderMeer, and briefly recounted their life and some of their works. The emphasis was put on King, the author of the majority of the analysed works, whose biography and bibliography were continually mapped throughout all of the chapters, each chapter in ties to the given decade. Lastly, the third section of each chapter dealt with the individual analysis of the texts and their adaptations with attention to the selected female characters. The chosen female characters were then recognized as three villains, three victims and three heroines. They were put into nine categories, and further analysed and compared to other selected characters. The victim category includes Carrie White from Carrie as victim revenger, Kirsty Cotton from Hellraiser as victim survivor and Wendy Torrence from The Shining as victim protector. The villain category encompasses Margaret White from Carrie as villain manipulator, Annie Wilkes from Misery as villain eradicator and Mrs Carmody from The Mist as villain saviour. Lastly, the heroine category is comprised of Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs as heroine guardian, Lena from Annihilation as heroine seeker and Beverly Marsh from It and It Chapter 2 as heroine fighter. The villains are categorized by how they try to achieve their set goals; villain eradicator destroys anything that gets in her way, villain manipulator moulds her surroundings to her liking and so does the villain saviour with the difference that the latter believes herself to be a good person. Each victim is targeted by the villain and suffers in their hands, and they are classified by their ultimate motivation for how they deal with their situation; victim revenger kills her tormentors in an act of revenge and in the process somewhat turns into a tormentor herself, victim protector continues forward to save somebody dear to her and victim survivor, often referred to in slasher subgenre 82

terms as the ‘final girl’, does everything in her will to outsmart the villain and to simply survive, even if it meant sacrificing other people. The heroines are classified by their motivation for confronting and ultimately defeating the antagonist; heroine guardian does so because it is her duty, she is set to protect the community, heroine fighter fights for her friends, family and herself and believes in their ability to win, and heroine seeker searches for answers, she seeks to uncover the truth. The approach each director chose to adapt the selected novel differed greatly. While Brian De Palma’s Carrie and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs are both quite faithful adaptations, other filmmakers mentioned in this thesis opted for a bigger shift in the artworks’ dynamics. Both Rob Reiner and Frank Darabont chose to alter the story only slightly, but with consequences to the overall message or atmosphere of the plot. Reiner’s Annie Wilkes in his Misery is significantly tamer than her source material counterpart, while the ending that Darabont selected for The Mist was drastically different from King’s version and added a new level of desperation and hopelessness to the story. Despite being the author of the original work, Clive Barker decided to change several things while adapting The Hellbound Heart into Hellraiser, mainly the gender implications of the original, the relationships between his characters, some details concerning the plot and especially the end of the film, all these to achieve the audience’s deeper connection and understanding. Similarly, Alex Garland took the source material for Annihilation and made it his own, changing the entire conception of Area X, adding numerous details not present in the book and likewise removing the book’s details from his final movie, changing the characters’ relationships and their backstories and significantly altering the ending. Stanley Kubrick took an even more drastic route with his adaptation of The Shining and modified a rather large portion of the novel, much to King’s dislike; he changed the characters’ appearances and personalities, he conceived the hotel a lot differently, he altered which character performed which action and changed some key events. Perhaps the biggest alterations, however, were made by Andy Muschietti for his It and It Chapter 2. The thesis recounted all the changes he made in the films in detail, focusing particularly on the characters, the details of the story that were altered, dismissed or added, and the overtly explicit scenes from the novel that could not be transferred onto the screen. The portrayal of the individual selected female characters, as seen in the thesis, changed over time. The most prominent change was in the classification of these 83

characters; the genre predominantly portrayed women as victims up until the early 1990’s, even though the victims were with time gradually depicted more as strong, capable women than damsels in distress, especially in the 1980’s with the slasher subgenre prime. After that, the position of the women in horror films shifted, and although they still often served as a potential victim for the killer, they started to move more drastically on the good and bad scale; they were either the villains of the story or the heroines that saved the day. The 1970’s Carrie White and the early 1980’s Wendy Torrence were quite the typical victims – shy, reserved, weak, terrified and naïve – the perfectly exploitable targets for the oppressor. However, Kirsty Cotton in the late 1980’s was a much stronger character, determined, brave and smart, although still a victim of the circumstances. In the 1990’s, strong, malevolent female villains emerged, best encompassed by the character of Annie Wilkes. In comparison with Margaret White from two decades prior, who was depicted as a religious fanatic lacking common sense and a grip with reality with a violent nature, but not the intention to kill anyone until the very last sequence of the film, Annie, although also somehow influenced by religion, was determined to get what she wanted at any cost, she was not hesitant to murder, kidnap, harm and mutilate people or commit any other atrocity. A decade later, Mrs Carmody was yet again a religious devotee, who exploited the seriousness of the situation to gain disciples who would do her dirty deeds for her. However, her character had more of an ominous aura, being the one that at the beginning of her story seemed the most ordinary of all the other villains, and became a threat only under stress and danger. This was a rather realistic premise that added a feeling of uneasiness to the story. The other side of the scale featured Clarice Starling from the 1990’s and Beverly Marsh and Lena, both from the 2010’s. They were essentially good but have suffered in the past, having great emotional baggage on their shoulders that pushed them forward. Additionally, although their motivations for the heroic behaviour they all displayed was different, they were all similarly determined to achieve their goal and never gave up in pursuing it. All things considered, the horror film has been a part of humanity’s life for over a century now, and unless people suddenly stop being curious about the unknown and lose the thrill of being scared, it will continue to entertain us in the future as well. The genre has come a long way, undergoing serious changes and development, and it is for 84

the audience to ultimately decide if for the better or the worse. This issue has long been a topic for discussion with inconclusive results, but as change is generally viewed as a good way towards progress and improvement, it is safe to point out the genre has moved forward with contemporary trends that always seem to please a large number of audiences. With women having a stronger presence in the genre with each decade as well, more parts of society feel included and represented, and humankind is a step closer to gender equality, at least in the horror film industry. It is impossible to predict the future, but looking at the genre’s journey until now, more interesting trends and innovations in the horror genre can certainly be expected.

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