Horror Film and Affect

Challenging theories of abjection, complicating cognitivism and ­recalibrating approaches to identification, this work brilliantly embodies the future of ­Horror Studies. Xavier Aldana Reyes slashes through received wisdoms: whether tackling New French Extremity, digital found footage, or the ­multiplex 3D movie, and Affect is never less than razor sharp. —Matt Hills, Professor of Film and TV Studies at Aberystwyth University and author of The Pleasures of Horror (2005)

Aldana Reyes presents a powerful, directly experiential approach to which will have lasting impact on the field of horror film­ spectatorship. His innovative “affective-corporeal” somatic model considers how the ­affective encounter with abject images of torture, pain and dismemberment works not just to frighten and repel but to mobilise our emotional empathy. —Anna Powell, Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of Deleuze and Horror Film (2005)

Aldana Reyes’ book gathers insightful excursions into the twisted realm of affect and horror cinema, and finally manages to re-evaluate and fuse ­influential body theories in his courageous and very original criticism. —Marcus Stiglegger, Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Siegen, Germany,­ and author of Terrorkino: Angst/Lust und Körperhorror (2010)

This book brings together various theoretical approaches to Horror that have received consistent academic attention since the 1990s – abjection, disgust, cognition, phenomenology, pain studies – to make a significant contribution to the study of fictional moving images of mutilation and the ways in which human bodies are affected by those on the screen on three levels: representationally, emotionally and somatically. Aldana Reyes reads Horror viewership as eminently carnal, and seeks to articulate the need for an alternative model that understands the experience of feeling under cor- poreal threat as the genre’s main descriptor. Using recent, post-millennial examples throughout, the book also offers case studies of key films such as Hostel, [●REC], Martyrs or Ginger Snaps, and considers contemporary Horror strands such as found footage or 3D Horror.

Xavier Aldana Reyes is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Routledge Advances in Film Studies

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.

16 Postwar Renoir 24 Masculinity in the Film and the Memory of Contemporary Romantic Violence Comedy Colin Davis Gender as Genre John Alberti 17 Cinema and Inter-American Relations 25 Crossover Cinema Tracking Transnational Affect Cross-Cultural Film from Adrián Pérez Melgosa Production to Reception Edited by Sukhmani Khorana 18 European Civil War Films Memory, Conflict, and Nostalgia 26 Spanish Cinema in the Global Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou Context Film on Film 19 The Aesthetics of Antifascist Samuel Amago Film Radical Projection 27 Films and Jennifer Lynde Barker Their American Remakes Translating Fear, Adapting 20 The Politics of Age and Culture Disability in Contemporary Valerie Wee Spanish Film Plus Ultra Pluralism 28 Postfeminism and Paternity in Matthew J. Marr Contemporary US Film Framing Fatherhood 21 Cinema and Language Loss Hannah Hamad Displacement, Visuality and the Filmic Image Tijana Mamula 29 Cine-Ethics Ethical Dimensions of 22 Cinema as Weather Film Theory, Practice, and Stylistic Screens and Spectatorship Atmospheric Change Edited by Jinhee Choi and Kristi McKim Mattias Frey

23 Landscape and Memory in 30 Postcolonial Film: History, Post-Fascist Italian Film Empire, Resistance Cinema Year Zero Edited by Rebecca Weaver- Giuliana Minghelli Hightower and Peter Hulme 31 The Woman’s Film of the 1940s 40 Hollywood Action Films and Gender, Narrative, and History Spatial Theory Alison L. McKee Nick Jones

32 Iranian Cinema in a Global 41 The in the Global Context South Policy, Politics, and Form Edited by MaryEllen Higgins, Edited by Peter Decherney and Rita Keresztesi, and Dayna Blake Atwood Oscherwitz 33 Eco-Trauma Cinema Edited by Anil Narine 42 Spaces of the Cinematic Home Behind the Screen Door 34 American and ­ Edited by Eleanor Andrews, Chinese-Language Cinemas Stella Hockenhull, and Fran Examining Cultural Flows Pheasant-Kelly Edited by Lisa Funnell and Man-Fung Yip 43 Spectacle in “Classical” Cinemas 35 American Documentary Musicality and Historicity in Filmmaking in the Digital Age the 1930s Depictions of War in Burns, Tom Brown Moore, and Morris Lucia Ricciardelli 44 Rashomon Effects 36 Asian Cinema and the Use of Kurosawa, Rashomon and Their Legacies Space Edited by Blair Davis, Robert Interdisciplinary Perspectives Anderson and Jan Walls Edited by Lilian Chee and Edna Lim 45 Mobility and Migration in Film 37 Moralizing Cinema and Moving Image , Catholicism and Power Cinema Beyond Europe Edited by Daniel Biltereyst and Nilgün Bayraktar Daniela Treveri Gennari

38 Popular Film Music and 46 The Other in Contemporary Masculinity in Action Migrant Cinema A Different Tune Imagining a New Europe? Amanda Howell Guido Rings

39 Film and the American 47 Horror Film and Affect Presidency Towards a Corporeal Model of Edited by Jeff Menne and Viewership Christian B. Long Xavier Aldana Reyes This page intentionally left blank Horror Film and Affect Towards a Corporeal Model of Viewership

Xavier Aldana Reyes First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX144RN

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© 2016 Taylor & Francis

The right of Xavier Aldana Reyes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Aldana Reyes, Xavier, author. Title: Horror film and affect: towards a corporeal model of viewership / by Xavier Aldana Reyes. Description: New York; London: Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge advances in film studies; 47 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Includes filmographies. Identifiers: LCCN 2015040499 Subjects: LCSH: Horror films—History and criticism. | Horror films—Psychological aspects. | Motion picture audiences. Classification: LCC PN1995.9.H6 A383 2016 | DDC 791.43/6164—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040499

ISBN: 978-0-415-74982-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-79585-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra This book is dedicated to my aunt, Isidora Aldana Rivero. Porque tía solo hay una. This page intentionally left blank Contents

List of Figures xi Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction: The Affective-Corporeal Dimensions of Horror 1 Horror Film and Affect 3 Horror Film and the Body 9 This Book 15 Notes 19 Bibliography 21 Filmography 27

1 Representation: Abjection, Disgust and the (Un)Gendered Body 28 Gender, Abjection and the Limitations of the Monstrous-Feminine Model 29 Case Study 1: The Female Teenage Body in Ginger Snaps (2000) 37 Abjection Without Psychoanalysis 44 The Importance of Physical Threat 49 Abjection As Fearful Disgust 54 Principal Images of Abjection Understood As Fearful Disgust 58 Case Study 2: Abjection As Fearful Disgust in Martyrs (2008) 64 Conclusion: The Relevance of Representation to an Affective-Corporeal Model of Horror 70 Notes 73 Bibliography 78 Filmography 82

2 Emotion: Cognition, Threat and Self-Reflection 85 Some Cognitivist Approaches to Horror: Acknowledging Emotions 86 Art-Horror and Carroll’s Thought Theory of Emotions 91 Physical Threat As Horror’s Defining Emotional State 98 Case Study 1: Experiencing Fear, or How [•REC] (2007) Works 105 x Contents Anticipation and Reaction to Threat: Dread and Survival Suspense 111 Complex Self-Reflective Cognitive Processes: Shame and Guilt 121 Case Study 2: Snuff-Movie (2005) and the Complicit Morbid Viewer 126 Conclusion: The Relevance of Emotion to an Affective-Corporeal Model of Horror 132 Notes 134 Bibliography 141 Filmography 146

3 Somatics: Startles, Somatic Empathy and Viewer Alignment 150 Visual and Acoustic Assaults: The Startle Effect 151 Case Study 1: Direct Attack of the Viewer in My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) 156 Identification and the Masochistic Viewer 162 Corporeal Identification: Somatic Empathy 167 Sensation Mimicry and Cinematic Pain 172 Case Study 2: Viewer Alignment and the Torture Scene in Hostel (2005) 178 Conclusion: The Relevance of Somatics to an Affective-Corporeal Model of Horror 184 Notes 186 Bibliography 189 Filmography 191

Conclusion: Horror Film and Affect 194

Index 201 List of Figures

I.1 The intensity of the attacks on the body in Hostel (2005) can stay with viewers even days after being exposed to the film. 2 I.2 It is not necessary to understand the political messages in The Hills Have Eyes (2006) to be cinematically affected by the film. 15 1.1 Ginger’s transformations in Ginger Snaps (2000) are not affective because they rely on a specifically feminine body. 39 1.2 One of the very few scenes in Ginger Snaps that uses abjection does not actually rely on the exclusive feminine quality of Ginger’s body. 42 1.3 The affective horror of the birthing scene in Slither (2006) attempts to shock the viewer through Brenda’s bursting body. 46 1.4 Fearful disgust may be experienced in the scene in Carrie (2013) where Margaret tries to pry open the door to a locked room with her bare hands. 53 1.5 Anna’s encounter with another imprisoned victim in Martyrs (2008) premises its affect on a viscerality that transcends gender and is connected to pain. 67 1.6 The flayed body ofAnna in Martyrs becomes an evident source of ungendered fearful disgust towards the end of the film. 69 2.1 The visceral number is crucial to Saw III (2006) and its various trap scenarios. 89 2.2 Paranormal Activity (2007) showcases the main emotional and affective reaction expected from Horror, the recognition of threat, in its trailer. 101 2.3 The immersive immediacy of [•REC] (2007) is partly accomplished by its pretend live feed look and fast editing. 106 2.4 In [•REC], the viewer shares the same affective experiential space as the camera, an immersive first-person POV. 109 xii List of Figures 2.5 In Final Destination 5 (2011), dread is created through the certainty that an ordinary situation, such as laser eye surgery, will end up killing the character. 114 2.6 Funny Games (2008) challenges its viewers by breaking the fourth wall and forcing them to question their moral involvement with the spectacle of torture. 124 2.7 The viewer is complicity aligned with the hidden camera in this iris shot of Snuff-Movie (2005) and thus asked to question his/her own voyeuristic involvement. 130 3.1 The scene where the creature materialises in Mama (2013) can startle the viewer through its cinematic orchestration, regardless of whether we “believe” in her. 152 3.2 The killer’s characteristic pickaxe is fired directly at the camera in a key affective scene in My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009). 160 3.3 Somatic empathy allows viewers to identify with Evan’s body, not his subjectivity, when the skin of his back and arm tears in Saw 3D (2010). 169 3.4 Affective, pain-driven scenes like the needle torture of Shigeharu in Audition (1999) make us more aware of our lived body. 174 3.5 The focal positioning of Josh’s torture scene in Hostel (2005) is complex and aligns the viewer with both torturer and victim in its plea for affect. 182 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Felisa Salvago-Keyes, Nancy Chen and Nicole Eno at Routledge for their editorial help, support of this project and substantial patience with my enquiries. I would also like to thank the four anonymous reviewers who provided feedback on a very early draft of this book and whose suggestions were incredibly useful in its final shaping. In addition, I would like to thank all of the critics mentioned herein for their intellectual stimulus, especially Julian Hanich, Matt Hills, Anna Powell, Barbara Creed, Cynthia Freeland, Steven Shaviro and Noël Carroll. Their work has been foundational to my own thinking. On a personal level, I would like to thank Sara Martín Alegre for her continued support of my work and for always being an amazing human being and role model. I would also like to thank my family for all their encouragement and love: they really are a wonderful bunch and I am very lucky to have them. Finally, I would like to thank Chris Barker for being there and for keep- ing me going. He is a superb companion. This page intentionally left blank Introduction The Affective-Corporeal Dimensions of Horror

In 2005, the year of its theatrical release, I watched ’s Hostel for the first time. The experience is not one I will easily forget. At the time, I was not the seasoned Horror viewer I am today, hard to scare and aware of the major tricks of the genre.1 I went to see the film mostly because it had been described as one of the scariest ever made and because Tarantino endorsed it. Perhaps for this reason, and because the film managed to affect me in a way that many others have not, I can remember my response to it very vividly, and it was multi-layered. Affectively, the film managed to do things to my body: I was on edge for its last half hour and some of its scenes were truly hair-raising. I was startled and disgusted, and I felt anxiety for Paxton (Jay Hernandez) when he tries to escape the building where Elite Hunting carry out their sick business. Representationally, the film did not make me aware of gender in ways that, say, the films of Dario Argento had in the past; I was mostly shaken by its cruelty, and especially, by its explicit scenes of torture. Emotionally, the film “hit” me just as effectively: I was horrified by the thought of the plausibility of its premise – to make things worse, Hostel claimed to be based on true events – and the possibility that people, some- where in the world, would be mad enough to pay money to kill or torture someone they did not know for the mere pleasure of seeing someone suffer and die. This aspect of the film stayed with me for a few days, as I pondered not just about the ethics of the characters’ actions but also my own involve- ment and role as consumer of violent spectacles: had I enjoyed the film? If so, did that make me complicit in the torture-for-sale business at the heart of the film? Was I in some way responsible for the carnographic spectacles I had witnessed? And worst of all, why did I want to carry on watching Horror? In an attempt to deal with these questions as thoroughly as I possibly could, and with my interest piqued by the lack of work carried out in the area of affect and Horror, I embarked on a Ph.D. The doctoral dissertation Consuming Mutilation: Affectivity and Corporeal Transgression on Stage and Screen was completed in 2013 and got as close to an answer as I could muster at the time.2 My main argument, that affect in Horror has a strong dramatic anchoring in performance and theatre, especially in graphic and horrific drama such as the plays of the grand guignol, was one that I still 2 Introduction maintain, but in that study I was more interested in looking for origins and legitimising the intellectual value of the experiences I have recounted than in expanding on the various implications of being affected by Horror. I was particularly concerned in reaching out for a model of Horror viewer- ship that did not rely on psychoanalysis, a critical approach that I found opaque and which did not account for the feelings I consciously experi- enced when engaging with Horror­ .3 A year before the submission of my doctoral thesis, I published an article on the subject, entitled “Beyond Psychoanalysis: Post-millennial Horror Film and Affect Theory” (Aldana Reyes 2012), which argued vehemently for the need to consider affect as a serious approach through which to analyse Horror film in general and, more specifically, post-millennial or contemporary Horror. Although I still stand by many of the ideas I put forward in that article, in this book I aban- don the article’s more philosophical framing.4 The reason for this is, simply, that I do not find it necessary anymore and that, if one is to detract from models of Horror study that complicate the experience to the point where the ordinary viewer may no longer be able to understand the film’s dynamic, then the alternative better be based on real, live corporeal experiences that are recognisable and intuitive.

Figure I.1 The intensity of the attacks on the body in Hostel (2005) can stay with viewers even days after being exposed to the film.

In this sense, the present book is intended as the culmination of my cur- rent thinking around the ambiguous and ever-shifting creature that affect has become in academia and as an acknowledgement of the important work being carried out by more rational and empiricist approaches to the study of cinema and Horror, such as cognition and phenomenology, by critics like Steven Shaviro, Julian Hanich or Matt Hills. However, since Affect Studies Introduction 3 is made up of an incredibly wide-ranging number of approaches, some of which contradict each other (they even use the word “affect” to describe different phenomena), my other anchoring point is the body, especially the moment of visceral contact between the viewer’s and the character’s, as fore- grounded in examples of graphic Horror, mutilation or torture. This cine- matic moment, largely under-theorised, is, for me, the epitome of the moment of affect: the point at which our bodies may be moved by those we see on the screen. The processes that take place at this point, and which deflect classical models of identification, neatly collect both the main emotional aim of Horror – to scare the viewer – and the complex process whereby viewers may be negatively affected by cinematic “attacks”. Thus, instead of vouching for the usefulness of any one given approach, Horror Film and Affect turns instead to my interest in the body, which has led to outputs that have consistently highlighted the significance of corporeality to Horror film and Gothic literature (See Aldana Reyes 2013b, 2014, 2015a, 2015b). The main goal is to thereby provide a broad introduction to the various ways in which Horror uses bodies in order to affect ours and how corporeal threat lies at the heart of the moment of Horror. But first, it is necessary to assess exactly why such an intervention might be desirable.

Horror Film and Affect Horror criticism is probably at its healthiest. The once-neglected history of Horror has, in the twenty-first century, been consistently explored and recast in a number of broad historical overviews, such as those written by Paul Wells (2000), Peter Hutchings (2004), Rick Worland (2007), Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc (2007), James Marriott (2007), Brigid Cherry (2009), Winston Wheeler Dixon (2010), Jonathan Rigby (2011) or Bruce F. Kawin (2012). The interest has been such that landmark studies, such as those by Charles Derry (1977), Kim Newman (1985) or David Pirie (1973), have been expanded and republished under different titles (Derry 2009; ­Newman 20115; Pirie 2007). These, together with increasing numbers of Horror guides or film must-see