How is the family represented in American horror films of the 1970s? Part 6

This is the final chapter of my dissertation on the representation of the family in American horror films of the 1970s. I hope that one day it may be of some vague use to someone, somewhere, somehow.

Part 1 of my dissertation on the representation of the family in American horror films of the 1970s is here. Part 2 on the monstrous families of films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes is here. Part 3 on those charming rape-revenge films of the 1970s is here. Part 4 on the monstrous children of films like The Exorcist and The Omen is here. Part 5 on the monstrous parental figures of film like Alien and Halloween is here.

Part 6: Conclusion

‘It’s people that I’m afraid of…’  (Tobe Hooper, 2000)

In Gregory Waller’s introduction to his book ‘American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film’, he states that ‘the horror film has engaged in a sort of extended dramatization of and response to the major public events and newsworthy topics in American history since 1968’ (Waller, 1987. p.12). The year of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was the beginning of a trend towards progressive horror films that dealt with themes of civil unrest and the negative effects of the capitalist, patriarchal society that America was at the time and still is. Films such as Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) remained progressive in their representations of nuclear families as monstrous products of capitalism. Other films such as Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) and Carpenter’s Halloween (1979) dealt with the youth of the 1970s and maintained a reactionary view of the world that children were being brought into, with absent fathers and liberated female sexuality rife in society.

Waller also suggests that ‘horror films have proven to be among the most significant documents in America’s public debate over the status of the independent woman in a society still dominated by men’ (Waller, 1987, p.5). The rape-revenge films in particular deal with independent women, both within the family, as in Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972), and also as I have suggested of Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978), in opposition to the family. These films seem to be a return to reactionary views of the family where the independent woman is considered a threat to the nuclear family unit. In particular ‘the recent horror-of-personality films seem to reflect as well a disturbing hostility toward women, which seems a direct response to the feminist movement’ (Derry, 1987, p.165). Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978) signal the full on return of reactionary representations of female sexuality that would continue in the ‘stalker’ films of the 1980s, including Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980) and Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and their many sequels.

‘The Michael of Halloween (1978), the Jason of Friday the 13th (1980)… do not develop out of the characteristic monsters of the ‘70s; they represent a refusal of everything they embodied’ (Wood, 2001). The characteristic monsters of the 1970s include Leatherface, the possessed Regan, the bourgeois families of Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977). Ordinary people forced to extreme violence by society and the family of which they are a part. These films are progressive in that they share the theme of ‘the Other as both the “same” as well as “different” from ourselves and somehow implicated in family life’ (Sobchack, 1987, p.177). Michael, Jason, and Scott’s Alien (1979) are not in the same category in this respect. They are ‘purely and simply evil’, reactionary forces out to punish women for being liberated in terms of sexual freedom and also in the case of Ripley, for being equal in the workplace with men.

The relevance and importance of these 1970s horror films is painfully clear in light of the slew of remakes that have been made in the last couple of years. Mark Kermode (2003, p.13) suggests in Sight and Sound that the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Marcus Nispel, 2003) is ‘a hallmark 1970s horror product cunningly rebranded for a jaded 21st-century audience: a perfect example of a trend currently sweeping the horror genre.’ Remakes, sequels and prequels are all abundant to the 1970s horror films discussed in this paper. Most recently there has been the remake of Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder, 2003) and the prequel, The Exorcist: The Beginning (Renny Harlin, 2004). However there is also an upcoming remake of Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Romero’s fourth in his ‘Dead’ series.

Unfortunately Kermode argues of Nispel’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), ‘Thematically, however, Nispel and Bay add nothing to Hopper’s blueprint.’ (Kermode, 2003, p.14). Nevertheless, this is arguable, as the film seems to represent the family as a refuge from the selfishness of living as individuals. However it does clearly lack the Marxist themes that can be read in Hooper’s original. Similarly in Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2003), new progressive themes are addressed, for example a dying woman is tied to a bed so that she can give birth. This suggests that women are tied to motherhood because of dominating men who will not consider ideas such as abortion and euthanasia. On the other hand these films can still be considered reactionary in their representations of women as mother figures as demonstrated by the ending of Nispel’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that has the heroine rescuing a small baby from the monstrous family.

However the resurgence in 1970s style horror can also be seen in films that range from The Blair Witch Project (Myrick and Sanchez, 1999) to Wrong Turn (Schmidt, 2003). These films seem to be a partial return to the characteristic horror monsters of the 1970s, but are not attacks on the family like their predecessors were. The nihilism of many of the 1970s horror filmmakers seems to have been lost in most recent horror and the family is generally not even an issue anymore. This is the result of the reactionary forces at work in America ever since the end of the 1970s to the present. The family seemed to be the most attacked of all sources of authority and in modern America the ideal of patriarchal family values is no longer to be questioned, especially recently. The nihilism of the 1970s has all but disappeared, after all, ‘If technology, science, medicine, government and other so-called human authorities are ineffective, what possible future can exist?’ (Muir, 2002, p.268)

I think that the American horror films of the 1970s are the last films that dared to challenge such firmly established traditions such as the family. They were a product of uncertain times where America was changing dramatically, in particular with regard to women’s rights. The successors of these classic horror films are generally either mindlessly commercial or purely reactionary in that the family is never questioned or represented as anything other than good.

And here is my bibliography in full for anyone interested!

Brottman, M. (1996) Once upon a time in Texas: the Texas chainsaw massacre as inverted fairytale In: Black, A. (ed.) Necronomicon book one: the journal of horror and erotic cinema. London: Creation Books

Clover, C. (1992) Men, women and chainsaws: gender in the modern horror film. London: BFI Publishing

Clover, C. (1996) Her body, himself: gender in the slasher film In: Grant, B. (ed.) The dread of difference: gender and the horror film. Austin: University of Texas Press

Creed, B. (1993) The monstrous – feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis. London and New York: Routledge.

Creed, B. (1996) Horror and the monstrous-feminine: an imaginary abjection In: Grant, B. (ed.) The dread of difference: gender and the horror film. Austin: University of Texas Press

Derry, C. (1987) More dark dreams: some notes on the recent horror film In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Dickstein, M. (1984) The aesthetics of fright In: Grant, B. (ed.) Planks of reason: essays on the horror film. Lanham, Md., & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Dika, V. (1987) The stalker film, 1978-81 In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Dillard, R. (1987) Night of the living dead: it’s not like just a wind that’s passing through In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Haskell, M. (1974) From reverence to rape: the treatment of women in the movies. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.

Kinder, M. and Houston, B. (1987) Seeing is believing: the exorcist and don’t look now In: Waller, G. (ed) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Lehman, P. (1993) Don’t blame this on a girl: female rape-revenge films In: Cohan, S. & Hark, I. (eds.) Screening the male: exploring masculinities in Hollywood cinema. London: Routledge. pp.103-117

Muir, J. (2002) Horror films of the 1970s. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Polan, D. (1984) Eros and syphilization: the contemporary horror film In: Grant, B. (ed.) Planks of reason: essays on the horror film. Lanham, Md., & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Rodowick, D. (1984) The enemy within: the economy of violence in the hills have eyes In: Grant, B. (ed.) Planks of reason: essays on the horror film. Lanham Md., & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Sharrett, C. (1984) The idea of apocalypse in the Texas chainsaw massacre In: Grant, B. (ed.) Planks of reason: essays on the horror film. Lanham Md., & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Sobchack, V. (1987) Bringing it all back home: family economy and generic exchange In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Waller, G. (ed.) (1987) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Wexman, V. (1987) The trauma of infancy in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s baby In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Williams, T. (1996) Hearths of darkness: the family in the American horror film. London: Associated University Presses

Wood, R. (1984) An introduction to the American horror film In: Grant, B. (ed.) Planks of reason: essays on the horror film. Lanham, Md., & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Wood, R. (1987) Returning the look: eyes of a stranger In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors: essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Journal Articles

Kermode, M. (2003) What a carve up! Sight & Sound. 13 (12), 12-16.

Wood, R. (1978) Return of the repressed. Film Comment. 14 (4), 24-32.

World Wide Web

Creed, B. (no date) Baby bitches from hell: monstrous-little women in film. UCLA. Available from: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/women/creed/creed1.html [Accessed 17th January 2005]

Eklof, T. (2004) Frankensein meets the exorcist: embracing your inner monster. Clifton Unitarian Church. Available from: http://www.cliftonunitarian.com/toddstalks/frankensteinmeetsexorcist.htm [Accessed 17th January 2005]

Kendrick, J. (2002) The last house on the left. Qnetwork. Available from: http://witzamfm.navibar.com/?page=review&id=1000 [Accessed 6^th January 2005]

Schneider, S. (2002) The hills have eyes. senses of cinema. Available from: http://sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/19/hills.html [Accessed 6th January 2005]

Wood, R. (2001) What lies beneath? [online] Cambridge University Press. Available from: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/15/horror_beneath.html [Accessed 27 October 2004]

 

How is the family represented in American horror films of the 1970s? Part 3

I have decided to post my dissertation on the representation of the family in American horror films of the 1970s in full over a series of posts. I hope that one day it may be of some vague use to someone somewhere somehow.

Part 1 of my dissertation on the representation of the family in American horror films of the 1970s is here. Part 2 on the monstrous families of films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes is here. Now for part 3 on those charming rape-revenge films of the 1970s.

Part 3: The Rape-Revenge Films

‘Out there, in the woods and on the placid lakes, there is danger from the “locals.”’ (Muir, 2002, p.543)

Wes Craven’s two major films of the 1970s, The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and The Last House on the Left (1972) are both severe critiques of the bourgeois family. As a result they share some thematic elements. The “locals” in The Last House on the Left (1972) are not the ‘monstrous’ proletariat however. Instead they are the vengeful bourgeois parents of a raped and murdered virgin. On the other hand, in Meir Zarchi’s I Spit On Your Grave (1978) the “locals” are a small group of men who gang-rape and nearly kill an independent woman from the city. However the horror, Barbara Creed and Robin Wood respectively argue, stems from the figure of the ‘femme castratrice’, and the repression of female sexuality, not the local men.

Williams (1996, p.138) argues that in Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) ‘The Collingwood family live in the American Dream’s self-deceptive image; it contains disturbing contradictions they choose to ignore.’ The tranquillity and peace of the rural area in which they live is emphasised from the very first shot of the ducks on the lake. This peacefulness of nature is emphasised throughout the film but then when Mrs Collingwood asks her husband about ‘the outside world’, he says it is full of ‘murder and mayhem’. Similarly, Mari is going to see a band called ‘Bloodlust’ who dismember chickens. She does not care about the chickens and instead fantasises about ‘making it’ with ‘Bloodlust’ in cotton wool. Another contradiction is demonstrated when the Stillo family point out that ‘people in China eat with sticks’ while these supposedly civilised people have an abundance of silverware.

Williams (1996, p.139) also argues that ‘The Collingwood family repress the violence and sexuality excessively seen in the Stillos.’ This is clearly demonstrated when Mr Collingwood tells his wife he wants to attack her. This leads to a small kiss, not a full violent and sexual attack, like the one that befalls Mari and Phyliss. Mrs Collingwood is shown as hypocritical as she and the father comment on Mari’s lack of a bra. Mari counters that her mother would have worn bras that made her breasts look like ‘torpedoes’ in her day. Mr Collingwood stresses that her nipples can be seen through her top as he is trying to repress his daughter’s sexuality. However Mari says to her friend that because of her breasts filling out, ‘she feels like a woman for the first time’. Another example of how the bourgeois family repress violent tendencies is in the scene in which Mr Collingwood has to go down into the basement, a common filmic representation of the unconscious mind, in order to find the weapons that he will use to kill the Stillos.

Muir (2002, p.212) points out that ‘The two families… are paralleled throughout the film to suggest that they have more in common than first meets the eye.’ This is done mostly through the crosscutting between the two families. This technique is first used when the Stillo family are tormenting the two girls and alternatively the Collingwoods are preparing for the celebration of Mari’s sixteenth birthday. This is possibly meant to be a glimpse into the future where the Stillo’s actions cause the Collingwood parents to prepare traps for their daughter’s killers. The fathers of both families are trying to control their children, Mr Collingwood by commenting on Mari’s lack of a bra, and Krug by keeping his son addicted to drugs. Having Mari and Sadie both first appear in a bathroom also connects the families, as does the inclusion of close-ups of the family cat and the family dog belonging to the Stillos and the Collingwoods respectively. Also the families are both represented as capable of showing guilt, as the close ups of the Stillo family’s faces and the blood on their hands after they rape Mari shows. They are clearly sickened by themselves and wash the blood off themselves soon after. This is linked to the final shot of the Collingwoods as they sit together covered in blood and the policeman pulls the chainsaw from Mr Collingwood’s hands. Mari and Junior are also paralleled as Mari vomits after being raped. Junior later vomits, though whether this is because of withdrawals or from guilt is unclear. However the fact that as his head lifts after vomiting, Mrs Collingwood sees the peace symbol around his neck, and also his eventual suicide, suggests that it may be his guilt that is making him sick.

The bourgeois family is not the only institution that is criticised in the film however. The police are represented as useless idiots with no real authority and are ridiculed throughout the film. They are shown playing games when they could be searching for Mari, they take no notice of the Stillo’s abandoned car, they wish they were not police officers and they arrive just in time to witness the end of the parents revenge but not stop it. The final shot where the cop takes the chainsaw from Mr Collingwood indicates that the police can take away weapons but they cannot stop people having violent impulses.

Nevertheless the film seems to take a reactionary view of feminism. The independent young girls are trying to buy drugs in the middle of the night when they are captured and the reason that the Stillos are after the girls is blamed on Sadie who wants ‘a couple more chicks around’ because of reading ‘women’s lib. magazines’. Mrs Collingwood is also represented as a castrating mother figure as she bites off Weasel’s penis during oral sex.

In Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978) the independent woman is positioned in opposition to the traditional family and the role of women that it promotes. This positioning is shown most clearly in the scene where Jennifer, the independent woman, watches from a distance the family of the man who she is planning to castrate. Another example is when she first arrives at the house she will be staying at. The house looks large and imposing and instead of choosing to go inside and look around, Jennifer takes all her clothes off and swims in the river. This signifies that she is an independent, liberated woman and not confined to the home with a traditional female family role. In addition to this, Jennifer is represented as vulnerable because she lives alone and therefore seems frightened when she hears noises in the night.

Creed (1993, p.129) argues it is the independent woman who is the monster in this film as she is the ‘femme castratrice’ who is ‘monstrous because she castrates, or kills, the male during coition’. This is represented by the scenes of Jennifer’s revenge, where in two of the four cases she gets the men aroused and then hangs the retarded one and castrates the family man.

However, the film is not wholly reactionary as the house is also used as a symbol of female subordination in relation to the family. The third rape in the film occurs in the house where Stanley is extremely violent towards Jennifer by beating her before he rapes her. This can be read as a comment on domestic violence as one of the men says ‘you wanted total submission’ and the men do not beat Jennifer outside of the house. It seems to suggest that independent women are not the only victims of violence and rape, and that it can also just as easily happen in the family home.

Robin Wood (1984, p.167) notes in ‘An Introduction to the American Horror Film’ that the genre often contains ‘severe repression of female sexuality/creativity’. In the opening scenes of the film, Jennifer is dressed in a red dress and wears make-up. The red signifies the danger she represents to the ‘locals’, men who are not used to seeing independent women from the city. Immediately, Johnny, the rapist and family man, watches her suspiciously as she gets out of her car to stretch her legs. He is clearly threatened by her sexuality as he talks to her and looks at her legs. She even calls herself an ‘evil New Yorker’ to the retarded rapist Matthew as he says she is from ‘an evil place’. When Johnny is begging for his life he blames Jennifer for arousing the men, commenting on the fact that Matthew could see ‘tits with no bra’ when she answered the door to him.

Female creativity is also clearly repressed in the film in two scenes. Firstly when Jennifer is in her hammock trying to write, the voiceover tells the viewer what she is thinking and writing. The voiceover is then drowned out by the noise of the approaching motorboat with the two men in it and her creativity and thought is stopped by the noisy interruption. Then when the men are attacking her in her home, they read and laugh at her writing, before tearing the pages up.

The only family in the film are Johnny’s, who has a wife and two children. The family is represented as the victim of the independent woman’s killing spree. The wife and children are only glimpsed in the film before Johnny’s castration and subsequent death. Afterwards they are seen waiting for him to return and fretting about his safety. Johnny, the family man, is the only victim of Jennifer’s revenge that gets to share his point-of-view with her and therefore the spectator. As he begs for his life he says ‘you can’t do this to me, I’ve got a family’, before later revealing that ‘you get used to a wife’ and that is why he raped Jennifer. The character of Johnny criticises the family as oppressive for men, saying, ‘whether he’s married or not, a man is just a man’ and his wife even calls him ‘a good father and a good husband’, but this is probably because she thinks ‘he’s loyal’, an obvious mistake. Johnny grins as the attack on Jennifer begins while the other men look on with concerned expressions. This suggests marriage and family life have made man even more antagonistic towards women.

On the other hand, the men without families are represented as wild animals as they run through the woods making animal noises like a primitive mating call and chasing Jennifer. They are also to blame for Johnny’s disappearance in the eyes of his wife as she thinks they are the ones who have influenced her husband and got him into trouble. Unfortunately she is mistaken in her loyalty to him, as her husband is the obvious ringleader of the group.

I Spit On Your Grave (1978) therefore maintains a disturbingly reactionary view of independent women in opposition to the woman in the family unit. However it could be argued there are some progressive elements in the film. Overall both films are reactionary in that they present violent sexual threats to independent liberated women. However Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) also has a progressive representation of the bourgeois family as a site of repression and the parents as hypocritical authority figures.

Back to part 2 on Monstrous Families. 
Part 4 on Monstrous children is here.
Part 5 on Monstrous Parents is here.
Part 6 on my conclusions is here.

How is the family represented in American horror films of the 1970s? Part 1

This is my dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of BA Film Studies with Video Production and Creative Writing at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College back in 2005. I will publish it in 6 parts over the next few weeks.


Firstly I would like to thank Dr Colette Balmain for all her help and guidance throughout the preparation of the dissertation.  Also I would like to thank all of the other staff at BCUC for their support and knowledge.
 
Part 1: Introduction

‘Horror films now suggest that the horror is not among us, but rather part of us, caused by us…’ (Polan, 1984, p.202). 

During the 1970s horror films radically changed from those that had come before, along with drastic changes in society and American films in general.  The Vietnam war, civil rights, Nixon, Watergate and feminism all left unmistakable footprints on society and consequently the films of the era, most noticeably in the horror genre.  Films including Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972), William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) and John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) not only pushed the boundaries of taste but also brought the horror to ‘our living rooms and backyard.’ (Muir, 2002, p.213), and, as a result were banned on video in the UK for over thirty years in the former three films cases. 

The family plays a central role in the American horror films of the 1970s and its destruction is often the subject.  The representation of the family ranges from progressive, in for example George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), to reactionary in many others including Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). 

These next few posts will show how the representation of the family in American horror of the 1970s moved from a relatively progressive beginning to the decade with such films as George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), to a generally far more reactionary view of the family by the end of the decade with films such as Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978). 

Key films from the previous decade are Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968).  Hitchcock’s films, not even just Psycho (1960), seem to have had an important influence on many of the horror films of the 1970s including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978), as Molly Haskell (1974, p.349) points out, ‘the blonde […] must be punished […] he [Hitchcock] submits his heroines to excruciating ordeals, long trips through terror in which they may be raped, violated by birds, killed.’ 

In addition to this, the rural and urban locations of Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) respectively seem to have lead to many of the settings of the 1970s horror films, for example a farmhouse in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and the urban family home in The Exorcist (1973).  ‘Romero and Polanski redefine the monstrous…and situate horror in the everyday world of contemporary America’  (Waller, 1987, p.4).  Before the 1960s, horror came from elsewhere, Transylvania or Europe, not from rural and urban America.

The horror films from the 1960s also began moving the family to the central subject of the horror, as in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) where ‘the idea of the family is perhaps more harshly assaulted than any other… Family ties actually become dangerous in the film’ (Dillard, 1987, p.28).  The father of the nuclear family is shown as weak, the young lovers useless, a sister killed by her brother and a mother killed by her daughter, perhaps the first of the terrible children that became so popular in films like Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) and Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976).

Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is extremely significant, not only for having the family to be the central subject of the horror film and having the most recognisably urban location, but also because ‘we can see […] the radical beginning of patriarchal failure: of paternity refused, denied, abandoned, hated…’ (Sobchack, 1987, p.185), a theme echoed in many of the 1970s horror films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and the monstrous children sub-genre.

The next post will consist of Chapter 1: Monstrous Families. This will look at two films in detail, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977).  Using Charles Derry’s essay ‘More Dark Dreams: Some Notes on the Recent Horror Film’ and John Kenneth Muir’s book, ‘Horror Films of the 1970s’, as well as other theorists, this chapter will show the ways The Hills Have Eyes (1977) is a critique of the bourgeois family. This chapter will also demonstrate, using the theories of Tony Williams in his book ‘Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film’, and Robin Wood’s article ‘Return of the Repressed’ in Film Comment, how a Marxist reading of these films reveal them to be about class and capitalism.  Finally, in this chapter it will be demonstrated, again using Muir’s book, and also with reference to Wood’s ‘An Introduction to the American Horror Film’, how the family is positioned as monstrous whether bourgeois or proletariat.

In Chapter 2: The Rape-Revenge Films, the focus will again be on two films, Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) and Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978).  Using the books of Williams and Muir, this chapter will demonstrate how Craven again critiques the bourgeois family in his earlier film, showing it to be repressed and hypocritical.   Then, with reference to Robin Wood and Barbara Creed, this chapter will analyse I Spit on Your Grave (1978) from a feminist perspective to show it as an attack on independent women and also a critique of the family.

Chapter 3: Monstrous Children, will look at William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive (1974) and Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976).  Using Vivian Sobchack’s essay ‘Bringing It All Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange’ and Marsha Kinder and Beverle Houston’s essay ‘Seeing is Believing: The Exorcist and Don’t Look Now’ this chapter will begin by looking at the ways the child is represented as evil in these films.  With reference to Wood’s article ‘Return of the Repressed’ this chapter will then question how the family is regarded as innocent in The Omen (1976), despite the evil child.  Finally, using Williams’ book and also Barbara Creed’s chapter on The Exorcist (1973) in her book, ‘The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis’, this chapter will conclude by demonstrating how the family is represented as the cause of the evil children.

Chapter 4: Monstrous Parents, will focus primarily on John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979).  With reference to Wood’s essay ‘Returning the Look: Eyes of a Stranger’ and his online article ‘What Lies Beneath’ this chapter will demonstrate how with the introduction of the ‘stalker’ cycle of films, the monster became a father figure.  Finally, using Creed’s essays on Alien (1979) this chapter will demonstrate how the mother became the monster in films such as Alien (1979), but was also represented in a progressive way in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978).

 
Click here for part 2 on Monstrous Families.
Click here for part 3 on Rape Revenge films.
Part 4 on Monstrous children is here.
Part 5 on Monstrous Parents is here.
Part 6 on my conclusions is here.