Hey people of the inter web,

Lets get spooky!

I know I’m late to the party, Halloween ended like a week ago, but I don’t care. If I’m not done being spooky, none of you get to stop being spooky!

Now that we’re on the same page, let’s get started talking about my latest unit, Horror!

Since my last spooktacular post on Shakespeare’s play The Taming Of The Shrew, I’ve started a new unit: Horror.  I’ve begun reading the book Frankenstein, written in 1817. The end goal of this unit is to create a horror movie, however we’ll get more into that at a later date. What I’m going to examine now are the similarities and differences between horror of the past, referencing Frankenstein, and horror of today, looking at the movie Halloween , made in 1978.

When you think of the movie Halloween, regardless if you’ve seen the movie or not, your mind will immediately conjure the image of Michael Myers, the mask wearing psychopath of the franchise.

Michael Myers is one of the first real slasher villains in horror movies. He killed his victims in gruesome ways to shock the audience, a new approach to cinematic horror. That being said, it was also the use of music and sound effects that made this movie so ground breaking.

This is evidenced in that fact that the director, John Carpenter, in an interview for medium.com,  said that before he released the movie for public viewing, he screened the final cut, minus sound effects and music for a executive from 20th Century-Fox. Apparently the movie did not scare her a bit.  Carpenter said that this motivated him to really focus on the music and sound effects because he had to “save” the movie. As a result, he created the most iconic horror score ever created.

Even before I watched Halloween, I could recognize the music, the “iconic rhythmic 5/4 time screeching beat”.

This beat was used as the theme for the movie and all other movies to come in the franchise. it made audiences feel very uncomfortable. Now, did you know that it was based off the score for the revolutionary 1950’s movie psycho AND the bongo drum practice John’s father taught him? Interesting, right?

Now let’s look at some additional reasons, aside from music, that made this movie horrific as well as how this connects to the book Frankenstein.

Watching Halloween in 2019 wasn’t as scary as watching it in 1978.  One reason for this was that Micheal’s motivation, or lack there of. left  the viewer really unsettled. . By this I mean his complete lack of a motivation for killing. This really shocked people since the news of the time had been covering topics like the Manson family, a group of killers who’s motive’s where heavily debated. In 1978, it seemed as though killers and rapists where popping up everywhere and without having clear motives. Apparently the term serial killer really came into the media in the 1970’s so this also contributed to the 1978 viewer’s unease.  This movie really capitalized on that fear. It especially does a great job of this in the ending of the movie when Micheal suddenly vanishes, leaving the audience with no closure and a fear that he’s still at large. Even though this is a shift from earlier horror, it plays upon the classic idea known as fear of the unknown.

Now how does Halloween relate to Frankenstein?

They both ask the question:  what makes someone human?

Though both of these movies work with this concept they do it in different ways. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, uses the perspective of the Creature to alter your perspective of humanity. She takes The Creature and uses his life story and his own consciousness to humanize him and create sympathy for his situation. In the movie Halloween, John Carpenter uses a different approach. He takes a normal, human child and strips away his emotion, mortality, social interactions, etc., to create a true monster. The fact that an artificial being shows more human characteristics then a real human makes us ask ourselves: what is humanity, what doe sit mean to be human ???. The question shared between both Halloween and Frankenstein is: what does it mean to be human?

After seeing both these movies, I’m no longer sure of the answer to that question.