The Real World Fears Behind 8 Popular Movie Monsters
Whether she's playing a drunk girl, an obnoxious co-worker or a reluctant would-be porn star, Eliza Skinner's performances are always 100% committed; authentic to the point of making you uncomfortable. Despite all that talent, she spends her spare time geeking out on her blog. We asked her to fill in for us this Saturday, so we could spend the day dyeing our underwear red in anticipation of the new Superman reboot. For some reason she agreed to do it.
Popular movies reflect society's fears. In the 1970s everyone was scared of the monolithic Soviets, so the bad guys in Star Wars were the evil Empire. In the late 1990s technophobes and Y2K gave us the Matrix.
Likewise, horror movie monsters reveal our true anxieties. I am qualified to do this because I have a BA in Media Studies and a blog, so, you know, I'm pretty much an expert in whatever I want. So let's see what you're REALLY afraid of when you're afraid of ...
#8.
The Monster: Zombies
What You're Really Scared Of: People
At first glance, modern zombie movies seem to be about a fear of disease - most of them feature the "infected" type of zombies, not the "crawled out of a grave to dance with Michael Jackson" type. But the really threatening thing about zombies isn't their crazy diseased eyeballs, it's their sheer numbers.
Likewise, any scientist will tell you our biggest problem isn't Bird Flu - it's overpopulation. Humans - especially stupid humans - are making way too many babies, and it's starting to get crowded in here. Instead of a desolate wasteland, the Apocalypse will look like the day after Thanksgiving at the mall. Which is exactly what most zombie movies look like: hordes of other goddamn people mindlessly swarming everywhere. Hordes of people are scary!
Stop having so many babies, dum-dums. They're just going to end up being zombies.
#7.
The Monster: Pennywise the Clown
What You're Really Scared Of: Perverts.
Pennywise is the razor-toothed clown terrorizing the children -- and later, their adult counterparts -- in Stephen King's It. I know what you're thinking: "Duh. Pennywise is scary because clowns are scary." Really -- you're scared of clowns? The guys that ride tiny bicycles and can't figure out the difference between water and confetti? The folks with the crazy hair and an inability to correctly size their shoes? BULLSHIT.
Stephen King made clowns scary, and he did it by turning one into a child molester. Clowns don't try to lure you away with candy so they can do awful things to your body -- child molesters do, and that is what makes Pennywise scary.
#6.
The Monster: Chucky
What You're Really Scared Of: Babies
It would be wrong to make a movie about the horror of giving birth to a deformed baby, because it would be wrong to admit that people are terrified of that. So instead, here's a movie about having a normal kid who gets a monster babydoll that just won't leave! But make no mistake, Chucky is your baby, and he is the most nightmarish version imaginable -- ugly, murderous, and sexual.
The idea of a child's toy totally deformed. Also, much like a real child, Chucky wants to take over his owner's life and kill his soul. Child's Play is the junction of scary baby/pregnancy movies (Rosemary's Baby, It's Alive, The Brood, etc.) and little monsters (Critters, Troll, Puppetmaster, etc.) all of which tap into fears about parenthood, childbirth, and -- if you are a man -- things relating to vaginas. Spooky vaginas!
#5.
The Monster: The Grudge
What You're Really Scared Of: Foreigners
This stringy-haired wet lady is hard to understand. She REALLY wants to talk -- she even uses the phone a few times -- but her speech sounds to us like "ching chong ching chong!" Oop, I mean it sounds like "ggguuuhuhgghghhh". The vulnerability associated with being submerged in a foreign culture can be scary, but it's hard to address without being racist.
The girl from The Grudge acts and sounds totally opposite from the way normal humans do -- she floats on ceilings and occasionally lives underwater! You can't understand a thing she says! And you can probably guess which way her vagina goes. The original Japanese version had more to do with viruses and disease, which to a US audience clearly isn't as scary as Japanese people.
#4.
The Monster: Vampires
What You're Really Scared Of: *Trick Question, Vampires are NOT Scary*
Don't lie. No one is scared of Vampires anymore. Vampires haven't been scary since 1994.
Nothing scary about this.
What was once a vicious blood sucking monster has become a romantic character conflicted because the strength of his kiss will surely kill the woman he wants to love. Anne Rice cut the balls off of Vampires. They are now imaginary gay boyfriends for goth girls.
#3.
The Monster: Leatherface
What You're Really Scared Of: Old Timey Executioners and Your Guilty Conscience
On the one hand, it's easy to find a reason to be scared of a retarded guy with a chainsaw. But there is an extra level of menace in Leatherface (or Michael Meyers, or Jason, or the guy from Jeepers Creepers) because he is wearing a mask. These guys are executioners, punishing their victims for their sins. Even when they have no apparent sins, they probably at least listen to rock music or want to have sex. Close enough!
The mask and the mental disability both cripple the ability to feel or communicate empathy. No matter what you do, Leatherface is not going to look sad, or happy, or anything -- he's not angry, he's just going to kill you. And deep down, you know the real reason you can't stop it is because you deserve it.
#2.
The Monster: Everything in Hellraiser
What You're Really Scared Of: Sex/Herpes
This whole movie is about how sex will drive you crazy -- either you'll get so into it that you travel to an alternate dimension looking for even more painful sex, or you'll get so addicted to one dude's zombie dick that you'll kill people just to put some skin back on it. More specifically, a lot of the monsters in Hellraiser look like personified stages of herpes.
You've got an open sore in the attic, eating people for parts, and then there's the angry genital blister running around trying to snatch a virgin. Sex is gruesome! P.S., Your parents are doing it.
#1.
The Monster: The Thing
What You're Really Scared Of: Messed up, Scary-ass Shit.
Sometimes there doesn't have to be a secret deeper level -- this is just fucking scary.
Check out more from Eliza at ElizaSkinner.net.
Ha! I just watched the thing and couldnt agree more!
ReplyI have to say, I wasn't afraid of Chucky because of a possible deformed baby in my future, I was afraid of Chucky cause that meant my dolls could come alive at any moment and f*****g kill me! I mean, did I miss the whole metaphor thing as a kid, or was it just terrifying to see any doll come alive because I had lots of stuffed animals and dolls in my room? I mean, Puppetmasters, Chucky, even that weird ass leprechaun movie made me throw all my dolls in my mothers room so if they came alive, they'd kill her first and I'd have a chance to get away. Pure survival instinct as a 7 year old!
ReplyThat's totally understandable. It has to do with the fear of automatons (human-like, semi-animatic dolls, robots, etc.) and the uncanny valley. Fear of dolls is quite common in and of itself. Zack Bagan (sp?) of Ghost Adventures fame, he who bravely stays in these haunted buildings with supposedly violent spirits, is afraid of dolls. Go figure!
You got it all wrong.
ReplyZombies are not scary per se, they are slow, they stink and they have the second lowest IQ just before the oyster. What's really scary is what they leave behind: us VS rebuilding society from scratch Vs us.
Clowns and any masked figures are scary because of our fears toward the unknown. I mean, who can decipher a clown's body language? What if that smile hid pointy yellow teeth... owh wait...
Vampires? We fear them because we don't want our free will taken away. Think of it, they are wiser, older, stronger than us, they can bend us to their will 10 times before breakfast and yeah, we're their food. Do you like being powerless food? You want a balloon?
All the rest enters the "It's not as it should be" category. That's when we see something that should be, say, having two legs, two arms and possibly a head and ends up having 4 spines, 10 legs and a leg made of patrick duffy. We can't know how to react to that, thus we fear.
No, YOU have it wrong. Eliza has taken a Media Arts class AND she writes a blog so suck it.
I'm not scared because I think clowns=child molesters. I'm scared because I think clowns=scary s**t that will eat/kill you, disguised as something seemingly cheerful/friendly/silly.
ReplyThat and I had to watch IT and Killer Clowns from Outer Space consecutively when I was four. Thanks, Dad. Good idea.
I saw IT when I was 6 (thanks mom) and that following summer I freaked and kicked a clown trying to give me a balloon right in the balls. I feel really bad about that now (22 years later of course) but back then it was either me or that nasty ass clown taking me down into the sewer and eating me. If I had to do it again, I would.
PS: My mom tried to warn the clown I was terrified, but he kept going "Kids aren't afraid of clowns, hee hee" I guess he learned his lesson, didn't he?
...Vampires are, to me, the most scary things on this planet (damn you traditions!). Read Bram Stoker's original Dracula. I assure you, you will never look at twilight the same way
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI wish you didn't have to tell people to read Bram Stoker's works. :( Shame they can't just find good literature on their own.
You know, Dracula really isn't good literature; it was the Twilight of it's day. It's great for interpreting so many different elements of Victorian culture, and it's awesome that it took a not often discussed supernatural element (Vampires) into the mainstream. Really though... have you read Dracula?
@firstsip: does anyone read, anymore? Under my belt: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Birds, The Thing, all in the originals (plus Starship Troopers, on another List); all genuinely scary and still read well, today.
I read Dracula. Dracula creeps me out. He was old, had long fingernails and stinky breath ... but he had 3 hot chicks in his castle. So ... he's rich?
Everyone always says "I would LOVE for there to be a zombie apocalypse!"... Yeah... there's nothing more awesome than having no amenities because everybody who makes your lights work is dead... just an example. I thought it was pretty well written.
ReplyFor me at least, the woman from the grudge was scary because she showed up looking creepy in creepy places, like under the blankets when you're laying in bed. I would be scared no matter what nationality she was. The grudge could easily have been made w American ghosts and been scary as well. As for IT, Stephen King was not writing about a child molester, if you read the book, the clown is basically just a costume the monster wears to scare children. It took the form of different things..a clown, a werewolf..a swamp monster..an old woman..because it fed on fear, and IT went after kids because once people grow up they stop believing. Which is why Bill can see the blood in his photo album and his parents can't. Nothing to do with child molestation. Sometimes what you see is actually what you get, there aren't any hidden meanings behind things. I get why you would say we're not afraid of clowns, we're afraid of child molesters, but I was aftraid of clowns when I was little, way before I knew what a child molester was.
Replyit's called a metaphor... relax dude.
What about dead clowns with herpes?
ReplyI guess that's why I'm afraid of Zombies. Serious Claustrophobic.
ReplyThis article was quite poor. The only one that seemed to be making a decent point is the one about zombies.
ReplyYeah, I don't really agree with these. I actually happen to LOVE zombie movies! I'd rather have a zombie apocalypse to fight off than the Rapture! I'm not scared of clowns (even after watching "It" as a kid) but after learning boy killer John Wayne Gacy loved/use to dress up as a clown, I've been grossed out ever since! The scariest thing on this blog is Chucky but that was back when I was 6 or 7 yrs old because I hate dolls! especially porcelain ones.
ReplyActually, most modern stories tend to divide vampires up into good vampires and bad vampires. The good vampires can run the spectrum from legitimate anti-heroes to annoying, whiny pussies and the bad ones are usually still pretty scary. Twilight is the exception to this of coarse, since all the vampires in that book are poorly written, card board cutouts with glitter sprinkled on them, and who's afraid of cardboard?
ReplyThe best part of this article was how it was all on one page. Please learn from this Cracked.
ReplyConvenience will be the downfall of humanity.
You just won an entire Internet. Well spoken, good sir.
Leatherface = Old-time executions?I disagree.We're terrified of characters like Leatherface because we're terrified of BACKWOODS INBREDS!
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThat seemed to be the point of a lot of movies made between 1970 and 1990.
Not necessarily. The true fear of Leatherface is because of Ed Gein, whom inspired Psycho and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series. If you want to worry about backwoods inbreds, give the Wrong Turn franchise a whorl.
However in this article, it makes sense. There's a large individual, wearing a mask, chasing after you to execute you. It doesn't get any scarier than that.
Actually Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based on the stories of Shawny Bean, a cannibal from scotland who lived with his incestuous inbred family, and killed and ate travelers for several decades before anyone could be sure that they even existed.
Putang ina mo! BOBO! Oh and next time show your tits please, like, thanks in advance whore bitch.
Reply... vampire picture of the goth kids, i have pants like the dude on the far left, and the author has good points about human fears and how movies play off them
ReplyThis is stupid. I thought the author would have made the article about ACTUAL phobias... like coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. That would have made more f*****g sense than arbitrarily assigning reasons why people are afraid of these things.
ReplyIf it was going to have ACTUAL phobias it would be called "The Real World Phobias Behind 8 Popular Movie Monsters" not fears.
I am afraid of Chucky because I am afraid of dolls. I have no problem with babies aside from the fact that they're annoying.
ReplyStephen King didn't make me terrified of clowns. Poltergeist made me terrified of clowns when I was 7.
ReplyI disagree with quite a lot of this.
ReplyYeah, the thing in The Thing is scary because Rob Bottin does the most disturbing special effects animatronics ever. But the movie itself is scary because it explores the idea that we Can't Trust Anyone. That's a genuine fear.
And Chucky is not scary because he's a baby. He's scary because he's a DOLL. Dolls are scary because of the Uncanny Valley (and you ought to know what that is if you're on a site like this). We are all afraid of things that look not quite human, because people who look 'wrong' might be diseased and it makes evolutionary sense for us to want to get away from them. Plus with Chucky there's the fear of something harmless becoming dangerous; the same kind of betrayal The Thing uses.
Trust me on this. I'm in expert on why people have certain fetishes. And phobias are the opposite of fetishes. And things that are polar opposites are often very similar. Both fetishes and phobias almost always boil down to a gut emotional reaction that we either want to avoid or wallow in.
i upvoted this before i read the final paragraph which made me wish i didn't
I would immediately trust anyone in the internet who says "trust me, I am an expert in fetishes". Where do I sign up?