Metadeconstruction

We were about sit down and watch the 2008 film The Strangers, when my sister asked me if this was the horror movie with the cabin in the woods, and I realized what a hard question that was to answer. I mean on the surface, yes of course it is, three masked killers throughout the night terrorize two people at their cabin in the woods.

The problems with my sister’s question is that there are countless other films with almost that exact plot, or at least a variation of it. Horror films have been around for a long while and therefore now have the ability to be self referential and deconstructed.

One of my favorite films, which deconstructs the horror genre, is aptly titled Cabin in the Woods. The films plot revolves around a group of college students all look a bit too old for college (on purpose of course) who go on a mini vacation to a cabin in the woods. But little do they know that the cabin and the surrounding forest and lake are the grounds of a massive ritualistic killing floor. The college students all fit the standard criteria for horror film characters: The jock, the stoner/comic relief, dumb blonde, nerd, etc. but there are tweaks to each one.

All the horrific events that occur within Cabin in the Woods are literally scripted. Workers in an underground base are facilitating the events as to appease “the old gods” (an allegory for film producers and audiences). The deaths of the characters are explained to be ritualistic sacrifices, and that this occurs all over the world every year. There are multiple scenes, which showcase the other events that closely mirror such horror films such as The Grudge, The Ring, Godzilla, King Kong, and The Thing. In the film there is a scene in which a character finds a two-way mirror and can see into the neighboring room of the girl, she starts to undress and he goes to tell her to cover up and switch rooms with him. The two-way mirror is a perfect metaphor for our viewing experience only we don’t have the ability to communicate with the person on the other side. Throughout the plot of the film we find out that there are reasons for everything. The reason the blonde is dumb is because the workers have tainted her hair dye to reduce cognition. The reason the jock is loud and obnoxious is because the beer has been tampered with. “Thus we learn, early on, that the kids have been actively turned into stereotypes by the controllers: setting the scene, changing the lighting, releasing the pheromones that will provoke the hot sex the audience (inside the movie, outside the movie) knows so well it deserves.” (Smith) The teens ultimately gain the upper hand and destroy the underground base and refuse to die and so the world is destroyed by the wrath of the old gods. The rules of the horror film weren’t followed and the world ended. It’s the conventions of horror films taken to their most absurd extreme.

I’d like to look at the 1972 film The Last House on the Left directed by Wes Craven. This film is usually looked at as an early example of exploitation cinema but I would argue it’s also one of the first examples of a deconstruction film. The film revolves around three psychotic killers who rape and kill a young girl and then seek refuge in the girl’s parent’s house. As the parents figure out whom exactly they’ve opened their doors for they begin to enact ferociously vicious revenge. The film showcases “a collective barbarism overtaking the middle class values of American society… [through] a couple’s… descent into savagery even outstripping the cruelty of their attackers” (Sharrett 139).

It could be argued that parents in the film are more brutal in their killings then the actual killers. They are “restoring and affirming normality” (Lizardi 117), the killers created an imbalance within the plot and the parents were written to equalize it. On a deeper thematic level the film is wondering whether we are all capable of being cold blooded killers and asks how far we would go to right a wrong.

Earlier I referred to the rules of the horror film, and no film series exemplifies this better than one also crafted by Wes Craven, Scream. The film is probably the most well-known meta-horror film. It follows Sidney Prescott and her friends as they’re stalked and killed by a masked killer known as Ghostface.

The film knowingly follows all of the slasher tropes and characters in the film constantly point out the similarities between the events and a horror film. In fact the very first killing in the series Drew Barrymore’s Casey Becker is psychologically tortured with horror film trivia, with dire consequences if she gets a question wrong. At one point the killer knocks on the door to which she anxiously replies “Who’s there?” the killer proceeds to mock the stupidity of such a question in the situation she finds herself in. “Don’t you ever watch scary movies?” he says at one point. This scene also has Casey pointing out that the only good Nightmare on Elm Street was the first and that the sequels “sucked”, Nightmare on Elm Street was of course directed by Wes Craven and this is a slight jab at the many sequels that were made due to its success. At the end of Scream we find out that Billy (Sidney’s boyfriend) is one of the two killers. He starts to tell us why he did all of the horrific things we have witnessed for the past hour and a half and of course staying true to horror movie conventions his real motive is of course barebones and dumb. Sidney wasn’t letting him get past second base which made him frustrated, he continues “we started off hot and heavy, a nice R rating, on the way to an NC-17, and now things have changed, and lately, we’re just sort of edited for TV”. The killers motives was that he wasn’t having sex and he equates this with film ratings and censorship. Throughout the series’ killings a horror film is usually playing in the background such as Frankenstein, Nosferatu, and Halloween. “The Scream series implicates us as individual viewers and fans at the same time that it is passing judgment on wider societal norms” (Thornley 140) This is incredibly true especially in Scream 2 where media’s obsessive focus on violence is looked at through another series of murders. In Scream 2 the events of the first film have been made into a film known as Stab. This film within a film scenario elevates the meta-ness of film to an entirely new level. The screening of the film within the film occurs during the first few scenes. This is also when Ghostface finds his first victims. Omar Epps is killed in the bath room and Jada Pinkett Smith is stabbed in plain sight. She proceeds to plea for the audience to help her but all they do is watch, they think it’s all part of the nights festivities. We sit and watch as “innocent teens” are killed before us and in doing so are showing complacency and in a more sinister sense are giving the actions our collective “okay”. Some would argue that watching a film is a benign action but rarely are we ever just “watching” a film. We “react, recoil, disagree with the narrative and sometimes with each other, laugh, cry, lust, hope and grow angry. We leave with a part of the film embedded in our collective consciousness, we take home a different self than when we first entered the space of the theatre and looked towards the screen.” (Thornley 142) It’s no mistake that the first two victims in Scream 2 are black. Before Jada’s death she is constantly pointing out how whitewashed horror films are. There is also the horror film cliché that minorities get picked off first. The beginning scenes challenge and yet at the same time cement the status quo within horror films by predominately showing two black characters and then having them be the first to get killed off. Scream 2 also has the character of Joel a cameraman, he’s also black and when the killings start to ramp up he quits his job and leaves saying “brothers don’t last long in situations like this”. But the situation he refers to is real life for him and a film for us. He doesn’t recognize he is in a film so the line has an underlying societal connotation to it. Sarah Michelle Gellar most popularly known from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another one the helpless victims in Scream 2 she plays against type which enhance the meta-ness of the film, even a badass female heroine is just another one of Ghostface’s victims. Throughout the Scream series confidence is linked with desperation and recklessness showing that you can’t always tell the difference between the two. The films also points out the invalidity of the assumption that films are to blame for violence in the world, this is most evident in Scream 2 when Mickey’s defense for his killings is that he’ll manufacture that he was affected by cinematic violence but Sidney and him both know he’s just a crazy killer. The films “show the impossibility of holding the movies responsible for creating murderers who know quite well what it is that they do… [and yet] Maureen dies because the Stab audience can’t separate fiction from reality; the mock gowns and knives and masks from a real murder even though the Scream series rejects the simple fallback of blaming the movies when people go wrong, we — the ‘real’ audience — are not let off quite that easily.” (Thornley 145–146). The societal mirror is further explored in Scream 4 when we find out the main killers motives were only to become famous, to be known. Perhaps the greatest thing that the Scream series does is present the viewer with the idea that if they want to literally survive in the real world they need to be media literate. They need to know the rules of the films. The tagline for Scream 4 was “New Decade. New Rules” playing with the idea that enough time has passed that they can further tweak and experiment within the confines of the horror film. The films do a great job of exposing the clichés and tropes of horror films but always cements that it’s still a horror film. That no matter how much they play with the idea of the horror film, the killer will still kill, the rules will be followed, and people will die. This is what I think is its greater point on society, “we may know the machinations of the system we operate in, but we still operate in it — and many of us rely on it to an unprecedented extent.” (Thornley 146) No matter how smart or informed you are, no matter how much you know about what goes on “behind the scenes” you are still part of society and must rely on its mechanisms.

Now I’d like to look at the film Funny Games, now there are two versions of the film but I’ll be focusing on the American shot for shot remake made by the director of the original Michael Haneke. With regards to Scream and its look at complacent viewership, Funny Games focuses on the same thematic material although on a more sinister and darker level. “Funny Games… critique[s]… audience’s predilection for violent entertainment” (Aston 115) Funny Games revolves around a family who are at their vacation home that soon becomes terrorized by two young white-collar psychopaths. I point out the fact that the two are white collar because in horror films the psychopaths are usually socially backwards hicks, but this challenges that trope by having the killers be incredibly polite and well versed. Although the film challenges certain horror tropes it also abides by the rules as well, the cell phone is destroyed, the man becomes incapacitated, and the female is put through longer psychological torture than any other character. The films title comes from the light hearted fun loving approach the killers have towards their systemic torture of the family. The first game they play is “hot and cold” in which the Michael Pitt’s Paul has Naomi Watt’s Ann go look for her dog. When she gets closer he says “warmer” and as she ventures off he says “colder” now as Ann looks for her dog the viewers and Anne know that the pet is most likely dead. Michael Pitt’s character within the film knows this and looks back at the camera acknowledging the viewer and somewhat confirming your fears.

As the film progresses the two killer propose to make a bet, they bet that the family will be dead by nine am and they designate the family that they bet they’ll be alive. Michael Pitt then addresses the viewer asking what side of the bet they’re on and assumes that they’re rooting for the family. By having Michael Pitt break the fourth wall, Michael Haneke has challenged complacent viewership. He’s elevated the audience to be a more active participant in the films plot, which makes the film all the more unsettling. But Haneke doesn’t want you to think that you have any say or control over the films proceedings and this is made evident when Anne shoots Peter with a shotgun and Paul says “You shouldn’t have done that Ann” and proceeds to literally rewind the film then stops Ann before she can do it again. What was once a triumphant moment for the protagonist has became incredibly warped and depressing. This breaking of the fourth wall prevails throughout the movie but only Paul is the one to break it. He tells us the reasoning for their disappearance in the third act (to create drama and give the family what looks like a fighting chance) and he also gives reasoning as to why he didn’t kill them sooner (they haven’t reached a feature length running time). At one point the father of the family, played by Tim Roth, asks Paul why they’re doing this to which Paul replies “Why not” The line points out the stupidity of looking for motive in horror films and maybe in a greater sense film in general. The actions will still play out the same way regardless of motive. There’s another point in the film when the kid gets shot and dies and the camera slowly pans over the room. The camera stops panning when it gets to the blood splattered TV, which has NASCAR playing on it. This is in my opinion one of the most ingenious scenes of modern cinema. The camera stays fixed on the television for about 3 minutes and you as the viewer are just watching cars go in circles. Haneke is pointing out that we derive entrainment from incredibly senseless things. The idea that if you think what you’re watching is screwed up then creating a spectator sport around cars going really fast in circles is equally flawed. The two killers consistently talk about plot development and the reason we’re here watching the film, they also argue about what separates reality from fiction. The film ends with the killers unceremoniously throwing a bound and gagged Ann into the ocean and proceeding to her neighbor’s house to start all over again albeit with Paul smiling sinisterly at the camera.

Lastly I’d like to look at a few films that meet the criteria for being meta or a deconstruction and why. First up is You’re Next. The film was created to counter the audience rooting for the killer and harken back to the days when you were rooting for the protagonist to make it out of the film. The films plot revolves around a family at their country estate who begin to be terrorized by masked killers.

The family is quickly picked off one by one. But the addition of throwaway killings out of nowhere, inept killers, and the seemingly lack of a damsel in distress character makes this a deconstruction.

The next film is called Pandorum and revolves around a group of individuals all with amnesia trapped on a defunct spaceship with creatures on board. Towards the end of the film the two main protagonists start losing their minds and the film wants to make this clear to you.

The effects become distorted and animated and the audio becomes a bit grotesque, this all culminates in a scene that can be somewhat hard to follow. The insanity of the main characters is given a visual and auditory medium creating a self-referential atmosphere.

Finally I would like to look at the film Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, I mentioned before the horror film cliché about backwater hicks terrorizing “innocent teens” this movie challenges that trope directly having the teens meet their demise at their own stupidity but blaming it all on two simple yet kind hearted hillbillies.

The movie is basically one giant misunderstanding. But through this misunderstanding we are shown the other side of an overplayed horror cliché.

These are just a handful of films that choose to do more than be pure entertainment. They want to challenge, tweak, and change the status quo of the horror genre but also have the viewer be more than just a passive spectator. They want you to think and ask why. So I’ll end this post on a fitting note. I know I this is just another post on just another website and I have consistently referenced myself, my thoughts, and even my sister. I have addressed you, the reader, and now I ask you why? Why are we so complacent as viewers? Why do we go back to movie theater time after time and watch the same old stuff? There may never be definitive answers to those questions, but until then those themes still need to be explored and so I thank the films above for doing more than being just another horror film.

Works cited:

Aston, James. “The (Un) Spectacle of the Real: Forwarding an Active Spectator in Michael Haneke’s(2003).” Studies in European Cinema. Print.

Lizardi, Ryan. “Reimagining Hegemony and Misogyny in the Contemporary Slasher Remake.” Journal of Popular Film and Television (2010). Print.

Sharrett, Christopher. “Fairy Tales for the Apocalypse: Wes Craven on the Horror Film.”Film Quarterly. July 1985. Print.

Smith, Paul Julian. “Scare Quotes.” Film Quarterly. June 2012. Print.

Thornley, Davina. “The Scream Reflex: Meta-Horror and Popular Culture.” Metro Magazine. Print.