“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” (Joshie & Schultz, 2001: p.255). Whether it’s the dark, or death, or disease, or any phobia really, it always relates back to variables which are unknown. If you think about it, would death be frightening if we knew for certain there is another life after this one? Of course, when everything is known there is complacency, so I am not claiming that life would be great if we knew everything and nothing would be worrying or terror-inducing. But it just so happens to be that when the future or present is uncertain, there is usually fear along with it. This is the basic theory and philosophy behind any horror narrative. Scary stories that are told around the campfire often include inexplicable details coupled with tension created by a well-paced narration, which result in an audience on the edges of their seats, waiting to hear more, hoping for an explanation. Of course, just like for the magician, when the unknown is explained, it immediately stops being interesting. Storytellers must walk a fine line between explaining enough to keep interest, but not enough where interest is lost, but again, explaining enough where the audience doesn’t feel like their time was wasted experiencing an unresolved story, but not enough again where everything is obvious. The result is the difference between a good horror story, and a bad horror story, which is basically the crux and point of stories.
This brings me to the actual point of this analysis, which is that we find ourselves in quite a predicament today. The rapid growth of technology in the last decade has dramatically shifted the way we think about the world, what we know about it, and how well connected we are. In summation, we know much more about the world, across the board, than we ever did (with information readily available wherever there is a connection to the internet), and we are much better connected as a result, both in real time, and in cultural discrepancies (again, with the introduction of the internet). So this obviously does not bode well for horror stories, which, as established in the introduction, kind of depends on the unknown – keeping the audience in the dark, literally and metaphorically works wonders, until someone turns the light on, and then it stop working entirely. So now we have an influx of horror stories which simply aren’t that scary any more, and we have a whole legion of plotlines and ideas that are entirely irrelevant today, as a result of the technological shift the world has experienced. I will explore both of those points and their implications through the analysis of two movies The Ring (2002) and 28 Days Later (2002).
The Ring is a 2002 remake of the Japanese original Ringu, a movie about a mysterious video tape said to curse whoever watches it with a phone call in which only the words “seven days.” are spoken, after which the person who watched the tape dies seven days later. The video tape features a creepy video of some seemingly disorganized and random snippets, along with the yurei character called Samara who is the ghost in the story that does the killing. The movie itself can be terrifying and leave lasting effects (TV static is never the same after watching the movie) on its viewers. And it is truly interesting how it uses the technology of its time to convey the old ghost story in a new light, literally bringing it to your living room. It’s an interesting premise that you could bring a ghost in your own home through technology. It’s part of its appeal and what makes it so unnerving. We all have TV sets, we’ve all seen TV static, upon watching the movie, the TV set and static are both given new meanings, and serve as unpleasant reminders of Samara. We also mostly know what VHS tapes are and usually have had one around at the time the movie was relevant. In summation, the movie immerses itself in the technology of the time and builds a solid narrative around it, as Kirkland says “Old media technologies contribute a sense of the real perceived as lacking in digital media, yet central to a generically-significant impression of embodiment”. In his paper he makes an argument about remediation, how old and analog technology usually plays the role of a mysterious artifact, tied to the past, and as such, can better be used to convey horror – versus digital technology. If we take for granted that tapes can be haunted, then the logic makes sense. Below is a video of how analog technology, with its stuttering and crudeness, is used to convey a sense of uncertainty and ultimately horror.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDypebQynDQ
28 Days Later is a zombie apocalypse horror-thriller set in London. It was one of the first places to feature the “infected” zombie type, known for its rabid behavior, and terrifying speed, compared to the slow Romero zombies. The movie follows a comatose, Jim, who wakes up in the midst of an apocalypse, entirely unaware of the situation. He roams the abandoned city and reads signs put up by people warning of impending danger and doom. It is all very cryptic at first, but Jim soon finds out the nature of the danger and how much better he had it when he wasn’t awake. A few times in the story, characters offer their experiences of how the whole situation became so bad so quickly, and how everyone was caught off guard. The movie very successfully maintains an aura of mystery through various means. The quick, chaotic editing which serves as foreshadowing of chaos and the deconstruction of moments of order and calm is one method that helps maintain suspense. The music and sound design is another aspect through which the movie keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. Overall the movie is able to maintain its suspense to create truly horrifying and panic-inducing moments through various means, including its plausible story. In the video below, we get a prime example of suspense with meaning. The scene is not just meant as a shallow jumpscare, instead, the shocking nature of the shots end with Mark, one of the survivors, becoming infected and ultimately not be one of the survivors any more.
Suspense scene (make sure your volume is not all the way up!)
This brings me to a major point about both movies. Their plots only seem plausible in the time they are set, but beyond, make little sense. The Ring just received a sequel a month ago, the technological shift meant the story had to change as well. A glaring issue becomes apparent in that, VHS players are not that readily-available today and VHS tapes are just as irrelevant. It doesn’t make sense to continue the old plot, but then any shifting into a new technological direction brings about more questions than it solves. For instance, today, we mostly stream things, would it make sense that Samara has now shifted into cyberspace and haunts its viewers through streaming software? So what happens when someone streams the haunted video on a phone? Do we get a pocket version of Samara? Who exactly dies? The owner of the IP? Why would the video even be streamed on any famous site? Would someone have to upload it to a site like YouTube? Wouldn’t that garner an international following and all traces of the video would inevitably be deleted? You get the point. The world is so connected nowadays, and information travels so quickly, it’s hard to imagine that any of these things could remotely remain tucked away as just a “spooky story” or some myth. In a paper by Haewoon Kwak, Changhyun Lee, Hosung Park, and Sue Moon called “What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media? ” we are offered some statistics on how digital information including news can travel. According to the study, once a tweet is retweeted, it almost instantly continues to do so, indicating an incredibly rapid diffusion of information (Kwak et al., 2010) .
In 28 Days Later we get a similar problem. All the explanations of how the infection spread so quickly was through chaos and lack of information. We see posters and papers posted everywhere warning of the danger which leads the viewer to think, in today’s world, social media would be a very effective way to let people know very quickly what the entire situation is. With information travelling so quickly, and being so accessible, and news outlets not being the sole method for hearing breaking news, it becomes hard to imagine how so much chaos could ensue before anyone could react. Many people make the claim that, if you can suspend your disbelief and believe in the “infected” you should also believe that the infection could spread the way it does. But this brings about a crucial difference that again extends not only to both of these movies, but to narration and storytelling as a whole, and how it’s affected by the technological shift of the day.
A story can suspend disbelief even with fictional elements, so long as it abides by its internal logic. If a story defies its own rules, or has faulty logic, the issue directly affects how much a viewer can suspend disbelief. For this reason, technology today, and its development, is so fast, that directors seem to be struggling with catching up. Finding effective ways to portray all this technology, and all of its implications, with a story that maintains mystery and the unknown is becoming increasingly difficult, with sub-par solutions and movies that simply aren’t scary because of their inability to suspend the viewer’s disbelief. Most horror movies depend on the disability of a character to contact anyone for help, which in today’s society is a glaring issue in that we have so many ways of contacting everyone around us, it is hard to believe that secrets and myths, such as the one in The Ring can remain secrets for long. Today, we have easy access to news that isn’t related to news outlets at all. Phones equipped with high definition cameras and high-speed access to the internet even not connected to Wi-Fi (cables aren’t a thing when it comes to connectivity), but through data, allows for quick sharing of events from the spot. Social media becomes a news outlet of its own, with personal stories and accounts being shared with the public on the regular. All of this means that there are less dark places in the world, less places and ideas shrouded in mystery, and ultimately, less things to be afraid of. For horror, this is detrimental, and for horror movies to remain relevant, there needs to be either change on the development front, or even newer technologies which bring about more of their own questions. Regardless, horror movie directors need to desperately find a way to tackle new technologies in making creative new and relevant plots.
Work Cited:
Carleton, R. Nicholas. “Into the Unknown: A Review and Synthesis of Contemporary Models Involving Uncertainty.”Journal of Anxiety Disorders, vol. 17, no. 1, Feb. 2016, pp. 30-43. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.02.007 [16 May 2017]
Joshi, S. T. and Schultz, E. David. H.P. lovecraft encyclopedia. 1st edition. Greenwood Press, 2001.
Kirkland, Ewan. “Resident Evil’s Typewriter Ewan Kirkland Games and Culture.” Games and Culture, vol. 4, no. 2, Apr. 2009, pp. 115 – 126. Available from: doi: 10.1177/ 1555412008325483 [16 May 2017]
Kwak, Haewoon, et al. “What Is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media?” Proceedings of the 19th International World Wide Web (WWW) Conference, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 26–30, 2010. Edited by Kwak, Haewoon, et al., International World Wide Web Conference Committee, 2010, pp. 1-12.