The Other Monster

Monsters are everywhere!  Just ask a small child who has to turn off the light and crawl into the covers in a darkened room with an open closet door.  Morphing in a child’s mind as it matures; the monster becomes more complex, inevitably imbuing frightening personality traits with complex motives. The personality develops, reasoning dominates and new psychological need is created; the need to face the animus.  In comes the horror film.

Psychologically humans need to face what they fear in order for those fears not to control their rational behavior; they need to feel safe.  Like a small child in the darkness, we draw a veil of protection between ourselves and our fears as we view the horror film through the filter of the cinematic screen. Horrific characters play out their roles, frightening and confronting the viewer with fear and then safely retreating, leaving the viewer’s sense of survival and strength intact.  So why would we be afraid of something we know is not real? Let’s ask Shaun of the Dead.

Courtesy of Googleimages.com

The movie begins with Shaun shuffling himself into consciousness, barely awake from his night’s sleep; a visual metaphor of what is to come.  Surrounded by a best friend, who does barely more than consume beer and play video games, a girlfriend who is frantic to see some form of psychological growth from him, a mother who won’t face reality and a stepfather who criticizes his poor performance in life, the stage is set.  As the zombie phenomenon begins, Shaun barely notices.  People on the buses sit, staring forward, disconnected and displaying dead pan expressions as they head to their soulless jobs.  Others wait in line at the grocery store, ignoring one another, the cashier mindlessly scanning Shaun’s groceries as though he weren’t even there.  There isn’t much difference between the society he is used to mingling amongst and the zombies that are beginning to take over his world.  Day in, day out, Shaun goes through the motions of life, never achieving anything and remaining emotionally detached from the stagnation of his existence. 

Courtesy of Googleimages.com

As zombies begin to multiply, Shaun is drawn comically into the conflict. First flinging sacrificial records in an attempt to randomly stop the oncoming approach of a zombie that has busted into his yard, Shaun soon realizes that he needs to apply more effort in order to subdue the undead, or he’ll become one of them. Out of desperation and realization, Shaun picks up a bat and begins to bash the heads of the oncoming dead, effectively eliminating the threat one by one. At this point his character begins to change.  Once an aimless, goalless individual, Shaun begins to take control in an effort to survive. 

The zombies are proliferate, eating their way through the world and unbalancing the human population, until there are only a few aware groups of humans left.  Shaun, leading his friends through the mad, decaying world of zombies toward safety brings them to the destination of the local pub. Not a well thought out plan, but nevertheless it is action.  The pub, in the past, has represented his stagnant choices in life, but is now transformed by his conscious choice to use its existence as a tool in surviving. Zombies now threaten to encroach and surround them in one last stand of survival and the tension begins to climax.  We don’t want to see Shaun eaten alive, slowly ripped apart and watching as his consciousness is dismembered and destroyed; we want to see him survive.  To walk away, keep his individuality and move forward in life, but we know this is threatened and so we are afraid.

Holding our breath, we watch the zombie-other on the screen and will our energy to Shaun so that he might kill it.  The Other monster, the one we deem separate from ourselves is the enemy; mad, decayed, rotting, hunting.  Alive on the screen, its dead zombie-like form perpetrates madness as we defeat our repressed fears.  Relieved when Shaun survives and steps forward into his future we can relax; for now we know we will not disappear into the lifeless existence that threatened Shaun’s world. Facing our animus we vanquish our fear, reestablish our conscious dominance of superiority and reassure ourselves that the fear of a lifeless existence is not real.

Silly isn’t it? To be afraid of the dark; afraid of what is not real.  Or is it? The Other is real and it lives because its home is within us; carrying our fears and demons for us so we can function normally.  So the next time you want to get know someone; know what they’re really like, don’t ask them what their interests are.  Ask them what they fear.

Sources cited:

“Other.”  Wikipedia, 11/5/2010.  Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othering >.

“Psychological Horror.” Wikipedia, 11/5/2010. Web. <http://wikipedia.org/wiki/psychological_horror>.

“The Psychological Affect of Movies on Mental Health.” Association for Natural Psychology. N.p., 2010. Web. 9 Nov 2010. <http://www.winmentalhealth.com/movies_psychological.php>.

Walters, Ph.D., Glenn, D. " Understanding the Popular Appeal of Horror Cinema: An Integrated-Interactive Model ." Journal of Media Psychology 9.2 (2004): n. pag. Web. 5 Nov 2010. <http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/horrormoviesRev2>.