-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
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Horror and Monsters
June 16, 2008
I seem to be learning a lot this semester as this is my second time to post something inspired by a teacher. I wonder if this is just caused by the “newness” of the semester, and if this newfound bright eyed interest i have will dwindle as the semester passes by.
Anyhow, I had my most awaited class this morning- Com 115.9 Seminar on Horror Films. I’ve been waiting for this class because I only have it on mondays and, as fate would have it, WALANG PASOK LAST MONDAY!! Hmppfff.
Horror stories can be traced to way waaaaay back when people still lived in caves. It can be seen on the carvings on the cave walls which often depicts a man battling with a looming, monstrous figure. These monstrosities were probably saber-toothed tigers (Sir Andrew’s example) or whatever huge animal that our ancestors encountered. Sir’s point was horror usually has a peaceful community that is suddenly disturbed by the appearance of weird, unusual, or abnormal entity. Hence the villagers attempt to restore peace by killing those monsters or driving them away. From what I understood, this is a very limited view of horror because according to him, horror is the only genre that derives its name from the emotion that it’s supposed to elicit. Hence, the abovementioned usual plot should not be the only basis of identifiying whether something is a horror story or not.
Here comes the interesting part. To prove his point, he gave an example: the movie Monsters Inc. When the little girl was able to enter their world, they were terrified that they would all become contaminated and they did all they could to return the girl to her world-our world. If the basis was just the plot, then yes, Monsters Inc. is a horror story, just the other way around. But then why does nobody consider it as such? Simply because it does not elicit horror as we watch it!
Mababaw but I found it amusing to think that the little girl in the story was the “monster” in the eyes of those that we, in our world, call as monsters.
