Culture in Horror Films

Culture in Horror Films
Final Paper

The Atomic Bomb, Mutations, and Aliens in Horror Films

Horror films prey upon the mass’s deepest darkest and most vulnerable fears. Horror films can be broken down into an array of subgenres that prey upon different fears of society. From 1945 onward an explosion of mutations, aliens, and monsters have dominated aspects of horror culture that prey upon peoples fears of nuclear power and its consequences. The fear of nuclear power is the fear of the unknown and how mass destruction through radiation can potentially lead to the end of the world. Atomic Bombs, the Cold War, and Radiation all cause wide spread hysteria of nuclear power throughout the world, thereby causing popularity of the sub-horror-genre of aliens and mutations. The public's fear came from the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II and its increased production during the Cold War. Because of this the horror genre began to transform itself by merging with the science fiction genre to produce movies that centered around the mutations caused by atomic bomb radiation.

1945 changed the world forever. Not only did 1945 mark the end of the Second World War. But it was also the first time that nuclear weaponry had been used in warfare. "The gadget" was the code name given to the first bomb tested at White Sands in July 1945 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4641861.stm). At the time no one understood the total effects of nuclear power because no bomb had ever been that powerful or had the potential to cause such destruction. Soon after, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place, causing Japan to surrender and end World War II. These bombings not only showed the awesome power of nuclear fission, but left no doubt in anyone's mind about the horrors of radiation poisoning ( http://www.essortment.com/monsters-horror-movies-atomic-bomb-65515.html). The initial death count in Hiroshima, set at 42,000–93,000, was based solely on the disposal of bodies, and was thus much too low. Later surveys covered body counts, missing persons, and neighborhood surveys during the first months after the bombing, yielding a more reliable estimate of 130,000 dead as of November 1945. A similar survey by officials in Nagasaki set its death toll at 60,000–70,000. (Its plutonium bomb was more powerful, but its destructive range was limited by surrounding hills and mountains). Chaotic conditions made accurate accounts most difficult. Some victims were vaporized instantly, many survivors were horribly disfigured, and death from radiation was uncertain—it might not claim its victims for days, weeks, months, or even years. (http://atomicbombmuseum.org/3_health.shtml)

After World War II people lived with the constant fear of war, which became more unnerving than war itself. The messages from WW2 were clear: no matter how heroic your men, how skilled your generals, how devoted your supporters on the Home Front, at the end of the day it was technology that counted. Bigger. Better. Deadlier. Like the atom bomb. The more advanced the technology, the more powerful the nation ( http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=1950sa). Then After the Soviets acquired nuclear capability in 1949, hysteria gripped America concerning the possibility of nuclear warfare. People built bomb shelters in their back yards and children periodically filtered out into the hallways of their schools to sit with their backs to the wall and put their arm-covered heads between their legs -- "Duck and Cover", they called it. At any moment, America believed, Russian planes would drone overhead and World War III would start (http://www.essortment.com/monsters-horror-movies-atomic-bomb-65515.html). Thus a race for dominance during the “atomic age” began. Tests of all different kinds of nuclear device such as the A-bomb and H-bomb occurred weekly both in the United States and the Soviet Union. Wide spread panic about doomsday and the apocalypse griped the world and spread fear through everyday life.

But no sooner had America entered the Atomic Age than pop went the culture. Hollywood took the opportunity to capitalized on the fears of the world post World War II. Dinosaurs were being released from icy prisons. Giant squids were being jostled from their homes in the Pacific Ocean. Over-radiated ants were mutating in the New Mexico desert. And Lieutenant Colonels, unlucky enough to get too close to nuclear tests, were reaching new heights (http://www.essortment.com/monsters-horror-movies-atomic-bomb-65515.html). An array of monsters struck major populous centers of the world. Each movie plot was similar in nature with a powerless military that used every form of weaponry they could to destroy the mutated monster that was wreaking havoc on their city. When the military failed and the city was in ruins, then science was brought in to ultimately defeat the beast. The main audiences for horror movies were teenagers, who ensured that the genre remained very profitable. They flocked to the drive-ins in hordes, not caring too much about character development, plot integrity or production values. ( http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=1950sa). The main goal of the B movies was chills and thrills. Although the monsters that terrorized the world in these movies were more terrifying in conception than execution the chills and thrills always seemed to deliver. Nonetheless, they are highly entertaining, and provide a crude, technicolor snapshot of the way America desperately didn't want itself to be. (http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=1950sa). Keith Humphrey, writer for same facts magazine discusses the B movie Tarantula in which he says, “The effects budget was probably around seven cents so it’s not surprising that some things (e.g., the rear screen projection shots when people are driving through the desert, the spider POV shots of descending tarantula fangs) look a little silly. But for the period and budget, the effects team did a creditable job on the big tarantula by filming the real thing, blowing up the negative and then using mattes to put it all together. Not as slick as CGI, but it works.” (http://www.samefacts.com/2012/12/popular-culture/film-popular-culture/weekend-film-recommendation-tarantula/)

Mutation was the inspiration for these movies in the 1950s. Radiation had the ability to enlarge (Godzilla , Them! ) or shrink (The Fly , The Incredible Shrinking Man ) existing beings. These “existing beings” made for better monsters in horror films because they could be photographed using blue-screen techniques, or recreated in model form and stop-motion animation used to bring them to life. Otherwise, the old standby of a man in a suit (still used by James Cameron in Aliens in 1986) worked well enough if seen from a distance (http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=1950sa).

The era that is the 1950s had an obsession with the monster movie due to the fears that were generated by their co-existence with the atom bomb. America had to deal with the mass trauma over using a nuclear weapon on another nation, as well as the fear of another country obtaining nuclear weapons and retaliating, thus creating another apocalypse. Monster movies offered a vision of destruction created by non-humans; instead of generating chaos and disaster, humans represent a force for good, often manifested in a yearning for peace as nations and organizations unite against the common threat, thus providing a cathartic couple of hours' escapism from the realities of the Cold War in which the threat of nuclear war was constant.