Everyday Nightmare: the Rhetoric of Social Horror in the Nightmare on Elm Street Series
THE RHETORIC OF SOCIAL HORROR IN THE Nightmare on Elm Street SERIES
The Nightmare on Elm Street movie series has enjoyed six successful theatrical releases since 1984, and a seventh installment was released in time for Halloween in 1994. It and other successful horror movie series, such as Friday the 13th and Halloween, are frequently analyzed from Freudian psychological perspectives and characterized as allegories of the psychological dynamic underlying the return of the repressed. Although the return of the repressed, especially repressed sexuality, is clearly the major theme in many stalker movies, this approach does not completely explain movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street, in which sexual repression is not a major conflict. Instead, the position offered here is that the Nightmare series is ultimately centered in a set of ideological tensions, which pit the members of a dominant culture against that of certain subcultures, or "others." The "monster" in these movies is only a foregrounded, tacitly inscribed "other." As will be demonstrated below, however, the Nightmare series is an even greater source of backgrounded cultural and social horror, which sets the stage for an ideological rite of passage for the Elm Street youth in the film.
Although stalker movies differ in many ways, Vera Dika finds that they share a persistent narrative paradigm that is characterized by several cinematic and dramatic features: camera angles and soundtrack cues, stock characters, an unaware or ineffectual adult community, and a revenge motif (88), often sexual revenge. Ultimately, Dika has isolated certain undeniable features of many stalker films, and the Nightmare series shares most of them. However, the conflict between the heroine and the killer--who is always male--is foregrounded in early stalker movies as a feminist rite of passage; this motif is clearly seen in movies such as When a Stranger Calls, He Knows You're Alone, The Funhouse, and the first Nightmare movie.
The Nightmare on Elm Street movie series has enjoyed six successful theatrical releases since 1984, and a seventh installment was released in time for Halloween in 1994. It and other successful horror movie series, such as Friday the 13th and Halloween, are frequently analyzed from Freudian psychological perspectives and characterized as allegories of the psychological dynamic underlying the return of the repressed. Although the return of the repressed, especially repressed sexuality, is clearly the major theme in many stalker movies, this approach does not completely explain movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street, in which sexual repression is not a major conflict. Instead, the position offered here is that the Nightmare series is ultimately centered in a set of ideological tensions, which pit the members of a dominant culture against that of certain subcultures, or "others." The "monster" in these movies is only a foregrounded, tacitly inscribed "other." As will be demonstrated below, however, the Nightmare series is an even greater source of backgrounded cultural and social horror, which sets the stage for an ideological rite of passage for the Elm Street youth in the film.
Although stalker movies differ in many ways, Vera Dika finds that they share a persistent narrative paradigm that is characterized by several cinematic and dramatic features: camera angles and soundtrack cues, stock characters, an unaware or ineffectual adult community, and a revenge motif (88), often sexual revenge. Ultimately, Dika has isolated certain undeniable features of many stalker films, and the Nightmare series shares most of them. However, the conflict between the heroine and the killer--who is always male--is foregrounded in early stalker movies as a feminist rite of passage; this motif is clearly seen in movies such as When a Stranger Calls, He Knows You're Alone, The Funhouse, and the first Nightmare movie.
Cited: Bakhtin, M, M, The Dialogic Imagination: Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. Collins, Jim Dika, Vera. "The Stalker Film. 1978-1981." American Horrors: Essays on the American Horror Film. Ed. Gregory A. Waller. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1987. 86-101. Jameson, Frederic Modleski, Tania. "The Terror of Pleasure: The Contemporary Horror Film and Postmodern Theory." Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture. Ed. Tania Modleski. Bloomington: IUP, 1986. 146-62. Sobchack, Vivian Wood, Robin. "An Introduction to the American Horror Film." Movies and Methods. Vol. 2. Ed. Bill Nichols. Berkeley: U of California P, 1985. 195-219. ~~~~~~~~