Hybristiphilia In John Carpenter's Halloween

Hybristiphilia is defined as a “paraphilia in which sexual arousal, facilitation, and attainment of orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed an outrage, cheating, lying, known infidelities or crime, such as rape, murder, or armed robbery” (Hickey, 2006, pp. 197). The affliction is derived from the Greek word “hubrizein,” meaning, “to commit outrage” (2006, pp. 199)– outrageous, it would appear, is only the inception of a rabbit hole of enigmatic depravity. John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), though not unusual in the horror genre, expanded Michael’s incipient rampage with innumerable sequels– eight, in fact (Box Office Mojo). The Halloween franchise– including Rob Zombie’s two remakes (2007) of Carpenter’s original chiller– has a collective budget of $80,325,000– box office totals, when adjusted for inflation, equal $647,779,100 (Box Office Mojo). The lucrative
The reverberations of these abhorrent acts extend far beyond the constraints of celluloid and industry standard runtimes. How, then, to approach the subject and retain the necessary diligence and tact while buttressing the thesis simultaneously? Halloween propagates a dangerous myth about violent juveniles that has precluded requisite real world changes from taking place, yes, but for victims of senseless tragedy, what difference might it make? In the case of Columbine, Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, Dave Sanders, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, Kelly Fleming, Daniel Mauser, and Corey Depooter– all thirteen victims excluding the two shooters– lost their lives (Cullen, 2010). For those families, critical interrogations of popular texts to expose the culpability of sustained myths in an effort to mitigate further violence does not matter– their grief is