Noel Carroll introduces the term ‘Art-Horror’ as a general theory of horror texts, to 'emphasise the contrast with natural horror' (1990: 13), and claims that to be ‘art-horrified’ is essentially an emotion and that 'this emotion [is what] constitutes the identifying mark of horror' (1990: 13). He goes on to claim that 'monsters are a mark of horror' (1990: 13), and therefore the emotion of ‘art-horror’ must be in response a ‘monster’, his theory does not accept the existence of ‘horror’ texts sans ‘monster’.
Carroll claims that 'the characters in works of horror exemplify for us the way in which to react to the monsters in the fiction' (Carroll, 1990: 17), in other words, if the protagonist, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien, is scared then the audience should mirror this emotion. Carroll lists a number of ways in which a character should respond to a ‘monster’, firstly, they should 'shrink from the monster, contracting themselves in order to avoid the grip of the creature but also to avert an accidental brush against this unclean being' (1990: 17). This desire to ‘avoid the grip of the creature’ can be seen clearly in Alien, most prominently when Ripley coaxes the ‘monster’ out from its hiding place in the escape shuttle. She turns her back to the creature, allowing it to approach her, which at the same time partially disagrees with Carroll’s assumption of avoidance, but however, as soon as she sees the alien, she runs and screams. This theory of avoidance is limited partially by the fact that the very nature of cinema is that the audience has a superior knowledge to the characters, therefore our emotion will not always mirror theirs. For example, one of the crew members in Alien climbs down a ladder towards the ‘monster’, clearly fearing what is at the bottom, we however, know the alien will be there and so we are more apprehensive than scared.
The emotion of being ‘Art-Horrified’ consists of 'both physical and cognitive dimensions' (1990: 24) according to Carroll. He goes on to explain that this 'occurent emotional state is one in which some physically abnormal state of felt agitation has been caused by the subjects’ cognitive construct and evaluation of his/her situation' (1990: 27). Therefore, if Ripley experiences the emotion of fear, it will manifest itself as a physical change and as the emotions of the audience are supposed to reflect that of the characters’, we should experience a physical change also. Carroll explains this as the audience being 'in an analogous state to that which fictional characters beset by monsters are described to be in' (1990: 27). The characters in Alien respond to the ‘monster’ with fear and disgust and experience a physical transition which is represented by their movement, be it running from the creature or simply shaking. Carroll defines this as a cognitive-evaluative theory, in other words, thought leads to the emotion of ‘art-horror’ in response to the ‘monster’. Carroll applies this theory to Dracula, but I will adapt it for Alien; there must be 'some state of abnormal, physically felt agitation' which has been caused by 'the thought: that (the alien) is a possible being', and 'by the evaluative thoughts that … (The alien) has the property of being physically (and perhaps morally and socially) threatening in the ways portrayed in the fiction' and that it 'has the property of being impure'. (1990: 27).
The property of ‘being impure’ is built upon by Carroll, who claims that '[One] cannot be art-horrified by an entity that [is not] impure' (1990:28). In Alien, the monster can be considered impure and indeed a ‘fusion’ character because of its acid blood instead of the pure life-giving blood of humans, and its ‘mouth-within-a-mouth’ which appears alongside human qualities such as basic physique and limbs. These apparent binary oppositions of alien and human qualities constitute impurity; 'an object or being is impure if it is categorically interstitial, categorically contradictory, incomplete or formless' (1990: 32).
Carroll lists three ways ‘monsters’ should be perceived by characters in ‘art-horror’; firstly, there must exist a 'theme of visceral revulsion', which I have already alluded to with Ripley’s recoil from the alien. Carroll expands on this point by claiming 'emotionally, these violations of nature are so fulsome and revolting that they frequently produce in characters the conviction that mere physical contact with them can be lethal' (1990: 22). In fact, this ‘conviction of lethality’ is confirmed in Alien by the discovery of their ‘acid-blood’ and their witnessed killings. 'Indescribability' is Carroll’s second condition; the alien is referred to many times without being given a specific name, it is called 'it', 'son of a bitch' and one of the character even states it is 'like a man, it’s huge', reducing his description to the only language he knows. Finally, the ‘monster’ must be 'unclean and disgusting' (1990: 18); there are many images in Alien of the ‘monsters’ mouths opening up, dripping saliva and inducing reactions of disgust and loathing clearly visible on the characters’ faces.
Carroll claims that 'monsters are not only physically threatening, they are also cognitively threatening' (1990: 34). In Alien, the ‘monsters’ are undoubtedly physically threatening, but they are not simply mindless killing machines, they also exhibit an intelligence. When Ripley’s escape ship takes off, several aliens become dislodged from underneath of the craft, apparently having had the intelligence to try and escape with Ripley. The importance of the cognitive threat is compounded by Carroll when he claims that 'it is a remarkable fact about the creatures of horror that very often they do not seem to be of sufficient strength to make a grown man cower' (1990:34), in other words, they are cognitively threatening, rather than physically, in Alien, the ‘monsters’ are both.
In regard to the ‘monsters’ in horror fictions, Carroll describes a four-point ‘complex discovery plot’. Firstly, Onset: 'the monster’s presence is established for the audience' (1990: 99) and secondly, discovery; 'an individual or group learns of the existence of the monster' (:100). However, in Alien these two points cannot be separated out because the audience discovers the ‘monster’ at the same time as the characters do. The third point is ‘Confirmation’, which again, cannot directly be applied to Alien because Carroll claims that the 'discoverers … of the monster convincing some other group of the existence of the creature' (1990: 101). Because of the small crew of the spaceship in Alien, all members of the crew witness the ‘monsters’ and therefore no-one needs convincing of its existence. The fourth point, confrontation, is where 'humanity marches out to meet its monster' … 'in problem/solution format' (1990: 102-3), exemplified by Ripley succeeding in destroying the alien and escaping from the ship. Not all texts follow this basic narrative structure however, therefore using Carroll we cannot analyse these and call them ‘art-horror’.
The basis of Robin Wood’s general theory of horror and monstrosity is that 'normality is threatened by the monster' (Wood, 1986: 78), in Alien, the relative normality of life in space is disrupted by the appearance of ‘monsters’. Wood’s theory comprises three components; normality, the monster and the relationship between the two. Normality, which is 'in general, boringly constant' (1986: 79) can be seen in the ‘stasis’ or ‘sleep’ that the characters are in at the start of the film, until the appearance of the alien. The 'relationship between the two' i.e, normality and the monster, is what 'constitutes the essential subject of the horror film' (1986: 79). The entire narrative of Alien is concerned with a striving to return to a normality (by destroying the alien), which can never entirely be recovered.
Wood builds upon the Freudian idea of repression and distinguishes between ‘basic repression’ and ‘surplus repression’. He claims ‘basic repression’ is what all members of society must undergo in order to be considered human, and surplus repression 'makes us into monogamous heterosexual bourgeois patriarchal capitalists … that is, if it works' (1986: 71). Wood then builds on his argument to claim that horror is a 'struggle for recognition of all that our civilisation represses or oppresses, its re-emergence dramatized as … an object of horror … and the happy ending (when it exists) typically signifying the restoration of repression' (Wood, 1986: 75). The ‘monster’ (the alien) therefore, represents the dramatization and return of the repressed ‘Other’ in society.
Wood outlines eight repressed terms which are represented by 'monstrous embodiments' (1986: 75); Other people, woman, the proletariat, other cultures, ethnic groups, alternative ideologies or political systems, deviations from ideological sexual norms and children. (1986: 75). When looking at Alien, one of the most applicable repressed terms must be ‘woman’. Wood claims the 'woman’s autonomy and independence are denied' (1986: 75), and the aliens’ predatory behaviour towards Ripley can be seen as a representation of this. However, her victory over the alien and according to Wood, the 'restoration of the repressed' signifies woman’s victory over patriarchy and Ripley’s return, not to her previous patriarchal oppression, but to her symbolic freedom, due to the fact that the rest of the crew have been killed. Therefore, Wood’s theory does not entirely fit.
The repressed ‘proletariat’ is explained by Wood as a projection of the 'bourgeois obsession with cleanliness' (1986: 74). This could be represented in Alien as the clean, almost clinical spaceship being soiled by not only the alien’s presence, but by its secretions in the form of its saliva and blood. The alien may be seen as the return of Wood’s repressed ‘ethnic group’ or indeed ‘other cultures’, as it is not considered human, it is the ‘Other’, and its destruction represents a return to repression and a homogenous ‘human’ society. Wood claims that the representation of ethnic groups is acceptable only if 'they keep their ghetto’s and don’t trouble us with their otherness' or 'they behave as we do and become replicas of the good bourgeois' (1986: 75), which obviously does not happen in Alien, the aliens are aggressive and move onto the ship. Repressed bi-sexuality or homosexuality is represented by the phallic nature by which the alien ‘spawn’ impregnates a male crew member by inserting itself down his throat. The repression returns again however when the spawn detaches itself and dies, returning to symbolic heterosexual normality.
Wood distinguishes between ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ horror, where 'radical [progressive] horror has the monster representing oppressed and repressed forces [for which we have sympathy], while reactionary horror depicts its monsters as "simply evil" and totally non-human' (1986: 192), and Hills consolidates this point by stating that 'Wood posits horror monsters as either sustaining audience identification /sympathy OR as being totally dehumanised, repulsive and threatening' (2005: 50). We can consider Alien a reactionary text, the ‘monster’ is an evil force and we feel no sympathy for it. This approach could be considered more useful than Carroll’s approach however, which dictates that we may never feel sympathy for the ‘monster’, we may only see them as ‘dehumanised’, ‘repulsive’ and ‘threatening’ in a progressive approach. In the fourth film of the series, Alien Resurrection (1997), we distinctly feel sorry for the ‘monster’, to which we learn Ripley has an attachment. This is acceptable according to Wood’s theory, but not Carroll’s. Hills claims that in progressive horror fictions the 'audience revels in the monsters threat to dominant social/cultural norms', which can easily be applied to Alien in the sense that we watch the film in order to see what the ‘monster’ will do and how it will disrupt the ‘norm’. Hills builds on Wood’s approach stating that in reactionary texts 'audiences take pleasure in the monsters narrative destruction and hence the restoration of social/cultural order' (2005: 50), which complies with both Wood and Carroll.
Carroll points out a major criticism of his own work in that he 'hasn’t actually done any empirical research into the reception of the works of horror by audiences. He doesn’t know that they find horrific monsters disgusting and impure. At best, he’s identified his own reaction and introspection and projected it onto everyone else' (1990: 30). This does not mean that his theory of ‘monstrosity’ is inaccurate, but in order to make it more convincing he would need to back it up with empirical research. The same is true of Wood whose theory is simply based on his own assumptions and experiences.
The most obvious limit to Carroll’s theory is that his definition of art-horror only applies to texts with a ‘monster’ which has specific characteristics such as ‘impurity’ and ‘interstitiality’, and is responded to in specific ways. Therefore, a film with a serial-killer for example cannot, by Carroll’s standards be thought of as horror, despite the fact that films such as The Shining (1980) and Psycho (1960) are consistently considered a staple of the genre. It is a 'blanket omission of an entire sub-category of horror: the psychokiller horror film' (Russell, 1998: 238). Carroll’s entity based, cognitive-aesthetic approach provides three strict stipulations: i) Emotion is cognitive, ii) Emotion is always directed at an object, and iii) A monster is what distinguishes horror (1990: 26-37). This approach can be considered useful in the sense that it narrows down what could be termed horror, and filters out ‘genre-bending’ films, but it is severely limited because it does not accept films without a monster even though they might induce the ‘emotion’ and ‘altered physical state’ of art-horror, for example the ‘cinema of terror’ which has no ‘monster’.
Wood’s theory can perhaps be seen as more useful, because it allows for a broader range of ‘monsters’, however, they must represent the return of some repressed group or other. Jancovich argues that 'the horror monster is not always, or even usually, that which is repressed. It is frequently that which is repressive' (1992: 16), if this is the case, we have to consider whether a text with a ‘repressive monster’ can be considered horror by Wood’s definition. Carroll’s theory does not require the ‘monster’ to symbolise, or represent any such thing as the repressed, which means that to Carroll, a horror fiction can have a ‘monster’ for ‘monsters’’ sake without any need for it to represent something else.
Wood’s claim that a horror text can be either progressive or reactionary is useful because it allows for purely evil ‘monsters’, as well as those the audience may have pity for. Carroll’s theory however, only allows ‘monsters’ who are ‘impure’, ‘disgusting’ and repel the characters, and by virtue we feel no sympathy for. For example, Species (1995) may not be regarded as ‘horror’ according to Carroll, but can according to Wood because characters are actually attracted to the ‘monster’. However, this can also be linked to the exclusion of ‘serial killers’ by Carroll, for we are much more likely to feel sympathy for a ‘monster’ who exhibits human characteristics which in turn are only allowed by Wood, over those who are impure and non-human, according to Carroll.
Wood's notion that a ‘monster’ should disrupt normality is useful because it can clearly be applied easily to most horror films in one sense or another. However, this does not account for horror texts where the characters have become used to the ‘monster’ and it may have become part of their normal lives. Carroll’s theory agrees with Wood’s, because we are not going to experience the emotion of ‘art-horror’ in response to a disgusting and terrifying ‘monster’ if it is considered ‘normal’.
According to Carroll, the audience's emotions should mirror that of the characters’ in the text, and generally, this can be seen as useful because to some extent we will always be scared when the protagonist is. However, this is severely limited by the fact that the audience will usually have a superior knowledge to the characters, which renders impossible an exact mirroring of emotions in regard to a specific situation or a ‘monster’. Wood’s theory however allows us to experience our ‘own’ emotions in response to a ‘monster’, we do not have to mirror the characters’ and this is useful because Wood does not try to predict the emotions of the audience, especially without any empirical research.
Jancovich claims that ‘monsters’ should not be the defining feature of horror texts, rather 'if there is any feature which all horror texts share, it is probably the position of the victim – the figure under threat' (1996: 118), he does not claim that they have to be under threat from a ‘monster’ which therefore disagrees with Carroll’s theory. However, the figure could theoretically be under threat from some of entity/situation which represents the ‘repressed’, agreeing with Wood.
Carroll’s theory could be described as overly cognitive in the sense that he claims the emotion of art-horror is resultant from a thought process regarding the aesthetics of the text. However, we must consider the possibility of being ‘art-horrified’ by a text simply because it shocks the audience, the emotion being simply a reflex and not the result of cognition. However, he claims that we must be ‘art-horrified’ by a monster, and therefore even if our emotion was just a reflex, in order for it to be considered, it would have to be in response to a ‘monster’ for Carroll. Building on this, he claims that the ‘monster’ must be ‘physically and cognitively’ threatening, which immediately rules out ‘monsters’ which are simply violent, killing machines, as indeed, ‘Alien’ could be considered. Similarly, Wood’s theory could be described as overly psychoanalytical, only allowing ‘monsters’ which symbolise the repressed, and ruling out those which cannot be attributed to any obvious repression.
Overall, the theories of both Carroll and Wood have their uses which have been outlined, and limits which are most obviously, that a horror text must include a strictly defined ‘monster’, and that a ‘monster’ must represent the ‘repressed’ in society. Carroll’s theory accepts only the more ‘classic’ scary monsters, but does not allow for more contemporary psychological monsters. He is specific in his definition of the ‘monster’, which is useful because we are in no doubt about what can be considered a ‘monster’, but his theory is severely limited by his dismissal of many films, which are readily considered ‘horror’, but do not adhere to his conditions. Wood’s theory seems to have less limits than Carroll’s, and because of the fact that most ‘monsters’ could be seen to represent some repressed group or other and signify a disruption from normality, this essay must argue that Wood’s approach is more convincing.
Carroll, N. (1990) ‘The Philosophy of Horror: Or Paradoxes of the Heart’. Routledge: London.
Hills, M. (2005) ‘The Pleasures of Horror’. Continuum: London.
IMDb ‘The Internet Movie Database’. [WWW]
Jancovich, M. (1992) ‘Horror’. Batsford: London.
Leffler, Y. (2000) ‘Horror As Pleasure: The Aesthetics of Horror Fiction’. Almqvist and Wiksell International: Sweden.
Russell, D.J. (1998) ‘Monster Roundup: Reintegrating the Horror Genre’ in Nick Browne (ed) ‘Refiguring American Film Genres’. University of California Press: Berkely.
Virgin (2004) ‘The Twelfth Virgin Film Guide’. Virgin Books Ltd: London.
Wood, R. (1986) ‘The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70’s’ in ‘Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan’. Columbia University Press: New York.
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