totally 9 pages movie review

Kurt Forman Pasadena City College

Humanities 4

Horror Films and Mass Media in the United States:

A Preliminary Analysis of Poltergeist and The Ring.

“They’re here.”

Poltergeist

“I hate television”

The Ring

Horror films are a particularly reviled cinematic genre in the United States, they are nevertheless consistently successful in the box office. Success, of course, is no measure of quality, but it does serve as a generalized measure of popular interest into disturbing themes and trends in society. The popularity of Horror films revolves chiefly around their ability to surface these deep, and largely unconscious cultural anxieties.

By nature, horror films engage cultural taboos concerning sex, violence, and death. As such, they make great vehicles for critical analysis into the general collective unconscious of a society at a particular point in time. By revealing an especially unflattering portrait of human nature, horror films act as mirror for repression and denial.

One recurrent theme in Horror films is the collective impact of mass media on both the individual and on society. For instance, Poltergeist was released in 1982 at the onset of the mass media explosion of the 1980’s, and it introduced audiences to an all-American type family named the Freelings who lived in a California bedroom community called Cuesta Verde.

In Poltergeist, the Freelings represent a prosperous American family with all the modern technological conveniences including three television sets. One night, however, the youngest daughter Carol Anne (5) begins to hear voices coming from the family room television. In an eerie opening scene, she looks deep into the television snow and begins to carry on a conversation with an unseen force on the other side of the tube.

In that particular scene, horror emerges from the uncanny reversal of the television medium itself. By nature, the television set talks to its audience, it does not listen. By staging a dialogue between Carol Anne and the television set, Poltergeist destabilizes the television monologue and transforms it into a threatening presence, albeit one that is completely camouflaged in TV snow.

This dialogue destroys the common perception that television is a passive medium of entertainment, suggesting that it constitutes an active agency for manipulation and control. By focusing on Carol Anne, the scene further alludes to the indiscriminate nature of television programming that targets viewers indiscriminate of their age and reasoning capacities. Audience anxieties concerning the influence of mass media are thus visualized in blunt and dramatic terms.

A strong parallel can be found in the more contemporary horror film called The Ring. The central thesis of The Ring revolves around a haunted videotape that kills people exactly seven days from the initial viewing. Based on a very popular Japanese film called Ringu, the plot is directly structured on the concept of a chain letter. After watching the tape, viewers/victims have seven days to make a copy and pass it on or suffer the consequences.

Here again, television programming is reconstituted from a passive medium to an active agency of manipulation and, ultimately, death. Horror emerges from a critical reversal in the perception that mass media is a inert culture phenomena into one whereby mass media constitutes an active agency imbued with threat and malice. From the perspective of The Ring, moreover, there is no neutral position: once infected, viewers/victims must participate in the cycle of distribution or perish.

Historically, Poltergeist and The Ring are separated by approximately twenty years in time, yet thematically they are linked by the manner in which they foreground and conflate mass media and horror. In particular, both films exploit generalized anxieties concerning the influence of mass media by positing the television set as an active and menacing agency of influence and corruption. The following essay details the specific nature of that influence, particularly as it relates to the impact mass media has on the American nuclear family.

Poltergeist versus The Ring:

Horror, Mass Media, and the Nuclear Family

There are many different ways to analyze the popularity of Horror films in the United States. There is, of course, the obvious appeal to sex and violence, and the overarching theme of sadism. There is, too, the strong appeal to the supernatural, and the ability to witness the uncanny first hand via special effects. Additionally, there is the ever-present specter of death and its constant companion, transcendence.

Sex, violence, the supernatural, death, and transcendence have proven a potent and lucrative combination, and Horror films wouldn’t be popular without them. Nevertheless, certain Horror films stand out as exceptional examples of genre filmmaking, and become useful tools in cultural analysis. The following comparison and contrast essay will review two such important and influential horror films: Poltergeist(1982) and The Ring (2003).

Although twenty years apart, the two films share many common elements. For instance, Steven Spielberg played a prominent role in the production of both films. He wrote the screenplay for Poltergeist, and was also its Executive Producer. Additionally, Spielberg’s production company DreamWorks bought the rights for the Japanese horror film Ringu that was then adapted to make the United States version of The Ring.

Both films, for instance, deal at length with issues concerning the American nuclear family in the wake of dysfunction and divorce. Poltergeist introduces Steven and Diane Freeling, typical parents and habitual marijuana users. There is an especially good scene early in the film showing Steven Freeling and his wife Diane rolling joints in bed while he reads a biography on Ronald Reagan.

The Ring introduces Rachel, a single working mom with journalistic ambitions and a workaholic lifestyle that leaves her son Aidan home and alone most of the time. Additionally, Rachel makes her son call her “Rachel” rather than “Mother” to signal her unconventional attitude towards traditional mother-son roles. The father, Noah, has essentially abandoned them to pursue his journalistic interests in photography, and indulge an artsy-type bohemian lifestyle.

Both films deal with punishment, ostensibly a direct result of these dysfunctions. In Poltergeist, for instance, the Freelings are attacked by a vengeful spirit that wreaks havoc upon their idyllic middles class home in the master-planned community of Cuesta Verda set in suburban California. The culmination of these attacks results in the abduction of their youngest daughter Carol Anne(age 5) who is held hostage in Limbo for the better part of the film.

In The Ring, Rachel and Noah are attacked by a supernatural force that threatens to kill them in seven days after they watch a videotape cursed by malevolent eight-year girl ghost named Samara. Their only son Aidan is put in direct jeopardy after accidentally watching a copy of the tape, sending both delinquent parents into a panic to find a last second cure. Disaster is thwarted only after Rachel instructs Aiden in the making of a third videotape that ostensibly transfers the curse to a third party in the style of a chain letter.

Both films feature vengeful supernatural spirits. In Poltergest, the Freeling family is suddenly and viciously attacked by an evil supernatural phenomenon known only as “The Beast.” As the supernatural powers of The Beast intensifies, it goes on a rampage destroying the interior of the house, attacking both family and guests, andfinally abducting Carol Anne, their youngest child.

In The Ring, the lives of Rachel, Noah and Aiden are endangered by the vengeful spirit of an eight-year old girl named Samara with telepathic power. She has the bad habit of killing people with her mind after they’ve watched a tape she created by ”thermograhic projection.” Seven days hence, Samara literally crawls through the TV set to give her victims the ultimate evil eye.

Both films deal with burial and repression. In Poltergeist, for instance, the Freeling’s family home is secretly built atop an old cemetery; unfortunately, the bodies buried therein were left behind in an effort to maximize profits. In the final act of Poltergeist, these coffins peel out of the ground like missiles creating a ground zero of moral indignation against the insensitive landowner’s dwelling above.

In The Ring, Samara’s body is unceremoniously dumped into a deep well that is sealed tight to cover up the evidence. Additionally, a cabin is built over the stone structure to conceal any evidence of the well itself. Unfortunately, Samara is not exactly dead, and she wreaks havoc on the people above by projecting her desire for revenge into the cabin’s videotape.

Both films equate evil with the television set and mass media. In Poltergeist, the television set is used as physical conduit between the Freeling family home and the world controlled by The Beast. This bipartite structure has strong allusions, of course, to the one-dimensional nature of television programming, and the impact mass media has on the America’s sense of self and purpose.

In The Ring, Samara also uses the television set as a metaphysical conduit between the world of the dead and the living. By inference, mass media becomes the moral fulcrum against which she wreaks vengeance on the voyeuristic public. Like The Beast in Poltergeist, Samara is cast as overwhelmingly evil and omniscient entity, ableto strike her victims at will in the privacy of their own homes.

Both films deal with generation gaps. Poltergeist alludes to the contentious rift between the WWII and Baby Boom generations during the counter cultural divide of the 1960’s. The film opens on a tight shot of a fuzzy television set accompanied to the sound of the The Star Spangled Banner. The camera pulls back to reveal a patriotic montage of American icons concluding with the flag raising at Iwa Jima. Steven is passed out in front of the TV set after another night of dope smoking.

The Ring makes heavy allusions to cliché’s concerning Generation X and it’s affinity for mass media. Rachel, for instance, works as an investigative reporter at a major metropolitan newspaper in Seattle, while Noah is cast as a free-lance photographic journalist available to hire. Both are workaholics and completely oblivious to the needs of their son Aidan, who spends more time in front of the television set than with both parents combined.

Both films deal with redemption. In Poltergeist, the Freeling family leaves the bland materialist life offered by suburban and mass-produced life in Cuesta Verde for the minimal comforts of a Holiday Inn located on the crossroads outside of town. In a defining and meaningful last scene, the beleaguered family enters their communal hovel punctuated by the symbolic ejection of the ubiquitous television set by the recuperated patriarch Steven. Death and disaster are thus averted as the family hunkers down to renegotiate their Christian nuclear family status in the ensuing enlightenment of Gideon's Bible.

Although slightly less canonical, the concluding scene of The Ring depicts a suitably rehabilitated Rachel governing Aidan in a video dub of the haunted tape, the only known way to break the curse. At last, Rachel attains the traditional protectorate status of “Mother,” putting her own sons welfare above both her career and the community at large. Ironically, then, Noah’s death in the preceding scene underscores both sacrifices in the ongoing preservation of the father’s paternal seed, the new generation, Generation Y, washed clean of their parent’s sins.

Although approximately twenty years separates the two films, Poltergeist and The Ring share many meaningful connections, especially concerning the effects of mass media on the nuclear family. That both films reside in the category of horror alludes to the contentious and fractious notion of both the nuclear family and its ongoing evolution in the United States. Horror, thus, resides in both the popular display of this hallowed generational sequencing, and its potential dissolution through the combined forces of mass media, marketing, and materialism. In the case of these two films, Horror is ultimately equated with the possible annihilation of the nuclear family, and the ongoing cultural and religious apocalypse that is assumed to follow.

General Vocabulary for Essay:

1) Collective Unconscious: the inherited part of unconscious thought, memories, and instinct, which, according to Jungian principles, is common to members of a people and is observable through dreams and behavior.

2) Repression: in Freudian psychology, a mechanism by which individuals protect themselves from threatening thoughts by blocking them out of the conscious mind.

3) Uncanny: too strange or unlikely to seem merely natural or human.

4) Horror: a very strong, painful feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.

5) Foreground: the part of a picture or scene that appears nearest the viewer.

6) Exploit: to take selfish or unfair advantage of a person or situation, usually for personal gain.

7) Sadism: the gaining of sexual gratification by causing physical or mental pain to other people, or the acts that produce such gratification.

8) Special Effects: extraordinary visual effects in a motion picture or television program achieved by technical means, either optically, digitally, or mechanically.

9) Transcendence: existence above and apart from the material world.

10) Screenplay: a script or scenario for a film.

11) Executive Producer: the head producer in charge of other producers at a movie or television studio.

12) DreamWorks: in Freudian theory, the narrative aspect of dreams that conceal unconscious desire or trauma through the use of symbols and allegory.

13) Divorce: the ending of a marriage by an official decision in a court of law.

14) Marijuana: the dried flowers and leaves of the Indian hemp plant, smoked or eaten as a drug.

15) Bohemian: somebody, often a writer or artist, who does not live according to the conventions of society.

16) Middles Class: the section of society between the poor and the wealthy, including many business and professional people and skilled workers.

17) Suburb: a district especially a residential one, on the edge of a city or large town.

18) Conduit: a pipe or channel that carries liquid to or from a place.

19) Omniscient: knowing or seeming to know everything.

20) Bible: the sacred book of the Christian religion.

Poltergeist Synopsis:

Poltergeist came out in 1982, the same year President Reagan took office. The film chronicles a supernatural event in the life of the Freelings, a white middle class family living in suburban community in California called Cuesta Verde. Their happy life is invaded by a hostile spirit that enters their home through the television set and abducts their youngest daughter Carol Anne. Trapped in Limbo, the frantic parents enlist the aid of a parapsychologist in an attempt to save her. She quickly ascertains that there is a great evil masterminding Carol Anne’s abduction, and that they must work quickly to free her, or she will remain forever between Heaven and Hell

Questions for Poltergeist:

1) What is “Suburbia?” Where is it located? Who lives there and why?

2) What is the function of Suburbia in the United States? How does Suburbia function in Poltergeist?

3) What exactly is a “Bedroom Community?” When did they come into existence and why? “I can’t tell one house from another.” How does this line function in Poltergeist?

4) According to the film, what is a Poltergeist? What is the difference between a Poltergeist and a Haunting?

5) Who are the Freelings? How would you describe their political beliefs? How would you describe their religious beliefs? In general, what type of family are they?

6) How does the television set function in Poltergeist? Who lives there and why?

7) Who are the “TV people,” and what do they want with the Freelings?

8) How does the Star Spangled Banner function at the beginning of Poltergeist?

9) What is the function of death in Poltergeist?

10) How does the afterlife function in Poltergeist?

11) What is limbo, and how does it function in Poltergeist?

12) How does marijuana function in Poltergeist?

13) What is the significance of football in Poltergeist?

14) Who is Carol Anne, and what do the TV people want with her? Where does the Beast take Carol Anne, and why?

15) In Poltergeist, who or what exactly is The Beast? How is The Beast different than the TV People?

16) What is the function of ancient tribal burial ground in Poltergeist?

17) What is a Parapsychologist, and how does it function in Poltergeist? Why can’t you get a degree in Parapsychology ?

18) Who is buried in the ground beneath the Freeling’s family home? Why are they so mad? Why are they punishing the Freeling family?

Vocabulary for Poltergeist:

1) Poltergeist: a supposed supernatural spirit that reveals its presence by creating disturbances, for example, by knocking over objects.

2) Ghost: the spirit of somebody who has died, supposed to appear as a shadowy form or to cause sounds, the movement of objects, or a frightening atmosphere in a place.

3) Spirit: a vital force that characterizes a living being as being alive; a supernatural being that does not have a physical body, for example, a ghost, fairy, angel, or demon.

4) Soul: the complex of human attributes that manifests as consciousness, thought, feeling, and will, regarded as distinct from the physical body.

5) Haunt: to frequent a place or appear to somebody in the form of a ghost or other supposed supernatural being.

6) Haunted: inhabited by or visited regularly by a ghost or other supposed supernatural being.

7) Supernatural: relating or attributed to phenomena that cannot be explained natural laws.

8) Tract House: one of many similar houses built on a tract of land.

9) Suburb: a district, especially a residential one, on the edge of a city or large town.

10) Bedroom Community: a town or suburb inhabited mainly by people who travel to work in a nearby city.

11) Mass Media: all of the communications media that reach a large audience, especially television, radio, and newspapers.

12) Television: an electronic device for receiving and reproducing the images and sounds of a television signal.

13) Consumer: somebody or something that consumes something, by eating it, drinking it, or using it up.

14) Materialism: devotion to material wealth and possessions at the expense of spiritual or intellectual values.

15) Patriotism: pride in or devotion to the country somebody was born in or is a citizen of.

16) Rehabilitation: training, therapy, or other help given to somebody, for example, somebody who has survived a serious injury or illness or an addiction that will enable him or her to live a healthy and productive life.

17) Limbo: a state in which somebody or something is neglected or is simply left in oblivion.

18) Afterlife: a form of existence believed to continue after death.

19) Heaven: a place or condition of supreme happiness and peace where good people are believed to go after death, and, especially in Christianity, the dwelling place of God and the angels.

20) Hell: according to many religions, the place where the souls of people who are damned suffer eternal punishment after death.

21) Burial: the act or ceremony of putting a dead body into the ground or into the sea.

22) Burial Ground: an area of land where dead bodies are buried, especially an ancient site.

23) Graveyard: a piece of ground, sometimes beside a church set aside for people to be buried in.

24) Gravestone: an ornamental piece of stone put at the head of a grave, on which are written the name, birth date, and death date of the person buried there.

25) Desecrate: to damage something sacred, or do something that is offensive to the religious nature of something.

26) Repression (1): the process of suppressing somebody or the condition of having political, social, or cultural freedom controlled by force.

27) Repression (2): in Freudian psychology, a mechanism by which individuals protect themselves from threatening thoughts by blocking them out of the conscious mind.

28) Exorcism: the use of prayer or religious ritual to drive out evil spirits.

Questions for The Ring:

1) The first line in The Ring is “I hate television,” what does this mean in context of the film itself, and horror in general?

2) Who is Samara, and why does she kill people?

3) What is the function of sex in The Ring?

4) How doe drugs and alcohol function in The Ring?

5) Why does Samara wait seven days until she kills her victim? What is the significance of seven?

6) How does parenting function in The Ring?

7) What kind of person is Noah? Why does Noah refuse to be a Father to Aiden? What are the consequences?

8) What kind of person is Rachel? What kind of mother is she?

9) How do horses function in The Ring?

10) Why does Samara’s mother Anna kill her and dump her in the well?

11) Who is Samara’s real father, and why is that so important?

12) Why set The Ring in Seattle Washington, what are the advantages of the Pacific Northwest?

13) How does the television set function in The Ring?

14) What is the function of television?

Vocabulary for The Ring:

1) Parricide: the murder of a parent or closer elative.

2) Suicide: the act of deliberately killing yourself.

3) Revenge: to punish somebody in retaliation forharm or injury done.

4) Supernatural: relating or attributed to phenomena that cannot be explained by natural laws.

5) Hybrid: an animal that results from the mating of parents from two distinct species or subspecies.

6) Bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other.

7) Nymph: a minor goddess or spirit of nature in mythology, inhabiting areas of natural beauty such as woods, mountains, and rivers and traditionally regarded as a beautiful young woman.

8) Nymphet: a sexually aware and sexually desirable young woman, especially a woman in her early teens.

9) Folklore: traditional stories and explanations passed down in a community or country.

10) Chain Letter: a letter sent to a number of people, each of whom is asked to send copies to the same number of new people, sometimes requesting and promising money to recipients.

11) Curse: a malevolent appeal to a supernatural being for harm to come to somebody or something, or the harm that is thought to result from this.

12) Virus: anything that has a corrupting or poisonous effect, especially on people’s minds.

13) Infection: the transmission of infectious microorganisms from one person to another.

14) Contagion: an illness that spreads from one person to another, especially by physical contact between persons or contact with infected objects.

15) Generation X: the generation of people born roughly during the years 1965 to 1980 in Western countries, especially the United States, often regarded as disillusioned, cynical, or apathetic.

16) Generation Y: the generation of people born approximately in or after 1980 in Western countries especially in the United Sates.

17) Journalist: somebody who works as a writer or editor for a newspaper or magazine or for television or radio.

18) Photojournalism: a form of journalism in which photographs play a more important role than the accompanying text.

19) Nuclear Family: a social unit that consists of a mother, a father, and their children.

20) Sin: an act, a thought, or behavior that goes against the law or teachings of a particular religion, especially when the person who commits it is aware of this.

21) Paternity: descent from a father.

22) Patrilineage: descent traced through the male line.

23) Patriarchy: a social system in which men are regarded as the authority within the family and society, and in which power and possessions are passed on from father to son.

24) Clone: a collection of organisms, cells, or molecular segments that are genetically identical direct descendants of a single parent by asexual reproduction, for example, plant cuttings or grafts.

25) Half-Bred: used to describe a domestic animal that has only one parent of a known pedigree.

26) Animal Husbandry: the branch of agriculture concerned with breeding and rearing farm animals.

27) Thoroughbred: a pure breed of horse descended from English mares and Arabian stallions, originally bred in Britain and most often used for racing.

28) Bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other.