My post called “Meet the new boss,” on how the Museum of the Moving Image’s current ’70s/’00s horror film exhibition represents a new conventional wisdom that “good” horror films offer sociopolitical criticism (of America, for the most part) has attracted some interesting comments, most notably from “carolclover.”

First of all, if “carolclover” is in fact THE Carol Clover of Men, Women and Chainsaws fame, it’s a pleasure to have her visit my blog. (The reminds me of the time I was hanging around on the Comics Journal message board and wound up in a discussion with Scott Bukatman, and I said, “Wow, THE Scott Bukatman?” and Scott said “that’s definitely the first time anyone’s said THAT to me.”)

Anyway, carolclover writes:

I think you’re the one who’s taking the reductive view, if you’re really looking at the museum’s schedule for that series. What do Martin, Ichi the Killer, House by the Cemetery, It’s Alive, Bird with the Crystal Plumage, High Tension, Rabid, Carrie, The Descent, for example, really have to do with either Iraq or Vietnam? It’s a thematically wide-ranging and well-selected series of contemporary and 1970s horror (both particularly fecund periods for the genre).

I tried to be clear in my original post that while Iraq and Vietnam are the foremost targets of the horror-film-as-political-commentary set (for obvious reasons), I didn’t mean they’re the only targets; that was the point of bringing up Night of the Living Dead‘s resonance with issues of race. Also, I don’t deny that the 1970s and today are fecund periods for the genre, though again I believe the omission of the intervening years speaks more to an absence of the kind of genre exemplars for which the curators were searching, and a perceived similarity between the films being made in those two time periods, than any kind of comment on the relative fecundity of those periods.

So. Regarding the politics of the Museum’s festival, here’s the introductory paragraph on the handout available at the Hostel 2: Part II screening:

Horror movies are currently enjoying a resurgence in production, popularity, and inventiveness unparalleled since the rise of th eindie horror movement in the 1970s. Today’s Splat Pack directors–Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, and Alexandre Aja among them–draw direct inspiration from the earlier generation’s masters, including John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and George A. Romero. Then and now, the best horror movies are transgressive and powerful, challenging taboos and offering social commentary while delving deeply into our darkest desires and fears.

And here are sample quotes from the write-ups for the individual films:

The American Nightmare: “examine[s] the 1970s horror renaissance against the backdrop of war and social turmoil.”

A Clockwork Orange: “In Kubrick’s sardonic view, Alex’s sadism is more than equaled by the violence of the state.”

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: “a rural Texas family of laid-off slaughterhouse workers who consume everything in their path” (consume!–ed.)

Panel discussion – “Considering Horror”: panelists “examine the aesthetic, cultural, and political implications of contemporary and 1970s horror films.” (The panelists include the Village Voice’s Nathan Lee, perhaps the foremost “it’s about Bush” film critic in the country, incidentally.)

The Hills Have Eyes: “Craven’s innovative horror film is an attack on pollution and on middle-class American life.”

The Hills Have Eyes (2006): “Aja’s visually and thematically startling film expands the original’s critique of ‘nuclear’ family.”

The Host: “This hilarious and pointedly topical movie about a rampaging mutant lizard has many satirical targets, including American foreign policy and environmental recklessness.”

It’s Alive: “With his distinctive blend of iconoclastic humor, social satire, and genre mastery, maverick director Larry Cohen unleashes a domestic and environmental nightmare”

Bug: “A woman and her boyfriend, a Gulf War veteran convinced he has been purposely infested with infects, spiral into paranoia in an Oklahoma motel room.”

Dawn of the Dead: “Snyder (300) remakes George A. Romero’s satire of consumerism, with zombies surrounding a shopping mall in post-apocalypse surburbia”

Dead of Night: “A fallen Vietnam soldier returns as a zombie in this scathing satire by the late Bob Clark…one of the first movies to deal with the impact of Vietnam on the American psyche.”

Homecoming: “Slain soldiers return from Iraq as zombies intent on voting republicans out of office in this bold and inventive satire. In The Village Voice, Dennis Lim hailed it as ‘easily one of the most important political films of the Bush II era.'”

George A. Romero’s Martin: “an unsettling study of post-adolescent alienation, religious fanaticism, and urban decay.”

28 Weeks Later: “The U.S. military takes over the reconstruction of plague-ravaged England, then loses control of the country to a zombie-fueled insurgence…smartly satirical.” (insurgence!–ed.)

The Last House on the Left: “Craven’s Vietnam-era rape-and-revenge tale…pits the counterculture Stillo family against the bourgeois Collingwoods.”

The festival also includes Hostel and (obviously) Hostel: Part II, as well as Carrie (which, DePalma-isms aside, is pretty clearly “about” American suburbia, gender politics, and religiosity). And it’s surely no coincidence that the first film to be screened at the Museum itself is The American Nightmare–as all of the above indicate, that’s the exhibition’s thesis statement. Ichii, Final Destination 3, The House by the Cemetary, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage–it seems clear to me that these are the exceptions, not the rule. It also seems abundantly clear exactly what that rule is.

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