Monstersand
Horror
What Is A Monster?
The History of Monsters
Why Monsters?
What Do Monsters Mean?
Monsters Now
What Is A Monster?
The History of Monsters
Ancient Greeks
Monsters occur when natural order is disrupted
Deformity occurs when the pregnant woman sees something which startles her
The Middle Ages
Monsters came from God and the Devil, they were caused by stars and comets, they resulted from copulation with other species and from flaws in their parents' anatomies.
Modern Times
“Something out of the common order of nature.”
- Dr. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Modern Times“Originally: a mythical creature which is part animal and part human, or combines elements of two or more animal forms, and is frequently of great size and ferocious appearance. Later, more generally: any imaginary creature that is large, ugly, and frightening.”
- Oxford English Dictionary
Why Monsters?
Why Monsters?
Fear
Repulsion
Attraction
Unthinkable
Unmanageable
What Do Monsters Mean?
What Do Monsters Mean?
Literal and symbolic
Cultural categories
Manage contradictions
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
Fear: Technology / Religion
Human vs the creature
SpliceVincenzo Natali 2009
Fear: Biomedia
Human ambition
PrometheusRidley Scott 2012
Fear: Biomedia
Engineers vs humans
Night of the Living DeadGeorge Romero 1968
Fear: Ourselves
Racism and consumerism
28 Days LaterDanny Boyle 2002
Fear: Viruses
Foreigners and countermeasures
The Walking Dead2010
Fear: Society's end
Humans vs humans
Monsters Now