Robin Wood famously articulated the American horror film, but one thing still needs to be added

While rereading Robin Wood’s essay An Introduction to the American Horror Film I noticed that it failed to talk about an important element in the discussion of what exactly describes an American horror film. The absence of this topic in his subsection titled “Basic Formula” surprises me now, as it is arguably just as simple a provision to the genre as the overarching blueprint stipulating that “normality is threatened by the Monster.” While Wood’s essay has long since been considered a seminal one for both him and academic thought about the horror genre, and this is very true, an amendment should nevertheless be made. That amendment is specific but not intricate, dealing with the main protagonist’s direct relationship with the antagonist.

Before getting into detail about this idea, let us first look at some main points from Wood’s essay. In elaborating on his summation of “normality is threatened by the Monster,” he explains that because both main variables (normality and the Monster) are nonspecific this outline can be attributed to all horror films (and even a number of movies outside the genre, which helps support its pervasiveness throughout cinema on the whole). Continuing, he explains that the outline exposes further malleability by pointing out how the relationship between normality and the Monster is able to change depending on the identity and nature of either. He admits that most horror films’ definition of normality is “boringly constant,” being mainly the “heterosexual monogamous couple, the family, and social institutions like the police, church, and armed forces that support and defend them.” Conversely, the Monster can be a person, an alien, a giant bug, a demon, or what have you, and as the Monster changes (according to society’s changing and evolving fears) so too does its relationship to its accompanying definition of normality. Wood also gives importance to the symbolic relationship between the main protagonist and the Monster, suggesting it can be classified as one of three different types: the doppelganger, alter ego, or double, many of which are labeled as “shadows” or “opposites.” In other words, the Monster often represents the main protagonist’s mirror image, with the former being similarly evil as the latter is good; enduring the inadequacies inherent in being the opposite of something good while also shining a bright light on the flaws within that “good” figure.

This is all well and good, but there is an oversight. While documenting the basic relationship between the main protagonist and the Monster is important, so too is their direct relationship. It’s not enough to know that one is more or less the opposite of the other. There needs to be recognition of exactly how the Monster affects the protagonist. Specifics can be pointed out on a case by case basis, such as how Michael Myers forced Laurie Strode to alter her definition of normality with regards to family dynamics, or how the creature forced Dr. Frankenstein to confront his destiny, but there is a general constant throughout the genre that can be identified, and it is very plain to see. At first one would think it should go without saying, but after thinking it through it’s just as important to note as all of Wood’s conclusions listed above. At the end of every horror movie the Monster’s affect on the main protagonist must be negative in some significant way, whether that way be through destruction, scarring, or a complete transformation.

While the movie has a number of horror elements, Clarice's development keeps the official Horror label at arm's length

This stipulation shows its importance when discussing certain movies that have proven to divide audiences who try to classify it as either horror or something else. A perfect example is Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning picture The Silence of the Lambs. Many people consider it to be a horror movie first and cop thriller/mystery second, while just as many consider it a cop thriller/mystery first and horror movie second – or not at all. The film does indeed withhold a number of attributes that we discussed are associated specifically with the horror genre, such as Monsters who threaten normality (Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter, the latter arguably being a mirror image of main protagonist Clarice Starling), and the protagonist being a member of normality who is associated with an institution that works to defend it (the FBI). However, I would argue that neither of the film’s Monsters affect Ms. Starling in a significantly negative way. She is not destroyed or scarred, and her ultimate transformation turns out to be a very positive one (equivalent to emerging from a cocoon, perhaps?). The scars she does carry she brings in from a point in time before her involvement with either Monster, and these are healed through a transformation which could not have been possible without those Monsters. The “silencing of the lambs” is Clarice’s defeat of Buffalo Bill and the saving of his latest would-be victim, finally providing her with the feeling of being a liberator that she lacked since being unable to save her Uncle’s lambs from being slaughtered when she was a child. Through this “silencing” of the cries of slaughtered lambs Clarice emerges stronger than before, and this along with the defeat of Buffalo Bill hardly suggests that she is forced to endure any significant negative effects.

So, in the case of The Silence of the Lambs the missing prerequisite suggested here settles the argument about whether or not the film is a horror movie first or second. That the main protagonist is involved in a situation that falls under the umbrella of “normality is threatened by the Monster” calls for the movie to be linked to the horror genre, but because that protagonist survives the ordeal the way she does and undergoes a positive transformation, thanks in large part to the antagonists no less, calls for the film to be considered more of a cop thriller and/or mystery. This is only one of surely many films that can be further illuminated by the supplementary conditions I insist Robin Wood’s essay requires, so that horror films more clearly differentiate themselves from other non-horror films. That Wood is able to prove how omnipresent the horror genre is speaks volumes about his acumen, but by the same token it is also important to better define the genre’s boundaries in order to keep them from becoming too intangible.