Today I am featuring Paige Branagan who conducts research at the intersection of gender studies and the horror genre in visual media. They work on academic projects to support this research, namely their "Women in Horror Games" project that was conceptualized and designed as a university level course, supported by the Horror Studies Working Group at the University of Pittsburgh. Additionally, they work at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center as a Narrative Designer.
Here is Branagan on why they love horror.
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In our backyard at my childhood home, we had a small creek that ran through the neighborhood. The old owners of the house, two farmers, built a bridge across the creek so that they could transport their machinery from each side. My brothers told me that both of those farmers had met their unfortunate demise on that bridge, and to never cross it at night. Growing up, we only ever referred to that bridge as “Dead Man's Bridge”. I was terrified, but equally just as enthralled with how this story carried such a heavy weight within my family. Any genre within media is concerned with creating a story that will last with people, but horror contains the unique trait of a simple story inflating into one that lingers for generations. With horror stories, including superstitions, a kernel of an idea passed from person to person continually exacerbates itself, instilling fear and solidifying the validity of that spooky story. My father spent his own childhood in the same house that my siblings and I grew up in--his family had passed on the story of the farmers to him, too. Truthfully, I don’t know how long that bridge was called Dead Man’s Bridge, or if those farmers really existed. In my eyes, it doesn’t matter. The story was enough to carry on through generations of my family, without any knowledge of where it originated from. As a kid, I absolutely hated horror. Growing up with two older brothers, I constantly would walk into the living room to find them watching the new Final Destination movie, convincing myself that death itself was going to chase me next. When I was ten, I watched The Ring for the first time, and swore off ever watching movies with my brothers again. To a ten-year-old girl, these movies were the scariest things in the world, and I was frightened. However, I couldn’t ignore the curiosity I was feeling at the same time. What if death was chasing me? What if I was that little girl in the well? Growing up in wooded southwestern Pennsylvania gave leeway for horror to seep into all aspects of my life. Just as the rumored Dead Man’s Bridge was a superstitious story passed on, brothers would conjure up stories of their own to scare me away from going into the woods on my own. One day, they told me a story of an axe murderer who lived in our woods, who they allegedly saw with their own eyes. As a result, I was never allowed to go out there on my own, much less so after the sun went down. As any ten-year-old would, I believed them. I had seen enough run-ins with death during my accidental watching of their beloved horror movies. I wouldn’t become the next subject of a Final Destination film. As a teenager, I only interacted with horror if my friends decided to drag me along to the movies. Cheap jump scares and paranormal stories did not intrigue me in the slightest, and at that stage in my life, I did not put in the effort to look any further into the genre I didn’t reconnect with horror again until later in life.
My freshman year of college, I took an introductory film course. As part of our final project, we could pick any movie and write an in-depth analysis on it using readings from the course. I chose the film Perfect Blue, a 1996 animated film directed by Satoshi Kon. It follows a pop star who is haunted by a hallucination of her past self as she switches her career from being a pop star to acting. Throughout the movie, viewers watch her slowly lose her grip on the line between reality and fiction. It wasn’t until then that I realized how much I actually did love horror, and how narrow my view of the genre truly was. Horror isn’t just ghosts and axe murderers, jump scares, teenagers chased by death and girls in wells--horror also resides within the mind, past the physical and into the psychological. I realized that this too affected me as a kid at home with the stories my brothers created. The axe murderer in our backyard wasn’t real, but my fear of that possibility was. The slimy green three-eyed monster hiding in your closet may provide a good scare to see, but it’s the question of what that monster will do that sticks with people. Horror, at its core, creates fear of the possibility. What if you do become chased by death? What if you watch a random video, and suddenly have only 7 days left to live? Sure, the eerie music, dark lighting, and creepy monsters can be enough to cause an uncomfortable physical or emotional response, but it’s the possibility of that horror becoming a reality that lingers in people’s minds. It is deep within our human nature to be scared of the “what ifs” of life; it’s why we plan, why we organize, and why we do everything within our power to limit the amount of “what ifs” we have within our lives. Horror is a lens through which we can watch these scenarios play out, feel the rush of adrenaline, fear, or excitement, and walk away from it thankful that it isn’t our reality. At the end of the day, of course, we love the cheap thrills and bug-eyed monsters lurking in our closets. But what we take away from horror is much more than our adrenaline-fueled responses; it’s a way to experience our deepest, darkest fears and explore our biggest worries at an arm’s length.
In my opinion, horror utilizes our ability to walk away, so that it can be used as a platform for commentary about countless different aspects of life, death, and our society between. Horror itself isn’t always supposed to be enjoyable--there are many times when we watch a horror movie and walk away feeling uncomfortable, awkward, even disgusted. This is, of course, by design. I find this to be one of the most intriguing aspects of the horror genre. At its core, media exists to tell us stories; utilizing this to create commentary and criticism for our society is extremely important, especially in today’s political climate. This added level also creates a versatility to horror past serving the purpose of providing spooky stories--these stories now mean something much more to us in tangible ways. In my research about horror thus far, I’ve consistently come back to the ways that horror rejects the male gaze and creates inclusive characters that have purpose and depth beyond serving as a spectacle for men. As most of mainstream film has been dominated by the male gaze, with those tides shifting slightly throughout the past decade, horror is aiding the transition from positioning women as objects for sexualization to equitable representations of whole, developed feminine characters. As someone who has consumed a fair amount of horror media in recent years, this shift is incredibly exciting, as it feels like a turning point. Even in horror video games, which have been less successful at moving away from the male gaze, have taken a turn for the better to create real, inclusive, well-rounded stories. This isn’t to say that we only should be focusing on horror movies that have hidden messages, but what horror movie doesn’t have a hidden message? Even if it’s simple? It’s exciting that we can both have fun and walk away with a lesson learned.
Doing research within horror has greatly influenced my own feelings; I used to hate jump scares, paranormal stories and everything in between. Now, I consider horror to be my favorite genre, as it has shown me a side of media that does not always follow conventional rules. It’s eccentric, spunky, entertaining, exhilarating. In essence, the horror genre is exciting to me. It’s versatility in both storytelling and mediums ensure the numerous possibilities of stories to produce, with each unique story providing something different. Horror stories have followed me all my life; from the axe murderer to my backyard, to creating full research projects around horror, it continues to draw me in for a good scare, the simple intrigue of it all, and if we look hard enough, a lesson learned.
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