Today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema kicked off a month of Halloween related programing with a look at movies about the horror of society. These are films in which systems and institutions become monstrous. Here is a recap of the films discussed on the show.
George A. Romero
Filmmaker George A. Romero’s career is full of movies that used horror as a way of commenting on society, most notably his zombie films. Each one has its own distinct take on the times in which it was made. Night of the Living Dead reflects the apocalyptic sense of the late 1960s, Dawn of the Dead commented on consumer culture of the ’70s, and Land of the Dead was a post-9/11 zombie picture.
Romero’s other movies also dealt with social issues. His short film “The Amusement Park” was an allegory of the way we treat senior citizens and Bruiser was about angry young men. One of the underappreciated films in Romero’s filmography is 1973’s The Crazies which is about a Pennsylvania town infected by a virus that turns the afflicted into homicidal maniacs. When government officials try to contain the infection their violence becomes indistinguishable from the infected. A remake of The Crazies was released in 2010.
The Purge Series
The Purge series is a work of societal horror whose premise marries America’s love of firearms with a critique of the political and economic system. These films imagine a future in which America celebrates a national holiday in which all crime, including murder, is legal for an evening. The original picture was a home invasion story but with each installment the series expanded the scope and the last two Purge films were quite good and politically provocative. There was also a Purge television series.
Small Town British Society
The Wicker Man is a British horror film in which a conservative police officer from the mainland travels to an island inhabited by pagans while investigating the disappearance of a girl. It is increasingly evident that something is wrong in the community and he suspects she has been ritualistically sacrificed. It’s a movie about the power of belief and The Wicker Man effectively preys on the feeling of being an outsider in an insulated community.
Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs exploits a similar appeal. A mild mannered man and his wife move to a small village in the British countryside and things get increasingly hostile. This was an extremely controversial film at the time.
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Holocaust is part of the fad of anthropophagous films released in the 1970s and 80s. This particular film is distinguished for its excess and intensity but also its intelligence and subversive qualities. A documentary film crew has disappeared in the Amazon and when their film reels are recovered we see what happened to them. Cannibal Holocaust questions our presumptions about what it means to be civilized and how those presumptions are wrapped up in the stories we tell. Earlier this year I published the book Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust which takes a close look at the themes of the movie.
Wes Craven
The Serpent and the Rainbow makes complementary viewing with Cannibal Holocaust. It’s about an agent of an American pharmaceutical company investigating voodoo in Haiti. It’s partly about what we consider to be normal and what constitutes reality and rationality. The Serpent and the Rainbow was directed by Wes Craven who frequently inserted social commentary in his films as seen in the original Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, and The People Under the Stairs.
Caligula
1980’s Caligula is a notorious historical drama about the insane and corrupt Roman Emperor. The film has a great cast including Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, and Peter O’Toole and the script was written by Gore Vidal. Behind the scenes was producer Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse magazine, and he inserted hardcore porn scenes into the movie. Even without the hardcore footage, Caligula is an excessive film about power in the hands of a madman. Various versions of this movie have been in circulation over the years and in 2024 Caligula: The Ultimate Cut was released which reconstructed the movie using alternate takes of every scene.
Dystopian Futures
Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451 was adapted into a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut. Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a future in which books have been outlawed. Bradbury’s novel was also adapted into a 2018 picture that didn’t much resemble the source material.
Soylent Green is set in the dystopian future of 2022. Overpopulation and pollution have taxed society and the planet’s resources and the people subsist on the foodstuffs of the Soylent Corporation. A detective played by Charlton Heston investigates the company’s new product and eventually discovers it is made from the bodies of deceased citizens.
Another relevant dystopian sci-fi film is THX-1138. This was the directorial debut of George Lucas but it is far departed from the optimism and fun of Star Wars. THX-1138 shows influence of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as it imagines a future society in which sexual intercourse and love are prohibited and the public is kept compliant through the administration of mind-altering drugs. As with Star Wars, Lucas went back to THX-1138 and reedited it and inserted digital effects.
1980s Social Paranoia
The 1980s saw the rise of consumer culture and the rise of the yuppie and media of this time became economically aspirational. Horror and sci-fi filmmakers responded with stories that pierced that illusion.
John Carpenter’s They Live is about characters who discover that society has the ruling class is an extraterrestrial species who control us with signals broadcast through media. The film was mostly passed over upon its release but has become a minor cultural touchstone. It’s images have been highly memeable and its metaphor has struck a chord with contemporary audiences.
Brian Yuzna’s Society is the story of a teenager who discovers that his family is part of a secret organization that includes many of the most powerful people in their community. Society has some great makeup effects that visualize the decadence and corruption of the ruling class. An underseen film of its day, Society is more of a grotesque black comedy than a horror picture.