In his 1994 study, William Paul concentrates on horror and comedy films of the 1970s–1980s era but includes the influence of classics such as those directed by Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock. Emphasizing movies that have not won awards, Paul analyzes the relationship between horror and comedy using aesthetic, sociological, and psychological perspectives. The author moves between the two genres, pointing out common features that account for their growing popularity, but also distinguishes between them.
One key feature the highlights is vulgarity, or the “gross out” factor, tying it to established literary tropes such as “inversion,” which celebrates the triumph of the lowest rung of society. Paul argues that films centering on “child monsters” especially disturb us through this type of inversion.
[C]hildren serve . . . as a metaphor for all human evil: evil is simply part of the nature of humankind, and under the right circumstances children will revert to their terrible natures . . . [T]he use of children has a kind of shock value because they conventionally stand for innocence.
Paul points out that it is important to study such films not only because of their commercial success but because audiences disregarded critics’ opinions and demanded more of the same type.
That these movies were considered dangerous at all is not just because they made a lot of money but because, in the process, they endowed the people who patronized them with a kind of power—the power to find pleasure in material that was not only offensive to the elite but also excluded the culture of the elite.
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