The Supernatural, The Unheimlich, and Discomfort (Babadook)

"Scholars want me to be wrong, and their research reflects that. Telepathy scares the everloving crap out of people" -Tattletale, Worm Ch. 3.11

As a fantasy author, I think a lot about the distinction between exciting, fantastic magic and horrific, nightmarish magic. The boundary between them is pretty slim and often seems to come down to execution rather than the actual magic itself (compare, for example, the legendary transformation sequence in An American Werewolf in London to the Werewolf morphs in the Twilight movies). This dichotomy of miracles and malignancies seemed to be at the heart of Freud's construction of the Uncanny, and this in turn helps us to understand the unique horror and deeper meanings within the Babadook.

Central to the discussion of the uncanny is the concept of Unheimlich, indicating that something either disrupts the comfort of an environment or reveals something that one would prefer be kept secret. In other words, the Unheimlich is something that you shouldn't perceive because of the "wrongness" that it generates, this wrongness becoming a source of fear. The Unheimlich is the fly in the ointment, the dead pixels on the monitor, the flubbed line in a stage play, but it can also be the doorway that tears down one's conceptions of what is and what should be.

When we see magic outside of its normal context of fairy tales and antiquated trappings, it represents a threat, an encroachment on how humans recognize the world as working. The Unheimlich nature of magic comes from its conflict with the existing paradigms which we've used to model our behavior and shape our lives. If you've led a life mired in secrets and doubts only to discover that an entity can read your mind or grow stronger every time you think about it, this paradigm shift would unseat all of your assumptions about safety and autonomy: an extreme example of the Unheimlich.

The introduction of powerful supernatural elements into a structured modern environment is exactly what makes so many horror films terrifying, and the Babadook is the perfect example of how an Unheimlich magical force can upend somebody's life in nightmarish ways. For so long, Amelia has believed that she could bunch up the trauma of losing her husband and move on, raising her son Samuel as a normal child and never having to address her own hangups. When confronted with a being which becomes stronger and more aggressive the more one tries to run from it and which can break people with disturbing revelations, Amelia is forced far out of her comfort zone and must face the truth of her vulnerability head-on.

Of course, as will all good magical creatures, the Babadook is an extension of more relatable, earthly struggles. The problems it creates all stem from Amelia's existing fears: the worry that Samuel is obviously different, the worry that others will judge her for her trauma, and especially the worry that her painful experiences will twist her behavior in a way that endangers Samuel. The Babadook exacerbates all of these with its powers, its Unheimlich powers magnifying the myriad forms of Unheimlich which exist within Amelia's life.

The most fascinating part of this movie, I found, was the method in which Amelia ultimately overcomes the Babadook: by rendering the Unheimlich entity Heimlich. She opens up about her worries and her past, treats Samuel with the dignity and respect that he sought through his behavior, and domesticates the creature in her basement, normalizing the Babadook and her trauma rather than trying in vain to annihilate it. Amelia thus fulfills the unique position of both monster and final girl, a source of danger who also ends being the force which contains it. 

Renfield and Control (Nosferatu)

Note: apparently the character names have been changed in different localizations of this film, with at least three different names being listed for each character on the Wikipedia page. I'll be using the names from the Amazon localization I watched, which seem to have been written to replicate the original book.

A uniquely unsettling scene in Nosferatu, in my view, was the cut to the imprisoned Renfield after Drakul kills the people on the ship. Renfield is downright giddy about the the arrival of the one he calls "master", going as far as to strangle his guard and break out in order to try and find him. It made me realize that Renfield was more than a disposable character who was thrown in to advance the plot, but rather a persistent character whose role within the story extended beyond the initial incident. Alexander Granach's performance as Renfield also sticks out to me due to the sheer energy he exudes in many of the scenes, moving with a frantic excitement even when he's just sitting at his desk or in a cell. We know little about how Renfield entered this state, but we can figure out a few things about him.

1. Renfield's stability decreases over the course of the film. In the beginning, he's working as a clerk and his behavior isn't anything out of the ordinary for Jonathan. When next we see Renfield, he's incarcerated in a cell scrawling designs on the walls, indicating that whatever condition he's in is getting progressively worse.

2. Renfield obsesses over Drakul, heavily implying that Drakul has or has had some sort of control over the man's mind. The effect seems to stick around even after Drakul sees no more use for Renfield. It is not clarified whether this effect is magical in nature or if Renfield is just fanboying over the mysterious lord (the first option is much more likely in my opinion, but I won't rule out the second for reasons I'll get into later).

3. Renfield is very protective of a piece of paper covered in occult symbols, even going as far as to replicate the symbols on the wall of his cell. We see Drakul carrying the same symbols on a piece of paper when he eats with Jonathan, which could mean that the paper/symbols are either a means of long-distance communication or a mechanism for Drakul to control people's minds. Renfield may be afraid of having other people seeing the paper for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being the risk that somebody might be able to decipher the encoded spell and figure out what it actually does (the alternatives could be that the magic of the paper is finite and could be drained by another user, or that a pseudo-stable Renfield wanted to protect Jonathan from its effects).

From the information we are given, we can be interpret the actions of Renfield to take several different directions, each of which possesses a unique space for commentary and thematic value.

In the first conceptualization, Drakul was able to reach out to Renfield at some point in the past and magically brainwash him, using the paper to keep in touch while Renfield returned home. In this case, Drakul's mind control represents how easily people can be seduced into servitude by propaganda, promises of wealth, or other forces. Renfield's personality has been overwritten by whatever Drakul put in his head, his goals having been magically replaced by Drakul's own. Once those goals are completed, Renfield is just cast to the side, the clerk still enslaved to Drakul's intenions.

The second idea is similar to the first, except that Renfield's brainwashing is neither magical nor symbolic. The clerk was promised money, prestige, camaraderie, or other resources by Drakul and these promises blinded him to his own humanity while slowly stripping away his stable facade. In the age of stochastic terrorism, it is quite easy to believe that people could be swayed to absurd acts just through promises, and this approach makes a great deal of sense within the context of postwar Germany (which was fueled by false promises of glory from the elite).

The third idea is that Drakul stopped communicating with Renfield after their initial meeting, but gave the clerk the paper as a reward for his service. The symbols encoded on the paper could function as some sort of magical drug, inducing immense pleasure in somebody who knows how to work them (this would explain why Renfield wrote them on his wall). In this case, the story of Drakul and Renfield is that of a promise fulfilled, mirroring the empty accolades which were given to soldiers after the war (or perhaps the inflated-to-uselessness currency of the Wiemar Republic). This reading could serve as an effective commentary on the pursuit of prestige and aristocratic respect, displaying the grotesque lengths that someone will go to in order to acquire what is little more than a piece of paper.

Other combinations of these factors could exist, but these are the three that I think are most sensible and thought-provoking. I would love to hear the thoughts of others regarding these dynamics.

An Introduction

Hello everyone! Good to hear from you all again! Introduction time!

My name is Matt Daley, I am a senior at Lawrence University (Econ major, Film minor), and I am currently typing this out from my room in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm an all-around film/media geek and small-time science fiction/fantasy author who will gladly elaborate on why the two settings are very distinct from each other (hint: it all comes down to worldbuilding). 

Quarantine has been a mixed bag for me, with pleasant as well as unpleasant aspects. Much of my time has been spent playing various video games (Starcraft II, Smash Ultimate, and Risk of Rain 2. Contact me if you want to play), trying to catch up on a few TV shows (The Expanse, Clone Wars 2008, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I don't mind spoilers at this point), reading old sci-fi novels (Ring by Stephen Baxter is my current project, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the genre), taking long walks through my eerily silent hometown, and attempting to find a sustainable sleep schedule. The hard thing to get used to is the lack of privacy in my own home compared to a dorm room, and I predict that the thin walls of my house may start to grate on me even more as things continue.

Horror films are a genre which I'm not intimately familiar with, but one that I think is filled with meaning, cultural weight, and artistic flair. All three of these elements fascinate me, and their interplay within this genre is a compelling subject for a film class. What's more, several of the films and writings explored in this class have been explored in prior classes that I enjoyed a great deal (Film Theory & Criticism as well as Queering Sci-Fi), so I'm eager to resolve some lingering questions which I've had ever since I took those courses. On top of all of this, I've had horror on the brain ever since one of my friends released his book on the writing of slasher fiction (if you want the link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/304154/Hatchet-Men-Slashers-in-Heroic-Horror). The publication of this book has gotten me thinking more and more about the construction of fear and the role that it plays in different stories, settings, and cultures, raising a number of questions which I would love to explore with a wider variety of people.

I am looking forward to this class because I feel it explores a blind spot in my filmic knowledge: the domain of fear and discomfort which people engage in for pleasure and relief. This paradoxical structure is rife with possibilities, so I revel in the prospect of diving into it all.