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The Shining
(Stanley Kubrick,
1980) exemplifies this threat in the psychotic father, Jack Torrence (Jack
Nicholson), who seeks to kill his wife and child. A haunted hotel may
align his murderous impulses with those of previous ‘caretakers’, yet the
fact that he broke his son’s arm before the move affirms his danger, even
before cabin fever set in.
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The elimination of the bad father is clearly
necessary for this family to survive, an evaluation Vivian Sobchack
reads as endemic of the era, when a redundant patriarchy seemed evi-
dent, asserting that ‘as the culture changes, as patriarchy is challenged,
as more and more families no longer conform in structure, membership
and behaviour to the standards set by bourgeois mythology, the horror
film plays out the rage of paternal responsibility denied the economic
and political benefits of patriarchal power’ (1996: 152). This resentful
rage is ably embodied by sadistic serial killer Freddy Kreuger, deemed
‘the paradigm authority figure, the ultimate bad father’ by his creator,
Houses of Horror
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Wes Craven, figured as ‘a metaphor for our culture, of what we are
doing to our kids’, which ultimately constitutes letting the younger
generation down (Mackenzie, 1999: 16). The real point of such films,
ultimately, is similar to the problematic parenting featured in fairy tales:
a means of inciting autonomy. As Tony Williams notes in his analysis of
the
Elm Street
films, Freddy punishes not only errant teenage behaviour,
but dependence on parents, affirming that ‘the films all make clear that
submission to any form of family authority results in death’, with the
final film stipulating that ‘any desire for parental love and acknowledg-
ment is dangerous and deadly masochistic’ (1996: 176). The fact that
Freddy adopts the guise of both mothers and fathers affirms that faulty
parents of either gender endanger their offspring, and the only way to
evade this threat is to surpass needing them.
Although it corroborates this sentiment, Korean horror
Hansel and
Gretel
(Pil Sung Yim, 2007) also affirms the need to set more positive
examples. The story takes place in a magical house in the woods where
the spirits of former children, seeking a new parent, lure potential
candidates to their home with jewels and other treasures. Victims of
abuse in a former children’s home, they were visited by Father Christmas
one year and given supernatural powers, the result of which is that any-
one who displeases them is killed and those trying to escape become
lost in the woods. Despite horrific experiences at the hands of adults,
they long for a positive parental figure, a desire continually frustrated
by the flawed examples that come their way, including potential moth-
ers as well as fathers. Interestingly, the young man they choose to
take care of them, whom they refer to as ‘Uncle’, is someone we learn
at the outset of the film is shortly going to be a father. Unlike other adults
they have encountered he displays no sexual interest in them and does
not succumb to greed. Although he makes a few unsuccessful attempts to
leave, his good character is affirmed and these long-dead children even-
tually allow him to return to the real world and take care of his new
family in a rare example of a happy ending. Zipes commends the film
as a ‘surreal meditation about what we do to children when we bring
them into a vicious world’, and notes that the hero’s innocence is his
saving grace (2011: 206). The abused child spirits may be empowered
to an unnerving degree, yet realise violence is wrong when ‘Uncle’ tells
them such actions make them no different to the adults that have
failed them. Although reluctant to ‘grow up’ and leave their home,
he shows them that adults are not all bad and they finally venture out into
the world. The film thus sets itself apart from many others discussed, largely
because ‘Uncle’ proves to be a great deal more successful at recuperating
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