|
Ringu
’s Sadako making as little difference as
burning the family home down in
Ju-on
), with the quest for vengeance
never abated.
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Wood’s notion of the ‘return of the repressed’ is thus
updated. The ‘monsters’ presented are revealed as victims of atrocious
acts by family members (motivated by ignorance, anger and jealousy)
yet achieve no peace once their story is told, seeking only to perpetu-
ate the misery they have suffered. In other examples formerly abused
children may not necessarily assume supernatural powers, but similarly
horrify in the extremes of violence they prove capable of.
Audition
(Takashi Miike, 2000) offers the unlikeliest of monsters in
the slight yet deranged young woman at its centre, Asami (Shiina Eihi).
Abused as a girl, her profound mistrust of men is further provoked
by a widowed TV producer who fabricates a reality show to find him-
self a new partner. Of course, the real Asami is not revealed in her
résumé, or their first date together (in which she attests ‘my family is
very harmonious, very ordinary’). Instead, she is shown to be the prod-
uct of a very warped background and his dream of finding the ideal
woman terrifyingly backfires.
13
Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) wrongly uses
his position to attract Asami, and becomes involved with her, yet pays
a heavy price when she discovers his deception and is almost killed in
his home before his son finally despatches her. Significantly, however,
Asami’s monstrosity reflects what others have done to her: her sadism
emulating the dance teacher who abused her as a child, just as her
Houses of Horror
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deceptiveness mirrors her duplicitous lover (with both parties lying in
the audition). Takashi’s apparent intent is to warn against an industry
that legitimates male power, exploits vulnerable figures and danger-
ously obscures reality. In line with the father in
Ringu
, who experiments
on his young daughter, or
Ju-on
’s murderous patriarch, these films chal-
lenge the reprieve that flawed fathers tend to be given in the fairy tale,
suggesting any ‘monstrosity’ is symptomatic of a greater villain at large,
namely patriarchy.
Orphan
(Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009) similarly concerns itself with the
deceptiveness of appearances, not only in terms of the apparent child
taken in by a family, but the ease with which maternal blame is used
to deflect her villainy. A grieving couple, motivated by the loss of their
stillborn daughter, adopt an unusual girl from an orphanage. However,
while the mother, Kate (Vera Farmiga), becomes convinced she is mal-
e volent, the father is somewhat sinister in his relationship with Esther
(Isabelle Fuhrman). Attracted by her creativity, and flattered by her
devotion to him, he ignores his wife’s suspicions – dismissively allud-
ing to the drink problem she has battled with since losing their baby –
and is easily taken in by Esther, even as their own children become
endangered by her. We eventually learn that what appears to be a young
girl is really a physically stunted woman masquerading as a child. Her
damaged backstory explains her reasons. Sexually abused by her father
from a young age, she has since sought to replicate this relationship,
killing various foster fathers when they reject her advances. Sadly,
this background is not intended to induce sympathy, but to explain
her deviancy, revealed as it is after countless acts of violence affirm her
psychotic nature. The mother is effectively alienated from her husband
through Esther’s manipulations, and treated with disapproval and dis-
trust by her mother-in-law and psychiatrist, while the impostor seeks to
take her place in the home by seducing her husband. Rejection results
in his murder, and Kate is finally forced to despatch her rival with lethal
force. Unlike female figures in films like
Ringu
– who offer maternal love
to the ghosts of abused children, no matter how violent – we are pre-
sented with a warped grown-up here, who, the film asserts, is too dam-
aged to be redeemed and simply needs to be eliminated. On the verge
of drowning her (emulating a near-tragedy for their surviving daughter,
due to Kate’s drinking), Esther appeals to her maternal spirit, pleading
‘please don’t hurt me, mommy’, yet the response is a fatal blow, accom-
panied by the words: ‘I’m not your fucking mummy!’
Although heavily criticised,
Orphan
is an effective shocker, interest-
ingly updating the changeling myth in the fake child who threatens the
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