Pervading Horror - Metapoetic Horror in the 2000s (IV)

Disease, in principle, is not a topic that occupies the horror genre too much, primarily because it falls within the realm of natural, rather than art horror, which focuses on the construction and presentation of Otherness in the form of monsters. However, cabin fever (2002) Eli Rotha manages to remain within the limits of generic orthodoxy, even though the diegetic cause of misfortune and fear is a flesh-eating virus: primarily thanks to the location in which the action is set and the references and plot implications associated with it. Namely, Roth's work clearly relies on backwoods stories that were particularly popular in the late seventies and early eighties of the last century, although cabin fever, except in a minimal form (embodied in the group's refusal to help a sick man, as well as in several grafted characters), does not rely on the fundamental dichotomy of this subgenre - wilderness/civilization.

Rather, the film treats topographical isolation and violent contingency as the primary motivators for underlining the horrific implications of a rapidly spreading contagion, which is not necessarily seen as a metaphor for AIDS or SARS, or an anticipation of COVID. After all, by refusing to explain the source of the contagion and by an apocalyptic ending that is not devoid of a kind of parodic point, Roth emphasizes that his primary interest is still tied to the retro-modern exploitation of established genre plots and narrative solutions.

The best moments in cabin fever are related to the metapoetic visceral presentation of body horror. On the trail of David Cronenberg, but of course without the extraordinary visual power of the Canadian master, Roth tries to depict something of the disgust and discomfort caused by a body (under the deadly influence of a virus) that is decaying, that is decaying, that is disintegrating. Hence, cabin fever insists not on horror and suspense, but on pervasive horror. This is especially true of scenes where the disease is brought into a sexual context, such as the one in which the seductive Marcy (Cerina Vincent) shaves her legs in the bathtub. What was initially coded as a classic erotic spectacle soon turns into a particularly repulsive staging in which Marcy begins to remove both her skin and flesh with a razor: a stripping, and then the ultimate denial of bodily identity.

The intrigue of being financially successful Wrong turn (Wrong Turn, 2003) Rob Schmidt It lies in the director's decision not to lightly resort to unnecessary postmodernist games that have separated horror, in some variants, from its primary function: fear, and taken it into the realm of harmless entertainment. Wrong turn is a faithfully profiled and crafted genre, in which the plot is focused on producing tension and, especially, horror, rather than on a self-sufficient scattering of references.

True, somewhere at the beginning, one of the heroes, Scott (Jeremy sisto), he says to the others: 'Let me remind you of a little movie called Deliverance', but from then on, neither the protagonists nor the director, focused on the threatening situations, have time for quasi-intellectual showmanship. Schmidt, in order to emphasize the key dichotomy that subtextually permeates the (sub)genre, insists on the visceral nature of the action and the ominous ambience, so as to adequately generate suspense and, at the same time, impressively outline the morbid atmosphere.

In this regard, the most memorable is the orchestrated sequence in which the hidden Chris (Desmond Harrington) and Jessie (Eliza Dushku) in the hut watching the butchering of Francine's dead body (Lindy booth): the intertwining feelings of claustrophobia, disgust, and nausea (covering an emotional register ranging from pure fear to unequivocal civilizational degradation) create extraordinary tension. Later, when the camera begins to show the monster's faces more openly, this tension subsides somewhat, but still, Schmidt manages to maintain the necessary level of aesthetic creativity in the suspense.

With the renewal of the subgenre carried out by the aforementioned films, plots that dramatize the city/countryside, or culture/nature, dichotomy continue to confirm in the new millennium that they possess a broad and indicative horror intonation. The Descent (Descent, 2005) Neil Marshall formally relies on backwoods subgenre, but it bases its interesting reinterpretation both on the choice of the monster, or the Other, and on specifying the origins of fear and cultural discomfort.

In the standard version, which was elaborated in the founding film of the entire subgenre, the already mentioned Boormanov Deliverance (1972), the villains are backward, often mentally retarded rednecks who - whether sexually abusing or cannibalistically aggressive towards outsiders - are the embodiment not only of cultural difference (which - it should be admitted, especially in the era of the dominance of liberal 'tolerance' - is actually one of the leading causes of anxiety and terror), but also a clear indication that natural man, the man who lives in the closest proximity to nature, who is absorbed by it, is undoubtedly savage, but by no means noble.

U The Descent The rednecks, in this civilizational regression that characterizes the subgenre, are transformed into cave creatures who, presumably, evolved from human beings (sic!) into bloodthirsty cannibals, blind creatures that catch their victims by sound. Given that, of course, there is no light in the cave and that the only source of illumination is the lamps on the heroines' helmets, Marshall's mise-en-scène and editing metapoetically emphasize the claustrophobic atmosphere, as well as the general impression that they are in enemy territory, in a space in which they are almost completely helpless.

But, interestingly The Descent is not only manifested in this dimension: what is even more significant is the way Marshall's film defines the depth of (female) anxiety. One of the guiding ideas behind the expedition was an attempt to help Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) to get over or at least temporarily forget her trauma and loss: in the classic setting, going into nature and indulging in physical exertion are supposed to heal or suppress the memory, to relax psychotic tension. Structure The Descent reflects such a trajectory: the first half is marked by traces of Sarah's trauma and the presence of interrelational tensions, while the second is realized in terms of gore cinematography, when the hideous cave creatures start killing the heroines, which also functions as hypertrophied irony, given that it can be seen as an extremely radical variant of shock therapy for Sarah.

However, the innovation of Marshall's approach is reflected in the fact that the climax The Descent does not intend to interpret the protagonist's triumph of survival as her transformation into an action heroine who, in an extreme context, leaves the past behind: on the contrary, the protagonist's descent is depicted as a return to the very epicenter of the problem, as a re-actualization of the internal drama when she learns that her friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza) had an affair with her husband. In this regard, Sarah's final nightmare in which she is saved only to find Juno dead in the car next to her, whom she had earlier wounded and left to be killed by cave monsters, eloquently indicates the impossibility of moving beyond the original trauma.