Horror Gore and Horror Tales: an Investigation of Noël Carroll’s Narrative Logic of Horror and the Role of Spectacle in the Narrative

Abstract

Noël Carroll’s theory on the narrative logic of horror has received criticism. One of the reasons is that his theory is difficult to apply to contemporary horror because of certain views he has on the monster. The aim of this thesis is not to provide an answer to that problem, but to add the element of spectacle to Carroll’s theory to make his theory more applicable to contemporary horror. The central question in this research is: what role does the use of spectacle in the contemporary horror film play in the narrative logic of the horror genre as formulated by Noël Carroll? Carroll’s points for a structured narrative logic were: the intention to horrify its spectator by creating a threatening and impure monster and ideally by identification between the spectator and the character; the complex discovery plot in which onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation occur (in variety of ways) or the overreacher plot in which the mad scientist prepares his experiment, the actual experiment, the experiment goes wrong and the destruction of the experiment; suspense created by the unlikely outcome of a good ending and the likely outcome of the bad ending; and the attraction created by the way the film discloses the curiosity of the viewer. Spectacle is integrated in the narrative by incorporating it into the diegesis of the film, by making set decoration, technologies, techniques, shots, styles, materials, and so on, spectacular. Spectacle occurs in the fiction world of the actual story and has to be causally linked to events within the narrative. The narrative logic of contemporary horror can be described in accordance with Carroll’s theory. Spectacle is a leading motivator in the story, because it informs the audience of the level of threat and impurity of the monster, it informs the audience of the story and what is possibly going to happen next, it creates suspense by showing fast paced shots of deaths, and it discloses the curiosity by excessively showing the likely bad outcome. That also makes spectacle part of the attraction of horror. The audience knows that which they should not know: who the monster is. The spectacular death of the only person who knew the truth, also informs the viewer that the narrative is not over. Spectacle is not just something to be added while it adds nothing of narrative worth; spectacle can be an essential instruction to understand the narrative.