More technology and horror
Hans Petter: Thanks for the comments. Yes, technology-enabled monsters are interesting, and a relatively new thing. They seem to be more common in Japanese horror, perhaps because of the Japanese technology fetish. As technology has been integrated into our lives, technology’s role in horror has changed. Compare the medical examinations in The Exorcist, portrayed as terrifying, invasive, and unable to help, in stark contrast to the spirital world of demons and priests, with the use of technology in The Ring, where technology is key both to the monster and curse itself, and to the means of avoiding a horrible fate at its hands.
In what Noël Carroll calls “the complex discovery plot”, with its four phases of onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation, technology is increasingly used in the discovery and confirmation phase, to research and discover more about the monster. Your Sixth Sense and Alien 3 examples are typical of this.
To reveal the hidden in an indirect way is a staple of horror. It’s more suspenseful if the monster’s existence is implied by seeing the results of its rampage, than by looking directly upon its tentacled visage. An animal staring at or fleeing from something unseen implies danger without having to show it, which contributes to the feeling of uncertainty and tension, in addition to having obvious budgetary advantages. Children sometimes take the role of animals in the same way, because they’re on one hand very honest and open-minded, and on the other hand are seen to have problems telling reality and make-believe apart, again creating an uncertainty that wouldn’t be possible by just showing the monster directly.
The motion sensors in Aliens, the infrared video camera in The Descent, the machine that makes invisible monsters visible in Lovecraft’s From Beyond, the flashlight in Doom 3, the sprayer with the powder of Ibn Ghazi in The Dunwich Horror, and the ghost-viewing glasses in the rather awful 13 Ghosts, all make visible the hidden monsters that we suspect exist all around us, but that we disconcertingly can’t see.
In many cases, what you can’t see actually can’t hurt you, though, so it’s not always such a great idea to use the technology to reveal the hidden. That’s common in the Japanese technology monsters too, when you see them, they look back at you, and they’re coming to get you. Seeing them is viral, just like a zombie’s bite, it inevitably leads to succumbing to and/or becoming part of the horror yourself.
Regarding Winona Ryder in Alien: Resurrection, I’ve seen your comparison before, and I think it’s both insightful and amusing, but I’m curious what it really means that the android is Winona Ryder in that movie. That technology is female, cute, and fuckable now? Or that it shoplifts? I’m honestly interested.