Warning: blah blah blah, spoilers, blah
blah blah.
I would not call myself a horror film
fan; I haven't seen many and don't really find them that scary. My
inner cynic comes out when watching the jumpy ones; the longer the
silence lasts, the likelier a 'scare' is going to happen. The horror
films I have enjoyed are not simply out to scare you; they deal with
other issues like family, and our relationships with the 'other.' Or
they are campy fun!
Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby
(1968) and Ridley Scott's Alien
(1979) are intelligent horror films that have very different
approaches to the experience of pregnancy and birth. Based on Ira
Levin's novel, Rosemary's Baby
tells the story of Rosemary Woodhouse and the strange goings-on that
happen while she is pregnant with her first child. At the time of
conception she seems to have a dream that the devil rapes her as she
is surrounded by her neighbours and her husband. Rosemary famously
declares 'This isn't a dream! This is really happening!', but her
husband dismisses the scratches on her body as a consequence of rough
sex the night before. The growing foetus makes her very sick, but
when Rosemary believes her neighbours are trying to harm her child
she is very protective. The birth is as obscured as the conception,
and Rosemary is kept in the dark about the whereabouts of her baby.
The last scenes reveals two twists: one, that baby is the antichrist,
and two, Rosemary loves it anyway.
Scott's
Alien is both science
fiction and horror. It could easily be a group of people stranded in
an isolated cabin dealing with a pesky intruder; its being set in
space adds another layer to the story. The characters are as isolated
as humans can get in the universe, travelling on a ship that is far
from earth. A team aboard the Nostromo, which is heading back to
earth after a mission, receive a distress call from a nearby planet.
One of the crew, Kane, who go exploring the planet is attacked by a
strange creature that comes out of an egg. It remains attached to his
face; it does not kill him but uses his body as a host (the crew is
not sure what for). It eventually drops off and Kane wakes up with no
memory of what has happened. In the of the most famous scenes in film
history, an alien bursts out of his stomach at mealtime. It proceeds
to terrorise, and kill, all crew members on the ship, save Ripley who
escapes via a shuttle.
Pregnancy has been
used as a dramatic point in every genre of film. What makes horror
different from others is its emphasis on and exaggeration of the
violence of this natural experience. Rosemary's body is taken over by
her growing child; during the first few months Rosemary grows
considerably thinner, and she is struck with almost unbearable pain.
This is comparable to the alien's attaching itself to Kane; he is
acting as a host for the alien. It is not in its interest to kill
him, but it renders him completely immobile and unconscious. They
can't separate the alien from Kane without killing him. Both Kane and
Rosemary are acting as hosts to these dependent creatures.
Of course, these
'creatures' are not your typical foetus. Kane's alien baby is organic
looking but clearly not human. Beyond him acting as a host Kane means
nothing to the alien; there is no 'love' between them. It kills Kane
when it is born. With Rosemary and her baby, the normal mother-baby
bond is less straightforward than usual: the child is the Devil's
Son. The people around Rosemary also view her as a host for the
child. Minnie Castevet, neighbour and devotee of the Devil, keeps
giving Rosemary tonics to help with the baby's growth. Though
throughout the film people appear to be caring for Rosemary, everyone
is actually focused on the unborn baby. Strangely enough, Rosemary is
as well, even when it is causing her great pain.
One of the most
striking scenes in Rosemary's Baby is a moment after a party
Rosemary and her husband have hosted at their flat. For the last few
weeks Rosemary has looked sickly: pale, she has lost weight, and she
is crippled through pain. To top it all off, the foetus is not
moving. After the party she fights with her husband about getting a
second opinion about her pregnancy. Suddenly the pain stops. Then
Rosemary starts smiling. 'It's alive!' The foetus is moving, and she
is far happier about that then about being free from pain. There is
something both understandable and yet highly uncomfortable about this
response. While she is full of joy at the life inside her, Rosemary
still looks like death with her gaunt, pale face. At what cost is
this child being kept alive?
It is interesting
to note the presence of rape in both these pregnancies. Rosemary has
a dream where she is raped by a monstrous figure, watched by her
husband and neighbours. She wakes with scratches on her body. Her
husband explains it by saying that, despite Rosemary being
unconscious, he didn't want to miss a chance for them to get
pregnant, and got a bit carried away. She may have wanted to get
pregnant, but Rosemary is deprived of her ability to choose when (and
with whom).
Kane clearly
doesn't have any choice in what happens to him. The alien attacks
him, and latches on to his face. His face is obscured by the
creature; it takes away his identity, as well as only keeping him
alive to keep itself alive.
One could question
the behaviour of Kane, touching a strange object that looks like an
egg while exploring an alien planet. But curiosity is a human trait,
and without it the film (and many others) would not last beyond Act
One.
These rapes are not
performed because of unbridled sexual desire or as a display of power
over a character, the common reasons for rape. Instead they are
objectified as hosts, seen as simply a place to live in for a period
of time. It is notable that in Alien it is a man that is raped
and impregnated; Dan O'Bannon (screenwriter) argued that it was
intended as 'payback' for all the women in horror who preyed upon by
male creatures.* You could argue that this is a display of power by
the alien, but it does not specifically target Kane, only latching
onto him because he is there. Likewise Minnie and her husband and
their friends use Rosemary because she is close by. This adds to the
horror of the situation; they are not special, just convenient
objects for others to use.
The pregnancies in
Rosemary's Baby and Alien are animalistic in their
violence, treating the 'mother' as nothing more than a host. There is
no love exchanged, though Rosemary does love and care for her child;
it being the Devil, it is unlikely to love her back. Of course,
normal pregnancies are (hopefully) less violence. However, the
writers and filmmakers are cleverly exaggerating aspects of human
pregnancies and birth. The outcome is usually happier, as one doesn't
have an alien kill you, or give birth to Satan's Son, but there are
uncomfortable, painful, even traumatic occasions in even the most
normal of pregnancies. Unlike horror films about being possessed by
spirits, or body horror that explores transformations (werewolves or
vampires), these two films play upon a very real experience. It is
this that makes them so unsettling.
*Mark Kermode,
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/oct/19/features.review
