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Do horror movies or books have any redeeming value?

In The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand argued that horror was the worst genre of art, "belonging more to psychopathology than to esthetics." Is that right? Might a rational person find some value in a horror film or book? Don't some horror movies have heroic characters -- such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator?

Adam , 06.07.2013, 01:18
Idea status: completed

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Jeremiah Cobra, 09.07.2013, 17:03
I don't agree that Predator was a horror movie. It was science fiction. Horror movies create a malevolent universe with an all powerful mystical being that terrorizes its helpless victims. The victims are by nature irrational because a single drop of reason would obliterate both the universe created in the story and its monster. Observe, for example the mystical existences of zombies, which elevate the mindless body to the level of art, or the ghost, which elevates the body-less mind. Nightmare on Elm St. elevates the primacy of consciousness. Observe that in these movies, the villains are virtually indestructible and impervious to reason. Such movies can have no Romantic heroes because such heroes must rely on their minds to achieve their goals (in this case defeating the monster).

I would contend that Predator doesn't qualify as a horror movie because there is nothing horrifying about a being that can be destroyed. At best, predator is a very strong human with a cloaking device and a myriad of weapons. That the Predator is an alien the soldiers had never seen before is certainly scary. However, that he can be destroyed by applying reason is a fact that sets the movie apart from other horror movies.
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Reid, 23.07.2013, 15:08
You have made valid points here. I think however the horror movies referred to may not be the best to characterize the broad genre. It is true that many horror movies have an implicit malevolent universe premise, but I think it also true that they make no attempt to be romantic art, in general.

I think the place of horror, and other types of movies that don't quite fall into the category of hero stories, is that they provide an interesting problem for the brain to consider. People often do things which may superficially seem very irrational, say for example roller coasters, but upon further investigation there is a psychological value in these types of things which are in some sense "intangible" because they are very momentary enjoyments which can be difficult to quantify or even qualitatively explain. Nevertheless I would not call such things irrational (though I do not personally enjoy roller coasters).

A very well done horror movie can elicit a very similar effect. As a horror fanatic I can say that many modern horror movies (not just from the U.S., but we do often produce some pretty awful horror) do not provide much value in this respect. A very well done movie however has a strong component of mystery to it which is resolvable (even if the resolution might be mystical in the end), and it subtly conflicts with a reasonable person's understanding of reality. This might seem non-objective, but the whole point is that it's something "otherwordly" that's what makes it scary, and that provides the momentary enjoyment for the audience, like a roller coaster does for the riders. If the movie is *very* well done, then there will be plenty of themes to think about afterward as well, and watching it many times could provide new insight on the basic mystery.

So it's not art on the scale of Atlas, nor is it even presenting a reasonable philosophy. It contrasts the irrational with what we know to be rational in order to deliberately evoke an effect with the audience. It may not be something enjoyed by all, but I think it hardly worth dismissing as non-objective. Good horror absolutely must be objective, because it must know reality in order to *really* know how to get under the skin of the willful audience.
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