Horror can be tremendously useful today, when monstrous things seem to creep around every corner, said Benjamin James, screen writer and clinical assistant professor for the University of Idaho’s English department.
“I’ve learned a great deal from film,” James said. “It’s a medium of light that comes alive in the darkness.”
James said in 1997, when he was 17, his father, Jon James and stepmother, Camilla Carr, traveled to Grozny, Chechnya to run a center for children who had been orphaned in the Russian invasion. He said his father and stepmother were kidnapped and tortured. After 14 months, they were released and returned to the United Kingdom, he said.
“What was happening to my parents in captivity was invisible to me and that invisibility conspired with my imagination,” said James. “This scary story stuck so I did everything in my power to shut down that storytelling part of myself, my imagination.”
James said his imagination was his greatest source of joy and creativity, so by shutting it down he became depressed.
James said a dark door symbolizes repression. He said he believes people repress issues they can’t deal with because so much horror exists in the world. He said the dark door is something from the past upsetting the present that is damaging and dangerous like a ghost.
“The dark door is something that we all need to open because there is something down there, something that we can’t bare to face,” James said. “And that’s exactly why we need to face it.”
James said when he asks his students whether they are more afraid of sharks or bees, the majority of them will say sharks.
Yet, he said, in the U.S., last year one person was killed by a shark and 56 people died from being stung by a hornet, wasp or bee. People overwhelmingly fear the shark because our culture reinforces this fear through media like Jaws and Shark Week, James said.
James said a Chapman University survey from 2016 reported 41 percent of Americans were afraid of a terrorist attack. He said this echoes the sharks and bees activity.
James said that according to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the total number of deaths caused by terrorism between 2001-2013 is 3,380.
Yet, the total number of deaths caused by firearms is 406,496, he said.
“Now that’s a scary story,” James said.
Since 1979, the U.S. has lost 116,330,385 children and teenagers to guns. He said that number is three times greater than the number of U.S. military deaths during the Vietnam war.
James said the fact that he moved to the U.S. from the United Kingdom might explain why he’s unable to understand how this is allowed to happen.
“Is there a good reason?” James said. “Or do we keep the deaths of those children behind a dark door that we do not dare to open.”
He said he understands why Americans can’t bare to open it since he has stood in front of the dark door himself and has been too afraid to open it because it means facing things that are too powerful to deal with alone.
James said if he’s learned anything from horror, it’s to never split up. He said he believes people can open these dark doors together and drag their monsters into the light beyond the movie theater.
James said that horror reflects historical content and society’s values. He said women are overruled by the men in horror films time after time, until they’re all dead.
He said he believes horror films teach us what happens when we ignore women and deprive them of their voice.
James said his parents were able to empathize with their captors because they thought of them as humans instead of monsters. He explains that it is empowering for the survivor to understand how a human is made monstrous. He said horror monsters are people who have been crushed by society, ignored and disregarded to the degree that they have no choice but to react by violence. James said the Russian invasion had deprived his parents’ captors of their livelihood, community and family members. He said these men had nothing but hatred in their hearts, stories of how the West turned a blind eye when they needed help and became programmed to be violent.
James said it can be frightening to attempt to be fearless, but that fearlessness isn’t violence or aggression – it is open-heartedness and transparency.
“Horror shows us that when we look past the face of terror, behind the mask, we can actually see something far more unsettling in our own community as worthy of our scrutiny,” James said.
He said “Get Out” does a great job of opening that dark door by using the lie of living in a post-racial society.
James said history shows a cycle of fear-based culture. He said the ‘60s counter culture wanted to undo straight, white patriarchy, so the mainstream culture had a conservative backlash. James said he believes this happened in the ‘70s too, when the second wave of feminism threatened the established order and ideology. He said that in film, culture and politics, there is a white male backlash appearing now.
James said when there is challenge to the established order, there is a desire to reassert dominance through aggression and fear. He said this is shown through trying to criminalize certain groups and not focusing on groups that are clearly dangerous and violent.
He said invisibility gives monsters their power, just as invisibility gives social injustice its power. James said there is obviously no silver bullet for social issues, but we can begin to solve them by trying to understand them.
“The more engaged we are, the more chance we have to make a difference,” James said.
He said his biggest fear is doing nothing of any value. James said he wants to help people have the exciting, stimulating and fascinating experiences he’s had with film, whether it’s through his teaching or screen writing.
He said society has a brilliant way of making people act out of fear.
James said people should open the dark door and not be afraid of their monsters. He said people should address their fears and deal with them together.
Sierra Rothermich can be reached at [email protected]