ABSTRACT
Horror fantasies have been viewed by various critics as an index of the fears troubling the cultures in and for which they were pro duced. Joseph Grixti (1989), for instance, catalogues a range of anxieties which seem to be expressed in American horror, particu larly in films. He cites Frenzy (1972), Halloween (1978) and Looking for Mr Goodbar (1977), among others, as films in which non-domesticated women are 'punished' (brutally murdered) for transgression of their society's expectations. Horror films crossing into the genre of science fiction such as Invasion of the body snatchers (1956) and I married a monster from outer space (1958) can be viewed as expres sions of 'reds-under-the-bed' anxiety during the Cold War. Fear of the mentally ill also seems to be prominent; perhaps most famously in Hitchcock's film version of Psycho (1960). Mental illness is repre sented as evil, primitive and dangerous, necessitating firm control by the forces of law and order. As Grixti says:
The customary attributes of mad people in horror fiction are the desire to murder, immense strength (usually coupled with cun ning) and unstoppability. Two recent examples are Hannibal the Cannibal and Buffalo Bill in Silence of the lambs (1991).10 Maniacs in horror fiction are generally male, but there are exceptions; for example, in Stephen King's Misery (1987) and James Herbert's novel, Moon (1985): both, for some reason, nurses. An earlier, decid edly unsophisticated mad male aggressor is Michael Myers from
the Halloween films. Unlike the powerful males in the romance genre, these men really are bad to the core. Some writers have pro duced subtler, and more plausible, human monsters than these; e.g. Stephen Gallagher's insanely vindictive policeman in Down river (1989).
