Freddy loves kids, has a great sense of fashion and is, in some ways, the man of your dreams. However, I think we can all agree that he might not fare too well on Tinder.
Rather than masking his face, Freddy proudly shows it.
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When you first saw these photos, you probably had a similar reaction as when you saw Freddy’s face. You likely experienced a feeling of disgust.
This response is part of the behavioral immune system — it helps us avoid infections.
Freddy's looks trigger this response
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Now, Freddy got his scars from burns, so his face is inadvertently triggering the disgust response.
However, other monsters use the disgust response. Zombies, for example, give off honest cues of disease. It's part of the reason why they are iconic horror monsters.
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As iconic as Freddy’s face might be, even more iconic is his glove.
It’s changed a bit over the years, but the essence has stayed the same — a leathery, skin-like glove with bladed fingers.
Why the razor glove? It's a pretty inefficient killing tool.
Why is it iconic?
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The simple answer is that Freddy’s glove taps into a deeply rooted fear of predators. In particular, our fear of sharp teeth and sharp claws that are nearly universal among predators.
Wes Craven knew this, and was intentional about this design. He wanted a "primal threat."
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Freddy gives a 1-2 punch that makes him an effective haunter of nightmares.
His face triggers deeply rooted feelings of disgust and leads the audience to feel revulsion.
His bladed glove taps into evolved primal fears relating to predators.
What about his behaviors?
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Freddy is a very effective stalker. He hides in the shadows or takes on the shape of other people or objects.
Like his razor glove, stalking triggers anti-predator responses.
Most importantly, he stalks his victims when they are at their most helpless — in their dreams.
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As he’s toying with his victims, Freddy loves to laugh at them.
He’s the master of the evil laugh.
Although the evil laugh is common to villains, Freddy is really the only classic slasher who uses this to convey how evil he is.
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To better understand why the evil laugh is important, we first have to understand regular laughter.
Laughter signals play and intrinsic enjoyment at some situation. It also tends to be involuntary – sometimes you can’t help but laugh.
But what about evil laughter?
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Villains use the signaling aspect of laughter to convey how evil they are. @JensKC has done some interesting research on this.
An evil laugh removes any doubt that a harmful action might have some source other than pure pleasure.
Freddy enjoys terrorizing his victims.
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Freddy also triggers all four aspects of morbid curiosity: minds of dangerous people, paranormal danger, violence, and body violation.
So to recap: Freddy is a horror villain icon because he:
1. Elicits disgust 2. Mimics predators through his razor glove and stalking 3. Signals his evil nature with his laughs 4. Effectively triggers all 4 domains of morbid curiosity
The rise of slashers led to moral panic from the public & critics in the 80's. Gene Siskel encouraged readers to mail complaints to Paramount's chairman, & The UK banned what they called "video nasties," leading the Scotland Yard to raid VHS stores. imdb.com/list/ls0513642…
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There's some evidence that horror fans are lower in empathy, but this literature is small, mostly from the 80s, and suffers from some methodological and conceptual flaws. I addressed these issues in a previous thread.
Horror is a controversial genre, and horror fans are a commonly misunderstood group of people.
Here are 3 of the most common misconceptions about horror fans and why they are wrong.
1. Thrill-seekers 2. Anxiety 3. Empathy
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⚠️Misconception #1⚠️
Aren't horror fans just thrill-seekers?
This idea comes from work in the 1980s on sensation-seeking. Sensation-seeking is a trait that promotes the seeking of varied, novel, complex & intense sensations & experiences.
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There's some evidence that sensation-seeking is correlated with horror fandom, but it's not consistent.
Sometimes sensation-seeking predicts attendance, and sometimes enjoyment. Sometimes its only true for men or for a specific type of sensation-seeking.
Why are we fascinated with serial killers and evil men?
I gave a Science on Screen talk last week about our fascination with evil men, using Patrick Bateman from AMERICAN PSYCHO as an example. Here's a thread with the main points & some of my slides
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Humans are fascinated with morbid situations, and this shows up across entertainment. Take horror, for example
1. It's the most profitable film genre
2. 2 of the 5 most widely listened to podcasts tell stories about evil men
3. horror novelists sell billions of books
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Our fascination with evil men is part of this broader "morbid curiosity" that humans have. My research finds that people tend to be morbidly curious about 4 topics (broadly speaking):
1. Supernatural Danger 2. Body Violations 3. Violence 4. Minds of Dangerous People
Here's a short thread of really fun infographics about horror movies, many of which I found on @DataIsBeautiful. We've got everything from demographics to jump scares to Bechdel Test scores.
A few of these may surprise you!
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Let's start with popularity. The past 2 years have seen horror devour its largest share of the Box Office in history.
People flocked to horror during the pandemic. However, the popularity of horror (and thrillers!) has been on a steady upward trend for decades.
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Horror is the genre most likely to turn a profit. A spooky story doesn't require a big budget to be a hit. @jason_blum built a genre empire on this.
The first @blumhouse film, Paranormal Activity, is the most profitable film ever. Shot for $15k, It grossed nearly $200M.