Abstract
Although the role played by animals in ecohorror cinema has been amply acknowledged, little attention has been paid to works of horror fiction in which animals feature. As this chapter demonstrates, they have been a component of horror fiction for centuries and can be interpreted (and depicted) in a multiplicity of ways. Animals can be allies, victims, adversaries, and instruments of vengeance. They can be “taken over” by supernatural forces, they can be inherently uncanny, or they can even act as early warning systems. Some non-human species unsettle us with their “alien” physiognomy and, therefore, serve as real-world blueprints for the non-human “monster” in art and fantasy. Other animal species remind us, often uneasily, of the liminal physical and moral boundaries between humanity and the non-human other.
I have greatly benefited from the intellectual generosity of friends and colleagues who recommended numerous animal-centric horror stories that were not previously known to me. The suggestions made by James Rockhill and Darryl Jones were particularly helpful.
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Notes
- 1.
John Berger, “Why Look at Animals?” (1977). Berger’s observations are seminal, and often reiterated, such as by Jeanne Dubino, who begins Representing the Modern Animal in Culture by noting that “Until the modern era, animals were everywhere. Animals were not just part of the visual landscape; people’s lives were closely intertwined with animals. Animals suffused human consciousness” (2014, p. 1).
- 2.
See Waldau, Animal Studies, 34; Ryan, Animal Theory, 69–70.
- 3.
Readers interested in this topic should begin by consulting Roger Luckhurst’s chapter “Transitions from Victorian Gothic to Modern Horror, 1880–1932” in Horror: A Literary History, which contains an excellent discussion of period-specific “bio-horror” which dramatized anxieties related to this terror of the, “animalistic” inner self (pp. 103–130).
- 4.
However, as Margo DeMello points out in Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies, the question of “What makes an animal an animal ?” is also a very loaded one that represents “one of the primary issues of the field” (2012, p. 15).
- 5.
The importance of dogs in Wharton is discussed in detail by Jennifer Haycock in “The Dogs of ‘Kerfol’: Animals, Authorship, and Wharton,” Journal of the Short Story in English 58 (2012), 175–186.
- 6.
As it does in the acclaimed 2015 Austrian horror film Goodnight Mommy, which has much in common with Tryon’s novel.
- 7.
See, for instance, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (2005).
- 8.
A disturbed young man who uses a bolt gun to kill a female victim (and who dispassionately views footage of pig slaughter by the same method before committing the murder) features in Michael Haneke’s film Benny’s Video (1992).
- 9.
Wolfe and Elmer discuss Gumb’s “grotesque humanization” of Precious and the significance of Catherine’s actions in in some detail.
- 10.
The novel is discussed in some detail by Will Errickson at: http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.ie/2014/02/hell-hound-by-ken-greenhall-1977-hes.html (accessed January 11, 2017). It was re-released by Valancourt Books in 2017.
- 11.
An illuminating (and entertaining) discussion of the many evil pigs found in British pulp horror can be found on the “Vault of Evil!” message boards: http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/6105/pigs (accessed January 11, 2017).
- 12.
I write about many of these films in Chapter 5 of The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 178–213. Those interested in the topic should also consult Animal Horror Cinema and Monstrous Nature: Environment and Horror on the Big Screen (University of Nebraska Press, 2016).
- 13.
Indeed, Gina Wisker notes that the behavior of the birds can be seen as “a metaphor for the gradual invasion of Communism or any other force” (2005, p. 83).
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Murphy, B.M. (2018). “They Have Risen Once: They May Rise Again”: Animals in Horror Literature. In: Corstorphine, K., Kremmel, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97406-4_20
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