Horror is a genre obsessed with the evil daddy-thing. Take Jason, the wounded little boy who comes shambling out of the grave transformed into a faceless lawgiver, dispensing punishment to the good and evil alike. You had sex? Die! You were a goody-two shoes virgin? Die! Or there’s Freddy, with those phallic fingers, waiting to crucify you for the transgressions of your dreams. Horror—at least effective horror—is never just about random villainy or impersonal acts of violence. It’s always about the intimacy of retribution: the twisted, gaping, maw of justice into which everyone knows that they deserve to plummet. In horror, we’re all the little kids waiting for the painful thrill of punishment.The barely concealed Freudian subtext is a big part of the reason that horror is such a good fit with the found-footage genre, from The Blair Witch Project to The Devil Inside. The wavery, uncertain eye peeking at what should not be seen and can never be quite understood is perfect for horror’s Oedipal obsessions. Every film turns into one long primal scene, where some snot-nosed nothing views an unviewable act and then, is inevitably, obscurely, and bloodily dimembered.
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