Limits of Horror

Over Christmas, we watched the new Nicolas Cage horror film Longlegs. It felt intimately inspired by The Silence of the Lambs, although the latter is a superior film. Longlegs, aside from the performances by Cage and the other lead actors, was largely forgettable. I’m getting used to leaving films these days and thinking: I didn’t need to have seen that.

Longlegs (2024)

The horror genre is a difficult one. It feels as if filmmakers are repeatedly drawing from the same plot and character palettes. There are only so many ways you can portray an insane mass murderer, only so many variations of madness. Nicolas Cage does an incredible job, however. Whereas some actors make a satire of the ‘scary crazy person’ – Jared Leto as the Joker in Suicide Squad, for instance – Cage pulls it off with real depth.

After Longlegs, my brother, my dad and I discussed why horror films may be more difficult to pull off than other genres. It may have something to do with how God is infinite love and the devil is a finite opportunist troublemaker. Horror films drawing from nihilistic demonic patterns are limited, whereas films that draw from boundless divine creativity are infinitely variable. In the book of Job, during one of the rare moments when God engages directly with the devil, He asks what he’s been up to:

The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

The devil’s existence is base, limited, possibly even confined to the trappings of finite humans. If God is a flowing river of love – the universal fundamental – Satan is black ink poured into the river; there for a while but ultimately washed away.

Horror’s limitations stem from the finite demonic themes of madness, evil and death, forces that suck out and pull down. To my mind, the most chillingly effective horror films are actually thrillers. The Silence of the Lambs is a good example. I recently read Thomas Harris' original novel on which the film is based, and was pleased to find that much of the story and dialogue are identical.

In such thrillers, the focus isn’t so much on the satanic figure debating how to kill his next victim, which, though gruesome, can become tiresome (there are only so many ways to skin a cat, to use one of the nastier phrases in the English language). Instead, it’s the determined, often vulnerable detective navigating the dark unknown – a figure we care for deeply – that creates the true tension.

That said, I’m not much of a horror aficionado. Perhaps I need to delve deeper into the genre. Prompted by movie critic Mark Kermode, I watched Rosemary’s Baby the other day, widely considered one of the greatest horror films of all time. Once again, I found myself thinking: Really? Is this all you can muster, Satan? I’d better be careful what I say, lest the demonic forces descend.