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A while back, I was watching the first season DVD of masters of horror, and there was a short segment where the directors were sitting together and talking. One of them briefly mentioned how each of the horror movie monsters has its own sexual theme behind it, mentioning a few. After a time, I started thinking about this, and the more I did, the more I came up with other possible themes (some of these are from the segment, the rest are my own interperetation):

Vampires - Sex with a stranger

Werewolves - Loss of inhibition, sexual repression

Frankenstien's Monster - Masterbation, Homosexuality (reproductive act without female involvement)

Witchcraft - Sadomasochism (ritualistic actions taken to exert control over another)

Aliens - Rape/Bodily violation (anal probe, anyone?)


So...do you agree? Disagree? Can you think of any others that I havent thought of?

Well...........I suppose to some degree. More so with the Vampire and Aliens than the other monsters. I see what the directors are looking at, but I can also see how mixing or switching these themes with other monsters could make for some interesting new monster films.

Why couldn't Frankenstien carry a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims?

Why couldn't earth be a hedonistic nudist colony for Aliens who come here to escape their repressed solar system.

Why not Werewolves who collect butterflies during sudden eclipse for their sadomasochist rituals. (ok, maybe not)

Hi Scott, Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (1990)?  Based on Brian Aldiss' novel, the film is close to what you describe! 
Have you seen FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY made for TV 1973 (the creature is articulate throughout!) ?

:cheers: Applause for a great topic.  Gets the gears working upstairs.

I've been laboring to apply this line of reasoning to my favorite horror genre...zombies! I'm kinda stuck though in mid-conception.

I 've got the myriad facets of society that zombies can represent in general down, but in a sexual aspect...well that's a headscratcher.  Does it involve singleminded obsession to have and consume?  How about something like an ex or jilted lover with an inability to let go/move on/get on with 'life'?   I'll be ironing this one out for a little while...

ps.  Meanwhile, what about killer bees?  Do they qualify for this?  Mindless male aggression directed by a domineering female?

What about piranha?  Fascinating stuff to think about.  :thumbup:

One of the reasons put forward for the proliferation of vampire fiction during the Victorian Era was that a vampire's bite was basically sex without getting naked and touching each other's privates.  A way of reaching orgasm without the guilt of actually having sex would have appealed to the very repressed people then.

And I can't see the words werewolves and sex together without thinking of Howling II, which makes me giggle uncontrollably.  In dream interpretation, one of the meanings for seeing weres in your dreams is because of barely suppressed rage, anger, and aggression, so I would argue that it's equivalent in sexual terms would be closer to rape than to just really uninhibited sex.

I agree with your assessments of the last three though, especially aliens.  That's definitely cold, clinical violation.

Being the completist that I am. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have not seen either Frankenstein, but will diligently put them on my list of films to view. Karma for you Allhallowsday. Not so much for having watched the films, but for having watched them in New Jersey.   :teddyr: Thanks.

The most recent version of Frankenstien I have seen Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1994) starring Robert Deniro.

Also to correct my own mistake I should have put "Why couldn't Frankenstiens monster carried a whip and carry on intelligent conversations with his victims".

Zombies,in the traditional sense (ie. WHITE ZOMBIE), a need for total control,sexual and otherwise). Domination kinda thing...Jeffry Dahmer tried to make sex zombies with a power drill,if I do recall...he also thought by eating parts of the body it would make them a part of himself...and they would be his forever...and it gave him a hard-on. Ugh. Creepy.

Slasher movies: Serial killers find the act of killing a subsitute for sex. Most serial killers are sexual sadists.

Now,I'd like to her what kinda sex trip would GODZILLA represent...except maybe Bigger is better? :bouncegiggle:

I always figured the werewolf was meant to frighten young children away from strangers and the vampire was meant to frighten adolescent girls away from men who'd take advantage of them.

The werewolf would typically be a man encountered in the woods, when you were traveling alone, who would turn into a monster and eat you.  It's a simple message: stay away from strangers.

The vampire is a little more complex: he would seduce you, take something from you, make you bleed, and then you'd be changed forever.  It's not hard to imaging mothers and grannies telling their teenage daughters vampire stories to keep them away from salacious men.

And let's don't forget Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and Frankenhooker!

OK, let's take a stab at this:

Zombies - Instinctual procreation, as stereotypified by "the south".  Get hitched, have sex, make babies before you get your driver's license.

Frankenstein - Vanity and body modification!  Breast augmentation?  Penis removal?  Eyebrow waxing?  Nipple rings?

Vampires - Like sleeping with rockstars... outlandish decor, stylish garb, pale skin and track marks!

Werewolves - Doggie style?

Pumpkinhead - Amish sex, which of course is only between Ehemann und Frau.

Leatherface - Kissing the chef.

Michael/Jason - The strong, silent type.

Ghosts - Masturbatory fantasies.

"Holiday" Killers (Silent Night, Deadly Night, etc.) - Probably filed somewhere with Adult Babies.

Aliens - Sex toys, gadgets, and accessories!

Cryptkeeper - May/December relationship.

Phantasm - Tall, dark and handsome!

Demonic Possession - Marriage.

In terms of stereotypical 'monsters' in what I term, "Old timey" literature, that is, all the classic monsters, they all have their purposes and own thematic mythologies.

I had a lot of fun with this type of topic based around Vampires back at Uni.  Did an essay on The Vampire Myth, which was lots of fun.

Talking about sexuality, Vampires were very much a sexual threat.  Based on the times etc, they were a symbol of many things, like promiscuity, to the dark seduction of your own sexual desires etc etc.

Werewolves very much have that theme of unbridled, uncontrolled lust I suppose, if you were to put it in that way.  Very similar in a sense to the Dr Jekkyl and Mr Hyde type idea of repression versus uninhibited monster without a conscience.

Witches were that hedonistic style of open female sexuality and said threat of that.  Almost the flipside of the vampire.  Whereas the Vampire [ie Dracula] preyed upon women and turned them from nice women into sexually dangerous 'beasts' via the bite, the purpose of a Witch was pretty much to corrupt man into destroying themselves with sin.  To a fashion of course. 

Ghosts very much have that sense of the voyeur.  I also agree with DodgingGrunge in that they seem like masturbatory fantasies.  Plus you've also got that idea of possession by ghost in terms of controlling you into doing things you wouldn't do, but in a way kind of 'want' to do.

They are the 'classic' monsters, but as we have seen, you can easily put this to modern day monsters as well, especially the slasher substituting for sex etc.

I wonder what "The Mummy" would represent?

OK, two possible answers:

1)  Bondage!
2)  Oedipus Complex... *gnuck gnuck*

The Mummy: taken from the various versions over the years.

Obsessive or forbidden love, to the point of self-destruction
Infidelity
Body Mutilation/Modification
I can see the bondage theme, or at least the binding and restraint part of it

Werewolves:
beastiality
exhibitionism - "letting it all out" when the moon is full

Frankenstein's Monster:
I don't see a sexual theme as much as the one of rejecting or denying God that comes up in discusssions, man creating "unnatural" life in HIS own image. From the origninal novel you could get a variation of an Oedipus Complex theme. The monster causing the destruction of people in the Dr.'s life (directly or indirectly). The "child" lashing out at the "father" who has things, like love, that he cannot.

To go with Snivelly mention of Victiorian vampire fiction, there was also the paranoia about blood and diseases, like "consumption"/TB. The blood on the lips with a vampire's bite could parallel the blood on the lips of a loved one coughing up blood from the disease. It could also be an outlet for repressed homoerotic feelings when the vampire and victim were the same gender. Even now look at how often you have female on female vampire action in vampire movies if just to show some skin.

Slasher flicks: again often represent repression. The killer punishes the fornicating teens for their actions and desires. I can't help thinking of the mousy girl in Friday the 13th Part Seven who dresses up when she thinks she's going to have a rendezous with aguy who has no interest in her. She only dresses in a sexy manner, in her mind anyway, doesn't actually get to do anything and gets killed for it.

I hope this topic keeps going, it's interesting, just hope I have more time to devote to it.

Let's not forget monsters like the incubus and succubus, BTW.

Where's Menard when you need him? I think his warped mind could come up with some monsterous sex acts! HEY,MENARD!!! MONSTER SEX OVER HERE!!! MENARD! HEY! SEX!!! LOOKY! SEX!!!  :hot:

That is probably the perfect way to get his attention.  I'm going to have to remember that for the next time we need him in a thread.  You could also use that to distract him.  For most people, I use the old trick of pointing behind them and yelling, "Look!  Hailey's Comet!"  With Menard, you point behind him and yell, "Look!  Monster sex!"

I've been wanting to actually add something to this, but have been working on a review and such.  Any good reply will take a while to craft.  Have we covered ROBOTS yet?  It seems like those are often about losing control or being controlled.

With vampires, it always kind of strikes me odd that people would ascribe such a sexual symbolism to them. In all practicality, if vampires were truly undead, their blood wouldn't flow and it would be entirely impossible for vampire males to "get it up" for any actual sex. Vampire females, similarly deprived, would be entirely frigid. When it comes to having the dead preying on the living, it seems to me that whatever the symbolism has been in the past, vampires these days could be a symbol for people who suck all the fun out of life. (I also recall seeing the cover of a news magazine some years ago with a vampire on it and the question: "Worried about your taxes?" Vampires are apparently multi-purpose symbols.)

With werewolves, rage is more the focus than anything sexual. A few flicks have capitalized on how a passionate fury and a passionate lust might dovetail together, however. There's also the symbolism of transformation, which serves rather well for tales of domestic abuse. Consider how, when you ask a battered woman about her abuser, she always tells you he was such a nice guy when she first knew him. The guy himself might even admit he doesn't know what came over him that would make him do such a horrible thing to the ones he loves. It's as if, by night, he turns into this mindless beast...

Aliens have so many different purposes that I doubt it can all be confined to just one symbolism. The Aliens of the movie starring Sigourney Weaver, for instance, were obviously a hugely exaggerated symbol of fear of pregnancy. (It's always seemed rather unjust to me that the unborn child is so brutally demonized in these films when it's the mothers who can be truly monstrous by murdering their unborn infants. Where are all the tales of vicious creatures who eat their young?) The aliens of Star Trek, on the other hand, tend to be examples of the idea that there would be all kinds of other cultures on other planets just as there are on this one. Then there are aliens that serve as something like stand-ins for divine figures, such as E.T. (He does help the preteen Elliot get kind of frisky with one of his female classmates, though. Remember that?)

Witches... well, there are actual witches. They're part of a quasi-sorcerous nature cult, and they call themselves Wiccans. They have lots of "skyclad" (nude) ceremonies, among other things. The more mythological witches that wear the pointy hats and fly around on brooms, though, are probably more a symbol of old anti-semitic caricatures of the Jews. A lot of anti-semitic propaganda from as late as Nazi Germany's pagan culture revival portrayed Jews, especially the women, as subhuman creatures with hooked noses that smelled bad, had poor eyesight and crooked backs, and were scheming to seduce men into sleeping with them in order to degrade the Aryan race and put the whole world under the control of some shadowy Jewish cabal portrayed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In other words, as the old racist jibe goes, would you want your sister to marry one? (Or would you like to marry one yourself?)

Robots are a more modern symbol. You don't see quite so many mechanical men (or women) in the stuff from the 19th century. Frankenstein might be an early kind of robot, though, since he was partially based on older Jewish legends about the Gollum, a clay figure a rabbi was said to be capable of bringing to life to avenge wrongs and punish the persecutors whenever pogroms threatened his people. The sexual symbolism of this is asexual, producing children without any sex whatsoever. Rachel, a robot in Blade Runner with the personality of the tycoon Tyrell's niece, is also an asexual reproduction. In AI: Artificial Intelligence, the perversity of this kind of reproduction is played up even further, as David learns that not only is he a mere copy of his maker's actual deceased son, but his maker is planning on producing thousands or maybe millions of other copies. Robots are also convenient symbols of slavery, including--but not limited to--sexual slavery. David's pal Gigolo Joe is such a slave, and Rachel's odd love affair with Deckard in Blade Runner includes the possibility that he's as much a slave as she is, his purpose in the futuristic society being somewhat similar to that of the overseers on old Southern plantations.

Ghosts are ghosts. Exactly what sexual symbolism there might be to them rather depends on the movie, I think. In practical terms, ghosts can be everything from unseen malevolent killers (Final Destination) to friendly helpers (Casper). Ascribing anything specifically sexual to them seems to be a case of overanalysis. Ghost stories play more upon our fear of death, albeit death while distracted by sex in some of the cheesier slasher flicks.

Mummies are a symbol for old "dead and buried" relationships, former flames, ex-husbands, etc. No matter how you wrap them up, embalm them, and bury them in your mind, old love affairs have a way of dragging themselves back up from your past at the most inconvenient times.

Zombies, like vampires, may actually be a symbol of sterility and lifelessness. Zombie hordes sometimes do include zombified children, yet there's never such a thing in these stories as a zombie getting pregnant by another zombie and bearing a child; the only way child zombies come to exist is by children getting whatever disease the other zombies have gotten that makes them what they are. Zombies might, in other words, be symbols for various kinds of sodomy and STDs. Sodomy produces no children, and yet a sodomite culture can recruit children to be sodomites. When a child gets an STD, it's proof that the child has been molested. In other words, zombies play heavily on the link between homosexuality and pederasty, though the symbolism is by no means limited to this. (Sodomy and STDs aren't limited to homosexuals either, after all.)

Sexuality does indeed tend to play a role in all kinds of horror flicks; just don't try to ascribe everything to this. As a Christian, I have read enough literature on the subject of the supernatural that I see every reason to believe some sorcery and demonic possession is real, and not a mere literary device or figment of the imagination. At the same time, these are not widespread phenomena. A more common source of movie monsters is the fact that many monsters are myths that arise from a superstitious interpretation of real events. If a serial killer left one of his horribly mutilated victims on the outskirts of a medieval town, it's not too difficult to see where people might have gotten the idea that terrible things like werewolves and vampires might be preying on people at night. Old curses on Egyptian tombs are legendary. The legends of the much despised and persecuted Jews might seem more like horror stories to the persecutors against whom they were directed.

Our own modern legends include futuristic tales that play upon our fears--possibly justified--that technology will ultimately corrupt and/or enslave us. There are also fantasies and science fiction tales about space aliens and benevolent spirits who turn up just in time to save us all from ourselves in much the same way that there used to be fanciful medieval tales of a distant Christian kingdom that would come rescue the crusaders from the Islamic hordes, and the conquistadors of Spain came to America hoping to find a legendary fountain of youth. Fanciful as those tales were, it's worth remembering that they produced real results, both good and bad. Our own legends will have similar effects; we are not any better than our ancestors just because we sift our tales for meaning more thoroughly than they did.

Well, there was a zombie baby born in the remake of Dawn of the Dead as a result of a pregnant woman getting bitten, but still, she didn't turn into a zombie, then boink another zombie to conceive the child.

Actually, this very thing takes place in "Dead Alive."  The zombie priest and zombie nurse make a zombie baby.

i completly disagree with the whole movie monster stuff. i read all the posts and while i can talk about scary movies all day (you did stimulate conversation in which i would gladly partake) i think the diagnosis is looking deeper into something thats not there. likely the creators of such supernatural beings modeled their charecters from personalities of people they already knew. of course, bram stoker didn't meet a vampire, but he must have heard of the legend and he probably took drac's personality traits from people that he met before. the monster is not a metaphor for an underlying illness or disorder, rather the crated charecter was modled from a human... and you could spend all day discecting a psyche and find repressed sexual fantasies, anger problems, identity crisises, ect. a monster is just a monster, but a human is complex.

That would be the first time I'd ever heard of a thing like that, but I guess someone was bound to think of it sooner or later. A roommate I had in college liked to do online role play, and was always complaining about all the geeky players in his vampire role playing games who claimed to be pregnant (which is officially impossible for the very same reasons that, as I explained earlier, sexual performance and pleasure would be impossible).

Whether a pregnancy is even possible with zombies is in question for the same reason, but on the other hand, if they're living and just happen to have some weird kind of disease, pregnancy might actually still be possible, whereas dead people who've been re-animated by supernatural forces shouldn't be capable of having babies by any natural means.

Again, I don't think every monster implies something sexual. Most zombie hordes are actually probably stand-ins for crazed consumers or other bands of people some see as mindless hordes to be mocked for entertainment's sake (such as concert-going heavy metal fans).

Speaking of mindless consumerism, when are we going to get to see another episode review of Bucky O'Hare, Kooshmeister? I like the pieces you've done so far.

Try telling that to Jess Franco.

:teddyr:  Only us lucky few from NJ, at the crossroads of America, yet still wilderness, know what cosmopolitan utopia truly is!  I return the favor.  Thanks! 
Posted this at Bad Movies Picture War thread, but seems even more appropriate here! 
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon_poster.jpg)

Great topic.  I have not given much thought to this beyond the superficial vampire/werewolf/alien aspects.

Robots in this context brings to mind the Stepford Wives.

And zombies...well, they have always struck me as being frigid.  Any which way you turn it.

Joe, I have to disagree with your disagreement. While Bram Stoker did base his character on a real person (in this case, the actor he worked for, Henry Irving; He also based Drac largely on the story The Vampyre, which author John Polidori based on his own employer, Lord Byron) you have to understand that anything an artist creates is shaped and moulded by whatever life experiences he's had up to that point, hence that work of art can say more about the issues and personal influences surrounding the artist than even he himself intends. Stoker may have based more intimate personality traits on Irving, though overall Drac is a representation of Stoker's opinions on the vain, selfish and "blood drinking" aristocracy as a whole. Thus, the undead count and his story can be seen as a commentary on many issues, including sex, class, and wealth, far from being "just a monster." Dracula is only one example; because of its shocking nature and supernatural overtones (which make it easier to create and use metaphors) the horror genre has long been used to takle such issues. As one director put it, "if you ever want to view the political and social issues at any point in history, watch the horror movies from that period".

Nicely said, karma point for you.   :smile:

I'm not much of an contributor so my statement will be brief.

Anyone care to dice up Kong and Ann?

I have to say I think these freudian sex analagies are bulls**t. People say it about everything.

I mean everywhere you look people say "oh its all just a metaphor for sex". What a load of crap. I mean people invent badass monsters to be badass monsters, not to represent some kind of sexual psychology.

You can find sex related analagies in everything if you look hard enough but you could find cheese and tomato related analagies in everything if you look hard enough too. Some people just got sex on t' brain.

There are exceptions, sure, Ginger Snaps, for example, comparing puberty to lycanthropy, but otherwise, nah, I don't buy this stuff.

How could it be anything but Jungle Fever?  Fear of the exotic wild-other compared to the straight-laced, boring-by-comparison white companions.  Think of all those old 'documentary' films in which there are stories about white women living wild with the natives of Africa.  Some of those are quite interesting and historically the original King Kong does give a nod to them. 

Or, at a bit of a stretch, a white males' insecurity about 'size' compared with those of other races.

I did a bit of study on that too, which is always fun.  All this freudian and Jungian theory, whilst kind of annoying and stupid alot of the time, is also interesting when reading certain films.


Yes you can draw sexuality and meanings from anything, and for quite a lot of monster films that may not necessarily be the case at all [sexy zombies? Nah...] but I think the purpose of this thread was to discuss those in which you can make that link, or at least have fun coming up with the link itself! 

I viewed the Universal Dracula in the late nineties for the first time since I was a boy, so the film was fresh, new again. At that time, I had been reading a fair amount of true crime books, particularly Mindhunter by former FBI profiler John Douglas, so serial killers were very much on my mind.

In the film, the Count encounters a flower girl.  Dracula places the girl under his influence, then carefully pushes her behind a wall, beyond the audience’s view.  I said to myself, he is really Ted Bundy.  I knew what Bundy had done to some of his victims and I knew, too, that the poor flower girl would not have mere have two pin prick wounds on her neck; she would suffer.

That gave me a real chill.

When I first came across this thread, I was reminded of an article I had read for a Popular Culture class.  The thrust of the article was teenagers identify with monster movies because of the changes, physical and sexual, that they are going through.  While the author had something there, I don’t believe that the sexual engine is absolute.

I see Godzilla as a nuclear bomb with teeth, a tail, and terrible breath.

When I see a horde of zombies, I see the shambling, gibbering, implacable manifestations of inescapable fate.  Try as you might, fight as hard as you can, they will keep coming, in their clumsy way, and they will get you…and you, too, will rot.

I see Frankenstein’s monster as an abandoned child, a bastard child; even worse, a child unaccepted even by his peers…and harassed to point of unreasoning rage.   I think we might see that feature at any high school near you.

I know that the filmmakers bring specific ideas to their work, but sometimes the audience may see something that that was not necessarily intended by the filmmakers.  The engines of motivation are as varied as the films and the monsters.

The REAL sex and monsters:

(http://images.urotsukidoji.de/covers/A18_1072.jpg)

I love that warning, "Absolutely Not For Children."    Or for most adults!   :teddyr:

I was wondering when someone was going to bring up hentai.

Ozzymandias speaks: My novel, Real George, takes place at the height of the Shock Theater craze. George is twelve and very unpopular at school. He identifies with Frankenstein. The awkwardness with women causes him to identify with the Creature From the Black Lagoon (which he sees at the theater) and fantasize about Marilyn Monroe (Remember her line about CFBL in Seven Year Itch). I was writing another chapter and discovered I could tie the Wolf Man in with the stiffening that happens when twelve year old boys get around girl. :twirl:

Ozzymandias has spoken!!!

Great movie, though.

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/overfiend/index.html

http://www.hooplanet.co.uk/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1186922844&archive=&start_from=&ucat=14&