Warning! Spoilers for Carrie (1976), 28 Days Later (2002)
The things horror movies say about humanity are interesting to say the least. Particularly those that lack humanity as it’s usually use, zombies a lot of some reason. Not all horror movies are deep, or particularly intelligent, but most in some way bring up the question or debate of morality. And boy do they lack it a lot. It’s probably easiest to see in revenge films (one of the sub genres further down my list of movies I like) and zombie movies. With the questions of what justice is or what makes us human respectfully.
However to put it plain and simply, horror movies are full of assholes. And most movies are self aware enough to be able to steer the audience to like or dislike specific characters.
In Carrie, for example, the audience is meant to sympathize with the titular character and hate literally every other character, despite the fact that Carrie is the only character to actually kill someone. Her mother of course tries to kill her but ultimately fails to and that may be the best thing she did the entire movie but in the end she’s still not a killer.
28 Days later, is perhaps a bit less forward in it’s philosophical questions, due to it less explicitly portraying characters as good or bad, but is none the less a wonderful example of humans emotions, needs, and survival instincts. It’s less a gory zombie flick and more a post apocalyptic drama, but whatever it does, it does it very well. Bringing up the debate over how far is too far once society as we know it collapses, and how can a human kill another human. Granted that I realize an infected is neither technically nor metaphorically meant to be a human, but even though it’s only seen briefly in the middle (when Private Mailer, the chained infected passes up attacking Jim, Selena, and Hannah), humanity clearly still exist in some form in this universe.
Horror movies usually have a very bleak outlook on humanity regardless of themes or sub genres. If the whole sadistic killer trope doesn’t make you shake your head then a society ravaged by disaster probably will. Film makers seen to have an inherent dismissal in the good of humanity in favour of senseless killing and forcing characters to make life altering decisions for themselves, other victims, and even their own victims when appropriate.
Now despite all this negativity, I’d like to end on a more positive note. Real humans have and do do absolutely despicable things, and society while definitely not without its flaws isn’t inherently bad. In fact the reason humans today have large cities, schools, and hospitals is because they’ve been able to group together, put their strengths together, set aside their differences, and actually help each other, even when not necessarily beneficial to them personally.
So perhaps next time you’re watching a post apocalyptic gore fest remember, it is entirely fiction and you don’t have to sleep with a gun under your pillow. Unless there is an actual zombie outbreak, you might want to keep a weapon on you then.
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