"THE NIGHTMARE OF SECOND SIGHT"

BY

KAREN ELISE LEE

(The following is a paper on "second sight" in the horror genre cinema.)

PART I

The nightmare is the model most common to psychoanalytic criticism of films in the horror genre. The similarity between the effect of a horror film and of a nightmare are all too familiar. Nightmares are intense emotional and frightening dreams in which a person wakes up from sleep terrified or with a scared feeling. A similar fright is experienced by horror film audiences.

If we look to the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Jung for revelations concerning the causes and effects of nightmare, we find very little. Yet more analysis is available if we approach nightmare as a subset of "dreams," that is, as a "bad dream."

With the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud introduced the topographic theory of the mind (the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious) and the concept of dreams as the disguised fulfillment of unconscious wishes.

In 1923, in The Ego and the Id (1923), Freud categorized the structure of the personality into the id, ego, and superego:

"The id, corresponding to the unconscious, included sexual and aggressive instincts, no value judgments, and energies directed toward immediate satisfaction and tension reduction; it obeyed the pleasure principle. The ego, commonly known as reason or rationality, mediated between the id and the external world, holding under control the pleasure-seeking demands of the id; it obeyed the reality principle. The superego -- the conscience developed in early childhood -- worked toward inhibiting the id completely, and toward actualizing the ego ideal to a state of perfection. Anxiety resulted whenever the ego became too overburdened with the triple impact of the psychic energies of the pleasure-seeking id, the need to manipulate reality for tension reduction, and the perfectionist superego."1

According to Freud and other contemporary theorists, nightmares resulted from the repression of the id's sexual and aggressive impulses. Ernest Jones, a psychoanalyst, concurs with Freud, seeing nightmare as an expression of a powerful sexual wish met by a powerful inhibition or repression.

In his essay On the Nightmare (1951), Jones defines the three salient features of nightmare:

"1) an intense or agonized dread

2) sense of oppression or of weight on the chest which dangerously threatens the continuation of breathing,

3) the dreamer's conviction of being helpless or paralyzed."2

These nightmares consisted of basic fears which developed from repression of the sexual and aggressive impulses in the unconscious. These basic fears include mutilation, castration, loss of body parts, being completely dissolved or destroyed, loss of mother's breast or of sustenance, loss of mother or beloved person or abandonment, and loss of mother's love.

These basic fears also appear in the conventional horror film. In the stalker films, mutilation and murder are common expressions of extreme sexual and aggressive impulses. The appearance of these sexual and aggressive impulses in horror films brings up the interesting problem of audience identification. How can the audience be experiencing the vicarious pleasure of sex and violence, and, simultaneously, be anxiety-ridden over the basic fears of mutilation, abandonment, and loss of body parts? How can the audience be both victim and violator? Depending on the point-of-view, the audience can be both victim and violator.

A good example of this divided audience identification is in ""The Shining". The audience identifies at different times with Danny, the innocent son, and at other times, with Jack, the demented father. The result is a curious mixture of fear and pleasure: a vicarious thrill.

In the study of nightmares, it has been found that most often the dreamer sees herself or himself as the victim not the violator. If we look at films where the protagonist is a victim, then it may be possible for the audience to experience the same terrors as that of the protagonist and to feel the kind of anxiety felt in a nightmare.

A common analogy between dreams and films consists of the passive act of being enclosed in the dark and slipping into another reality or consciousness. One popular claim is that horror films are our collective nightmare.

A similarity between nightmare and horror film exists in the anxiety-inducing effect on the sleeping dreamer and on the film audience. Since certain basic fears arise from the repression of the sexual and aggressive impulses, the conflict or clashing of these fears leads to anxiety.

The basic primal fears, such as mutilation, abandonment, and being completely destroyed, occur in horror films, just as they do in nightmares. While the nightmare and the horror film may involve similar sources of anxieties, such as the repression of sexual and aggressive impulses, and the same content or subject matter involving the basic primal fears, the fundamental experiences are different. Viewing a horror film is vastly different than having a personal nightmare.

While nightmares and horror films are both experienced in the dark, there are more fundamental differences in perception which exist between them. The structure of the nightmare differs from that of the horror film. The linear story structure of film does not coincide with the non-linear mode of human (un)consciousness. While the filmic representation of reality often utilizes different time frames, the classic" narrative approach remains linear. Exceptions exist such as Alain Resnais' Providence.

The mental and perceptual processes are different in the nightmare and the horror film. The nightmare takes place in the personal unconscious whereas the horror film experience takes place in the audience's conscious. Of course, horror films do trigger nightmares and the lines begin to blur.

The popular proposition that horror films are our collective nightmare is amusing but the two experiences remain different. A nightmare is not the same experience as watching a horror film and vice versa.

The most common parallel between horror films and nightmares is the stuff that makes you afraid: the basic primal fears. Even though, dreams and films do not share the same formal structures, they do share the common effect of anxiety arising from problematic sources in the human's psyche.

Beyond the basic fears of mutilation, castration, and loss of body parts, there are other basic fears of a more primal nature, which Freud recognized in his essay The Uncanny. According to Freud, "the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar."3 The key word is familiar. "For this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression."4

By familiar and old-established, Freud was referring to the residues and traces of primitive man's animistic stage, when it was thought the world was peopled with the spirits of human beings. Despite his criticism of the animistic conception of the universe, for its basis in magic and man's overvalued mental processes, Freud upheld the concept of the uncanny. He believed that the residues and traces of animistic mental activity could still manifest themselves in man, frighten him, and cause anxiety, if repressed. Humans, when confronted with these primitive beliefs and powers, experience the same feeling of the uncanny: the old, familiar, but suppressed. For instance, in primitive times, it was conceivable that one could kill someone by a mere wish or a shout. In Jerzy Skolomowski's The Shout, that very ability to kill someone with a shout, has its sources in the uncanny and the mythic.

In his book on The Fantastic, Todorov identifies the uncanny as one of the final states along with the marvelous, in his discussion of the fantastic. The fantastic is that state of hesitancy and uncertainty before something becomes uncanny or marvelous. Todorov's categorization of the fantastic is helpful in logically approaching the subject of nightmares, but it does not address the origins of the residues and traces of the primitive human's animistic stage. For instance, is it possible that primitive powers and beliefs are amongst us, but are repressed by our rationalistic cultural training?

Jung dealt with these questions in his quest to dig deeper into the human psyche. In his analysis of dreams, Jung held that "the powers beyond our control" had their origins in primitive belief, otherwise known as myth. In his book, Man and His Symbols, Jung builds on Freud's analysis of dreams concerning " 'archaic remnants' or 'archetypes,' the mental forms whose presence cannot be explained by anything in the individual's life and which seem to be aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind." 5

Jung traces the development of the mind back to archaic man "whose psyche was still close to that of the animal."6 He argues that any expert on the mind could not miss "the analogies between the dream pictures of modern man and the products of the primitive mind: its 'collective images' and its mythological motifs."7 For instance, a modern case of compulsion neurosis and that of classical demonic possession overlap each other in such a way that the former could be an evolution of the latter.

In summarizing the chapter, "The Archetype in Dream Symbolism", Jung notes the remarkable repression in modern man of his past:

"Yet in order to sustain his creed, contemporary man pays the price in a remarkable lack of introspection. He is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by 'powers' that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food--and above all, a large array of neuroses." 8

According to Jung, these primitive mythic impulses reside in the unconscious. They may express themselves through a variety of external anxieties and neuroses. He supports his claim by the numerous cases of the uncanny which suggest parallels between the archaic past and the modern present. For instance, the case of the professor, who upon having a vision and thinking himself insane, sought out Jung. Jung showed him the same identical vision in a book dating back four-hundred years. Is it coincidence or an inherited shape of the mind?

If we take the model of the nightmare--the bad dream--as the closest analogy to the horror film, then what are the sources of our nightmares? Are they similar to what makes us turn away from the screen when an unbearable or horrific event occurs?

In the case of the slasher and stalker films, the Freudian model offers a simple, direct analysis. Repression of sexual and aggressive impulses in the violator conflicts with the fears of mutilation and loss of body parts in the victim.

Yet the Freudian model falls short of explaining the sources of the more primal fears which can be comprehended or acted out by special powers, such as psychic vision or second sight. Jung's archetype theory, based on dream analysis, provides a better context in which to understand the films dealing with primitive powers and beliefs, such as the power of second sight.

As the critic Bruce Kawin notes "not all horror films are 'fantasies of victimization and destructive aggression.' At its most successful the genre offers unsettling--even mythic--narratives concerned with the nature of vision and the possibility for integration of the repressed."9

PART II

The horror of the unknown, the irrational, and the inexplicable are deep-seated primal fears internal to us not external to us as are the monsters in science fiction films. These internal anxieties occur in the area of problematic "vision" in the four films to be analyzed. These four films are Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now", Peter Weir's "The Last Wave", David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone", and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining".

These films are meant to entertain audiences not necessarily to inform or educate. Entertainment, at it's finest though, can intrigue audiences to explore the subject area more fully.

The psychoanalytic theory of Freud, including his essay on "The Uncanny", the structuralist classification of "The Fantastic" by Todorov, and, especially, the "mythic" archetypal research of Jung have sought to explain the mythic origins of primal human fears. The work of these theorists raise provocative questions and provide a context in which to analyze these four films.

The four horror films handle the subject of mythic origins by showing it to us through the use of visions, most specifically, through that of "second sight". "Second sight" is the ability to see the future and sometimes see the past.

It has been said that some of the greatest horror films have been those of the "troubling kind, those which deal with unsettling confrontations with intuition."10 Perhaps, due to their mythic nature, these more cerebral horror films have the potential of being as disturbing, if not more so, than those of the low-budget horror genre.

The following films' protagonists see occurrences which are depicted as nightmarish at first. Some ignore the visions which may prove deadly whereas others receive and are rewarded with insight.

A short story synopsis of each film follows:

<> "Don't Look Now" -- John (Donald Sutherland), a rational, professional man, has the ability of second sight but completely refuses to acknowledge it. The urgings of his wife, of his dead daughter, and of a kindred psychic woman do little to shake him. His uncanny visions prove problematic when he mistakes a vision of the future as a real-time, present event. Eventually, he understands the meaning of his vision which is to warn him of danger and death, but the realization comes too late.

<> "The Last Wave" -- David (Richard Chamberlain), a lawyer, is defending five aboriginal men in a murder case against another aborigine who has stolen sacred objects. Though everyone in civilized Sydney believes that there are no tribal people in town, it turns out that there are. With the backdrop of impending natural disaster -- hail, mud rain, and frogs -- David has nightmare visions in which he sees Chris, one of the aborigines, offer him a magic stone. David actively tries to find out the meaning of his visionary nightmares and learns from Chris that a tidal wave of destruction is coming. Helpless, but enlightened, David seems ready for the forces of fate to arrive.

<> "The Dead Zone" -- John (Christopher Walken), a school teacher, is involved in an accident which leaves him in a coma for five years. Upon waking, he finds that his fiancee is married to another man and that he, John, has the newly-acquired ability of "second sight". Treated like a freak celebrity, John tries to escape into a nearby town, but his reputation precedes him. He's called upon to use his special ability. First, John helps pinpoint a policeman as the murderous rapist terrorizing the town. Next, he saves a student from drowning in a hockey accident. The final vision involves a corrupt politician (Martin Sheen) who must be stopped before becoming president and instigating the nuclear holocaust. John sets out to save the world from destruction and succeeds.

<> "The Shining" -- Jack (Jack Nicholson), a writer, becomes a winter caretaker for a spooky, labyrinthine resort hotel. The hotel has a sordid past history of murder and mutilation. Supposedly, years earlier, a former caretaker, suffering from cabin fever, went loony and slaughtered his entire family. Jack's son, Danny, has visions of and briefly encounters the former caretaker's two twin girls. Due to his ability to "shine," that is, to see things that others don't see and to talk telepathically to other people who "shine," Danny sees and senses other frightening things. When Danny realizes that his father is trying to kill him and his mother, he outsmarts Dad. At the end, we learn that the former caretaker who murdered his family may be Danny's reincarnated father.

All four of these films have mythic aspects to them but to different degrees. "The Last Wave" has the most direct correlation to mythic theme, which, in this case, is the destruction and restoration of the world. In the film, the Australian aborigines, like most primitive cultures, see life in cycles. Each cycle ends with an apocalypse, a natural cataclysm such as a flood, a freeze, or a big rain, followed by a rebirth. Premonitory dreams foreshadow these apocalypses. David, the protagonist, endowed with the power of seeing the future, has a premonitory dream of a great tidal wave destroying his city. Though he can see the future, David is powerless to stop the wave. Yet, in the end, he acquires a new awareness of the true primal nature of the world.

In "Don't Look Now", the story "denies any psychological explanation for the supernatural and opts for a more metaphysical nature of good and evil."11 Even though no direct mythic sources are given for this world of unseen forces and psychic abilities, the theme of the film suggests that these are not mysteries which are new, just latent. The origins of the protagonist's psychic abilities do not necessarily follow Jung's idea -- that the residue of primitive beings of past origin is in living human beings. The film offers little in the way of explanation and aims more to undermine a complacent audience. The filmmaker appears to be challenging a viewer who might identify with the rational, sensible main character.

Ultimately, "Don't Look Now" feels cold, controlled, and calculated. Much of the appeal of the film is the exceptional craftsmanship and visual design, which is to be discussed later.

In "The Shining", the mythic notion of demonic possession and reincarnated lives runs throughout the film. Jack is the reincarnated innkeeper who delights in his uncontrollable urge to slaughter his family. It has been acknowledged that much of the basis of the film is due to Kubrick's diligent study of Freud's essay on the uncanny. As well, the film also draws from the classic Freudian context of sexual and aggressive impulses. Basic primal fears such as being devoured, loss of mother, and mutilation also play a part.

Finally, "The Dead Zone", the most commercial of all the films, cannot be taken seriously in terms of believability or of impact on the audience's daily lives. The film is very device-oriented and relies on the notion of the supernatural. In this respect, the film should be seen more as a fantasy. The story revolves around a reluctant hero who uses his special power to save the world, unlike the protagonist in "The Last Wave" who is ultimately powerless.

Another mythic aspect of the films is the primitive belief in premonitory visions as predictors of the future. There is a long-held belief that one of the chief functions of dreams is to foretell the future. All four protagonists in the films have premonitory visions through their ability of second sight. The nature of that vision differs depending on each character's attitude towards his psychic ability and his active or passive reaction to it. As Bruce Kawin points out,

"This problem of vision--of the reliability and value of what has been seen and of the way it has been seen-- becomes urgent. Certain films leave the question of vision unresolved, and this accounts for that troubling feeling."12

Undoubtedly, "The Last Wave" is the film closest to the mythic model with its mythic theme and use of the dream as a pathway to visions. The protagonist gains his second sight, his ability to see the future, through dreams or nightmares. He takes an active role in trying to understand the meaning of his visions. In the end, he believes in the reality of his visions and in their origins in primitive life. What remains troubling is that merely possessing the ability to see does not include the power to change fate, which, in this case, will be destructive. The city will soon be destroyed by a tidal wave.

In "Don't Look Now", John completely denies his vision which proves to be a fatal mistake. When he sees a future vision, John mistakes it for the present. This future scene consists of his wife and the two British women, one being the psychic, passing by on a funeral boat in Venice where the film takes place. John's vision is a premonition of his own death. We witness this fact at the end of the film, when the same funeral procession passes by with John's casket -- the same scene John saw earlier. It is implied that John's subsequent misinterpretation of this premonition of the funeral boat and his continual denial of and passive attitude towards his psychic ability, leads to his death.

In "The Dead Zone", John considers his second sight a curse. Not only has it wrecked his personal life, but slowly it's also destroying him physically. Nevertheless, the nature of John's vision is positive and active in its aid in helping people. The first occurrence of John's second sight occurs in the medical ward when he grips a nurse's arm. Receiving the jolt of the vision, John sees the nurse's daughter trapped in a burning house and alerts her to her daughter's danger. The next time John has a vision, he sees a young student he's tutoring drown in an ice hockey accident. The worried boy believes John and refuses to go to the ice hockey practice despite his father objections. Hence, the boy survives, but his team members do not. From hereon, the film's tone is bittersweet and somber. In his final vision, John literally saves the world from a corrupt politician. In terms of altering the future, only John, in "The Dead Zone", has this power. This is made possible story-wise through the notion of the "dead zone": that part of the future which can be altered. The commercial nature of "The Dead Zone" may have precipitated such a heroic ending where John literally saves the world from destruction.

Not limited solely to future visions, the past can be seen as well. These past visions are just as integral to the characters' fates.

In "The Shining", Danny "sees" the horrible past of the hotel in the eerie appearance of the two twin girls. The concept of the split doppelganger or double apply to the two girls who remind us of Diane Arbus' famous photograph. The two twin girls appear to Danny, enjoin him to "play" with them, and become part of the hotel's ghostly life. The fear which results from Danny's visions terrifies him and later triggers him to escape his murderous father and save his mother: a common Oedipal theme.

In "The Dead Zone", John's connection with the past allows him to solve a series of murders of young women by a psychotic policeman. John is unique among all the other protagonists. Not only can he see the past and the future, he has the power to alter the future too. Of all the films, "The Dead Zone" is much more exaggerated not only in the characterization of John and his visions, but as well in the cinematic sensationalistic effects.

The existence of thin boundaries between the different time frames of past, present, and future is a characteristic of psychic vision. All the protagonists in the four films have the ability to see across these thin boundaries. In "The Shining", the hotel becomes an externalized space for Jack's mind and it contains all time frames. In "Don't Look Now", the associative editing technique of cutting from a character doing the same thing across different time frames is used. This relational editing technique of linking similar character actions or movements in simultaneous scenes suggests an underlying force. What is implied is that, irrespective of space and time boundaries, some force or coincidence pervades this life.

Another mythic aspect of the films is the recurrent, symbolic motifs. The motif of water imagery recurs throughout both "Don't Look Now" and "The Last Wave". In both films, water is associated with death and rebirth. In "Don't Look Now", the water imagery begins in the credits and is followed by the drowning of John's daughter. The embryonic water stain on the photo-slide John examines first turns red and then blue. This is a premonition of John's death and, indeed, John dies in Venice, the city of water. In "The Last Wave", water is the ultimate cataclysmic destructor. The film opens with the unusual occurrence of hail, and then mud rain. More water imagery follows: an overflowing bathtub, the ever-present hurricane on the horizon, and, finally, the consuming tidal wave.

The imagery of horror films can be the most shocking and memorable aspect of the films. Images of mutilation, castration, being devoured, split, or annihilated arouse primal human fears. The overused, obligatory butcher knives and other sharp instruments of torture appear throughout all the films except for "The Last Wave".

In "The Shining", the most horrific images include the cascade of blood, the two demonic twin girls, and the walking dead caretaker who is Jack Nicholson's double. The transformation of the beautiful young woman into an old woman, as Jack desires to embrace her, is from a more traditional male point-of-view.

In "The Dead Zone", the most shocking image is that of the self-styled, suicidal execution of the psycho-killer policeman. With mouth open, he impales himself with a pair of scissors. The psycho-killer's regressive nature is exemplified in his stuffed possessions, which are reminiscent of Anthony Perkin's stuffed birds in Psycho.

"The Last Wave" contains "horror" images of a more mythic nature: mud rain and a plague of frogs. The mask-drawn faces of aboriginal tribesmen frighten the white protagonist.

The most visual of the films, "Don't Look Now", is the most subtly horrific. Roeg limits the horrific to subtle touches like the mirror-like, blue demonic eyes of the psychic woman and then shocks the viewer with the final murder scene. Suddenly, at the end of the film, the red dwarf hacks John to death. Blood shoots out from his spasmodic body. By reserving the horrific to the very end, the impact is even more shocking.

Though related in many respects, the films differ greatly in the cinematic and narrative handling. The filmmakers have a great deal of control over the cinematic construction of horror films. Whereas, we have little control over our actual nightmares, the filmmakers have the ability, or at the very least, the opportunity, to shape the audiences' experiences of these nightmarish or frightening scenes. They may create scenarios which trigger experiences similar to that of having a nightmare, or, at the very least, frighten the audience. The filmmakers' cinematic handling can enhance the horror effect through the use of music, color, and the moving camera.

The role of music figures prominently in establishing the impact of the "visions" and the atmosphere or mood at that moment. In "The Last Wave", there is a heavy reliance on eerie music and ominous, primal sound effects, such as devouring animals, howling, whining, and boomerang sounds to create the atmosphere conducive to visions. In "The Shining" and "The Dead Zone", the use of sound is less inventive -- almost to the point of cliched horror sound -- but it does have impact. The most subtle and minimal use of sound is in "Don't Look Now" which relies more on the visuals to tell the story.

The role of color in "Don't Look Now" is designed so that red is the symbol of death. Closely linked to red is blue, the color of the embryonic stain on the photographic slide and the psychic's demonic eyes. By the careful association of red with death, color becomes a carrier of horror effect.

The role of the moving camera in "The Shining" should be noted for its supernatural qualities. Since it cannot be assigned to a specific character, the moving camera communicates a feeling of a gliding supernatural presence. It can go where no human being can go. In this way, the camera becomes a character all its own and with abilities beyond that of earthbound characters.

Once the filmmakers use these techniques and devices to get our attention and begin to shape the audience's experiences, they can further shape the audience's view by the way they handle "second sight". How the "second sight" vision is seen by the characters differs in the four films.

The establishment of the protagonists' ability of second sight and their "visions" varies in the editing, performance, and narrative treatments of the different films. All the films setup the protagonist's point-of-view shot of the "premonitory vision" by first establishing the protagonist in medium shot or close-up. In "Don't Look Now", the above pattern is consistently applied. In terms of performance, John (Donald Sutherland) always gets an "internal" look in his eyes, as if he's seeing the "vision" through his mind's eye. In "The Shining", Danny always looks terrified, while his father, Jack, feels quite familiar and relaxed with the vision, as if it was natural. In "The Last Wave", David must be asleep in a dream state in order to have his vision. The most sensationalistic handling of the second sight ability is in "The Dead Zone", where John, upon touching someone or something, is suddenly zapped by an unseen force, so that his body jolts back to indicate that "it's happened again". Alternatively, the most seamless method of establishing second sight is in Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now". In this film, John appears to receive the vision quite normally in keeping with the rhythm of everyday perceptions.

On a more critical note, the characterization in all of these films, except for "The Shining", is overwhelmingly the same. The protagonists are always rational, controlled middle-class men, that is, except for Jack Nicholson. Their careers support and require rational thinking, which later will contrast with their irrational second sight ability.

The idea of a rational man struggling with a powerful, internal, "irrational" force provides a strong contrast story-wise. The idea of the filmmakers', that is, the director, the screenwriter and the actor, may be that these male characters are so fixed in their viewpoints, that they are ideal, prime candidates for strong reactions leading to living nightmares of this sort. Whereas others might simply call it profound intuition, these men would need something as extraordinary as second sight in order to see visions. These men receive a privilege, an extraordinary gift, or, as is the case in "The Dead Zone", a curse, as part of their ritual of "seeing" the future or the past.

It should be noted that the filmmakers may have cast the protagonist as the rational, everyday man for marketing reasons as well. Furthermore, the practical matter of showing the "second sight" as a literal, physical, and behavioral change in the character may again be a stylistic consideration of "marketable" films.

In "Don't Look Now", John, married with two children, is a renovator of a church -- a preserver of the past -- ironically, with the uncanny ability to see the future. In "The Last Wave", David, also married with two children, is an attorney. In "The Dead Zone", John is an English school teacher. Only in "The Shining" do we find exaggerated, unusual characters. Jack (Jack Nicholson) is a frustrated writer married to a loopy wife (Shelly Duvall).

Psychoanalytical research suggests that those who are most susceptible to nightmares are artists, therapists, and teachers. John in "The Dead Zone" may be a teacher but we see little more than his dreaded fear of "seeing" visions. Jack may be a writer but he's less an artist and more a rogue. Otherwise the films' protagonists are everyday, middle-class, married or single men who do not seem like the most likely candidates for psychic abilities. These unlikely characterizations, either dull or exaggerated, as is the case of Jack Nicholson, limit the film's serious effect and believability of the film's premise, but most likely allow for easier marketing of the film.

Unfortunately, the films' effects on the audiences are limited to mostly entertainment. The believable possibilities of the intriguing aspect of second sight and the subsequent nightmarish response is more subtly realized in Peter Weir's mythic "The Last Wave". The other films rely much more heavily on the sensationalistic aspects of cinema to shock or frighten the audiences. "The Shining", "The Dead Zone", and "Don't Look Now" are more horrific.

The common theme running throughout all of these films is the visible world may contain hidden and repressed forces. On the whole, these four filmmakers attempt to shake the foundations of rational man's belief in a fixed world by giving the "everyman" protagonist the ability of second sight.

An unfortunate statistic, though, is that the mythic films interest audiences less than the more basic sexual and aggressive impulses of the exploitative horror genre. The more sensationalized "The Shining" and "The Dead Zone" (both adapted from Stephen King novels) appealed to audiences more than Peter Weir's "The Last Wave" or Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now".

It remains to be seen what is more applicable to viewers' life: primal human fears of maiming, mutilation, and loss of loved ones, or the unseen mythic forces of cataclysmic cycles and residues of archaic human presences. The mythic examples of the more cerebral horror or nightmarish films are few in number but offer intriguing possibilities and potential for future exploration.

FOOTNOTES

1. Raymond Corsini, Editor, The Encyclopedia of Psychology, Volume 2(USA: John Wiley & Sons, 1984), p. 38

2. Ernest Jones, On the Nightmare

3. Freud, The Uncanny, p. 220

4. Ibid., p. 241

5. Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1964) p. 57

6. Ibid., p. 57

7. Ibid., p. 57

8. Ibid., p. 71

9. Bruce Kawin, The Funhouse and The Howling, American Horrors (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987), p. 102

10. Ibid., p. 104

11. Marsha Kinder and Beverle Houston, Seeing is Believing: The Exorcist and Don't Look Now, American Horrors (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987), p.45

12. Kawin, op.cit., p. 103