Been mulling over this concept for a few days. I recall purchasing a PC RPG years ago called "The Legacy". Kind of like a videogame version of a Lovecraft story; player's character inherits creepy mansion from mysterious distant relative, and upon entering, is plunged into a monster-ridden and otherworldly mystery that springs from dabblings into the occult that the old man was into. A line from the instruction manual struck me: "We had considered doing this like a more traditional RPG, w/ a party of adventurers under the player's control. But since this is a horror game, we decided the feeling of isolation that a lone adventurer would feel adds to the scariness of the game." Or words to that effect. That was the 1st time I consciously realized that this was a technique used in horror fiction for time immemorial. And took note of it in damn near everything I saw or read since then.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a single person. Isolated groups work as well, and is actually the device most commonly used (after all, can't have more than one kill if the protagonist is the only person in the film, right?). Films such as "Alien", with the crew of the Nostromo lost in space, light years from home & help, The Thing's crew from the Antarctic outpost, NOTLD, with the Duane-led group of survivors holed up in the farmhouse, etc.
So I started thinking: are there any films/books/stories where isolation of the heroe(s) is NOT used as a device to increase the tension? I can't think of any, so I'm wondering now if that's even POSSIBLE. Try as I might, I can't think of a film where isolation wasn't used. I'm not even sure I can posit a scenario where its absence would work. The closest I can come is the rumored sequel to The Thing someone mentioned here a year or 2 ago, wherein the alien gets brought back to civilization. I gushed in a post about how I'd love to see this. I picture Things taking over people in the streets, in plain view, because there's so many of them they don't have to operate in secret any more, sort of like the scene in the 70's "Body Snatchers" remake, where the guy's getting chased by the mob down the street in broad daylight, and jumps on the hood of Donald Sutherland's car, but taken to the Nth degree. I guess you could argue that the theme of such a story would be a wholesale battle to prevent a takeover and wiping out of humanity as a species, which wouldn't need to rely on isolation for its impact.
But I think ultimately that'd be wrong. No matter how you slice it, even in a film like that, or a zombie outbreak/takeover or what have you, the story is almost certainly going to focus on a small group of survivors, fighting to stay alive & perhaps defeat the monsters. As more and more of their fellow humans fall victim to the alien or zombie menace, the group that is the focus of the story becomes more and more isolated in their plight. And we're back to square one. I guess the film could be made or the story written from the perspective of a general or somebody, who organizes an ultimately successful campaign. Such a feat would have to take place out in the open, with the full knowledge of the populace, and it's hard to characterize a large segment of the military as "isolated".
Maybe giant monster movies, which utilize this technique, are often the exception to this rule? Hard for the government to deny there's a problem the way they do in zombie books/movies. . . until it's too late . . . when Godzilla or a giant tarantula is tearing thru the countryside. But to us in this decade, at least, these films don't really seem scary so much as campy, more-sci-fi-than-horror fun. They may have scared the bejesus out of the 1950's audiences many of them were made for, but come off almost as action flicks to us now, I'd argue. Cloverfield is a giant monster movie, yes, but it focuses on a small and ever dwindling group of survivors, and is literally filmed from their perspective. While there is wholesale military action going on, the focus of the film is more on the experience of this small, ISOLATED group.
So what do you think? Is isolation necessary for horror to be effective? Am I missing a forest for the trees, and there's a whole bunch of books or movies that don't rely on the device of isolation that I'm discounting? And if such a forest doesn't exist, am I right that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a horror tale that didn't use isolation as a central theme?
It doesn't necessarily have to be a single person. Isolated groups work as well, and is actually the device most commonly used (after all, can't have more than one kill if the protagonist is the only person in the film, right?). Films such as "Alien", with the crew of the Nostromo lost in space, light years from home & help, The Thing's crew from the Antarctic outpost, NOTLD, with the Duane-led group of survivors holed up in the farmhouse, etc.
So I started thinking: are there any films/books/stories where isolation of the heroe(s) is NOT used as a device to increase the tension? I can't think of any, so I'm wondering now if that's even POSSIBLE. Try as I might, I can't think of a film where isolation wasn't used. I'm not even sure I can posit a scenario where its absence would work. The closest I can come is the rumored sequel to The Thing someone mentioned here a year or 2 ago, wherein the alien gets brought back to civilization. I gushed in a post about how I'd love to see this. I picture Things taking over people in the streets, in plain view, because there's so many of them they don't have to operate in secret any more, sort of like the scene in the 70's "Body Snatchers" remake, where the guy's getting chased by the mob down the street in broad daylight, and jumps on the hood of Donald Sutherland's car, but taken to the Nth degree. I guess you could argue that the theme of such a story would be a wholesale battle to prevent a takeover and wiping out of humanity as a species, which wouldn't need to rely on isolation for its impact.
But I think ultimately that'd be wrong. No matter how you slice it, even in a film like that, or a zombie outbreak/takeover or what have you, the story is almost certainly going to focus on a small group of survivors, fighting to stay alive & perhaps defeat the monsters. As more and more of their fellow humans fall victim to the alien or zombie menace, the group that is the focus of the story becomes more and more isolated in their plight. And we're back to square one. I guess the film could be made or the story written from the perspective of a general or somebody, who organizes an ultimately successful campaign. Such a feat would have to take place out in the open, with the full knowledge of the populace, and it's hard to characterize a large segment of the military as "isolated".
Maybe giant monster movies, which utilize this technique, are often the exception to this rule? Hard for the government to deny there's a problem the way they do in zombie books/movies. . . until it's too late . . . when Godzilla or a giant tarantula is tearing thru the countryside. But to us in this decade, at least, these films don't really seem scary so much as campy, more-sci-fi-than-horror fun. They may have scared the bejesus out of the 1950's audiences many of them were made for, but come off almost as action flicks to us now, I'd argue. Cloverfield is a giant monster movie, yes, but it focuses on a small and ever dwindling group of survivors, and is literally filmed from their perspective. While there is wholesale military action going on, the focus of the film is more on the experience of this small, ISOLATED group.
So what do you think? Is isolation necessary for horror to be effective? Am I missing a forest for the trees, and there's a whole bunch of books or movies that don't rely on the device of isolation that I'm discounting? And if such a forest doesn't exist, am I right that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a horror tale that didn't use isolation as a central theme?
