This is the first in a series of posts based on a lecture I gave for The Miskatonic Institute of Horror in 2022. I’m going to discuss Stranger Danger in the horror film, particularly as it relates to child abduction. Throughout the series I’ll reference films and other media as jumping off points to explore issues such as strangerhood and the uncanny, evolutionary biology and clowns, Jung’s Puer Aeterna, fairy tales and non-human entities, scapegoating and Satanic Panics.

As a practicing filmmaker and filmmaking lecturer my two key interests are psychological horror and visual subtext. I use the term ‘psychological horror’ as a slightly unsatisfactory catch all to describe horror films that deal with subjectivity and psychological states - internal experiences - and how these films, consciously or unconsciously, provide rich soil for spiritual, psychoanalytic and philosophical readings. This doesn’t necessarily mean films that deal overtly with disturbed mental states. It also means films that have a deep subjectivity in their DNA, films like Suspiria, The Beyond, the work of people like Eggers, Aster, Lynch or Strickland.

This second point, subjectivity, is where my other interest, visual subtext, connects.

Visual subtext relates to film practice. It is the means by which a filmmaker - usually the director - utilises elements of mis-en-scéne, performance, and cinematography to convey meaning on a subtextual level. I feel that this is very important in our current cultural climate of instagram eye candy and AI generated art. Director and Cinematographer, Alex Buono, who lectures on the subject of visual storytelling puts it clearly:

Visual subtext is often what separates the art of filmmaking from technical craft. It is the difference between the historical accuracy of a costume, for example, and the psychological message that costume communicates about character and theme. For example, the still below from Childhood of a Leader (Corbet, 2015), shows how costume communicates on a number of levels. Firstly, it reaffirms the period the film we are watching is set in, 1919. Secondly, it communicates on a social level the relative status of the two characters. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it reveals their inner character. The character known as Mother on the left is dark, brittle, repressed and closed off. Her high collar and starchy coat express this clearly. In stark contrast (and a lot of good filmmaking is based on contrasts) the Ada character on the right wears soft, light clothing that reveals an openness and humanity to her character. To go even further one could argue that the black pattern on her top are almost like prison bars coloured the same as Mother's clothing, reflecting how she is restrained by her employer. That may seem too much but you can be certain that any element you see on camera is specifically chosen. It is choices like this that add richness to a film which, as stated above, we feel even if we don't consciously recognise at the time.

*The Childhood of a Leader* (2016, Corbet)

Visual Subtext also overlaps with another concept called Image Systems.

Image Systems

Image systems are visual motifs that repeat within a film that, whilst consciously determined by the director, should sit below the conscious awareness of the audience. When directors are successful at incorporating image systems into their work they create a sensed feeling of coherence and depth for the viewer. This is often what we think of when we imagine the work of auteurs - a sense of deeper meaning beneath the surface. Image systems utilise production design and cinematography as delivery methods and, combined with other aspects of filmmaking, such as performance and editing, help create the overall subtext-led visual strategy.

One filmmaker who is a master at using Image Systems is Park Chan-Wook. In his most recent film, Decision to Leave (2022), he tells the story of two lovers unable to connect and cross the divide between them. Amongst a number of recurring motifs including mountains and the ocean to signify the two characters there are more subtle techniques that are easily missed but beautiful once realised. Perhaps the most striking occurs during an interrogation scene. We've all seen countless similar scenes but look at the still below and see if anything jumps out to you.

Easily missed when watching the film - perhaps more easily than looking at a still - is the use of focus in this shot. Our two characters, Song and Jang, do not share the same focal distance. Song is soft in the foreground whilst sharp in the mirror image and the reverse is true of Jang. This subtly reinforces, along with other motifs, how the two characters continue to fail to connect.

Another example of an Image System is in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite where class is depicted, amongst other ways, in terms of height. The rich household live at the top of a hill whilst the poor protagonists live literally below ground level. Levels and stairs are reinforced throughout the film. During a flood scene it becomes clearer than ever that shit literally runs downhill and yet this image system never brings us out of the film because it is conveyed quickly and subtly within the fabric of the film. Using a consistent image system becomes the bespoke language of a film rather than a jarring piece of symbolism that feels out of place and stands out to the audience.

It could be argued that due to the somewhat ‘Easter egg’ nature of visual subtext and image systems, these practices can offer spectators additional modes of engagement with film, ‘...adding layers of meaning that reward an attentive audience and invite repeated viewings of a film, as new depths, dimensions, and understandings can be gleaned every time the story is revisited.’ (Mercado, 2010)

What is interesting is that since online video and streaming media rose to prominence cinema and television have moved steadily towards complexity. In their book, Impossible Puzzle Films (2016), Kiss and Willemsen argue that programmers have realised that films and shows that reward repeat viewing get repeat viewings...There has been a movement away from NBC’s Least Objectionable Programming (or Lowest Common Denominator) to Most Repeatable Programming:

‘the MRP model cultivates nuance and depth; it welcomes “tricks”’ Kiss & Willemsen

Tricks such as richer visual subtext and image systems. As Buono says, however, visual subtext is poetic in nature. It is not like the Davinci Code where there is a singular answer waiting to be discovered.

In some ways visual subtext overlaps with analytic film reading except, as a form of practice, it is intentional.

So, that's visual subtext, but how does that relate to strangers? Let's start with an overview.

What is a Stranger?

When we talk of a stranger, what do we mean?

The OED has two of definitions:

- a person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar.

- a person who does not know, or is not known in, a particular place or community.

In this sense there are two sides to the stranger. We can be a witness to the stranger or we can be the stranger ourselves.

When it comes to being a stranger, we can be a stranger to others, a stranger to place and a stranger to ourselves. In terms of strangerhood - we can be a stranger to another person, a group of people, a place, a feeling or experience.

Strangerhood

Following Freud and Heidegger my sense is that as human beings we are inherently strange. On a biological level, like every other species, we have drives and instincts to propagate ourselves and avoid extinction. But we are not just those drives, we are conscious self- aware creatures with a highly developed sense of self and complex social structures that are both constantly evolving and yet define us as who we are.

“the concept of stranger retains currency if seen not so much as a social type but as a psychological disposition, a quality of existential strangeness which is more or less felt in situated, interpersonal and intercultural contexts.” Coffey

In a deeper, psychoanalytic sense, we are also strangers to ourselves: a fluctuating complex of drives and personas that compete with each other and the world at large. According to Sverre Varvin in his essay, The stranger and the strange: psychoanalytic reflections on meeting otherness,

“All meetings of human beings imply a meeting with what we experience as strange, the stranger or what we may call the otherness of the other.” - Sverre Varvin.

This otherness of the other reflects our own otherness back at us and our retreat into tribal fictions is a defence against the threat of alienation.

Doctor of languages at Kings College, Simon Coffey, brings up some interesting insights in his paper, Strangerhood and Intercultural subjectivity. Following on from Simmel and Kristeva, Coffey implies that we carry around our own feelings of strangerhood.

“A key but under-examined aspect in the development of intercultural competence is understanding our own (inter)subjective predispositions which we bring to intercultural encounters, and how these mediate our sense of belonging or, conversely, of alienation...” - Simon Coffey, Strangerhood and Intercultural Subjectivity, 2013.

He goes on to say,

“...individuals already carry the potential of their alienation prior to the interactional moment, so that degrees of difference are not (just) newly created during moments of encounter.” (Coffey, 2013)

In other words, Coffey is arguing that we carry around our otherness with us and it is provoked to a greater or lesser degree by those we encounter.

In his paper Coffey discusses Freud’s essay on the uncanny.

Freud's essay on the uncanny (1919) offers an interpretation of the uncanny and it's paradoxical mixture of pleasure and displeasure, familiarity and unfamiliarity that fits the cognitive dissonance of strangerhood perfectly. Hoffman's story, The Sandman, which Freud spends a large part of the essay discussing, is rife with the familiarity and unfamiliarity of others (objects) who sit on the border between the known and unknown...

If you want to learn practical skills for developing visual subtext in your film work check out our workshops and courses.

Strangerhood and Visual Subtext

Image Systems

What is a Stranger?

The Red Balloon and Visual Storytelling