a Taxonomy of Monsters Notes on the Horror Genre
Literary theorist Noel Carroll has written several books and literary esays on the subject of 'art horror'-- that is, fictional horror stories we consume for fun, not true horror stories. In one treatise, "A Philosophy of Horror," Carroll defines horror as a story involving a threat by a monster (stories with more human theats are "thrillers"). Carroll defines a monster as an unnatural creature, nonhuman or not entirely human, that constutes a threat to the protagonist. (Chewbacca, for example, is not a monster because he is not a threat to the protagonists).
Furthermore, Carroll created what he called a Taxonomy of Monsters--five categories of unnatural creatures that all horror antagonists fit into: fusion, fission, magnification, massification, and horror metonymic monsters.
Fusion monsters are a mix of the ordinary (usually an ordinary human) with some sort of impurity. This include zombies (humans with a disease), ghosts (humans that are dead and alive), and demonic possession (humans tainted by a demon). Sometimes, the host of a fusion can be freed to destroy the monster (e.g., an exocism), but the fusion monster stays mosterous throughout the story. Hanted houses are also fusion monsters, as they are something ordinary mixed with something abominable. Popular fusion monsters include aliens, Frankenstein's monster, Freddy Kruger, the Boogeyman, the Fly, and the Village of the Damned children.
Fission monsters occur when a person has two identies: one normal, one monsterous. The most classic example of this is a werewolf--a normal person turns to a hideous beast periodically and has no awareness or control over his or her actions. Fusion monsters are human and monster at the same time; fission monsters bounce between human and monster forms. Other popular fission monsters include Mr. Hyde,
Magnification monsters take ordinary people or creatures and, by making them abnormally large, make them monsterous. Giant ants, giant spiders, giant rats, sharks, dinosaurs, and giant people are all common examples. Examples from popular films include Godzilla, King Kong, Cloverfield, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Massification monsters are ordinary creatures that become horrific by being abundant in numbers. Swarms of flies, ants, spiders, rats, birds, and pirahnas are examples of massification threats. this category can also pair with fusion monsters to threaten with swarms of ghosts or zombies.
Finally, there exist monsters that are not outwardly monsterous but still set other characters ill at ease. These monsters seem normal except for a sense that something isn't right. This is called Horrific Metonymy. A classic horror metonymic monster is Dracula, who is a charming man with strange habits (avoids mirrors, sunlight, and garlic)--yet the strange habits conceal the fact that he is a bloodthirsty menace. This category also contains psychotic killers like Norman Bates and Hanibal Lecter, who can appear normal but are not (Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface are, however, fusion monsters, as they do not have a normal outer appearance.
The idea that these monsters disturb audience and protagonist on a gut level comes from actual research. Studies have determined that humans have a natural revulsion to things that are almost but not quite human. This includes robots that are too realistic, clowns (humans with too pale faces and too bright hair), and ventriloquist dummies. The term for this was coined by Professor Masahiro Mori in 1970, and is called the "uncanny valley."
Some horror movies do work against Carroll's taxonomy because the threat is unknown or unknowable. The works of H.P. Lovecraft often play on this idea, as does the popular horror podcast "Welcome to Night Vale." The reason unknowable monsters do not fit into the taxonomy is because the taxonomy is, by definition, a way to classify something, and one cannot classify an unknown until it is known.
Further research show that popular choices of a monster reveals societal fears. For example, zombies became popular after the baby boomers came of age because they reflect mindless consumers. Dracula was a reflection of Victorian fears about the sexuality of young people--this is why Dracula is handsome and surrounded by women, and why vampirism (like STIs) is a blood-borne infection. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese films started staring giant monsters originating from nuclear experimentation.