Over the past half-century, the transmedial genre of horror has undergone several transformations as it has evolved to encompass everything from the gothic tales of The Castle of Otranto and its contemporaries to the social commentaries of Jordan Peele and his loyal followers. In attempting to construct a definition of horror, many critics have highlighted that horror media typically contains a monster or a source of fear designed to provoke the sensation of terror in both characters and audiences. In this essay, I first argue for extending the class of common constructs for analyzing horror media to two more constructs: constraints and character responses. I then analyze horror films belonging to the Fourth Cinema, i.e. Indigenous cinema as described by Barry Barclay (Barclay, 2003). I plan to argue that these films have a distinct conceptualization of these three constructs that stems from ideas about community, unlike other films belonging to the First Cinema, as characterized by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (Getino & Solanas, 1969). This argument helps delineate horror films of the Fourth Cinema and supports the need for Barclay’s categorization in genre films. Since my argument relies on the distinguishing characteristics of Fourth Cinema that set it apart from Barclay’s “national orthodoxy” (a status quo whose perspective excludes Indigenous cultures, (Turner, 2013)), a similar line of reasoning can be used to extend this argument to distinguish these films from Second and Third Cinema; however, those distinctions shall remain out of the scope of this essay.

Horror’s complexity is often relegated to definitions that generalize vast swathes of horror media while completely ignoring certain subgenres. Noel Caroll conceptualizes “The Monster” and differentiates art-horror from other genres by stating, “In works of horror, humans regard the monsters they meet as abnormal, as disturbances of the natural order” (Carroll, 2003). He thereby draws a boundary that manages to controversially encompass several elements of science fiction while excluding tales of terror, psychological horror, and the Gothic. Xavier Aldana Reyes, in turn, describes horror as “defined by the terrifying moment of sublimity experienced as human consciousness is faced with its insignificant position in a vast cosmos” (Reyes, 2016), which arguably narrows its definition to the cosmic horror genre. Reyes also describes horror media as containing a source of fear as “the unnameable, the thing we cannot understand or put into words” (Reyes, 2016). Thus, both Carroll and Reyes, despite their controversial and varying definitions of horror, agree that there exists a construct from which horror emanates, provoking fear, loathing, or disgust. This becomes Carroll’s “monster” and Reyes’ “source”. This is the first of our three constructs, and I shall argue that two more such constructs exist (independent of which definition of horror is used) which are utilized to create Reyes’ “moment of sublimity.”

Carroll accurately describes one of these constructs as the reaction of the characters to the source of horror. Even if there are plenty of media forms in which the sources of horror verge on the edge of the absurd, maybe even crossing over into the comedic, a key point of separation between horror and non-horror media lies in whether the characters within the media believe the source to be horrific. An example can be drawn by contrasting the reactions of other characters to Pizza the Hutt in Spaceballs (1987), whose biological characteristics are often played for laughs, and the equally biologically comical and absurd monsters present in space horror films, such as Galaxy of Terror (1981) and Alien (1979), where such characteristics are met with disgust and terror.

I shall now argue for the existence of a third construct that participates in the creation of Reyes’s “moment of sublimity.” I shall describe this construct as a set of constraints. These constraints tend to fall under two primary categories in First Cinema: resource constraints and environmental constraints. Reyes’ moment does not always arise from the indestructibility or omnipotency of the source of horror; it often evolves from the realization that the human characters are simply people in relatable situations with common constraints imposed upon them. Resource constraints inhibit the characters’ ability to avoid the source of horror: examples of these range from the pregnancy that forces Rosemary’s dependence on her support network in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) to the human need for sleep that makes encounters with Freddy Krueger inevitable in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). On the other hand, environmental constraints inhibit the rest of the world’s ability to help the human characters who are facing the source of horror. They often impose restrictions that prevent characters without resource constraints from escaping their situations easily. Common examples include the location of the source of horror itself: outer space, the setting of Alien (1979), deserts, as shown in The Hills Have Eyes (1977), remote forest cabins, as in The Evil Dead (1981), and the Antarctic, where The Thing (1982) takes place. While the nature of both resource and environmental constraints vary from film to film across the First Cinema, their contribution to Reyes’ “moment of sublimity” crucially tends to remain independent of the source of horror, choosing to instead add a layer of tension or conflict on top of the existing horror caused by the source in the film.

My next argument is that the existence of these constraints implies an unconstrained environment in the film, hereby referred to as the “unconstrained ideal”. This is an environment in which both resources and environmental constraints are relaxed, a world where the characters affected by the horror can escape it. Hence it is the optimal “goal” for characters in a piece of horror media to reach this unconstrained ideal if it exists. In Alien, this unconstrained ideal would be a space station or colony of sorts, without any restrictions on ammunition, where Ripley would be supported by some sort of a military force that could destroy the titular alien. In that environment, her resource constraints (a lack of ammunition, her conflict with other characters about the true purpose of their mission, her relatively weaker physical strength versus the alien), as well as her environmental constraints (the isolation, being on a damaged spaceship), are both relaxed. Throughout the film, as we see Ripley fight the alien and try to make it back home, we are aware of the parallel construct of the unconstrained ideal, since we know exactly what would be needed for her to escape the horror. Hence, I argue that we can define the constraints in First Cinema as deviations from the unconstrained ideal, and these constraints are imposed by a breakdown in the personal resources and the natural environments of characters.

Fourth Cinema horror films often deal with a fundamentally different set of constraints, which I shall hereby refer to as community constraints. I shall proceed to show that community constraints too, can be defined in opposition to an unconstrained ideal; however, I shall demonstrate that the unconstrained ideal of horror films belonging to the Fourth Cinema differs greatly from those of the other three cinemas. These ideals fall outside of what Barclay refers to as the “national orthodoxy”, forcing a reckoning with ideas of communities in -colonial states. Finally, I shall argue that the trifecta of constructs contributing to Reyes’ “moment of sublimity” in the First Cinema - source, character response, and constraints - interact with each other differently in the Fourth Cinema. Specifically, while constraints often operate independently of sources in First Cinema, they are closely intertwined in Fourth Cinema films. Throughout my argument, I shall examine three films: SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna (Edge of the Knife) (2018), Blood Quantum (2019), and Slash/Back (2022). I shall study their sources of horror, character responses, and their constraints, and contrast them with the First Cinema examples I have discussed.

Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown’s SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna tells the story of two Haida families on a fishing retreat in the 19th century. Adiitsʹii causes the accidental drowning of his brother Kwa's son by taking him fishing in rough weather against Kwa’s wishes. Adiitsʹii is tormented by his mistake and goes insane, becoming the Gaagiixiid, a mythical being driven mad by hunger. The film is the first full-length feature film in the endangered Haida language and also seeks to serve the dual purpose of documenting the language and the traditions of the Haida people.

It is this dual purpose that first introduces viewers to the film’s unconstrained ideal. Early in the film, we are exposed to the conventional, communal eating habits of the Haida people. The film acknowledges the fact that this unconstrained ideal may be unfamiliar to non-Haida audiences (as well as most modern Haida audiences) who are accustomed to the ideals of First Cinema. Formally, the film then takes great pains to ensure that the viewer observes and notes these “ideal” customs. Prolonged shots of the community members’ hands seek to focus viewer attention on the cutting of fish, while later scenes focus on the tribe’s storytelling activities and mourning rituals. Almost from the start, the structure of the film diverges noticeably from most First Cinema horror films as a significant portion of the film is spent establishing the ideal before diverging from it into the domain of horror. 

The film is also acutely aware of the political stakes of depicting Indigenous grief as an unconstrained ideal in horror media. It spends a lot of time laying claim to specific Haida mourning traditions, fighting against the blurring of Native burial traditions when they are presented as a source of horror in films like Pet Sematary (1989). By presenting “appropriate” and “inappropriate” ways of mourning, it also fights against this conceptualization of Indigenous mourning and burials themselves being a source in settler-colonial horror narratives.

The horror of Adiitsʹii’s possession is then expressed in the form of deviations from this ideal. The possession sequence lingers as it shows Adiitsʹii gradually becoming the Gaagiixiid by violating the norms surrounding the mourning and eating habits of the Haida. Adiitsʹii spends his days roaming the forest, alone, eating insects and raw fish, grieving the death of his nephew, and being tormented by hallucinations. Often, the sequences are interlaced with scenes where other members of the community grieve, reinforcing the unconstrained ideal/constrained deviation horror paradigm.

However, the relation between the source of the horror, the constraints, and the character response in SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna are inverted when contrasted with most First Cinema films depicting the horror of possession. Several horror films over the past century depict a moment of tragedy as the introduction of a source of horror into the narrative; for example, many haunted house films allude to some past tragedy as a source for its current inhabitants. Other examples include films like Hereditary (2018) or Pet Sematary, where the loss of a loved one directly catalyzes the introduction of a source (the cult’s demon in the former and the undead in the latter). However, SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna makes it almost explicit that the source of the horror is a monster brought about not by the death of a child in the community but by Adiitsʹii’s voluntary transformation and abandonment of his people. We watch the rest of the community grieve, heal, and move on, while Adiitsʹii’s decisions both invite the source into his life as well as transform him into a source for other characters in the film. In this regard, Adiitsʹii is like other possessed characters belonging to First Cinema, as he is simultaneously the source as well as a character interacting with the source. However, SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna is unique in that for much of the film, Adiitsʹii is the only character interacting with the source.

This brings us to the interaction between the source and the constraints I examined briefly in my discussion of the First Cinema horror media. The film’s uniqueness lies in the fact that Adiitsʹii’s environmental and resource constraints are self-imposed deviations from the unconstrained ideal. This uniqueness also breaks down the distinction between source and constraints, as the film then consistently fights to show why this constraint is in itself a source of horror. We consistently see that Adiitsʹii chooses to remain in the forest and avoid the rest of the community, ashamed of his mistake. There are also no obvious hurdles to his “exorcism”, or the removal of the spirit from his body. Contrasted with The Exorcist (1973), where several characters die in the process of exorcising the possessing demon, Adiitsʹii’s exorcism (and subsequent return to the unconstrained ideal) is relatively quick and painless for the community. Hence, both the source of the horror and the constraints result from the deliberate decisions made by Adiitsʹii to abandon his community, and thus belong to a category we shall refer to as community constraints. As a result, the film offers a unique perspective on what provokes horror in an audience deeply concerned with living within a community.

The final aspect of my examination of this film is the examination of character responses to the source of horror. The film is striking for its lack of disgust or violence when characters are confronted with the source. Characters’ processing of otherworldly possession in First Cinema run the gamut from disgust (the priests’ reactions to Reagan’s self-mutilation and possession in The Exorcist) to extremely violent (the attempted post-possession murders in The Amityville Horror (1979)). However, SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna focuses the non-violent reactions inward: Adiitsʹii is portrayed as a self-loathing recluse post-possession, acting only due to hunger, while the rest of the community is compassionate towards him upon discovering his state, attempting to bring him back into their fold through the exorcism ritual. The horror, therefore, lies in Adiitsʹii’s self-isolation and not in the disgust or aversion of other community members. 

I argue that ideas about community can inspire all three constructs in Fourth Cinema, motivating the source, the constraints, and the character response. This differentiates it from the horror media of the First Cinema, where the constructs operate relatively independently of each other. Keeping one or more variables constant while rearranging the others is a distinguishing feature of several horror franchises; for example, Jason Voorhees is perceived as equally terrifying at a summer camp in Friday the 13th (1980), outer space in Jason X (2001) and New York City, the setting of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989). While each film has different constraints, they share the same source and character response.

While SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna is effective in demonstrating the interplay between the three constructs, it does so in a pre-contact society untouched by the settler-colonial worldview. To explore these constructs in the context of a post-contact worldview, I shall turn to a Fourth Cinema film in a different horror subgenre: Jeff Barnaby’s zombie horror Blood Quantum (2019). The source of the horror in this film is a zombie outbreak. However, the film immediately clarifies that the virus involved is a consequence of the excessive pollution of modern capitalist society. The film immediately pits settler-colonialist society against the Mi'kmaq people living on the Red Crow reservation, as the Indigenous people soon discover that they are immune to the zombie virus while non-Indigenous people are not.

Here, the source of horror, zombies, are inherently more familiar to an audience used to First Cinema horrors. Yet, the typical constraints of a zombie horror film are inverted. Several First Cinema zombie horror films feature bands of survivors struggling to stay alive and discover a cure while the world’s post-apocalyptic infrastructure crumbles around them (Hubner et al., 2014). On the other hand, Blood Quantum is about an existing community whose members know that they are immune, fighting to protect their community in a world whose systems have repeatedly forced them to come in contact with ultra-violent zombies. Here, settler-colonial capitalism imposes the traditional zombie horror movie constraints, and the film shifts the responsibility for the epidemic onto the capitalist system in which Indigenous communities are forced to participate. Infections occur in the jail cells, where some Indigenous characters are locked up due to their involvement in drunken vandalism. White partners of Indigenous people suffer due to restricted access to healthcare on the reservation, and for most of the initial outbreak, Indigenous people are left to fend for themselves as communication lines break down, since nobody from the nearby settler-colonial city informed them of the epidemic. These constraints are systemic rather than a product of individual characters’ resources or of their environment. Hence I argue that this is another example of a community constraint interfacing with the source of horror to create the “moment of sublimity”.

Blood Quantum also features a time jump from the start of the epidemic to six months later, where we see that the Mi'kmaq community has successfully survived the first phase of the epidemic. In this second half of the film, the horror stems from how some community members choose to deliberately destroy the reservation, which has so far been serving as a safe refuge for survivors. This is because, in their eyes, the reservation has become overrun by non-Indigenous survivors, who now outnumber the Indigenous people and are at risk of infection should they ever encounter a zombie. Character responses to the zombies in this film mirror the politics of real-world spaces for Indigenous discourse. The survivors’ settlement is always in danger of being overrun by the non-Indigenous refugees who have only known the settler-colonialist system of living. Several Indigenous characters have conflicting ideas about how to respond to the epidemic, with some eventually succeeding in weaponizing the zombies to destroy the status quo of a majority non-Indigenous settlement in one of the most horrific sequences of the film. Thus, the character response, which is in turn informed by the politics of the community constraints, metamorphosizes into a source of horror for the audience by the end of the film, blurring the lines between the constructs once again. The film also pushes back on First Cinema’s conceptualization of the pre-epidemic unconstrained ideal in a zombie horror film. A world where the self-governing inhabitants of the settlement set their terms regarding who is allowed to enter it is seen as more efficient and desirable than the default pre-outbreak “ideal” which brutalized the Mi'kmaq community, and very few characters in the film express any fond memories of this First Cinema ideal.

The final Fourth Cinema film I shall examine is Nyla Innuksuk’s Slash/Back, a film about a shape-shifting alien inspired by The Thing but instead set in an Inuit settlement in Canada. The source of horror in the film is the shape-shifting alien. However, the constraints in the film are almost entirely set up to be community constraints. One of the key constraints in the film is the relationship of the Inuit settlement community with the land and living on the land. While the community still depends on the land for meat, only select community members, such as the protagonist’s father, hunt on the land, while the other members forbid the children’s participation in that way of life. This, of course, causes complications when a shape-shifting alien is found by rule-breaking Inuit teenagers. Additionally, the adults’ attitude toward the Inuits’ relationship with the land bleeds into the character response of the teenagers to the shapeshifting alien - the teenagers who first encounter the alien are often dismissed as being obsessed with the land and too traditional or “too Inuit.” Thus, the constraints preventing the group from fighting back against the alien are community-imposed, as are the motivations behind the character responses. This is contrasted against the exploitative relationship the settler-colonial state has with the land - the only example of an outsider to the community interacting with the source is a geologist who is brutally killed within the first few minutes of the film. It is made extremely clear that outsiders will not be the ones stopping the monster, and any interactions they have with the settlement are exploitative in nature. Examples include the geologist at the start of the film and the news reporter at the end of the film.

The source of horror itself mutates to terrorize the community, taking the bodies of both an older community member as well as a police officer who has previously terrorized the children. Meanwhile, new constraints keep getting enforced as a result of the breakdown of the settlement’s community - it is the longest day of the year, and the adults celebrate by drinking heavily at the annual solstice celebration, inhibiting them from helping to stop the source. Several adults watch the teenagers run around with guns and other weapons with little comment, and every adult who expresses concern for the plight of the teenagers is dead by the end of the film. Despite not showing it explicitly like SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna, Slash/Back is very much concerned with its unconstrained ideal: an involved community with a positive relationship to the land. It boldly frames its constraints against the backdrop of settler-colonial occupation, where despite a relatively conventional source of horror and fairly standard character responses to its discoveries, the “moment of sublimity” derives from understanding just how alone these teenagers are due to the systemic destruction of their community by the settler-colonial system.

I have argued across all three films that the constraints of Fourth Cinema derive from deviations from radically different conceptualizations of the unconstrained ideal community. These constraints often interface with the source of horror and the character response in a very different way than First Cinema films, often modifying the other two constructs to highlight deviations from the unconstrained ideal. Sometimes, like in Blood Quantum, these constraints are defined in contrast to the settler-colonial community, where the unconstrained ideal is shown to be an ideal unfamiliar to most First Cinema audiences. At other times, especially in pre-contact films, audiences are encouraged to think about what the unconstrained ideal looks like for the Indigenous characters in the film, forcing these definitions to be strictly internal, as in SG̲aawaay Ḵ’uuna. Regardless, the difference between the constructs in Fourth Cinema horror films and those in First Cinema horror media is highly notable and can influence future audiences to revisit their ideas of what a “good” outcome looks like for Indigenous characters in horror media. This difference can also be used to support Barclay’s categorization of Fourth Cinema films as existing outside the “national orthodoxy.”

References

1. Barclay, B. (2003). Celebrating fourth cinema. Illusions, 35, 7-11.

2. Getino, O., & Solanas, F. (1969). Hacia un tercer cine. Revista Tricontinental, 13, 107-132.

3. Carroll, N. (2003). The philosophy of horror: Or, paradoxes of the heart. Routledge.

4. Reyes, X. A. (2016). Introduction: What, why and when is horror fiction. Horror: A literary history, 7-18.

5. Hubner, L., Leaning, M., & Manning, P. (Eds.). (2014). The zombie renaissance in popular culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

6. Turner, S. (2013). Reflections on Barry Barclay and Fourth Cinema. The Fourth Eye: Māori Media in Aotearoa New Zealand. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816681037.003.0009. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

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