The Skeleton Key fits into a larger horror tradition in which the old steal the life force of the young. Video of Drag Me To Hell (2009) - Official Trailer (HD)
But their over-the-top violence offers a convenient excuse to hate them, rather than acknowledge that aging is what truly freaks us out. The blood-drooling, cackling witches and crones of horror cinema don’t seem especially fragile, of course. Moreover, the feminized traits associated with the elderly carry a universal shiver factor because they are fundamentally human characteristics, repressed by our culture of superheros and Final Girls. In a culture obsessed with female youth and beauty, the horror of aging is hardly gender-neutral, and there’s remarkable overlap in the stereotypes about women and those concerning old folks (you know: needy, frail, and irrational).īut unlike horror-movie fates such as, say, decapitation by paper cutter, aging is the ultimate fright because viewers recognize that they cannot escape it. While horror’s target audience is young (and supposedly characterized by delusions of immortality and indifference to anyone older than 40), the genre’s movies are often dominated by elderly characters-usually elderly women.
These are the hallmarks of Western horror movies-and also of old age, if stereotypes are to be believed. This article was published in Old Issue #46 | Spring 2010 Subscribe »
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