12 - Blood Lust: Realism, Violent Inspiration, and the Artist in Horror Cinema

Summary

Abstract

Drawing from long-established stereotypes, cinema envisions the artist as a fascinating and exceptional figure, a conduit for inspiration. Horror films are ideally suited to exploit this archetype, with artists compelled by internal or external forces to do terrible things in the pursuit of great art. Taking mimesis to the extreme, they turn to a long history of biomatter as a medium, traversing the nexus between life and art, real and artifice, living and inanimate. Like Pygmalion in reverse, sculptors create living statues for their wax museums. In mid-century exploitation films, the use of bodies as material is satirical, alleging the absurdity of contemporary art. Possessed by inspiration, artists are fuelled by bloodlust, violence, demonic whispers, and, overwhelmingly, the pursuit of greatness.

Keywords: Horror, artist, sculptor, inspiration, vampire, waxwork

In the cultural imagination the artist is a fascinating and exceptional figure, a conduit for creative inspiration, which is framed as something inaccessible, maybe even fantastical. Horror films are ideally suited to exploit this stereotype. Imagined as a genius, a madman, an outsider unbound from everyday concerns and rules, the artist is compelled by internal or external forces to commit terrible acts in their pursuit of great art. Dedicated to realism, they turn to the human body for subjects, inspiration and, sometimes, material. Like Pygmalion in reverse, Mystery of the Wax Museum (Curtiz, 1933) preceded several films about human-sculpture exhibits. In splatter films like A Bucket of Blood (Corman, 1959) and Color Me Blood Red (Lewis, 1965), the perfect materials for striking artworks are discovered by accident. Bloodlust fuels vampire-artists in Blood Bath (Hill/Rothman, 1966) and Bliss (Begos, 2019), an unusual instance of a woman in this role. Witnessing visceral horror inspires art in The House with Laughing Windows (Avati, La casa dalle finestre che ridono, 1976) and Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal (Rodriguez, 2012). In The Devil's Candy (Byrne, 2017), a painter is plagued by demonic whispers. Violence and art are tightly interwoven in these films. In the ultimate demonstration of authenticity, the artists take mimesis, strived for throughout art history, to the extreme.

Artists, Bodies, Horror

The archetype of the artist is envisaged variously as unique, sensitive, narcissistic, rebellious, licentious, tortured, unstable, obsessive, a misunderstood genius, and, most often, a man.