Should The Horror Film 'Beware The Moon'

2006 Words9 Pages
While the 1981 film, An American Werewolf in London, is considered by many to be a classic horror film, it is also a film that has a misogynistic implicit meaning. The film is somewhat of a coming of age story. The two main characters, shortly after graduating, arrive in England to travel explore both foreign lands and foreign women. The sexual symbolism throughout the film implies that the female body is a dangerous thing. Men’s lustful desires can cause a total transformation from something human to something animalistic. While the pain and sex is nothing new to the horror film genre, it must be discussed. This film, along with many others, implies that women’s bodies are dangerous and that men cannot control their own bodies. The opening shots of the film depict the picturesque English countryside. The viewer is first introduced to the main characters, Jack and David, when they are riding in the back of a truck bed surrounded by sheep.…show more content…
In film, circles have often represented female body parts. One of the most famous examples of this graphic relation occurs in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Right before Marion Crane is stabbed, there is a shot of her open mouth. The shot of the open mouth quickly cuts to a shot depicting the shadow of a knife. Many film scholars have argued that due to stringent codes which disallowed Hitchcock form explicitly showing a rape, Hitchcock creatively used graphic relations to symbolize a rape. I would like to propose that the circular shape of the moon symbolizes a vagina, and that “Beware the moon” is a warning to both Jack and David to beware the power of female sexuality. A power which has the capability of turning men into animalistic

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