From Miracle to Nightmare: Horror Movies Disrupting the Suburbs
Part 1:
Suburbia has long been hailed as the epitome of domestic bliss — a realm where manicured lawns mirror tidy lives. If prompted to create an image of the suburbs, one would most likely imagine white picket fences, large houses, cul-de-sacs, and the greenest lawns known to man. Yet, beneath this idyllic facade lies a complex network of social dynamics and buried desires. Theoretical discourse about the suburbs has discussed these relationships for many years; however, beginning in the 1970s, horror cinema started toying with the idea of inverting the “safe and secure” suburb into something sinister and dangerous to point out social issues. These critiques of suburbia help peel back the layers of sexual and social repression lying hidden beneath the manicured green lawns.
First, it is necessary to examine how Hollywood typically represented suburbia to illustrate how horror movies employ the suburbs. The prime example is the film Miracle on 34th Street, which tells the story of a young girl, Susan, and her mother, Doris Walker, living in New York City. A bare-bones plot description has Susan meeting the real-life Santa Claus in the Macy’s Department Store. All Susan wants for Christmas is to live in a single-family house in the suburbs instead of their noisy apartment in the city. Santa Claus grants her wish, and as seen in the clip below, the Walkers arrive in their new suburban home.
These themes of the American dream permeated Hollywood’s output of entertainment and coupled with this typical advertisement for the suburbs, which is full of color and life, America’s image of suburbia was created. Let’s be honest: who wouldn’t want to live in a colorful house like the image below with the amazing LENNOX Heating System?1
Horror movies excel here because they can evoke fear while reflecting societal anxieties and cultural shifts. A great example is the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of Hollywood’s responses to the Red Scare and paranoia from the Cold War. Regarding the suburbs, the 1970s witnessed a cultural shift marked by rising fear, fueled by real-life horrors such as serial killers and cults.2 Horror films of this era, notably The Stepford Wives and Halloween, tapped into this collective anxiety by portraying malevolent forces invading suburban sanctuaries. The 1975 film The Stepford Wives, based on the novel of the same name written by Ira Levin in 1972, is one of the first films to dig beneath the surface and address the suburbs’ facade of conformity and repression of women. Through the lens of feminism, this film exposes the dark underbelly of suburbia, questioning the illusion of perfection and highlighting the subjugation of women in traditional gender roles.3
In this scene, the main character, Joanna Eberhart, finds a clone made to be the “perfect” suburban housewife, which her husband will use to replace her. The film’s climax is a poignant feminist message showing how the suburbs make women feel oppressive conformity in places like the suburbs. The Stepford Wives lays the social groundwork that while men may have thought the suburbs were safe for everyone, it was not. The suburb was isolating for women and removed the freedom to move like in the city. Halloween further extrapolates this idea in multiple facets. The first example is when the main character, Laurie Strode, is running from the film’s antagonist, Michael Myers. She cannot find help in her neighborhood while screaming for help. The scene is a chilling reminder of the isolation and vulnerability embedded within suburban communities.
Halloween also gave birth to the final girl, one of the most popular horror film tropes. Like the original Laurie Strode, the final girl trope challenges traditional gender roles and empowers women as survivors in the face of terror. The final girl is supposed to be “safe” in her suburb, and these movies use that image to terrify the viewers. Nightmare on Elm Street is another iconic horror film employing this trope, even terrorizing the final girl in her dreams while sleeping in her bed. First, The Stepford Wives was a very overt critique of the suburbs and their isolationist tendencies. Then, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street create and perpetuate the trope of the final girl, furthering the empowerment of women. These horror movies used the suburbs as a tool to subvert audiences’ expectations and depict the sexual repressions of women during this period.
Over time, the final girl trope left the suburban horror genre and became a trope employed by many horror films of different themes. After the success of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, suburban-themed horror movies were oversaturated.4 Only a few suburban horror movies intended to comment on social changes like Scream and Vivarium. However, there has recently been a resurgence of using these horror tropes to show the racial impacts of suburbia. Most suburban horror films have traditionally centered on white, middle-class protagonists, whether the characters are the final girl or the family living in the haunted house. Not to mention that another horror film trope is writing the minority characters to die first. The films Get Out and Us are excellent examples of subverting traditional tropes by exploring themes of race and identity in the suburbs. The films employ themes and imagery similar to those of The Stepford Wives, such as duplicate versions of characters and isolationism. Get Out is the story of a black man who visits his white girlfriend’s family, and they try to replace his mind with a white family member’s. This is eerily similar to Joanna being replaced. In Us, the film starts with the clip below set in the 1980s with a family at a carnival.
The carnival has a nostalgic reminiscence similar to the suburbs, as does the theme of Hands Across America, a central plot point in the film. These two films are a renaissance of using the suburbs to depict social repressions, except with the message of how suburbs impact people of color. Because of Get Out’s and Us’s success, other suburban horror movies commenting on racial issues, like The Blackening, are coming to theaters.
The attachment of suburbs to these social movements in the horror context likely stems from their integration with the American Dream, particularly during the post-World War II period. Veterans were buying their homes thanks to programs set up by the federal government, and the economy was booming.5 Suburbs were the neat, relaxing places away from the hustle and bustle of the city. As seen in Miracle on 34th Street and many other films and television shows, the suburbs are represented as a great place or an ordinary place, not a bad one. Horror cinema’s ability to invert those feelings about familiar spaces makes these films scary. Using this inversion, horror directors can impact social movements of the time. The Stepford Wives opened audiences’ eyes to how isolating the suburbs were for women, and Get Out shows audiences how unwelcoming these neighborhoods are for minorities. The suburbs house 69% of Americans6, creating a vast familiarity with the general public and making suburbia the perfect setting for addressing issues.
The suburbs are constantly discussed in media, most often with a positive depiction. However, suburbia has effectively become a tool for horror movies to discuss social issues or changes. Suburban horror started with the feminist movement in the seventies, eventually leading to racial discussions in the 2020s; the future might use the suburbs to discuss a different social issue.
Notes:
sallyedelstein. “Suburban Swan Song.” Envisioning the American Dream, 21 Aug. 2013, envisioningtheamericandream.com/2013/08/21/suburban-swan-song-2/.
Katsaris, Violetta. “How “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” Adaptations Speak to Different Eras of American Fear.” Collider, 3 June 2022, collider.com/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-adaptations-speak-to-different-american-fears/.
Quart, Alissa. “Our Bodies, Our Selves: The Stepford Wives.” Film Comment, July 2004, www.filmcomment.com/article/our-bodies-our-selves-the-stepford-wives/.
Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. “Horror Movies Seem to Really Hate the Suburbs.” Wired, 21 Aug. 2020, www.wired.com/2020/08/geeks-guide-horror-movies-suburbs/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024.
Saunders, Pete. “The Death of America’s Suburban Dream.” The Guardian, 5 Sept. 2014, www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/05/death-america-suburban-dream-ferguson-missouri-resegregation.
Anderson, Jeffrey. Classification of Urban, Suburban, and Rural Areas in the National Crime Victimization Survey. 2020.
Part 2:
I wrote a film and genre analysis essay that a reader might find in an academic film journal. I had difficulty distinguishing the genre I wanted to write; first, I started with ideas for an analytical YouTube essay that would appeal to a broader audience, but those specifically interested in horror movies. While I liked the idea of an analytical film video, I wanted my topic to appear well-researched and appeal to a more specific audience who already knows some of the films I mentioned while still meeting the needs of the broad audience. I then started writing in a magazine format similar to an article like this: https://filmschoolrejects.com/suburban-horror-movies/. I loved the flow of this article, and it was a nice coincidence that it had a topic similar to mine: suburban horror. I resonated with the stylistic conventions of this genre, specifically its “looseness;” however, the article contents and goals were different since they formed a list of horror movies to watch. I liked some grammatical choices, though, such as starting the article with the sentence “Ah, suburbia,” which made me want to do something similar. I started writing my essay in this genre, and I enjoyed it. I had funny moments where I spoke to the audience directly and asked them rhetorical questions that I would answer. After I had a somewhat complete draft (emphasis on somewhat), I re-read it and didn’t like it for some reason. It was not sitting well with me. I think this is because I still was not addressing the audience I wanted. I did some more research and came across this academic journal article in Film Quarterly on how Brexit can be seen as a trend in recent British horror movies: https://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article/77/2/10/198161/Specters-of-Brexit-in-Recent-British-Horror. This is what I wanted to do! It was sophisticated, pointed out specific film analyses, and had a precise audience of people who would read academic film journal audiences.
I found other articles like the one linked above and tried to establish the genre conventions they employ. Unlike a blog post, in which I could link to the sources I used, I had to cite my sources with footnotes formally. I utilized the footnotes function on Substack to help recreate this look in my article. I also started removing the first-person pronouns and sillier language that I added in my first draft while I thought I was going to write a movie blog. After stiffening up the article, I focused on appealing to my audience, who I found familiar with film writing. This is because I modeled it after that example article in a journal called Film Quarterly. This article was my primary guide to figuring out the genre. While I tried to meet most of the formatting conventions, it was a little tricky because it was a research article published by the University of California, which has high standards. While most people reading this genre would probably come through it by researching similar topics, it is also written in a way that is accessible to more people. The example article is about Brexit and British horror movies I haven’t seen, but I could still make the connections as a reader. I wanted to emulate that part of the convention in my article by making it accessible and describing some of the films.
I also noticed the use of pictures in this genre to help illustrate points made by the author. I decided to expand on this idea by including film clips and other images supporting my argument. Since my article was intended to be viewed online, I figured having YouTube links would only increase accessibility.
Overall, I had a lot of fun writing this journal article because I got to choose a topic I was interested in and was able to experiment with other genres along the way. I mean, I got to think about my topic in the context of a video essay, blog post, and a “peer-reviewed” journal article. I think I did an adequate job explaining my topic to the intended audience that would read this type of article.