Fear. The most powerful human emotion.

Once spread fear can turn a sensible group into a blood-thirsty mob. Moreover, it is the driving force behind human history. Fear is the reason the horror film industry is as long surviving as it is.

Horror films portray humanity’s worst fears, allowing viewers to not just experience but to overcome their nightmares; loss, isolation and death. The fear of these drives humans to resist the aggressor, to seek freedom and life.

Horror films act as a direct critique of a given generation’s greatest fears. In the early days of cinema, the silent Lon Chaney monster films brought to light fears of the returning disfigured World War I veterans. In the 50’s “Godzilla” films represented nuclear fears.

Today, the most popular sub-genre of horror is the modern possession film.

Unlike other horror sub-genres, modern possession films feature very little actual violence and rarely a physical embodiment of evil.

These films can be seen as mirroring typical American attitudes to world affairs. Sounds like a bit of a jump?

Maybe. Consider the mindset of an average American.  The great boogie creature of this generation is the Middle East.

The fear always stems from a mysterious organization that somehow is a threat to the foundation of Western civilization.

The media is littered with images of rioting, American flags being burned and video of people training to invade America.

American ideals are under constant threat of destruction at the hand of this mysterious organization but rarely are these effects felt in the states.

Now consider the world of possession films, the victims of these films are average Americans being attacked by an unknown force, as featured by recent releases “Annabelle” and “Ouija” (among countless others).

This unknown force is always omnipresent and is often brought on by an outsider as seen in “Drag Me to Hell”.

Blaming the unknown foreign antagonist resembles possession in horror films. As long as an omnipresent monster can be blamed for bad things taking responsiblility can be avoided.