Shower...If You Dare...

I know Halloween has come and past, but in the spirit of the season, I thought I would focus on sexuality within horror films. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays because everything seems a little creepier; every rustle of the leaves, every graveyard you pass, every ax murderer in the shower…wait…that’s only in horror movies. What is it about horror films always containing a shower scene? Is it because you are more vulnerable to be killed when naked and in the shower? Or is a simply a ploy to somehow add in nudity and the sex appeal of the shower into a movie where most people just want to see someone’s head get chopped off?

Thanks to a little movie called Scream, (one of the highest grossing films in 1996) we all have detailed rules of How to Successfully Survive a Horror Movie (watch the scene).

Those rules are:
1.You may not survive the movie if you have sex.
2.You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs.
3.You may not survive the movie if you say "I'll be right back."
Click Here for even more rules.

It is interesting that if you are not a virgin, you will die in the movie. Sex = death. That’s some several morality teaching right there. It reminds me of the Victorian notion that women who have sex ("the fallen woman") must die. This notion of mixing sex with death is sinister but somewhat overseen in film. Why are these two things grouped together? This brings us back to the idea of the shower scene.
Psycho’s famous shower scene was among the first to show a naked women being murdered in the shower. The scene doesn’t actually show ..anything, really (ahh Hitchcock..) but is still mixing the idea of sex (naked and vulnerable) with violence and death. Friday the 13th is another example of two lovebirds getting it on the shower, and then as soon as she leaves, he’s murdered. (Watch the scene)

Newer horror movies feel like throwing some sexy shower scenes in for no apparent reason other than to show the heartthrob of the week getting naked and engaging in steamy sex. (Think this scene from The Fog, or this scene from The Skulls)

My favorite horror scene is probably the ending scene from I Know What You Did Last Summer. Who doesn’t want to see Jennifer Love Hewitt in a towel? Those creepy words “I Still Know” written on the shower wall, and then…– well, just do yourself a favor and watch the scene.

So, what is the facination with adding sex into a blood bath movie? You’re expecting one thing, and then BAM! a random (usually pointless) sex scene or a naked shower sequence pops up and you’re thinking, “Who’s gunna die in the shower this week”? I found that most horror flicks with the random sex scenes fall into the category of “only put there to show skin in the commercial/trailer” and are usually uncomfortable because you are either a) waiting for someone to be killed or b) wondering what the point of this is if someone has not been killed yet.

All in all, most of the time sex in horror films are used as (SHOCKER!) just another ploy to sell movies, or to add more sex appeal to another teen box-office hit.

This does however give us (yet) another form of sex and violence. Should we be considering how sex and violence is portrayed in the media when thinking about how high sexual abuse, murder and rape statistics have become over the last decade? How big of an effect does the media have over our lives?

Think about how many images of violent sex, sexual abuse or rape you have seen within movies or on television.

Is this number too high?

Is there probable cause to think there is a link between these images portrayed in the media and rape/murder statistics?