- Wells wrote a book entitled "From Beelzebub to Blair Witch" which basically explored the themes and conventions of a horror film and how theses themes can be applied to a storyline.
- He began by suggesting that the horror genre in cinematography developed from 18th century gothic novels such as "The Castle of Wolfenbach" (1793) and "The Midnight Bell" (1798).
- As film and cinematography began to develop, there many major cultural shifts in the 20th century such as two major world wars and the Great Depression in America. This meant that film makers had more in order to base their films upon, as playing on a real life event makes the idea become more realistic to the audience.
- Wells drew upon two major theorists in order to develop his idea. Karl Marx and Charles Darwin. He pressed Marx's idea to suggest that within a communist society, there are two types of people, those with power and those without - therefore he has applied this to the horror genre, stating that within every horror film there is a person with power (Villain) and someone without power (victim).
- Whilst explaining Charles Darwin's theory, Wells states that Natural Selection will "overcome and prevail" meaning that only the people that are suitable to survive, will. So it becomes a case of natural selection with people, instead of animals. This only really works with the horror genre.
- Wells begins to talk about Nietzscchean Nihilism and how that can relate to the horror genre. After researching the theory, I realised that Nihilism is a state of mind - if you follow Nihilism then you believe in nothing, no loyalties and no purpose other than an impulse to destroy [it is the belief that everything deserves to perish]. Again, Wells links this to the horror genre suggesting that all villains and monstrous 'ideas' follow Nihilism and therefore have no reason to have mercy on their victims. Wells mentions Frankenstien (1932) and Nosferatu (1922) in order to back up this idea with real life examples.
- The Freudian theory is also mentioned within this novel as he begins to talk about how the audience would react. Freud suggests that our state of mind are influenced by two competing forces: cathexis and anticathexis. Cathexis suggests an investment of mental energy within a person, idea or object. E.g. if someone is hungry, they might image a large delicious meal. On the other hand anticathexis is the idea that someone can repress urges and desires. Based on Freud's theory, it takes a lot of energy to suppress urges through anticathexis which means there is little energy left for other processes.
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