Comparison of Representations of the American and British Family. Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and Steven Sheil's 'Mum & Dad'

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2015 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Kultur und Landeskunde, Note: 1,7, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: This paper will compare how families are represented in two horror movies, Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' from 1974 and Steven Sheil's 'Mum & Dad' from 2008. According to the Longman New Universal Dictionary the term 'family' describes a group of people living under one roof, especially a set of two or more adults living together and rearing their children. Furthermore the term 'nuclear family' is 'used to refer to a unit consisting of spouses and their dependent children.' The family is performing 'tasks necessary to the survival of the species and to the social continuity: namely, the regulation of sexual relationship, reproduction, the socialization of children, the economic cooperation between sexes.' In both movies the family is the monster, which is according to Robin Wood among five recurrent motifs in horror movies 'a single unifying master figure'. He has noticed that the psychotic and schizophrenic are 'all shown as products of the [guilty] family'. This paper will analyze the family structure, the homes and appearance of the families, their contact to the outside world and their dealing with sexuality. In a final step I will explain the impact of those to horror movies on the audience.