Stephen King's Cell: A Horror Fiction Book
Stephen King, one of the most preeminent writers once again wows his audience with a horror fiction book titled Cell. This book talks about zombies and how people in the contemporary world take pleasure in shows and novels about zombies as if their lives depend on them. Similarly, Nicole Birch-Bayley writes down a journal article titled Terror in Horror Genres: The Global Media and the Millennial Zombie. In the journal, she reviews a number of horror films and articulates how the evolutions of the movies have grown so different in the millennium. Apart from just reviewing movies Nicole exemplary points how enthrallment in the zombie and horror like movies is fast becoming a common and predominant culture today. The wide reception of Stephen King’s Cell acts as means to affirm Nicole’s claims that horror films indeed turn humans into vicious, mindless creatures.
The Threat of Cell Phones
Stephen King uses the phone in this context as a mechanism that threatens the life’s of Americans by turning them into killer zombies especially those who were using it at the exact time. The story revolves around Clay Riddell as the most important character in the story and how his life turns upside-down by a simple phone. In the book, Clay has just signed a book deal with a major company and decides to celebrate his achievement with his wife and son. He walks to an ice cream vendor and as he waits on the line he notices that people who were on phone at that moment suddenly start acting strangely. They attack each other and start killing other people in horrendous ways. A virus named ‘The Pulse’, which sends signals through phones causing people to behave like stereotypical zombies cause the attack on human beings (King 443).
Shift in Perceptions and Attitudes
Nicole explains that there is a significant change in the theme of horror movies created in the 90s and those filmed in the 2000s. She posits that most horror films today promote the crisis mentality in people (Birch-Bayley 1137). She provides a detailed analysis of four horror clips that is the 28 Days Later, Diary of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead and 28 Weeks Later. In Nicole’s comparisons, these films depict how the societies have shifted their perceptions and attitudes towards epidemics and global crisis. Her attribution to the change is the September 11, 2001, attack that stirred the shift in the global media. Nicole also outlines how people have developed mistrust with the governments’ ability to protect its citizens (Birch-Bayley 1141). In the end, she reviews the Diary of the Dead film and shows how the people no longer trust the media in delivering information. This article enlightens on how horror films in the contemporary culture no longer just serve the purpose of entertain but also depict our attitudes and make people immune to violence.
Horror Films Today: Merging Social and Political Tensions
Nicole states that the old horror or zombie clips lacked in culture exploration and the tensions were not quite overt since their main aim was to entertain the viewers. However, horror films today contain both social and political tension. They reflect the true nature of a worried culture as if something worse than the September 11 attack will hit the world. Nicole state that the world today is laden with the crisis mentality. That is why Stephen King’s Cell novel is a big seller as it feeds peoples anxieties and fears. People are eagerly waiting for the next event that will make people turn into zombies. “A kind of vernacular expressing the concerns of a society waiting for the next terrorist attack, the next outbreak of violence, or the next pandemic” this statement shows that these movies are not only selling for the sheer fun of it but people use them as preparation of what is to come in the near future (Birch-Bayley 1137). It is like we are borrowing survival ideas and tactics on how to deal with the epidemic.
Desensitization to Violence: A Shift in Audience's Perception
People today no longer fear or get frightened by the events that unfold in horror films. In the article, Nicole states that “Although there is a clear stylistic distinction between millennial and classic horror films, what is most significant is that what used to make us afraid in horror films has now changed (Birch-Bayley 1139).” This statement only proves that in today’s world humanity is just but a rare occurrence. It is clear that people no longer fear horror films but thrive in the violence depicted in the films. For example, in the book by Stephen King the few individuals who remain uninfected with the virus plot ways to kill the zombies in the weirdest ways. Alice in the book finds Clay and his friend and she is covered in blood, only because she had to kill her mother who had turned (King 61).
Ineffectiveness in Containing Violent Circumstances
The article and the book by Stephen King also show that the society today is ineffective when it comes to containing violent circumstances. This is evident in Nicole’s review of the 28 Days Later. The film shows that the epidemic started as an infection from animals in a science lab however as the film unfolds it is quite hard to explain how the disease spreads as it is quite fast. People start rioting turning against each other and the world is quite a mess. Nicole says that Jim one of the characters wakes up 28 days later alone and abandoned. This scene actually shows how people behave during such events it is every man for himself, and it is so common to feel isolated even when you are standing in the midst of a crowd. The government also fails its people as they are unable to contain the virus and place orders like shoot to kill and extermination measures. No one seems to care or help the other person who is suffering this is evident in the statement from Nicole’s article states that “A horrible accident on the highway. Something keeps us from just driving on. Something holds us. But we don’t stop to help. We stop to look (Birch-Bayley 1146).” The increase in the number of horror films in the society that depict violence confirms this statement that violence today is entertainment, people are thrilled with each other’s suffering, and Nicole sums it all up that people are becoming resistant to violence since it does not affect them.
Horror Films as Reflectors of Current Events
In conclusion, it is coherent to state that the horror films as reviewed by Nicole and depicted by Stephen King act as an insignia of the current events in the world. Today’s society people thrive on violence that is why terror attacks are on the increase and the world runs on the principle of dog eat dog. This is also a success for the film industry as people tend to demand more violence and bloodshed in the films today. The films also show us that in the event of an epidemic apocalypse, we are not only ill-equipped to handle the situation physically but also inhumanely as a people. It would be better if people would learn from the outcomes of the movie how to deal with these situations and overcome them as the human race.
Works Cited
Birch‐Bayley, Nicole. "Terror in horror genres: The global media and the millennial zombie." The Journal of Popular Culture 45.6 (2012): 1137-1151.
King, Stephen. Cell. Simon and Schuster, 2016.
