Ableism In Horror

Horror loves to tell disability narratives. I covered some of this in my “Visibly Different Villains” piece about how many villains are scarred or disfigured. I wanted to cover ableism in horror, however, because it’s also a hugely prevalent problem plaguing the genre today. 

The monster, the other, has always been a part of storytelling, specifically horror storytelling. In classic horror the protagonist is usually a cishet white able-bodied person up against a monstrous other. Mental illness is a frequent reason for murderous behavior in horror. Split suggests that dissociative identity disorder causes people to be dangerous and homicidal. In another example, Halloween states that Michael Myer’s mental illness makes him a monster. He’s not a human, he’s the shape. He’s the boogeyman. 

Jason Voorhees is probably the most prominent example of ableism in horror. Jason has hydrocephalus and learning disabilities. Hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain, causes Jason to have an enlarged head. When Jason jumps out of the water in the first Friday the 13th his visible difference is very obvious. The horror of Jason comes in part from his appearance. His disability made him an other and caused him to be the violent killer we know today. This all suggests that people with disabilities are violent and should be feared because of their disabilities. 

Ari Aster’s film Hereditary uses a disabled character as a vessel for the supernatural. Charlie has cleidocranial dysplasia and a vocal tic where she makes a clicking noise. Her clicking is used as a sinister thing in this movie, we hear it even when Charlie isn’t in the room. After this film many people found vocal tics similar to Charlie’s disturbing, suggesting something evil in a person. As someone who’s had motor tics, I found this really worrying. Motor tics are really common and fairly uncontrollable. They’re absolutely not something to be afraid of, and using Charlie’s tic as a sinister element only adds to the already hateful stigma around people with motor and vocal tics. 

Similarly, Roald Dahl’s the Witches describes witches as having limb disfigurements. He details how they hide their visible differences to hide the fact that they’re witches. This not only enforces the idea that disabled people are villainous, but that when they do try to be apart of an ableist society they’re tricking people. 2016’s Don’t Breathe features a blind villain referred to as “the Blind Man.” Most of what we learn about this man is that he is blind, his disability being used as a plot device. He’s also not played by a blind actor, nor did this film have a largely blind crew to make this representation believable. 

Why do we do this? Storytellers have been using disabilities as an indicator of evil for centuries. Disabled people already face an incredible amount of prejudice in our society. Making them into villains only adds to the stigma around disabilities and causes a false narrative that disabled people are bad. 

The first disability representation for a lot of kids today comes in the form of villains (like Captain Hook). At this point, the trope is simply tired. As a society we need to be actively moving past this narrative and working towards including disabled people. Rather than making disabilities a monstrous trait, we should be portraying them in a realistic way. We’re getting better, but we’re nowhere near where we need to be. Disabled people deserve accurate representation. They deserve to see themselves in realistic roles. Films like Hush, A Quiet Place, and Coda proved that audiences will watch films about disabled people. 

We should also be working to make storytelling a more accessible medium, specifically film. Making filmmaking accessible and supporting disabled filmmakers is one the best ways to ensure that disability stories are being told in an accurate way. 

Like I always say, horror is for the outsiders. It’s the genre that comments on the way our society treats people. The more voices we include in the horror genre, the better, and it’s far past time to include disabled voices.