Charles Stoker Is A Villain

In slasher movies, rarely are the villains over shadowed by their victims. These “psychos” are the draw and the reason why this genre is so popular. Stoker, for example, is one such film that that accounts the downfall of a family focusing mostly on India Stoker, her mother Evelyn Stoker, and her uncle Charles Stoker. The movie begins at the funeral of Richard Stoker, India and Charles’ beloved father and brother. The plot was a “chilling”, “aggressively creepy” one that took viewers on “ a shocking and lurid journey” planting them back to where they started but “now seeing every small detail through a different lens” (Reoper). The audience is fully aware that Charles is supposed to be the villain or the force of darkness in this movie. Yet

contrary to the typical good versus evil stereotype where the protagonist is the most important and interesting part of the story, the character that viewers of slasher films come to see so happens to be the villain, in fact, the story focuses mostly on him (Charles) as seen through India’s eyes. How could it be that these movie antagonist mean to frighten but instead draw throngs of people in movie theatres to see them preform heinous acts?
In his paper entitled Monster Culture, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Professor of English at George Washington University, set out the analyse monsters. In his third thesis “The Monster is the Harbinger of Category Crisis” these monsters are described as “disturbing hybrids who’s extremely incoherent bodies resist attempt to include them in any systematic structuration” (VI).
What makes Charles Stoker monstrous, aside from obvious reasons like murdering several people is the fact that he, underneath his psychopathic exterior and coating it even, is a human being capable of love, jealousy, and pain.

When his older brother denied him access to his niece and family the pain he felt transcended the screen. He wept, begged, and pleaded just like anyone would do in that situation because he loved them in his own twisted way. This adds to the draw of villains like Stoker. Instead of being a two dimensional villain bent on doing evil for the mere sake of it, he is three dimensional and his reasons are love, what he believes is necessity, and even as far back as childhood trauma or jealousy and that is terrifying because as Cohen so rightly said “And so the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions” (VI) these distinctions being what makes a person and what makes a monster. Stoker’s periods of humanity is a steep contrast that brings to light the fact that any unlucky person, in the right or wrong circumstances, has the possibility of developing into a monster themselves.
Jake Decourcey in his article Norman Bates and Leatherface: Exploring the Psyches of Two Movie Psychos explains why the “shockingly violent visuals” from slasher movies “still frighten and entertain today” (I). He not only explained the psyche of those two movie “psychos” but why audiences are drawn to them as

well.
Like Bates and Leatherface, Charles experienced some form of trauma at a young age which then adds to his complexity and intrigue as a character because according to DeCoursey “These men, whose mental instabilities can be seen as the direct result of having been raised within dysfunctional families – which is a theme many modern viewers can relate to” are “emotionally complicated characters toward whom viewers can feel an uncomfortable combination of both sympathy and disgust” (I). Charles invokes this paradox in people because while he is a murderer, from childhood even, it is clear that he also suffered from mental instabilities back then as well, when he murdered his younger brother because he was getting more attention from their older brother Richard. While jealousy is normal behaviour amongst siblings, murdering is not. After that incident he was sent to a mental institution where he spent his life, up until the beginning of the movie, away from his family.
Another point about the attraction to slasher movie villains is made in Villains in Film: Anemic Renderings by Stuart Fishcoff PhD when he wrote “We console ourselves with the thought that villains are twisted aliens. Consequently, what makes a villain truly interesting is to glimpse his or her non-alien, distinctly human rationalization of these values” (III). Fishcoff’s villains are “real” and “fleshed out” (Fishcoff’s words) and to him that is what made them interesting. They are like onions with their villainy only occupying their outer layer and their past behaviours and experiences on the inside fuelling their logic instead of the incomprehensible entities they are thought to be. It’s similar to what Cohen wrote about the monster “smashing distinctions” (VI). The distinctions in this case being how villains are perceived. People find villains like Charles Stoker alluring because of the conflict between their very relatable human logic and their monstrous behaviour. The fact that they, who are meant to be despised, have such tragic backstories appeals to the audience’s sympathetic feelings.
DeCoursey and Fishcoff both recognized that relatability is a part of why audiences are attracted to villains like Charles.

Unlike Freddy Krueger or the demon from Jeepers Creepers, he has a kind of logic to his actions that the typical audience member can understand. He murdered his younger brother out of jealousy, his older brother because of the betrayal and pain he felt from being secluded from his family, then his aunt because he felt it was necessary less she reveal his true nature to India and Evelyn and this pattern continues. Much like Decoursey’s exhibits, Bates and Leatherface, Charles doesn’t murder because of desire but instead necessity, something that viewers can understand. Fishcoff puts this in his own words when he wrote “Given the proper nurturing, we are all capable of anything. To understand others' villainy, therefore, we need only look into ourselves at our weakest, most enraged, or most desperate and vengeful moments”

(II).
With that said the question then is why now? Why is it that during this time period slasher films are garnering more attention outside of their usual cult following and throngs of people pay to watch these “monsters” murder and slash their way through one and a half hours of film. It’s simply as Fishcoff explained: “rarely do people or governments leap into villainous tyranny; they proceed one tragic, one rationalizing and self-righteous step at a time” (V). From the Battle of Independence to the war in the middle east, America being at war is not a recent phenomenon soldiers fuelled by ethnocentric, religious, or personal belief are carried off to war where their enemy is another soldier encouraged by their own values. Slasher films reveal the increasing recognition that who we are fighting against are people as well. Viewers are drawn to these movies now because they realize that the enemy is not just a monster snarling and angry but a human being just like us fighting for what they believe is right just like we are.