I was watching the SyFy channel last night and blissfully re-indulged in the 2012 film, The Possession. During the commercial breaks (yup, no DVR here folks) I had an average of 2-4 minutes to ponder random things. Why did Rachel Maddow show up as my college roommate in my dream last night? And, more importantly, why are there so many boxes in horror films!? Of course, when I have important things to do like write a dissertation, I suddenly found it much more imperative to test my horror knowledge and see how many horror films prominently feature boxes. Every good scientific experiment needs rules, and I decided to rule out boxes in the forms of coffins, sarcophaguses, music boxes, jack in the boxes, and other banal background boxes.
I thought to myself, people love to look at why horror features so many clowns, children, and dolls, so why not boxes and crates?[i] Whose curiosity isn’t piqued by a mystical box that holds treasures unknown? Take for instance the story of Pandora’s Box, eons of pirate treasure stories, and geeks like myself who will scour the area in hopes of finding a geocache that is probably only filled with a pencil and a button. Boxes evoke the unknown; they conceal and contain both wondrous and horrible things. And in many of these films, the boxes hold a component of weighty choice…a path not taken or a rule broken. Each container holds a picture of what we reveal, what we hide, and who we are. I hope you will join me in avoiding real work to enjoy this list with me! (Beware of some plot spoilers) Read more
