It also demonstrates how the outside-the-norm entity is finally not considered exogenous any more but rather endogenous and how it appropriates and somehow tries to incorporate some, if not all, members of the household. It actually seems to be reverting to some more classical Hollywood narrative structures after the bloodbaths of the previous decade in horror feasts, such as The Hills Have Eyes (1977) or Dawn of the Dead (1978), which argued then for a new form of society.

In this respect, even though a direct descendant of a more conventional haunted house film genre, the 1980s family horror imposes a reversal of viewpoints. But the whole point is also to determine the exact nature of the threat and to assess who-or what-the intruder is, so as to circumscribe “it” and return the community to some form of normality. What is particularly fascinating is precisely the way in which the group, and most often the family, reacts to this external force. Most haunted house narratives, whether literary or filmic, are based on the same basic principle of intrusion of some outside, usually unidentified force which sows the seeds of chaos and destruction within the boundaries of a home.

The entity by frank de felitta pdf