Steven Spielberg’s Subversive Streak: Horror for the Whole Family

Steven Spielberg films including Jurassic Park, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and E.T.

Steven Spielberg is the most important movie director of the last 50 years. He’s recognized for creating the summer blockbuster and has scored box office hits in every genre. He also has the unique ability to make movies that appeal to audiences of all ages.

What sets Spielberg’s family-friendly films apart is how they integrate elements of horror. Rather than sanitizing the scariness, he has the guts to frighten us. The youngest audience members might pay for their curiosity with a few sleepless nights. Ultimately, this is a worthwhile trade, as it exposes the mysteries of the universe as equally awe-inspiring and terrifying.

To understand how subversive scenes sneak into Spielberg flicks, stick around, and I’ll talk through the most compelling examples.

Indiana Jones and the Series of Shocking Deaths

Everyone’s favorite whip-cracking archaeologist is not afraid to bust heads in big action set pieces. There are also scenes across the original trilogy designed to tingle the spine and turn the stomach. It’s rare to find this in films the whole family can watch.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

The climax of Indy’s first outing is incredibly macabre. The Nazis tie our hero and his companion Marion to a stake, then crack open the Ark of the Covenant against his advice. The sky roils with dark clouds as John Williams’ score swells and terrible spirits start to circle. One ghostly figure hovers in front of Gestapo bad guy Arnold Toht and briefly resembles a beautiful woman. Swiftly, a growling skull replaces its angelic face, and Toht screams. Moments later, his face melts as his flesh runs like hot wax.

Even at the time, this was a controversial moment. It established a formula that blurred the lines between films targeting adults and children, which is arguably why we ended up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spielberg emboldened the industry to trust that multigenerational audiences can cope with grimmer moments when used sparingly.

Most impressively, Spielberg made the movie for $20 million in just 73 days of shooting. He even deliberately over-estimated how much time he’d need to keep the studio guessing and build in some flexibility. This might be one reason that there was wiggle room with the inclusion of horrific touches. A director who completes projects quicker than anticipated and on a strict budget can get away with much more.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

This is a film so dark and deadly that it birthed the PG-13 rating to counteract complaints from parents. Spielberg himself suggested the rollout of this rating change, which shows how powerful he’d become.

There are many horror-esque elements to Temple of Doom. The creepy-crawly-infested secret corridors. The culturally insensitive dinner of live snakes and chilled monkey brains. But once again, the film’s climax pushes the most buttons. Villainous priest Mola Ram reaches into a living man’s chest to remove a still-beating heart and holds it aloft for us to gawp at. It’s as gloriously gory as anything Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees ever did.

Even Indy being put into a trance-like state where he acts against his will feels like an Exorcist-style possession. Adventure instilled with the supernatural is a formula that lets Spielberg toy with our emotions. Like a Stephen King story, there’s horror just beneath the surface of our mundane reality. That’s what makes him one of the great directors, rather than just a good one.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

As a whole, The Last Crusade is the least intense of the Indy franchise. That doesn’t stop Spielberg from sticking a melting corpse into the mix.

This time it’s a Nazi collaborator drinking from a false grail that gives way to a horrific sequence. Corrupt businessman Walter Donovan wants eternal life. What he gets is near-instant death, turning into a withered corpse before our eyes. He does this while gripping Indy’s screaming love interest, Dr. Elsa Schneider. It’s a special effects shot that wouldn’t be out of place in The Evil Dead or any other cult 80s movie.

Creature Features

Jaws was Spielberg’s breakthrough movie. It’s a high concept classic, but not a family film. That didn’t stop the director from using elements of this underwater menace to inspire future projects.

Jurassic Park (1993)

This sci-fi thriller is also most definitely a family movie. Kids love dinosaurs, and the massive marketing campaign that led up to its 1993 release involved many toy tie-ins. Once again, Spielberg was bold enough to include plenty of scenes to challenge meeker audience members.

Even with its big action set pieces, Jurassic Park‘s structure is a lot like that of a horror film. Characters are picked off one by one by an unstoppable, inhuman force. Jump scares bookend moments of calm. Limbs are severed, blood spills, and children are left to fend for themselves by adults who should know better.

The velociraptors stalking kids in the kitchen is played exactly like a horror movie. Through a combination of animatronics and cutting-edge VFX, the clever beasts open the door with their clawed hands. Then, they strut slowly around on clicking talons in search of their prey. It’s Laurie Strode stalked by Michael Myers but with scales and reptilian eyes instead of a spooky mask.

There are other moments from the film that are memorable for their shock value. The nerdy Dennis Nedry suffers a venom-spattered fate in a Jeep Wrangler. The introduction of the T-Rex with the rippling water cups is iconic. Even the audio effects and soundtrack exhibit horror tropes. The screeches and roars of the dinosaurs align them with werewolves, or Frankenstein’s Monster. The swelling horns and stabbing strings of John William’s score echo Psycho’s shower scene.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

E.T. is a funny, heartwarming film. It’s also dominated by child characters, giving it the most substantial connection to young audiences of any Spielberg movie we’ve discussed. That doesn’t stop the introduction of the titular alien from being a supremely disturbing scene.

When Elliot meets E.T., we see him as a silhouetted figure. His squat, hunched form and leathery scalp are deliberately disturbing. The score is discordant and high-pitched, as we zoom in on Elliot’s petrified face. E.T. grunts and shambles awkwardly, moving closer to the boy in fits and starts like a George A. Romero zombie. It takes another four minutes to show that this alien wants to make friends, not eat brains.

The design of E.T. is intriguingly unsettling in its own right. In the most recent Star Wars sequels, we got the Porgs, a bug-eyed yet fluffy space-bird species intended to sell plushies. Even when E.T. is fully visible and smiling, his hairless torso, long neck, and spindly fingers don’t scream ‘movie merch goldmine’.

The BFG (2016)

It’s fair to say that Spielberg is at his gentlest when making movies out-and-out aimed at kids ahead of adults. In the 2010s, The Adventures of Tintin and The BFG were exemplars of this. Regardless, there’s still space for a few frights.

In particular, he handles the introduction of the Big Friendly Giant like an accelerated version of E.T.’s unveiling. Sophie’s sleep is disturbed by a trash can cacophony from the street outside her orphanage window. In silhouette, she sees a vast hand reach into frame, followed by a humungous hooded figure. They make eye contact, and we get a close-up of the creature’s eyes, its pupils dilating beneath a craggy brow. Standing, it rushes towards Sophie, and the frantic score mirrors her flailing attempts to flee.

This is another scene designed as a switcheroo, and the frightening figure is revealed as a good guy. Later in the film, the other giants are a lot less amenable. By this point, Sophie’s the one sneaking around to stay out of sight.

Where Has All the Horror Gone?

Steven Spielberg is still going strong at 78, although his brand of family-friendly film with horror elements is now uncommon. Today, adults and kids share the cinema to see Marvel’s bombastic comic book movies and Pixar’s angsty animations. The Jurassic World franchise has kept some of Spielberg’s spirit alive. Unfortunately, the scale of the three most recent movies limits the opportunities for chilling encounters.

We may not have hardcore frights in films that appeal to all generations today. The good news is that it has never been easier to revisit movies from the 1980s and 90s that scratch this itch. And the influence of Steven Spielberg runs deep, matching the hold that The Beatles have over 20th-century music. So, from Stranger Things to Super 8, a fix of otherworldly thrills is never far away.

Picture of Joseph West
Joseph West
Joe is a freelance writer and film buff. He has an MA in International Cinema, and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He has attended premieres and interviewed stars, but nowadays prefers the darkness of a screening room to the bright lights of the red carpet.
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