The SNL Skit “Haunted Elevator” is an example of a monster robbed of its fearsomeness as posed by Noël Carroll. The sketch involves a so-called scary ride containing haunted horror vignettes and a couple reacting appropriately to the monsters. At a certain point, instead of a traditionally scary character, the elevator opens to a man wearing a pumpkin patterned suit, David Pumpkins, with two poorly shoddily dressed dancing skeletons beside him. The couple reacts to Pumpkins through describing his outfit and criticizing his lack of scariness. David comes back on many other floors, confusing and upsetting the couple.
Pumpkins embodies the incongruity theory of comedy through subverting the expectations of the characters and the audience. The first two floors of the ride feature traditional monsters which emphasizes the juxtaposition between normal horror-fiction monsters and Pumpkins. Carroll uses the phrase “category error” to describe this phenomenon which encapsulates the contrast and the wrongness of Pumpkins’ existence. (Carroll 153)
In his paper, “Horror and Humor,” Carroll states about taking the fearsomeness out of monsters: “The fearsomeness of the monster is compromised or deflected by either neutralizing it or at least drawing attention away from it, the monster can become an appropriate object for incongruity humor.” (Carroll 157) In this sketch, Pumpkins’ existence results in the couple not reacting to the next floor with the same fearfulness as the previous standardly scary floors. Instead of screaming, when the girl from the ring appears, the couple explains why that would be scary opposed to David Pumpkins. Their attention is still being paid to Pumpkins instead of the next monster, resulting in a decreased fear reaction. At this point the monster is “bereft of fearsomeness, it is on its way toward comedy.” (Carroll 157) The comedy is exacerbated by the continual return of David Pumpkins and the skeletons, even incorporating their characters into another traditionally scary vignette.
At the end of the sketch, the fearfulness is reinstated in the ride when David Pumpkins appears behind the couple, scaring them from behind. Elevator opens to just the two skeletal sidekicks, which elicits a disappointed response from the couple. At this moment, Pumpkins appear behind them, completing their original goal of being scared. Pumpkins are then recategorized from a fiction monster to a horror-monster by adjusting the response. Perhaps Pumpkins does not “cue the emotional response of the audience to the relevant monster in such a way that the audience’s responses recapitulate the characters’ response.” (Carroll 149) This goal is shared by horror films. As SNL is a comedy show, the incongruity of their responses to Pumpkins throughout the sketch breeds a comic audience reaction instead of a fearful one. The audience laughs at the reality that this expectant failure of a monster eventually completes his intended goal. In the end, David Pumpkins is a both successful clown and monster.
Noel Carroll, ‘Horror and humour’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57:2 (1999), 145-160.