Jonathan L. Crane begins his essay with a recounting of a pivotal scene in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) where a scientist, faced with something seemingly impossible, says, “you gotta be fucking kidding!” Crane argues that this phrase “exactly delimits the boundaries of the [horror] genre” (142). When faced with something uncanny or horribly incongruous, the characters and audience cannot help but wonder for a brief moment if they are the victims of a serious attack or just a mere prank. “In The Thing, as in most initial meetings between the monster and the audience, the opening question initially takes the form of a double take. Is the protagonist really seeing what she or he thinks…?” (144).
This brings me to a comedic yet shocking scene in the film Get Duked (2019), a horror comedy about a group of school boys who for various reasons are made to brave the outdoors as a part of the duke of Edinburgh award. As in many horror films about teenagers being left out alone in the wilderness, they are hunted down by an eerie masked attacker, and in miles of open land, there is nowhere to hide and no one to help them. However, the film does not take itself seriously and is full of humor. This scene is when the kids are first met face-to-face with the person hunting them down, who they first believe could be the duke of edinburgh or just a regular guy dressing up. Once he starts his brazen attack on them, though, one of them asks “is this part of the award?” The introduction of the villain brings the audience into the horror aspect of the film’s world, and we are initially shocked by the violence and incongruity of the peaceful pastoral landscape and a crazed gun-wielding lunatic. However, the tension and fear are somewhat diffused by the humorous and ridiculous notion that they think this might genuinely be a harmless challenge put in place for receipt of the duke of Edinburgh award.
According to Noël Carroll, “One aim of this genre, it would appear, is to shift moods rapidly – to turn from horror to humor, or vice versa, on a dime” (145). I believe this film is an example of this sort of switching back and forth, and it does so incredibly rapidly. We scarcely have time to process the confusing, incongruous fear we have just experienced before we are put at ease by something humorous. We are also experiencing the same emotions as the characters, because we do not yet technically know if “this is some kind of joke” (Crane 142). Later in the scene, when the boys try to fight back and assemble their weapons, it is frantic and stressful but also humorous when you see how poorly equipped they are to be in the wilderness, having no tools with which to defend themselves is yet another example of incongruity.
Arguably, the boys being really confused, asking dumb questions, and making dumb jokes is the most realistic scenario if they really were confronted with a man appearing to be the Duke of Edinburgh wielding a gun in the middle of a field; maybe it’s that realism that makes it not only funny, but scary, since Carroll says that horror comes from the audience’s genuine belief that something could be harmful — and the boys’ natural reactions support that.
The contrast between the unserious and modern attitudes of the protagonists and the seriousness of the villain works so well here in keeping the scene lighthearted while maintaining the threatening nature of the situation!