Horror Movies
FROM WITHIN: A Criminally Underrated Doppelgänger Horror
Despite the bloody horror convention—bodies pile up, and after six minutes of screening we already have two corpses—it is a work not devoid of deeper meaning.
From Within is a horror film directed by Phedon Papamichael, drawing on the symbolism of the doppelganger as a harbinger of death.
It is a common misconception that the sinister doppelganger originates in Germanic demonology. The doppelganger was born in the imagination of a German writer working under the pseudonym Jean Paul, and from literature it was transplanted into the realm of folk belief. It became firmly rooted in Germanic—but not only Germanic—folklore as an omen of misfortune. Not only Germans, but also the Irish believed that a double appears to a person shortly before death…
For over two centuries, the doppelganger has been a popular motif in art. Creators from almost all cultural circles reach for its ambiguous symbolism. Encountering, or even merely seeing from afar, one’s own double is by definition a terrifying and traumatic experience. Freud wrote that in confrontation with a double we feel threatened because it irresistibly brings to mind the idea of something fatal, from which there is no escape. It is precisely such a phenomenon that the characters of From Within must face.
What would you do if, on a rainy night, you saw your double outside your window? What would you do if the doppelganger stood motionless in the corner of your bedroom, watching you with empty eyes? What would you do if your twin copy tried to kill you? Imagine standing in front of a mirror, but there is something wrong with your reflection. It does not imitate your movements; on the contrary, it takes control over you. With a mocking smirk on its pale face, it forces you to kill yourself. Do you already have goosebumps?
The director of Greek origin, in a seemingly banal teen horror, includes issues such as Manichaeism, the struggle of opposites, and uncertainty of one’s own identity. Papamichael’s entire film is built on antinomies. Oppositions: God–Satan, Christianity–occultism, true faith–religious fanaticism, love–hatred, etc. One of the film’s heroines says: By believing in the light, you must also believe in the darkness. And what darkness has enveloped the sleepy American town? A plague of suicides.
One—things happen, two—a coincidence, three—that’s already suspicious, four… five… six… But wait. Can we speak of suicide in a situation where you are killed by your double, someone who at the same time is and is not you? This curse is a lesson for the town’s community: you are mistaken in thinking that the world is black and white, and you are wrong to divide people into the good and the bad. The human interior is composed of elements of good and evil, and it is hypocrisy to claim otherwise. There is no sense in denying one’s dark half.
The film’s characters analyze Conrad’s Heart of Darkness at school. This is hardly a coincidental reading. The equivalent of Kurtz in From Within is Dylan—a self-proclaimed prophet and leader. A charismatic young man who gradually gains increasing power over the minds of the town’s inhabitants and leads to a contemporary witch hunt. Faith in God does not prevent him from murdering without mercy. The town in Papamichael’s film is a hell equal to that of the English writer’s story.
From Within is a cinematic ouroboros—on the narrative level, the story comes full circle and history repeats itself. Hardly anyone will miss the fact that the actors playing the pairs Natalie (Rumer Willis) and Sean (Shiloh Fernandez), as well as Lindsey (Elizabeth Rice) and Aidan (Thomas Dekker), share a certain resemblance. They are mirror images of one another and symmetrical inversions. In the film’s finale, we see a scene analogous to the one at the beginning. The curse and the reversal of the curse. The same actions and the desire to achieve the opposite effect.
I consider this film somewhat underrated. Despite the bloody horror convention—bodies pile up, and after six minutes of screening we already have two corpses—it is a work not devoid of deeper meaning. It is one of those films that must be properly sunk one’s teeth into. I recommend watching it with the lights off and the receiver set loud enough for your hearing to catch the dark incantations whispered at moments when fate demands the lives of further victims.
It is probably impossible—on a symbolic plane, and at the same time with bluntness—to show better that we ourselves are our greatest enemies, that we bring evil, revenge, and death upon ourselves. Dualism is our inalienable trait. Human beings are marked by duality on many levels: they consist of matter and spirit, of the conscious self and the subconscious; the world of human values is also divided in two. Human nature is made up of a fragment of good and an ineradicable pull toward evil.
It is precisely this dualistic perception of reality and human nature that allows us to speak of a Manichaean vision of the world, and it is precisely this view that the creators of From Within have metaphorically illustrated. There is no demon that sneaked in here to bathe the area in fire and blood. The demons reside within us.
