Biocultural Fear of the Monster: the Ancient Sumerian Evil Udug and the Contemporary

Abstract

Most monsters present strong visual stimuli that captivate and frighten with their general manifestation of evolutionary fears shown through individual cultural expression. Unnameable Monsters resist clear expression, giving off confusing, vague or excessive cues biologically and culturally. Since the Unnameable Monsters’ body is not a reliable source of information, the space it inhabits becomes of interest. Biocultural studies of monsters reveal that monsters carry cues of predators, aggressive conspecifics and disgust. The fear of predation, enemies and infection, affects how organisms use space, a phenomenon in ecology, called the Landscape of Peril. I argue that Unnameable Monsters can be better understood if the particular Landscapes of Peril of their creators are explored My thesis investigates two manifestations of such Unnameable Monsters, the Ancient Mesopotamian Evil Udug from the Udug-Hul Forerunners and the contemporary alien, notably the Grey Alien, as shown in The Fourth Kind (Osunsanmi 2009), Dark Skies (Stewart 2013), and No One Will Save You (Duffield 2023). Through drawing parallels between these texts, the underlying biocultural connections can show that this approach is not limited to cultural context, but draws on biology that has been more consistent. These texts present the reader with a tracing of both monsters biologically and culturally, revealing how understanding their particular Landscapes of Peril adds to their value in signalling fear. The Landscape of Peril for each monster is presented in my thesis in three general areas. The wilderness, city and home as well as the body. Cultural perceptions led by underlying biological ideas of these spaces are applied to the implied coding of the chosen Unnameable Monsters and their association with that area. It is argued here that the actual and culturally perceived predators, human Others and risk of infection are strongly revealed in both the Evil Udug and contemporary alien used in Science Fiction Horror.