Ecocinema, Media, and the Environment: Monstrous trees and ecology: targeting human threats in the horror film

Monstrous trees and ecology: targeting human threats in the horror film opening from Jump Cut

Myths from both East and West attribute the power of life to trees. Christians may decorate evergreen trees to celebrate Christmas, but these signs of the promise of spring resemble the sacred Yule Tree in Germanic mythology. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Banyan and Peepal trees also serve as sacred trees evoking visions of eternal life. Representations of trees in literary works from Tolkien’s White Tree of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings to dryads in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians reflect this traditional beneficence of trees. This life-giving mythology of trees continues in recent animated films from Pocahontas (1995) to Avatar. In Pocahontas, Grandmother Willow provides wise advice, telling Pocahontas,

“All around you are spirits, child. They live in the earth, the water, the sky. If you listen, they will guide you.”

When she talks to John Smith, Grandmother Willow’s advice grows more direct and offers a way to encourage life over death:

“Young man, sometimes the right path is not the easiest one. Don't you see? Only when the fighting stops, can you be together.”

The Tree of Souls in Avatar (2009) looks like a willow and acts as the spiritual center of Pandora and its source for interconnection. Destroying the Tree of Souls may mean the end of Pandora and the Na’vi. Groves of trees take on the same spiritual force in Fern Gully (1992) and Princess Monononoke (1997), and as in Avatar, human exploitation threatens the forests’ life-giving energy.


Monstrous humans destroy the rainforest in Ferngully.	Princess Mononoke protects the forest with help from its spirits.

Explorations of how trees transform into “monsters” seeking revenge against the human world that exploits them build on the powerful life-sustaining forces of sacred trees. The power of life attributed to trees seems like a precondition for trees being agents of wrath in resisting human degradation of the environment. The recent Zika Virus outbreak reinforces the dangers humans sometimes confront in wooded areas. With its origin in the Ugandan Zika Forest Preserve, the virus also connects trees with horrific repercussions, especially for infants and children. Although first discovered in 1947, the virus began infecting humans outside of Africa only in 2007, when it mutated to its current dangerous form. As researcher Alexander Haddow explains,

"The current Zika virus outbreak in South and Central America is another wake-up call that increased globalization and climate change will continue to lead to the emergence of viral pathogens."

According to Haddow, "We need to be preparing for the next Zika virus now" (quoted in Swails and McKenzie). In the Age of the Anthropocene, trees like these seem ready to fight back against their human oppressors.

In films as diverse as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), trees have fought back against humans, becoming “monstrous nature.” In The Wizard of Oz, trees become animated when their apples are stolen (and a wicked witch intervenes). And in the The Twin Towers, trees called Ents seek vengeance against Saruman (Christopher Lee) and his army when their leader Treebeard (John Rhys-Davies) sees a section of Fangorn Forest Saruman has decimated to feed his iron forges. Plant horror films such as Severed: Forest of the Dead (2005), The Ruins (2008), Splinter (2008), and The Happening (2008) again illustrate how trees might fight back against their human oppressors. But they also tackle contemporary environmental problems and offer biotic solutions that incorporate all the living things in an ecosystem.