‘Whiplash’ Is Actually a Horror Movie in One Major Way

The Big Picture

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• Whiplash, while not explicitly a horror film, creates a sense of psychological dread by exploring the traumas and fears of aspiring artists.
• J.K. Simmons’ portrayal of Terence Fletcher, an abusive and demanding music conductor, positions him as every artist’s worst nightmare and highlights the harsh realities of the art and music industry.
• The film taps into the underlying fear and dread that artists experience, such as the pressure for perfection and the constant threat of failure, making it a psychological horror that resonates with those in creative fields.

The greatest strength of the horror film genre is its ability to explore the universal and primal emotion of fear in a multitude of different ways. Unlike comedies and romance films that embrace the recognizable experiences of laughter and love through readily identifiable storytelling techniques, the horror genre’s vast scope allows it to not only explore what scares us and why, but to create a sense of hair-raising dread in just about anything. Even things as simple as a rubber tire or a children’s story can become terrifying devices in the right hands. For many, the best horror stories are the ones that grant their audience a new perspective and insight into something that offers more to dread than what is initially seen on the surface. Enter director Damien Chazelle’s Academy Award-winning 2014 drama. Whiplash.

While Chazelle’s later directorial efforts like La La Land and Babylon favored either the romantic glitz and glamor of show business or a cynical vision of the industry at large, Whiplash took an unapologetic, anxiety-inducing look at the world of aspiring artists and what it is that drives them. Although not outright billed as a horror film, Whiplash excels at creating a sense of psychological dread by hitting all the right traumas, insecurities, and fears that keep many aspiring artists up at night.

In ‘Whiplash,’ Fletcher is Every Music Student’s Living Nightmare

Much like any slasher film or Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Whiplash‘s overlaying sense of dread is rooted in the tension and fear surrounding a personified singular threat. In this case, it is J.K. Simmons‘ Oscar-winning performance as Terence Fletcher, the overzealous music conductor of the studio jazz band at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory. Our protagonist, the young Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) finds himself at the center of Fletcher’s attention as an aspiring concert drummer. An overly demanding perfectionist and outright emotional abuser, Fletcher curses out his students, threatens them with violence, and even drives one of his former proteges to suicide. His overbearing presence and near-psychotic pursuit of technical musical proficiency are felt in every scene of the film, as Andrew and his fellow musicians’ lives are contorted to meet the expectations of their manic maestro. Simmons’ commanding and ruthless demeanor shakes the spirits and draws literal blood from his students.

In Whiplash, Fletcher is positioned as every young artist’s greatest monster and represents a hard truism about the culture of art and music. His expectations as a conductor make him as feared by his students as notorious killers Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers are by their respective victims, and his inhuman detachment from the musicians in his band renders him a cruel force of nature to be feared. However, the film illustrates that Fletcher’s methods, while ruthless, are informed by how he views life in the arts. Fletcher is one of those characters whose actions and motives are understandable, but far from excusable. He pushes for perfection and excellence from his students and meets anything less than that with harsh contempt and hatred. While depicted as an overtly reprehensible character, Fletcher’s insistence on perfection rings true to the world of professional artists.

J.K. Simmons is ‘Whiplash’s Movie Monster

The scene with Andrew and Fletcher at the bar, set months after the two of them have reached their boiling point as abuser and victim, grants insight into why Fletcher knowingly makes himself a monster to his students. He cites his philosophy that “there are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job’” as his reason for pushing those under his tutelage so hard. This paints him as someone who knows that the world, and specifically the art world, is unkind to complacency and that he must push his students to do their absolute best in order to achieve the career they want —even to the point of near destruction. This does not make his methods right, but it does show that he is determined to help his students by any means possible.

To make it professionally in a competitive and creative field like music, the drive for perfection is what many artists view as the dominant force of their careers. Fletcher embodies the determination to do more than what is expected and believes that being “good enough” is never good enough. Aspiring musicians and artists often struggle with waning confidence and the belief that they are inadequate, and Fletcher attacks this weakness, which is both what makes him so scary and what makes his students successful. Fletcher’s teaching methods in Whiplash are a dramatization of the experience of many career-oriented artists, which both petrifies and encourages growth. The culture of show business asks only for perfection, which is daunting for those just starting out and wanting to make it. Fletcher represents the anxiety and fear of never achieving excellence, making him a chilling villain and terrifying presence.

‘Whiplash’ Is a Psychological Horror Film for Aspiring Artists

As a psychological horror film, Whiplash greatly succeeds by tapping into a sense of dread and underlying fear that all artists live with —the expectations for excellence and the threat of failure. Fletcher’s adrenaline-inducing presence as an authority that decides whose talent is worth his time mirrors the demanding reality of working in a competitively artistic field. The fear of not being good enough and falling between the cracks into obscurity is scarier to devoted artists than any bloodthirsty monster or vengeful ghost. The film’s final scene, where Andrew finally earns Fletcher’s praise after all that he had put him through, ironically demonstrates the contradictory nature of artists and their career culture. The very industry that many artists are eager to join and please is the same industry that will chew them up and spit them out on a whim. Whiplash knows that the only greater fear for an artist than failure is the daunting path they will have to take in order to achieve success.