Summary of, and Excerpts from, "Eros and Evil"

According to R. E. L. Masters, the author of Eros and Evil: The Psychopathology of Witchcraft, theologians, aware that the existence of demons seems to call into question the goodness of God, if he is considered their creator, came up with at least thirteen theories as to the origin of these evil spirits:

1. Demons were originally angels who, in an exercise of free will, chose to act against God’s authority.
2. Fallen angels mated with women, producing a race of giants who were worshiped as gods.
3. Inferior demons, equivalent to Muslim Jinn, had sex with women. (Unlike higher demons, inferior infernal spirits were uncircumcised.)
4. During the century that they were separated from one another following the Fall, Adam and Eve had sex with demons, Eve giving birth to succubae and Adam begetting incubi.
5. Incubi and succubae were both born from the union of Adam and his first wife, Lilith.
6. According to a present-day theory among students of the occult, demons are born of spiritual sperm that is secreted during men’s lustful fantasies.
7. Lactantius, “the Christian Cicero,” claimed that women seduced the guardian angels whom God has dispatched to protect them from the devil, after which the guardian angels joined Satan’s army.
8. During the Middle Ages, Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohensheim) said that demons are born from semen that is ejaculated during masturbation, or onanism.
9. Pierre de Lancre believed hat demons entered Europe from Asia.
10. Demons were produced from foul smells that accompanied sexual intercourse.
11. Demons were conceived during semen that men ejaculated during wet dreams.
12. Demons result from physical or mental conditions or states, including too much semen in the testicles; diseased semen; a “morbid imagination”; malformed uteruses; “hysteria”; “amorous illusions”; “hallucinations”; religious fanaticism; and insanity.
13. Demons are merely the beliefs of ignorant men and women who seek to appease invisible forces that they imagine cause personal and natural catastrophes (2-10).

The Roman Catholic church could not decide whether demons were able to have sex with men and women. Originally, ancient theologians, including St. Augustine, believed that evil spirits could--and did--have sexual intercourse with human beings, often raping women. In 900, however, the church was equally convinced that demons, lacking corporeal form, were unable to copulate with men and women. However, by 1400, demons had apparently solved this problem and were believed to be able to have sexual intercourse with mortals (xvi-xv).

Sex between demons and humans was often said, by witches on trial before the Inquisition, to be painful and disgusting. Nevertheless, such sex was usually voluntary, rather than forced. Moreover, in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, satyrs and fawns or centaurs also copulated with humans. Indeed, the early depictions of Christian demons were based upon Greek and Romans representations of satyrs and fawns (xvii-xviii).

When they were not having sex with men and women directly, demons could possess humans and drive them to commit all kinds of depraved sexual acts, many of which involved necrophilia or scatological behavior. Moreover, demons had inspired incest between Lot and his daughters and between Noah and his son Ham, and they had led Eve to seduce and corrupt Adam (xvii-xviii).

Whether having sex themselves or tempting men and women to have sex with family members, their purpose was not so much sexual as it was religious: demons sought to “corrupt and degrade” men and women and to effect their damnation as the result of some “irremediable sin” (xvii-xviii).

Theologians were not sure whether to classify sex between demons and human beings as sodomy or bestiality. “Demoniality” was coined in an attempt to identify this behavior as constituting a unique species of sexual conduct (xvii-xviii).

Nature and Nurture: Character and Setting as Destiny

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

Why did you throw the jack of hearts away?
It was the only card in the deck I had left to play.


--The Doors

During the O. J. Simpson trial, observers claimed that, on his defendant’s behalf, attorney Johnny Cochran played the “race card.” Dancing with the Stars critics said that, in an effort to endear herself to the show’s audience and judges, contestant Marie Osmond played the “sympathy card.” Historians claim that the cards that Wild Bill Hickock was playing, which contained aces and eights, comprise the “dead man’s hand,” because he was shot to death while gambling with them.

These allusions are based upon the old analogy that compares one’s personal attributes and assets to the hand that one is dealt at birth. Life, according to this view, is not just any game; it's a card game. It’s a gamble. The stakes may vary, but the goal is always the same: to play the cards one has been dealt to one’s best advantage in the hope of winning the pot.

Even before poker, the life = game equation was popular. The Tarot deck is based upon this notion, and, as a result, its devotees claim, the Tarot hand that one is dealt can foretell his or her future, or fortune.

Beowulf, a poem that is interesting for many reasons, shows us the same thing that a study of Greek mythology discloses: humans, like the gods themselves, were subject to the whims of fate. To paraphrase Alexander Pope, Zeus (or Beowulf) might propose, but it was the Fates (or fate) who disposed of the issues, or determined the outcome of the events, of the day. In the days of ancient Greece, the Fates, envisioned as three sisters, were the ones who decided how events would play out. In Beowulf, the Fates have become fate, an impersonal force, much as the Norse goddess Hel became the impersonal place, hell, in Christian belief. Nevertheless, in both the worlds of the ancient Greeks and of the medieval Norsemen, Geats included, it was not the gods or humans who had the final say as to how incidents or actions, including their own, would turn out. There was a power higher than theirs, to which their own wills were subject.

Beowulf was told and retold for centuries before it was finally committed to paper. The person who wrote it down for posterity was a Christian, and, upon the pagan folkways and beliefs evident in the poem, the scribe overlaid references to Christian faith and doctrine. As a result, there is an uneasy alliance between the pagan and the Christian world views that is incompatible and conflicting. Some may suppose that this duality of vision weakens the poem, but it may be argued that the juxtaposition of these two Weltanschauung, in fact, enriches the narrative. The poem shows what the Norse philosophy of life and social values were before their Christian conversion and what they were becoming during, and would be after, this conversion. For example, before, Beowulf attributed his victories over his foes to fate; afterward, he credits them to God’s will. This twofold attribution of success indicates that, gradually, the idea that it is an impersonal fate that determines the affairs of humans was being replaced by the belief that God’s will is the determinant of such outcomes. In other words, fate becomes God's will. The doctrine of predestination develops this idea with rigorous logic, making humans little more than automatons whose behavior consists of little more than actions that are programmed from the beginning--that is, from eternity--by the will of God.

In the pagan world, the cards one is dealt would have been said to have been dealt by the Fates or by fate. In the Christian world, it is God who deals the cards.

A person might be dealt any of the 22 Major Arcana cards or the 14 Minor Arcana cards of the Tarot deck. All of these cards signified and brought about particular things. Today, people don’t usually think of a person as having any particular set of cards of such a predetermined nature in the hands that fate or God deals to him or her. Instead, whatever personal attributes and assets a person has or accumulates are usually considered the cards that he or she has been dealt. Over time, the cards in a person’s hand may change as one is lost or another is acquired. Were we to apply this concept to Beowulf, we might say that his cards included courage, unusually great strength and stamina, martial prowess, longevity, wisdom, loyalty, compassion, great wealth, popularity, and kingship. When circumstances warranted his doing so, he might play one or more of these cards. In his fights with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon, he played his courage, strength and stamina, and martial prowess cards; as king, he played his loyalty, compassion, and wisdom cards.

Human destiny is complex and impossible to know in advance. Life seems to be a gamble. We also sometimes do not know the full extent of our personal attributes and assets until we are, as it were, called upon by circumstances to use them. We are not always privy to every card in our hands; sometimes, some must be played from a face-down position. Luck (in pagan terms) or divine will (in Christian terms) has a role to play as well. By using such metaphors and analogies as life = gamble, life = game, and one’s personal attributes and assets = a hand of cards, we reduce these complex sets of incidents, circumstances, and actions to simpler, more understandable ideas. Whether any of these ideas is objectively true is perhaps unknowable, but they are, at least, true to one’s sense of how things are and of how things work. They seem to explain. They make sense to us emotionally, if not rationally.

What does all this have to do with character and setting? Writers play God (or fate) when they write stories. The writer is the one who deals the cards that the characters must play, giving or withholding this personal attribute or that individual asset. It was the writer--and the group of storytellers before him--who gave Beowulf his courage, unusually great strength and stamina, martial prowess, longevity, wisdom, loyalty, compassion, great wealth, popularity, and kingship, just as it was Charles Dickens, for example, who gave Ebenezer Scrooge his greed and stinginess, his callous disregard for others, and his capacities--at first unrealized--for compassion, sympathy, and love.

The cards that writers deal to their characters represent the genetic inheritance of these imaginary persons. But genetics is only one influence, as scientists remind us, that affects--and determines--behavior. We’re products of our environments as much as we are the products of our genes. Both nature and nurture make us who and what we are and who and what we become.

If the personal attributes and assets of the individual character represent his or her genetic inheritance, as it were, what represents the character’s environment? In fiction, the setting is the time, the place, and the cultural milieu into which the character is born. The setting may be past, present, or future. It may involve a tyranny, a theocracy, a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy. It may be secular or religious. It may be amoral, moral, or immoral. It may be a universe or the microcosm of a total institution, such as a boarding school or a prison. It may be a metropolis or an island. It may be urban, suburban, or rural. It may be a rain forest or a desert, a castle or a shanty, this world or another planet in a galaxy far, far away; it may even be heaven or hell. Obviously, if a character were born into or lives in any one of these settings, his or her development would differ--in many cases, radically--from his or her development in another setting. Beowulf, both because of the cards he’s dealt and the time and place in which he lives, is a very different character than Ebenezer Scrooge!

By giving characters specific attributes and assets and by setting their lives in particular times, places, and cultural milieus, writers mimic the genetic and environmental aspects of human existence, providing their imaginary people with the gifts of nature and nurture that actual humans receive from evolution, geography, and culture. Whereas, for people, these gifts are likely to be seen as the effects of accident, luck, or grace, there’s no doubt as to who provides them to fictional characters, and they are given deliberately so that each character can fulfill his or her role in the drama the author has determined to create. The writer, depending upon one’s perspective, is, for his or her characters, fate or god.

The Horror of the Incongruous

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

When something is deemed incongruous, it is (if not amusing) often horrifying. We are not shocked or appalled by the sight of a centaur, a mermaid, a minotaur, or a satyr, largely because, although grotesque, they have become familiar to us. However, the dog with the human head that appears briefly in the remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a truly horrifying image. We’ve never been confronted with such a sight; consequently, we are shocked and repulsed by the sight of the canine body with the human head--and face. At one time, of course, the centaur, the mermaid, the minotaur, and the satyr were, likewise, horrifying creatures.

That which we deem to be unseemly, indecorous, unsuitable, inappropriate, or incongruous, we consider unfitting--but unfit for what? For our neat existential categories, in which all things must be either mineral, plant, or animal. In a world in which a plant must be a plant and an animal must be an animal, there’s no room for a Swamp-Thing. In a world in which an animal must be an animal and a human being must be a human being, there’s no place for a dog with a human head. We want our categories neat and tight. When they’re not, we react with shock and revulsion, with fear and trembling, preparing to fight or to take flight. Often, when we are in the presence of the incongruous, we are in the presence of the horrible, the terrible, the disgusting, and the fearsome.

There are many such intersections. Adolescents intersect childhood and adulthood. If they are female, they intersect girlhood and womanhood; if male, boyhood and manhood. As anyone who’s survived this period knows, adolescence--the teenage years--is fraught with horror. Many horror films capitalize on teen angst, setting their stories in high schools. Another intersection (point of incongruity) is that of the animal-human, as we have seen, which gives rise not only to the fantastic half-animal, half-human creatures of ancient mythology, Greek, Egyptian, and otherwise, but also to such horror staples as werewolves. Once-beautiful, disfigured women intersect beauty and ugliness. Cripples, especially amputees, intersect wholeness and injury, just as victims of plagues intersect health and sickness. Ghosts and other revenants, including vampires and zombies, intersect the worlds of the living and the dead. Seemingly normal men, such as Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, or John Wayne Gacy, like Norman Bates, intersect sanity and madness.

Like Bifrost, the rainbow Bridge of Norse mythology, such points of incongruity unite two worlds, or polar opposites. One is normal or acceptable; the other is abnormal or improper. Unlike Bifrost, however, these points of intersection are themselves considered undesirable, repelling rather than attracting travelers. Why? They upset the applecart. They blur the categories we’ve established that divide and subdivide our world and our experience, thereby calling into question our understanding of both our environment and ourselves--in short, nature itself. If we don’t know as much as we thought we knew about the universe, maybe we don’t really comprehend it at all. If there are “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of” in our “philosophy,” as Hamlet tells Horatio, perhaps the cosmos is an alien place. It may indifferent to human beings and their fate, as H. P. Lovecraft suggests, or it may even be hostile to us, as H. G. Wells and others have implied.

If we understand the universe, we are at home in it. If we don’t understand it, we are less at home in it. Maybe we are not at all at home in it. It’s hard to feel at ease and comfortable when one is always looking over one’s shoulder for a lamia or an alien life form that might not be recognizable to us as intelligent, or even as alive--until it’s too late. That’s the horror of the incongruous, of that which doesn’t quite fit our view of things, our understanding of how things are and are ‘sposed to be.

When "All in the Family" Is Not a Comedy: The Horror of Incest

Copyright 2012 by Gary L. Pullman

Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin Myra Gale Brown, and Edgar Allan Poe wed his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm.

Other well-known figures have also tied the knot with relatively close relatives, include Charles Darwin, who married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood; Jesse James, who wed his first cousin Zerelda Mimms; H. G. Wells, who successfully popped the question to his first cousin Isabel Mary Wells; Johann Sebastian Bach, who tied the knot with his first cousin Maria Barbara Bach; Khalid Mahmood, who married his first cousin Rifat; and Albert Einstein, whose second wife was his cousin Elsa Einsteain.

Some celebrities don't marry their relatives; they just have sex with them. According to The National Enquirer, actor Morgan Freeman's wife, Myrna, accuses the actor of having had a long-term affair with his step-granddaughterrr, E'dena Hines, his first wife Jeannete Adair Bradshaw's granddaughter.

MacKensie Phillips, the daughter of John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, claims that her father had an incestuous relationship with her and wanted to move with her to Fiji or some other place in which such relationships are accepted.

Playboy model Shauna Sand reportedly cheated on her husband, actor Lorenzo Lamas, with the actor's own son, A. J. Lamas.

Casanova had an affair with his daughter.

Author Raul Schmidt (pen name) brags of his consensual sexual relationships with his two daughters in Daddy: An Erotic Memoir.

There are several stories of incest in the Bible, too: Noah and his son Ham; Nahor and his neice Milcah; Lot and his daughters; Issac and his first cousin Rebekah; Esau and his cousin Mahalah; Reuben and his father's concubine Bildah; Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar; Amram and his aunt Jochebed; and Amnon and his half-sister Tamar. (One might also add the children of Adam and Eve, for with whom else but their siblings would they have been able to mate?)

Some mainstream movies have hinted at the possibility, at least, of sibling incest between fictional brothers and sisters. Star Wars' Luke Skywalker, for example, was clearly enamored of his sister Princess Leia, before he discovered that her status as his sibling put her off limits as a sexual paramour.

Other films that hint at such behavior include Incindies (2010) (mother and son); King Park (2002) (mother and son); Oldboy (2003) (brother and sister and father and daughter); Borat: Cultural Learnings of Ameica for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) (an incestuous village); Anne of a Thousand Days (1969) (brother and sister); Caligula (1979); Excalibur (1981) (half-siblings); Close My Eyes (1991) (brother and sister); Angels and Insects (1996) (brother and sister); Julien Dokey Boy (1999) (brother and sister); L. I. E. (2001) (brother and sister); Le Couure (2006) (brother and sister); The House of Yes (1997) (fraternal twins); The Dreamers (2003) (fraternal twins); Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) (brother and sister); The Crow (1994) (half-siblings); The Devil's Advocate (half-siblings); Sister My Sister (1994) (sisters); Velvet Goldmine (1998) (brothers); Harry + Max (2004) (brothers); Starcrossed (2005) (brothers); Lone Star (1996) (brother and sister); The King (2005) (brother and sister); The Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) (half-siblings); The Unforgiven (1960) (brother and adopted sister); Cleless (1995) (step-siblings); The Royal Tenenbaums (brother nd adopted sister); The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) (step-siblings); Chinatown (1974) (father and daughter); U Turn (1997) (father and daughter); Wicked (1998) (father and daughter); The War Zone (1999) (father and daughter); Girl, Interrupted) (2000) (father and daughter); Madienusa (2006) (father and daughter); Burning Palms (2010) (father and daughter)Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story (1993) (father and daughter); Forrest Gump (1994) (father and daughter); An American Haunting (1995) (father and daughter); Precious (2009) (father and daughter); The Gift (2000 (father and son); The Damned (1969) (mother and son); My Lover My Son (1970) (mother and son); Murmur of the Heart (1971) (mother and son); La Luna (1979) (mother and son); Sleepwalkers (1992) (mother and son); Bad Boy Bubby (1993) (mother and son); Spanking the Monkey (1994) (mother and son); La Petite Lili (2005) (mother and son); Savage Grace (2007) (mother and son); Beau-pere (1981) (stepfather and stepdaughter); Mini's First Time (2006) (stepfather and stepdaughter); Careful (1992) (father and daughter and mother and son); Volver (2006) (stepfather and stepdaughter and grandfather and granddaughter); Gone with the Wind (1939) (first cousins); The Godfather (1972) (first cousins); The Portrait of a Lady (1996) (first cousins); Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (1997) (cousins); Mean Girls (2004) (fist cousins); Maundy Thursday (2006) (cousins); Kissing Cousins (2008) (cousins); The Blue Lagoon (1980) (cousins); Sexo con Amor (uncle and neice); Hannibal Rising (2007) (aunt and nephew); The Hamiltons (2006) (brother an d sister); Sweet Smell of Success (1957) (brother and sister); and Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) (brother and sister).

Many televisions series also include episodes in which incestuous unions of various kinds occur, including Dynasty, House, The Simpsons, Supernatural, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Arrested Development, Rome, The X-Files, Nip/Tuck, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Family Affairs, I, Claudius, Degrassi Takes Manhattan, Family Guy, American Dad, Hollyoaks, Harper's Island, CSI: Miami, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Twin Peaks, The Storyteller, Breakout Kings, Smallville, Boardwalk Empire, That '70s Show, Seinfeld, friends, The Big Bang Theory, Futurama, and Malcolm in the Middle.

Novels have also dealt with the theme of incest: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) (first cousins); Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things (1997) (fraternal twins); Robert Heinleins Time Enough for Love (1973) (brother and sister); Heinlein's To Sail Beyond Sunset (1987) (father and daughter); numerous works by V. C. Andrews, including Flowers in the Attic (1979); Vladimir Nobokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1959) (brother and sister and sister and sister); George R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ince (1996) (brother and sister and father and daughter); Mario Puzo's The Family (2001) (brother and sister); Anne Rice's Mayfair Trilogy, which consists of The Witchhing Hour (1990), Lasher (1993), and Taltos (1994) (brother and sister, father and daughter, and grandfather and granddaughter, among other combinations); Guy Gavriel gay's Tigana (1990) (brother and sister); J. R. R. Tolkein's The Children of Hurin (2007) (brother and sister); David Eddings' The Elenium trilogy (The Diamond Throne, The Runy Knight, and The Saphhire Rose, ) (brother and sister); P. C. Hodgell's God Stalker Chronicles (2010) (brother and sister); Richard Wagner's Der Ring und des Nibelungen (1848-74) (brother and sister); Hiroshi Aramata's Teito Monogatati (1985-89) (brother and sister); Marion Zimmerman Bradley's The Mists of Avalon (1983) (half-siblings); Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left hand of Darkness (1969) (brother and sister); Isaac Asimov's “The Last Question” (short story, 1959) (brother and sister); Frank Herbert's Childen of Dune (1976) (fraternal twins); Peirs Anthony's hexaolgy Bio of a Space Tyrant (1983-2001) (brother and sister); Philippa Gregory's Wideacre trology (Wideacre, 1987; The Favored Child, 1989; and Meridon, 1990) (brother and sister) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) (brother and sister); Stephanie Lauren's The Truth About Love (2005) (brother and sister); Thomas Mann's The Holy Sinner (1951) (brother and sister); A. S. Byatt's Morpho Eugenia (1992) (brother and sister); Pauline Melville's The Ventriloquist's Tale (1997) (half-siblings); Robert Cormier's Fade (1988) (brother and sister); Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger (1987) (brother and sister); Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden (1978) (brother and sister); Donna Tartt's The Secret History (1992) (fraternal twins); Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex (2002) (brother and sister); John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire (1981) (brother and sister); James Ellroy's White Jazz (1992) (brother and sister); Helen Dunmorfe's A Spell of Winter (1996) (brother and sister); Alice Hoffman's White Horses (1982) (brother and sister); Elizabeth Winthrop's A Little Demonstration of Affection (brother and sister); Paul Theroux's Picture Palace (1999) (brother and sister); Josephine Hart's Damage (1991) (brother and sister); Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind (2001) (brother and sister); Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, 1957; Balthazar, 1958; Mountolive, 1958; and Clea, 1960) (brother and sister); Matthew Gregory's The Monk (1796) (brother and sister); Judith Krantz's Princess Daisy (1980) (half-siblings); Lisa Gardner's Hide (2007) (brother and sister); E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News (1993) (half-siblings); Francesca Lia Block's Wasteland (2002) (brother and sister); Sonya Hartnett's Sleeping Dogs (1995) (brother and sister); Leiland Dale's Brothers without Borders (2010) and Sterling Gold (2010) (brothers); Amanda Young's Tempestuous Relations (twin brothers); John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) (Satan and his daughter Sin and their son, who rapes his mother); Richard Condon The Manchurian Candidate (1959) (mother and son and father and daughter); John Irving's The Cider House Rules (1985) (father and daughter); Charlotte Vale Allen's Daddy's Girl ( 1980) (father and daughter); Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1953) (father and daughter); F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (1934) (father and duaghter); Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls (father and daughter and father and son); Zacharias Topelius' Tales of the Barber-Surgeon (1884) (father and daughter); Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970) (father and daughter); Stephen King's Gerald's Game (1992) (father and daughter); Denise Mina's Garnethill (1998) (father and daughter); Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) (father and daughter); Sapphire's Push (1996) (father and daughter); Elaine Marie Alphin's Counterfiet Son (2000) (father and son); Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy (1995) (father and son); Sophocles' play Oedipus the King (429 BC) (mother and son) and Antigone (442 BC) (first cousins); George Bataille's My Mother (1989) (mother and son); JT Leroy's The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2001) (mother and son); Peirs Anthony's Chthon (1967) (mother and son); Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat (1985) (mother and son); William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses (1942), The Sound and the Fury (1929), and Sanctaury (1931) (various types, some imagined); and Joyce Carol Oates' First Love: A Gothic Tale (1996) (cousins), and Stephen King's It (father and daughter).

 

Incest is a staple of horror movies as well (as one might well imagine!). Villains are inbred offspring in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series (1974-94) and Wrong Turn (2003). Brother-sister incest is mentioned in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). These other horror films also depict or allude to various types of incest: American Haunting (2005); Amityville Horror II: The Possession (1982); Angel Heart (1987); The Awakening (1980); Bikini Party Massacre (2002); Black Christmas (1974); Black Christmas (2006); Black Moon (1975); Black Ribbon (2007); Bleeders (1997); Flowers in the Attic (1987) (brother and sister); Blood Legacy (1971); Butterfly Effect 3: The Revelations (2009); Byleth II: Il Demons Dell'incesto (1972); Captivity (2007); Came De Tu Came (1983); Cat People (1982) (family); The Commune (2009); Confessions of a Serial Killer (1985); Conquest (1983); Corn (2004); The Crazies (1973); Creep (1995); Dabide No Hoshi: Bishop-Gary (1979); Daddy's Deadly Darling (1972); Dagon (2001); Dance of the Vampires (1967); Daughter of Darkness (1993); De Dodes Tjem (1958); Deadly Friend (1986); Decoys (2004); The Degenerates (1967); Demons of the Mind (1972); Der FluchDer Schwarzen Schwestern (1973); Deranged (1974); Deranged (1987); Desperate Living (1977); The Devil Inside Her (1977); The Devil's Advoicate (1997); Diabel (1972); Die sage Des Todes (1981); C Dracula cerca Sangue Di Vergine. . . E Mori De Sate!!! (1974); Dracula Sucks (1979); Elves (1989); End of Days (1999); Enter the Void (2009); The Fall of the House of Usher (1949); The Farmer's Daughters (1976); Feed (2005);Flesh For Frankenstein (1973); Flowers in the Attic (1987); Fotos (1996); Freddy Vs. Jason (2003); Frustration (1971); The Ghastly Ones (1968); The Gift (2000); The Girl Next Door (2007);Gokudo Kyofu Dai-Gekijo: Gozu (2003); Gothic (1986); Grandma's House (1989); Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995); The Hamiltons (2006);Heart of Midnight (1988); Hello, Mary Lou: Prom Night (1987); Hellraiser (1987); Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986); The Hills Have Eyes (1977); The Hills Run Red (2009); The House That Vanished (1974); I Corpi Presentand Tracca Di Violenza Camale (1973); I Pugni in Tasca (1965); I Stand Alone (1998); Ice Fromn the Sun (1999); Il Tuo Vizio E Una Stanza Chiusa E Solo lo Ne Ho La Chiave (1972); Incest Death Squad (2009); Incubus (1981); Irreversible (2002); Jennifer's Body (2009); Julie Darling (1983); Keep My Grave Open (1976); Killer Love (2002); Kimyo Na Sakasu (2005); Kyofu Kikei Ningen: Edogawa Ramp Zenshu (1969); L'antichristo (1974); L'assassin Ha Riservato Nove Paltrone (1974); La Bimba Di Satana (1982); La Campana Del Infierno (1973); La Monaca De l Peccato (1986); La Noche Del Terror Ciego (1971); Lake Dead (2008); La Notti Del Terrore (1981); La Padre Des Loups (2001); Les Cousines (1970); Les Morsures De L'aube (2001); Liar's Pendulum (2007); Lilet (1971); Los Ritos Sexuales Del Diablo (1982); Lost Souls (2000);The Loved Ones (2009); Lucky Stiff (1988); Mad Cowgirl (2006); Malabimba (1979); Malpertius (1971); Mary Reilly (1996); The Mephisto Waltz (1971); Midnight (1982); Mie Men Can An Il Jie Zhong (1994); Monster Man (2003); Murderous Intent (2006); Na Srebrnym Globe (1988); Nelle Pieghe Della Carne (1970); No Time to Fear (2009); Pedro Paramo (1967); Pensione Paura (1977);The People Under the Stairs (1991); Pink Flamingos (1972); The Pit (1981); Poor White Trash (1974); The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972); Red Cockroaches (2003); Redneck Zombies (1987); The Reflecting Skin 1990); Regenration (2009); The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975); Sam Gang Yi (2004); Satan's Black Wedding (1979); Satan's Children (1975); Satan's Whip (2006); Scars of Youth (2008); School for Dead Girls (1972); Scream. . . and Die (1973); Secret Desire (1975); Sensitivita (1979);Sex Psycho (1970); Sheitan (2006); Shivers (1975); Sick Girl (2007); Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974); Singapore Sling (1990); Slip (1985); Sin in '69 (1969); Singapore Sling: O Anthropos Pou Agapise Ena Ptoma (1990); Sinthia, the Devil's Doll (1970); Sleepwalkers (1992); Society (1989); Subconscious Cruelty (1999); Suddenly, Last Summer (1959); Summer's Blood (2009); Sveto Mesto (1990); Ta Paidia Tou Diavolou (1975); Taboo (2002); The Taming of Rebecca (1982); Tanin No Kao (1966); Teeth (2007); Telmisseomding (1999); Terror Firmer (1999); Terror Overload (2009); Through the Looking Glass (1976); Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982); The Toolbox Murders (1978); Top of the Food Chain (1999); Tutti: Colori Del Buio (1972); Twin Pewaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992); The Undertow (2002);The Unseen (1980); Valerie A Tyden Divu (1970); Virgin Witch (1972); Visitor Q (2001); Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992); Wet Wilderness (1976); The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976); The Woman (2011); and Zbogum Na Dvaesetiot Vek (1998).

As even this cursory display indicates, incest is not so much a theme in literature as it is a staple. Why? In regard to horror fiction, these seem to be some of the reasons for the popularity of the incest motif: 

• Incest suggests moral anarchy, and characters who are immoral enough to interbreed with family members are likely to be immoral enough to do anything else that is taboo, including murder, torture, cannibalism—you name it.
• Incest may be the inciting—the inciting, not the exciting—incident, the cause, in other words, of the horrific behavior that later follows from it, perhaps as revenge for childhood abuse, perhaps as the result of psychological trauma, perhaps as the consequence of both.
• Incest may inspire by way of imitation: what children learn from the example of their parents, they may do among themselves—the hands that rock the cradle and all that.
• Incest may intensify sexual relationships, making antagonists ready to offer "the last full measure of devotion" to protect their lovers or their beloveds from rivals.
• Incest is already associated with evil in the minds of most people, and its inclusion as an element of the action marks its participants as either perverts incarnate or the victims of such twisted souls.
• Incest is a stereotypical way of characterizing certain groups of characters, such as hillbillies or men and women who live south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
• Incest may produce not merely a deformed or morally grotesque child, but it may result, eventually, in a whole town—or army—of mad mutants.
• Incest can be a means of revitalizing shopworn plots: a sci fi-horror story may involve a character who has sex with a his reincarnated daughter.
• Incest may be the means that Satan uses to mock God's creation of sex as a means by which human beings reproduce themselves.
• Incest, as an inciting incident, may be just the thing to motvate a boy or girl to leave home and strike out on his or her own.
• Incest may, under the right circumstances (or a full moon), indicate psychosis.
• Incest, when it involves a mother and a daughter, can symbolize the sometimes-negative, if not fatal, effects that a mother's smother love can have on the daughter whom she wants to be just like she herself is, right down to her latent lesbian leanings.

What’s So Scary About Horror Movies?

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

What makes a horror movie scary? Why do some films frighten us while others don’t send similar chills up and down our spines? Why is Stephen King a master of this genre, both in its printed and motion picture forms? What’s the difference between a truly frightening horror movie and a merely horrible one? By analyzing those moments of fright and horror, perhaps some clues may be pieced together, allowing us to discern just what is so scary about horror movies. As a result, we can both better appreciate the techniques of the horror maestros and, if we are ourselves writers of horror fiction, improve our own work.

One way to analyze what scares people is to ask them. Fans of the genre maintain web sites, respond to interviews, rate movies, and keep blogs concerning what they like and don’t like about horror films. Since these individuals represent the market for which you are writing or intend to write, their comments, observations, points of view, praise, complaints, and questions are a goldmine waiting to be excavated.

Another way to discover what’s scary about horror fiction is to read interviews on the subject by the masters of the genre. Many of these interviews are available online or in the back issues of magazines available at your local library. You can also type in a phrase such as “what’s so scary about horror movies?” or “scary horror movies” into an Internet search engine’s window and see what results occur. Of course, another way to find out what scares the hell out of moviegoers (and readers) is to watch horror movies (or read horror stories)--and take notes!

As you visit these sites and read horror stories or watch horror movies, make a list of your insights and thoughts about the question, What’s so scary about horror movies? Before long, you’ll have a huge list. Remember, though, you’re not interested in summarizing the plot per se. Instead, you’re interested in identifying frightening moments in the film or story and understanding why these incidents scared you.

Your list might contain some of these elements:

Unexpected shock: something springs out of a closet, falls from the ceiling, bursts through the floorboards, or springs upon a character from behind, seemingly having come out of nowhere. Another example is the sudden and immediate disfigurement or dismemberment of a character. Reflections, especially strange and incongruous images, in a mirror or other glass surface can also frighten.

Red Herring: one incident occurs, such as an unexpected shock, that distracts us from the big scary moment that is just about to occur. For example, a cat springs at the character, screeching, and scares the hell out of us just before the axe murderer buries his weapon in the character’s abdomen or back.

Scary Music and Other Tone Setters: the soundtrack plays jarring, or frantic, music that sets up the expectation that something nasty is about to happen; what follows is something nasty--or a red herring. A thunderstorm is an old stand-in for such discordant music. The interplay of light with shadows, like weather and musical effects, sets the tone (horror) in many horror movies; printed horror fiction uses descriptions and juxtapositions to accomplish the same purpose.

Lights Out: a character is knocked unconscious, by the villain or by an accidental fall, only to awaken in deep, hot water, metaphorically speaking, a la “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

Gross Out!: Stephen King says he will scare his readers if he can and disgust them if he must. Blood, guts, and gore usually do the trick.

Dead Meat: showing or describing skeletons or corpses, especially partially decomposed bodies, horrifies and disgusts.

Stalking: the monster stalks the protagonist, sneaking up on him or her, or ambushes him or her; the stalking or the ambush is “previewed” for the reader or the moviegoer, however, rather than occurring as an unexpected shock: we see the villain sneaking up on or lying in wait for the main character, so we anticipate the bad guy’s next move (but the protagonist doesn’t).

Being Watched: showing the main character being watched by someone gives moviegoers and readers the willies.