In 1950s horror movies,
the military was called out, on occasion, to eliminate monsters. Less
frequently today, the armed forces sometimes carry out this duty. If
you've ever wondered how combined forces would take out Godzilla or
other monsters, the website We
Are the Mighty has the answers.
Taking down Godzilla would
involve mostly Air Force and Navy aircraft, with the Army playing a
supportive combat role involving tanks. Mostly, though, ground forces
would be used to evacuate civilians. For the answer to an even bigger
question, check out Military.com's
response to the query “Can
the Navy Handle a War Between King and Godzilla?”
According to the same
source,
zombies' threats would be twofold: surprise and superior numbers.
However, the Army, this time, would have the primary role and would
accomplish its objective by setting up a perimeter and channeling the
zombie horde into a narrow killing zone. If, for some reason, the war
turned into one of attrition, the Army would still win, since troops
have ample rations that can last five years, while zombies, cut off
from a ready supply of human brains, would run out of food fairly
soon.
The Army has also teamed
up with both vampires
and ghosts. Alerted to the fact that the Huks, Communist rebels
who'd taken up positions in the Philippines, were superstitious, U.
S. Army lieutenant colonel Edward G. Lansdale employed psychological
warfare against the insurgents. His troops spread the rumor that an
asuang (vampire) lived in the area. Then, they ambushed the last man
in a Huk patrol, punched holes in his jugular vein, and drained his
body of blood, before returning the bloodless corpse to the trail.
When the other rebels found his body, they were convinced that the
asuang had attacked him and ran for their lives. Government forces
reclaimed the area. Mission accomplished!
The recruitment of ghosts
was also successful. Aware of the superstitious belief of local enemy
forces that the souls of the unburied dead were doomed to wander
forever, tapes recorded by the U. S. Army featured “Buddhist
funeral music followed by a girl's cries for her father.” A ghost
replies to her grief with sorrow of his own, despondent that he chose
to fight a war in a far-flung field of battle rather than remain with
his family. Broadcast at various times, its doubtful that the enemy
was fooled by them; nevertheless, they didn't like to hear the tapes,
and it took a gunship to decimate the hostile ground forces. We
Are the Mighty links to the
chilling tape
recording!
Apparently, some spirits of
the dead are transvestites. Perhaps too embarrassed to buy clothes of their own
(or too poor—most ghosts, it seems, have little or no need, as a rule, for
cash, checks, credit cards, or bank accounts), one apparition decided to raid
the closet Maddie, of a University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Maddie and her roommates live
off-campus, in the Edge Apartments on Oakland Avenue, but it was Maddie whose
shirts and pants went missing. The ghost proved more tangible than most,
leaving its handprints on the apartment's bathroom wall.
When she heard “rattling” in
her closet on February 4, 2019, Maddie went to investigate, thinking maybe a
raccoon had been trapped inside. That's when she caught the ghost red-handed
(so to speak). He was wearing her socks and shoes and had heisted a bag of her
clothes. He tried on one of Maddie's hats, before inspecting himself in her
bathroom mirror and, after complimenting her appearance, asked for a hug, but
never touched her.
The ghost turned out to be
30-year-oldAndrew Swofford. He was
arrested on fourteen felony counts, including larceny and identity theft, and
held on a $26,000 bond. Maddie and her roomies have since moved out of the
apartment, having found their flesh-and-blood intruder more unnerving than the
ghost they'd believed was haunting their abode.
9 Krushna Chandra Nayak
In August, 2018,
forty-five-year-old Nakula Nayak and his brother Shyam Nayak, both of whom
lived out of town, in Chhelianala, India, came to the village of Angikala to
notify a relative, Sahadev Nayak, that their mother had died. Due to the
lateness of the hour, the brothers stayed overnight with Sahadev.
Around midnight, Nakula went
outside, to a field close by, to relieve himself. Coincidentally, Sahadev's
cousin, Krushna Nayak, was working outdoors. The night was quite dark, and when
Krushna sawNakula, Krushna mistook the
visitor for a ghost.
Terrified, Krushna began
beating Nakula with a lathi, a heavy, iron-bound bamboo stick. During the
struggle, Nakula managed to wrest the weapon from Krushna and began to strike
his assailant, believing his attacker to be a ghost, just as Krushna had
mistaken Nakula for a spirit. Nakula's assault on Krushna proved fatal, and
Nakula was arrested by the Turumunga police after Krushna's family lodged a
complaint against him.
8 Unidentified Helena,
Montana, Man
Was the shooter's reason for
shooting at a 27-year-old Helena man nothing more than a lame excuse, or did
the gunman really believe that his quarry, who was setting up targets on public
land, a Bigfoot?
The victim told police bullets
came flying at him, left and right, as he positioned the targets. When additional
rounds were fired at him, he sought cover among trees. Later, he emerged to
“confront” the shooter, who drove a black Ford F-150 full-size pickup truck.
The Helena man said the man
who targeted him in December, 2018, had mistaken him for Bigfoot. “I don’t
target practice,” he explained, “but if I see something that looks like
Bigfoot, I just shoot at it.” To prevent others from making a similar mistake,
the shooter suggested that his victim wear an orange vest.
Initially, police were
skeptical of the man's report, because he was unable to describe the alleged
shooter, did not want to file charges, and was reluctant to speak to deputies.
Authorities were unable to locate a truck in the area that fit the description
of the Ford F-150 pickup.
Then, a woman reported a
similar incident involving a man who drove a vehicle of the same color, make,
and model and had shot at her. She was able to provide a solid description of
her assailant.
“We’re working to find this
person,” Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said. “It is of great
concern that this individual might think it’s okay to shoot at anything he
thinks is Bigfoot.” If apprehended, the shooter could be charged with attempted
negligent homicide.
7 Wendy
Thinnamay Masuka
In April, 2018,
thirty-seven-year-old Zimbabwe pastor Masimba Chirayi killed Wendy Thinnamay Masuka while baptizing her. The adult
congregant had reacted violently to the baptism, he said.
Her
violence indicated to him that she was a “vampire possessed by demons,” and he
believed that she might “kill people.” To prevent this possibility, Chirayi
deliberately “kept her submerged in water until [he] overpowered her.”
Following
his appearance in a magistrate's court in Zimbabwe, the pastor was granted
bail.
6 Helaria Montepon Gumilid
Mistaking Helaria Montepon
Gumilid, a 79-year-old widow, for an aswang (a carnivorous shape-shifter that
may appear to be an ordinary person, despite “reclusive habits or magical
abilities,” Helaria's daughter-in-law, Myrna Damason Gumilid, age 49,
and Myrna's two sons, Rene Boy Gumilid, age 28, and Joseph Damason Gumilid, age
23, hacked her to death.
In April, 2014, the victim had
been visiting her mentally-ill grandson in Zamboanga City, Philippines, when
she was attacked and killed.Myrna, Rene
Boy, and Joseph bound Helaria, “slit her armpits,” hacked her to death, and
removed one of her organs to prevent her from “regenerating.”
Authorities arrested the
suspects, whom they planned to charge in the horrific crime.
5 African Man
In October, 2010, firefighters
responding to a report that people had jumped from the third-story balcony of a
housing unit in the village of La Verriere, France, discovered seriously
injured relatives among the eleven family members who'd made the leap. They
also found a two-year-old survivor, a baby, and a nude African man with a knife
wound to his hand. The baby later died at a hospital in Paris. (La Verriere is
located on the edge of the city.)
Thirteen people were watching television
in the apartment when the naked man, hearing the baby cry, rose to prepare a
bottle for the child. His wife screamed, “It's the devil! It's the devil!” His
sister-in-law stabbed him in the hand, and he was thrown out of the apartment.
When he tried to return, the
others panicked, leaping from through the window, one man with the two-year-old
girl in his arms. The man crawled away, hiding in bushes tow blocks away. “I
had to defend myself,” he screamed. Seven of the jumpers required medical treatment
for multiple injuries.
No hallucinogenics and no
indication of the practice of any occult rituals were found. The assistant
prosecutor from Versailles, Odile Faivre, admitted, “A number of points remain
to be cleared up.”
4 James Velasco
Hacked, bitten, and beaten,
James Velasco was killed by his grandfather, Orak Mantawil, during a December,
2015, power outage at their family-owned residence in Bliss, Barangay Nituran,
Parang, Maguindanao.
Mantawil was carrying his
four-year-old grandson in his arms when he mistook James for a tiyana, a
vampire who assumes the form of a child or a newborn infant. He apologized to
his family and the boy's parents, saying that he was drunk and cannot recall
what happened after he saw James as a tiyana. He told investigators that he
does not “use drugs.”
James's parents brought
charges of parricide against Mantawil. “He could no longer bring back my
child’s life even though he asked forgiveness,” said Fatima Velasco, James's
mother and Mantawil's daughter. She also said, “My child sustained human bites.
It appeared like his blood was sucked.”
Mantawil has been arrested and
will be subjected to a psychological examination and a drug test.
3 Stella
After Stella was caught
tiptoeing on graves at Luveve Cemetery in Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe, in 2018, a crowd meted out vigilante justice, beating the woman, who
they regarded as a witch searching for corpses she could cannibalize.
A
Luveve resident said, “I was on my way to work when I saw a woman with torn,
dirty clothes talking to herself while tiptoeing on the graves. I quickly
called out to other people passing by.” When asked her name, the woman
repeatedly replied “Stella.”
The
crowd set upon her, whipping her until she wailed in pain. Police rescued her
when they arrived on the scene, and Stella was taken to the police station,
where, Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube said, she was
found to be “mentally unstable” and to be guilty of nothing more than of having
been “at the wrong place at the wrong time.” A family who'd reported the woman
missing identified her as a relative.
2 Zana
Bryan Sykes, professor of
human genetics at the University of Oxford, said a West African DNA strain
might belong to a human subspecies.
The DNA sample was taken from
a hirsute, auburn-haired, 6'6”-tall, mid-19-century African slave named Zana
who lived in mid-19th-century Russia proves she was 100-percent African,
despite the fact that she didn't look like any modern African group of people.
In fact, according to a
Russian zoologist, “her expression . . . was pure animal.”
Sykes suggests that she and
her ancestors left Africa 100,000 years ago to dwell in the region of the
Caucasus Mountains. His most astonishing claim, however, is that Zana might
have been a yeti, or so-called abominable snowman.
Several critics are more than
a bit skeptical of Sykes's claims. For example, Jason Colavito points out that,
by Sykes's own admission, the geneticist “has found no genetic evidence that
yet points conclusively to a pre-modern origin for Zana” and suggests that the
characterization of her as being more “animal” than human might have a racist
origin: “As best I can tell, there are no nineteenth century primary sources
related to Zana, and all of the accounts of her large, apelike appearance
derive from local lore recorded more than a hundred years after the fact, and
during a time when Black Africans were routinely described as apelike,
particularly by isolated rural populations with little or no contact with other
races.”
It seems possible that Sykes
has mistaken Zana for a yeti, when, in fact, she was actually a 19th-century
African slave.
1 Horseman (Centaur)
Ancient people also sometimes
mistook people for imaginary creatures.
Imagine the shock that ancient
Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples experienced when they first witnessed
mounted Eurasian soldiers invading their lands. The cavalry was unknown to
them. The horsemen must have seemed a perfect union of man and horse, a hybrid
fusion of the human and the equine. Such warriors would have been terrifying,
and warriors wielding shields and striking with swords must have seemed
invincible.
As Bjarke Rink observes in his
book, The Rise of the Centaurs, “The impact of cavalry action upon
farming societies was shattering”—and this sight was the origin of the mythical
creature known as the centaur, a presumed hybrid of man and beast that the
ancient Greeks mistook for true monsters: “The weird creature that captured the
world's imagination for thousands of years was not a myth at all, but the first
sighting of fighting horsemen by the peasant farmers of Greece.”
One way to energize a
genre of fiction is to introduce into it a hierarchy, or some other
type of analytical or descriptive scheme, that is commonly used in a
different type of narrative literature.
As Don
Lincoln, author of Alien Universe:
Extraterrestrial Life in Our Minds and in the Cosmos,
observes, science fiction employs the
scale “popularized” in J. Allen Hynek's “1972 book The
UFO Experience,”
which identifies three types, or “kinds,” of “close encounters”
with extraterrestrial spacecraft or beings:
1st
Kind:
UFO sighting
2nd
Kind:
UFO sighting supported by "physical evidence"
3rd
Kind:
Encounter with alien beings
These original “kinds” of “close encounters”
have been extended, says Lincoln, by four other types, although these
additional levels “are “not universally accepted”:
4th Kind: Abduction with
"retained memory"
5th Kind:
"Regular conversations"
6th Kind:
"An encounter" resulting in a human's "death or
injury"
7th Kind:
Hybrid progeny resulting from human-monstrous mating
Although
hybrid horror-science fiction narratives or dramas sometimes include
extraterrestrial beings (e. g., Stephen King's Dreamcatcherand such films as Alien,
The Thing from Another World,
and Invaders from Mars),
space aliens are primarily a staple of sci fi fiction. Monsters, on
the other hand, are more often antagonists in horror fiction.
Hynek's
scale, and its extension, provide a means of re-imagining monsters:
1st
Kind:
Monster sighting
2nd
Kind:
Monster sighting supported by "physical evidence"
3rd
Kind:
Encounter with monster(s)
4th
Kind:
Monster's abduction recalled (or recovered through the discovery of a
lost film or video
5th
Kind:
Periodic communications with the monster, vocally or otherwise (e.
g., through mental telepathy)
6th
Kind:
"An encounter” with the monster which results in a human's
“death or injury”
7th
Kind:
Human/monster mating resulting in a hybrid progeny
Many of these types
of “close encounters” with monsters have already been depicted in
horror novels, short stories, or movies. There have been many
sightings of monsters, as in Frank Peretti's 2006 novel Monster;
encounters with monsters (as in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel
Frankenstein),
periodic communications with the monster (as in Anne Rice's 1976
novel Interview with a Vampire),
encounters with monsters that end in human's deaths (so many there's
no need to cite an example), and even matings between women and
monsters that result in births of hybrid human-monster children (as
in Ira Levine's 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby).
However, an
imaginative use of this extended scale of “close encounters” with
monsters, rather than with aliens—which, it could be argued,
represent simply another type of monster) can still introduce
innovations into the horror genre. For example, the scale could be
used to structure a novel or, for that matter a heptalogy, or series
of seven works, each of which is inspired by one of the seven types
of “close encounters” with monsters listed in the “monster
scale” adapted from Hynek's hierarchy.
Many writers have
developed plots for their stories, long or short, from newspaper
accounts of actual events. A quick way to accomplish this procedure
is to change, add, or delete a word or a phrase to make a mundane
incident appear bizarre or sinister. Here are a few examples from the
“State-By-State” column in the Tuesday, October 16, 2018, issue
of the national newspaper USA Today.
First, the actual news item is quoted, directly, and then the altered
version is presented, the changes are indicated in bold font.
Alabama[,] Birmingham: Sheriff's deputies in Jefferson
County are now armed with body cameras.
Alabama[,]
Birmingham: Sheriff's deputies in Jefferson County are now armed with
weaponized body
extensions.
(What,
exactly, are
“weaponized body extensions”? Whatever you want them to be; have
fun deciding.)
Alaska[,] Homer: After decades of serving independent
movie selections, Barb's Video and DVD is closing its doors this
month.
Alaska[,]
Homer: After decades of showing
snuff films, Thanatos
Palace Video and DVD is closing its doors this month.
(For legal purposes, in fiction it is often advisable to
change the names of actual persons and businesses; some writers also
change the names of actual cities..)
Iowa[,]
Des Moines: State law enforcement officials are warning of a scam in
which callers pretend to be state police and demand payment.
Iowa[,]
Des Moines: State law enforcement officials are warning of a scam in
which callers pretend to be hit
men and demand payment
to call off the contracts
on potential “target's” lives.
Nevada[,] Reno: The 1872 Reno Mercantile and Masonic
Lodge, downtown's oldest building, has been found to be too unstable
to save.
Nevada[,]
Reno: The 1872 Reno Dry
Goods Store and Satanic Lodge,
downtown's oldest building, has been found to be too mentally
unstable to save.
A
mad, possibly demon-possessed personified building:
now that's a twist!
Ohio[,[ Columbus: An exhibition of veterans' art will
showcase works by former military service members from across the
state.
Ohio[,[
Columbus: An exhibition of veterans' art will showcase photographs
ofcombat
fatalitiescaused
by former military
service members from across the state.
Pennsylvania[,] Pittsburgh: Authorities say a pizza
deliveryman was shot and killed during a daytime robbery.
Pennsylvania[,]
Pittsburgh: Authorities say a pizza deliveryman was shot, killed, and
eaten during a daytime
delivery to a family of
cannibals.*
Rhode Island[,] Providence: Senator Jack Reed is helping
to kick off a new apprenticeship program for people who want to build
submarines.
Rhode
Island[,] Providence: Senator Jim Kinkaid is helping to kick off a
new apprenticeship program for people who want to build sanctuary
cities for aliens (i. e., extraterrestrials).
An alternative:
Rhode
Island[,] Providence: Senator Jim Kinkaid is helping to kick off a
new apprenticeship program for people who want to build holding
compounds for zombies.
(The
beauty of this item is that the people—or creatures—to be housed
in the new buildings can be pretty much anything, natural or
supernatural. In one of the X-Men
movies, a plastic room, suspended in midair, was built to confine
Magneto.)
Washington[,] Cougar: Forecasters say strong winds are
expected to blow volcanic ash on Mount St. Helens to nearby
communities.
Washington[,]
Cougar: Forecasters say strong winds are expected to blow mutagenic
agents from a remote genetic engineering lab intocertainunidentified
communities.
Some
of the reports in the column need no modification; they're already
bizarre or sinister.
Arizona[,] Phoenix: A man, 59, is accused of killing his
girlfriend and putting her body in a gun safe he welded shut and
buried in the desert.
Massachusetts[,] Peabody: A house where a victim of the
Salem witch trials once lived is on the market for $600,000.
Tennessee[,]
Bristol: A man police say was run over with a lawn mower while trying
to kill his son with a chain saw [sic]
had his leg amputated.
A
couple of items could be revised to include Bigfoot:
Idaho[,] Boise: An Idaho Fish and game Commission member
is under fire after he shared photos of himself posing with baboons
he killed while hunting in Africa.
Idaho[,]
Boise: An Idaho Fish and game Commission member is under fire after
he shared photos of himself posing with Bigfoot
creatures he killed while
hunting.
New Hampshire[,] Manchester: A New Hampshire Fish and
Game official says a biologist shot and killed two bear cubs because
they were causing a safety issue.
New
Hampshire[,] Manchester: A New Hampshire Fish and Game official says
a biologist shot and killed two Bigfoot
cubs because they were causing a safety issue.
Once
a possible plot has been obtained in this manner, t would need to be
developed. A context would have to be created to account for the
bizarre or sinister incident. Who caused it and why? What
consequences ensued? Who was hurt or killed, how, and why? How was
the incident brought to its end, by whom, and why? These are only
some of the many questions that a writer would have to answer before
the plot was ready to convert into a full-scale short story, novel,
or screenplay.
Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.
It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.
What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”
Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.
As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.
Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionarycontends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:
Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.
In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.
Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.
According to Todorov:
The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).
Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.
And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.
Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.
Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:
Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.
Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.
Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.
Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).
Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.
A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).
Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.
Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.
Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.
A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.
A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.
Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.
Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.