Cunning Devices: Plot as Invention

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences,” Mark Twain observes that the author of the Leatherstocking series lacks inventiveness:

Cooper’s gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it as he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go.

(For Twain‘s own “rules governing literary art,” refer to “Mark Twain’s ’Rules For Governing Literary Art”). The analogy in which a narrative plot is compared to an invention is fruitful as an aid in understanding the plotting of fiction. Many patents are issued not for original inventions but for improvements to them. For example, the original mousetrap could be patented, but so could a better mousetrap. This fact suggests something analogous in regard to fiction. To devise an original plot for oneself, a writer can adapt the plot of another writer. But, wait! Isn't that plagiarism? It could, but need not, be. Huh? Let me explain. To steal another writer’s plot is definitely plagiarism, but ideas cannot be patented. Therefore, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, among many others, which all feature dinosaurs, are acceptable (that is, legal). If more than one writer has succeeded with a particular type of monster (dinosaurs, for instance), you might do likewise, provided that you use only the idea of dinosaurs as your monsters and not the specific treatments of dinosaurs that others have employed. Here’s a way to go about the business of “improving” upon (or tinkering with) the plots of others so as to produce a story idea of one’s own. Consider the original in terms of its categories or elements: character, setting, theme, conflict, plot. Can you think of a twist on any (or more) of them? In the 1932 film version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a scientist, Henry Frankenstein, creates a monster from parts of human cadavers which he electrifies in his laboratory. (In the novel, it is unclear how the protagonist, medical student Victor Frankenstein, animates his monster, although a chemical [or alchemical] means is suggested.) The film version departs from the novel in these, and other, ways, but Shelley’s novel could also have suggested H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. Wells’ setting is an island laboratory. Instead of human cadavers, human-animal hybrids are the mad scientist’s raw materials, and Dr. Moreau uses vivisection, rather than chemistry or electricity, to accomplish his wonders. Although it is debatable whether Shelley’s novel suggested The Island of Dr. Moreau, these sorts of innovations do represent the kind of adaptations to the plot of another, earlier work of which I speak. Thinking of plots as inventions also suggests a caution. Twain was a great writer, but a poor investor, and he lost a fortune in his investments in the James W. Paige’s “compositor,” a typesetting machine which boasted 18,000 parts! Sadder but much wiser, the author gave up “speculating” as a means of getting rich (or richer) quick and recouped his fortune by returning to what he did best: writing and reading his literary works to paying audiences. The moral of the story? To a degree, complexity in a story, especially a novel-length narrative, is a good thing. Readers want twists and turns in their stories. However, a plot that is more labyrinth than zigzag is apt to lose the reader. After all, one typically has only so many hours or days that he or she is willing to devote to the reading of a novel. If readers complain of, rather than praise, the length of a story, as even Stephen King’s most ardent “constant readers” are wont to do on occasion, their grievances may suggest more maze than meander.

To Be Is To Be Perceived (And To Be Perceived Is To Be)

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defines “edible” as meaning “good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.”

His humor’s not for everyone, but it does, in this case, at least, suggest something important to writers, whether of horror fiction or otherwise: We are either who we would have ourselves be or what others would have us be. To a hungry lion, we are perhaps viewed as food. However, were we armed with a spear (or, better yet, a rifle), the king of the beasts himself might become our prey. To Christians (in the old days, at least) and to Moslems (even today, in some cases) alike, those who were not of the faith were pagans or infidels, although, from their viewpoint, the pagans and infidels, not the Christians and the Moslems exercised the one and only true faith. To Republicans, Democrats are the opposition; to Democrats, it’s the other way around. We either define ourselves or we are defined by another.

We may also regard ourselves one way while another regards us in a completely different manner. A man may consider himself to be a suitor, whereas, from the perspective of the object of his affections, he may be considered a stalker. The use, in the last sentence, of “object,” in describing the woman whom the man (depending upon one’s perspective) either woos or stalks, was intentional, intended as a segue to the concept that Jewish theologian Martin Buber introduces in I and Thou. In this profound book, Buber points out that we can consider either ourselves or others to be either a person (an “I”) or a thing (an “it”). We will then treat ourselves or others accordingly. Employers, for example, often think of employees as “human resources,” rather than as men and women with attitudes, beliefs, dreams, emotions, ideas, imaginations, morals, motivations, needs, principles, values, and wisdom of their own--and treat them as such. (Employees seldom forget that they are, in fact, as human--or more so--than their bosses, whom they may regard as tyrants--and treat them as such.) As the Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

A philosophical adage has it that “to be is to be perceived,” but it seems equally valid to say that “to be perceived is to be,” for we assign both ourselves and others roles to play, thereby perceiving ourselves and others to “be” this or that or, perhaps, to “fit” a particular type of work, as being “suited to” or “suitable for” a certain activity. Writers should never forget that it is just as true, perhaps, that we are perceived to be certain things as it is true that we exist because we are recognized or understood.

We assign meaning, just as we assign value. In doing so, we construct reality. Both for ourselves and others. We do this every day, whether we are writers or not, but writers also do it every time they write a story. To Beowulf, Grendel is the monstrous troll who is killing Danish warriors and terrorizing the people of their village and mead hall. To his mother, Grendel is a beloved son whose death at the hands of the murderous Beowulf must be avenged. It is clear that how characters see one another can be, and often is, the basis of narrative and dramatic conflict.

Perceptions can also be the bases of ironic reversals. Indeed, such a reversal is the very foundation of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He imagined a young woman entering a dark alley, where she was attacked by a monster. However, instead of the monster killing (and possibly devouring) her, it was she who emerged victorious from their battle. The monster, a vampire, no doubt, saw the teen as prey (and, possibly, a meal), as would someone watching such a scene play out in a movie or a television episode (Buffy was a movie before it was a TV series.) Likewise, the typical teen would regard the vampire as a threat, as a predator. Both would act accordingly, the vampire actively, attacking, killing and consuming; the girl, passively, being attacked, killed, and consumed. (Acting upon the instinct for self-preservation, she might put up some resistance, of course, but it would be futile.) In Whedon’s ironic version of the scene, though, the vampire’s perception of himself as the predator and of Buffy as the prey worked against him, for it was Buffy who, as it turned out, was actually the actual slayer in their (brief) encounter.

Playing with roles can have other interesting effects, too. A boy or a girl, transitioning to adulthood, can leave childhood behind, seemingly in a moment, either because of an external event or because of an internal incident. For example, if one encounters child abuse, perhaps seeing a father bending back the fingers of his son’s hand, by way of “punishment,” will the witness become involved? Intervene? Pretend nothing unusual is happening and ignore the abuse? Whatever he or she does, the adolescent characterizes him- or herself, perhaps in several ways. Will a teen participate in the bullying, intimidation, and humiliation of a classmate simply because his or her “friends” are doing so, speak out against the harassment, stop the abuse and find new friends (perhaps starting with the bullied person), or ignore the situation altogether? Again, whatever he or she does, the teen characterizes him- or herself. The response shows maturity and independence (and compassion) or the opposites. Often, we are more revealed by what we say or do (or do not say or do) than others to whom we say or do whatever it is we say or do. (Yes, that is a sentence, of sorts.)

Dynamic characters (those who change by the end of the story) necessarily reverse the roles they played, as it were, at the beginning of their narratives. The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy Gale is disappointed in her home, dependent, and complaining at the beginning of the movie, but, at the end, as a result of the experiences she’s had in Oz, she is appreciative of her home, independent, and glad to be surrounded by the family and friends whom she’d taken for granted before. Tested, tired, and resigned to her fate at the end of the series’ seventh year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is no longer the unproven, perky, rebellious teen she was at the start of the show. Dynamic characters end up as the opposites of themselves. Arguably, even for a vampire, Buffy would be hard to mistake as a victim at the end of the series, just as it would be difficult for the Wicked Witch of the west to cowl Dorothy after all she’d been through in the wonderful land of Oz.

As far as others know (and can know), each of us is what we say, what we do, and the various roles that we play. For good or for ill, because we can think differently than we speak or act, we are able to deceive others, just as they are able to deceive us. We can also be hypocrites, acting at odds with what we say we believe or endorse. The possibilities of deceit and hypocrisy are important to writers, because they allow subterfuge, betrayals, treachery, treason, and the other violations of trust upon which intrigue, suspense, irony, and plots are built.

Speech (dialogue), behavior (action), and role playing are the bases, along with nonverbal communication cues such as facial expressions and gestures, of characterization and its exhibition to readers and audiences. It is, therefore, a good habit for a writer, in studying people (as models for fictional characters) to not only observe what and how people say and do things but, equally importantly, to imagine the various ways in which the same things might be said or done, both by the present and by other people, and both in their presently adopted or assigned roles and in other possible ones. Who might have imagined that a man, through technology, could become a mother of sorts? Mary Shelley did, in the fictional person of Victor Von Frankenstein, and, if Joss Whedon hadn’t imagine a reversal of roles between the teenage girl and her supernatural attacker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer never would have been born.

Stock Situations Useful to Horror Fiction

Copyright 2010 by Gary L.Pullman

Oral storytellers invented stock situations--sets of circumstances that could be used over and over again, perhaps with some tweaking, throughout a story or among different stories of the same cycle or genre. Many of these situations continue to be used by today’s storytellers. Some are especially fruitful for horror writers. In this post, I identify a few.

One of the earliest of these stock situations might be called the taming of the brute. The early part of The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts how a prostitute tamed the wild man Enkidu, who, after he was bested in single combat by Gilgamesh, became friends with the epic poem’s protagonist, accompanying him, much as Iolaus accompanied Hercules, on his feats of derring-do. The taming of the beast is the main plot of Beauty and the Beast, as it is of King Kong. More often, this storyline makes up only a part of the greater story, and it may be treated ironically. The scientist’s attempt to befriend the alien plant in The Thing, for example, not only endangers the other researchers at the arctic outpost that the creature attacks but is, as it turns out, the death of the scientist himself. (As I point out in a previous article, fairy tales, in general, form the basis of many horror stories; Stephen King himself points to Cinderella as having been, in part, the inspiration for his first novel, Carrie.)

The locked box (or locked room) situation is as old as the ancient Greek myth about Pandora and the story of Blackbeard the pirate. It was used recently in the movie Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson. Stories in which other objects--or, for that matter, persons or places--are forbidden are also examples of this stock situation.

The invaded community situation is as old as Beowulf, in which the Danes’ Heorot hall is invaded by the maraudering Grendel and Peter Benchley’s Jaws, in which a great white shark attacks swimmers off the coast of the beachfront town of Amity or even The Exorcist, in which the devil invades the MacNeil’s Georgetown residence and, indeed, Regan’s body. (Of course, the prototype of the invasion plot is Satan's invasion of Eden!)

In the ancient Greek myth that bears his name, Pygmalion attempted to create what he regarded as the perfect woman, an idea that Mary Shelley revised in her novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, in which Victor von Frankenstein attempts to create, if not the perfect man, at least a male human being fashioned of the body parts of various corpses, a stock situation put to a different use in the campy flick The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This same situation occurs, but with a female resuming the place of honor as the creation, in the movie Bride of Frankenstein, in which the scientist tries to honor his monster’s desire for a main squeeze and again in “Some Assembly Required,” an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which a younger brother tries to assemble a girlfriend for his once-dead older brother, whom he pieced together earlier. Likewise, the Buffy episode in which Warren Mears creates a robotic girlfriend, April, for himself. It might even be argued that the Arnold Schwarzenegger series of Terminator films make use of the man-made man or man-made woman stock situation that was introduced, perhaps, in the ancient Pandora myth.

The taming of the brute, the lost box or room, the invaded community, the man-made man or woman, and the man-made beast are all examples of stock situations which continue to be used (and reused) in horror fiction. By identifying the situations that recur in short stories, novels, and movies, you can add others to your list and, as a result, have a readymade source of storylines to adapt to your own storytelling purposes.

Generating Horror Plots, Part III

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

 

A careful analysis of the storylines of motion pictures, novels, narrative poems, and short stories in the horror genre discloses recurring plot motifs, or formulae. 1. Enact revenge. We discussed this strategy in a previous post. 2. Rescue a damsel in distress. We discussed this strategy in a previous post. 3. Find the strange in the familiar. We discussed this strategy in a previous post. 4. Bring up the past (and relate it to the present). We discussed this strategy in a previous post. 5. Conduct an experiment. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories (“The Birthmark,” “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” which we discussed in a previous post); Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, and many of H. G. Wells’ novels (e. g., The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau) and some of his short stories. Most readers are familiar with Frankenstein, although more so with the movie versions than with the expostulatory novel in which a student of science creates a monstrous human being from cadavers, from which he flees. The monster, seeking companionship, intends to kidnap a boy, but kills him instead, when he learns the boy is his maker’s younger brother, and implicates a girl in the murder. The monster then demands that Frankenstein create a wife for him, and, to protect his family, the student agrees, but, repenting, destroys his work before it is completed, whereupon the monster avenges himself by killing Frankenstein’s bride, his cousin Elizabeth, whose father died soon thereafter, of grief. The grieving groom pursues his creation to the north pole, where the monster commits suicide. In Wells’ The Food of the Gods, scientists Bensington and Redwood concoct Herakleophobia IV, a chemical growth agent that causes organisms, whether plants or animals, to grow to tremendous size. Their experiment commences with chickens, but the careless couple whom they hire to feed the fowl allow other animals to eat the food as well, with the result that giant rats, wasps, and even worms are soon terrorizing the countryside. Armed with rifles, the scientists hunt down the monstrous animals and burn down their farm. However, rather stupid for scientists, the researchers next feed children the chemical treat, producing giants whom the world fear and reject. After one of the giants is killed, the others, whom Wells labels “Children of the Food” square off for a showdown with the normal human beings who persecute them, whom Wells describes as the “Pygmies.” The hatred and fear with which the ostracized Children of the Food are treated by ordinary men and women is echoed by society’s treatment of the Marvel Comics mutant superheroes known as The X-Men. In The Invisible Man, Wells’ scientist is a man named Griffin, believing that a person might be rendered invisible by altering his refractive index to match those of the air so that his body no longer reflects light, puts his theory to the test on himself, with the result that he becomes invisible. Thereafter, he goes insane, threatening and attacking others, until he is beaten to death by a mob. His invisibility formula is lost to posterity because of indecipherable pages in his journal. In The Island of Dr. Moreau, Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked survivor, is brought ashore by natives of a remote, uncharted island, where he discovers Dr. Moreau’s experimental attempts to create man-animal hybrids, the so-called Beast Folk. Moreau is killed by an escaped puma, and, after Moreau’s assistant, Dr. Montgomery, is later killed by the Beast Folk, Prendick lives among the hybrid creatures until he is able to escape the island aboard a ship that washes ashore, is picked up by a ship that is returning to England, and returns to homeland, having learned by the reaction of the rescuers to his tale not to tell of his experiences to others, lest he be thought insane, and adopts the pretense of having acquired amnesia concerning the time he spent as a castaway. The theme of the mad scientist has become a favorite among both science fiction and horror writers, and it underlies such additional stories as Jurassic Park (1993), Metropolis (1927), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), The Mysterious Island (1974), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Carnosaur (1993), Re-Animator (1985), The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak (1984), and many others. 6. Invade paradise. In the film version of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale comes to appreciate the home that she first disparaged, taking her Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and life on their Kansas farm for granted. This is a theme common to many horror films as well, in which the true value of a person, place, or thing, be it ever so humble, is first taken for granted but, after it is threatened, (often, in the case of places, by invasion) is appreciated for, if not exactly paradise, comes to be valued. Invaders From Mars, The War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers are some of the science fiction-cum-horror films that are based upon this there’s-no-place-like-home theme. The haunted house can be an example of an invaded paradise, as it is in Poltergeist, which is invaded by demonic spirits, and another twist on this motif is that of demonic possession in which it is not a place, but a person, who is threatened or, as it were, invaded, as in The Exorcist and The Possession of Emily Rose. 7. Dig up that which has been buried (repressed). Besides concerning himself with such matters as boys’ fears of castration which he believed the sight of a vagina created in males and girls’ supposed “envy” of boys’ penises, the eclectic theorist Sigmund Freud suggested that the uncanny has a déjà vu element that is caused by the fact that unpleasant feelings which have been repressed by a person return in somewhat disguised form and seems at once both familiar and strange, and both attractive and repulsive. Be that as it may, some find the idea of repressed memories a useful springboard for the introduction of horrible and horrific incidents. Xander Harris, a character in the televisions series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sums up this view in his typically zany, but apt, “Xanderspeak,” when he tells the protagonist, Buffy Summers, in the “Dead Man’s Party” episode, “You can't just bury stuff, Buffy. It'll come right back up to get you,” just before their party is attacked by zombies. The Others (2001) is another example of this approach. After she and her children experience a series of bizarre incidents, Grace Stewart believes that her house is haunted, only to find out that the ghosts are living people and that she and her children are the true ghosts who are haunting the house. Grace had repressed the memory of having killed her own children before committing suicide. Hide and Seek (2005) also employs this tactic. Following the murder of her mother, Emily Callaway adopts an imaginary playmate named Charlie, who is actually the alter ego of her father, the murderer, who has a split personality. Emily witnessed her father’s murder of her mother, but repressed the memory of this experience by positing the existence of Charlie as her mother’s actual killer. In subsequent posts, we will continue our consideration of basic horror storylines.

Secondary Antagonists

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Some stories have a main antagonist and one or more lesser, secondary antagonists. The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer was well known for having a Big Bad and a little bad each season except for the first, which was really more like a partial season, since it was comprised of only a dozen episodes. The Big Bad was the villain for the whole season, whereas the little bad was a villain for only a few episodes. The little bad was introduced before the Big Bad, often with several other villains following his or her debut, so as to keep viewers off-balance in discerning which of the several villains might turn out to be the Big Bad. Here’s the way the bads shake out for seasons two through six:

Other works of horror fiction also sometimes employ secondary antagonists.
Stephen King’s novel Carrie’s primary antagonist is Carrie White’s mother; the secondary anatomists are her high school’s bullies. It It, another King novel, the antagonist, a protean shape shifter able to take the form of anyone’s worst fear, is, in effect, its own secondary antagonists while, at the same time, is the novel’s primary antagonist as well.

Dan Simmons’ novel, Summer of Night, has a primary antagonist, and several secondary antagonists: the dead man walking (an eerily silent World War I doughboy’s ghost, huge worms with serrated teeth, a rendering company’s truck spooky driver, and others.

On occasion, a secondary antagonist will work independently of the primary antagonist, whereas, in other instances, he, she, or they will support the primary antagonist, often as a henchman or sidekick, as Spike and Drusilla serve and support Angel in Buffy; as Fritz (often erroneously called “Igor”) assists Dr. Henry Frankenstein in Frankenstein, the 1931 film version of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus; and as Dr. Montgomery aids and abets the criminal “research” that vivisectionist Dr. Moreau performs upon a deserted jungle island in H. G. Wells’ classic 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The use of a secondary antagonist can heighten a story’s suspense, complicate its plot (even becoming the basis or bases for an additional subplot or additional subplots), and can multiply and enrich the story’s theme.

Do Not Pass “Go”; Do Not Collect $200: Monster Board Games

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

When one tires of Monopoly and Scrabble, there’s always the death and destruction of the diabolically creepy horror board game. They may make better Halloween presents than Christmas gifts, but, should Santa need a stocking stuffer, your wee ones could enjoy receiving one of these ghoulish games.


Arkham Horror (Fantasy Flight Games): H. P. Lovecraft provides the town and the mythos. Bizarre incidents occur in the town that Lovecraft made, heralding a horrific catastrophe; Lovecraft’s Old Ones are the culprits, and all that stands between them and the end of the world are the game’s players, a team of investigators, numbering between one and eight, who are twelve years old or older and who can spare two to three hours--not much time when one considers the height of the stakes involved: the fate of the world awaits the throw of the dice.

Gateways open upon other areas of the town, and, if too many open at once, look out! An alien will enter the scene, wrecking havoc. Therefore, it’s a good idea to close the gates! Unfortunately, to do so, the players themselves must enter these same portals and be teleported to--well, somewhere else.

An interesting addition to this game is its extension, Dunwich Horror (also manufactured by Fantasy Night Games), which supplies a game board for another Lovecraft town, Dunwich, which is a short distance from Arkham and is beset by its own mystical and macabre problems. The play is similar, but the rules have changed. Similar games from the same maker are the additional Arkham Horror Expansion games Kingsport Horror (based on yet another of the fictional towns that Lovecraft invented), Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, and The Black Goat of the Woods.

There is also Zombie Town: players’ neighborhood have gone to the zombies, who rise from their graves in the cemetery in the middle of the community, and no help is forthcoming; it’s up to each player to scrounge up the makeshift weapons he or she needs to survive for the ten days’ duration of play, by which time the neighborhood will be overrun by zombies, some of whom will be one’s next-door neighbors! Isn’t this the same premise of The Beverly Hillbillies?


For younger players, All Wound Up: Escape from the Cemetery (Twilight Creations) is a fun alternative, in which the pieces are, as the game’s title suggests, wind-up zombie toys. Players are allowed to wind their avatars so many times, depending upon their play, as they race in various directions to be the first to reach the cemetery’s front gate. Two to four players, eight to adult, can participate in the mayhem.


Dracula (Rio Grande Games/Kosmos) is based upon Bram Stoker’s novel, and sets Dr. van Helsing the unenviable task of locating the coffins of the undead while his nemesis, Count Dracula himself, seeks five new victims. Play lasts about half an hour, can be joined by two who are twelve or older and have sound hearts, if not sound minds, and contains such contents as the game board, cards, figures, barriers, energy cubes, and a rulebook, which, appropriately enough, come in a box. This is one you can really sink your teeth into! (Sorry; couldn’t resist.)


There are lots of other games in the horror genre waiting to take a bite out of your favorite goblin this Christmas; some are apt to be harder to find than others, and a few may be out of production altogether (but there’s always eBay):

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Susan Prescot Games)
• Dracula’s Revenge (Human Head Studios/Green Ronin Publishing)
• Frankenstein’s Children (Human Head Studios)
• Vampire: Prince of the City
• When Darkness Comes: The Awakening Game Board (Twilight Creations)
• Munchkin Bites (Steve Jackson Games)
• Betrayal at the House on the Hill (Avalon Hill)
• Ghosts (Milton Bradley)
• The Great Brain Robbery (Cheapass Games)
• Minion Hunter (Games Designers Workshop/Dark Conspiracy)
• Which Witch? (Milton Bradley)

Guest Speaker: H. P. Lovecraft: Supernatural Horror In Literature, Part V

V. The Aftermath Of Gothic Fiction

Meanwhile other hands had not been idle, so that above the dreary plethora of trash like Marquis von Grosse's Horrid Mysteries (1796), Mrs. Roche's Children of the Abbey (1798), Mrs. Dacre's Zofloya; or, the Moor (1806), and the poet Shelley's schoolboy effusions Zastro (1810) and St. Irvine (1811) (both imitations of Zofloya) there arose many memorable weird works both in English and German. Classic in merit, and markedly different from its fellows because of its foundation in the Oriental tale rather than the Walpolesque Gothic novel, is the celebrated History of the Caliph Vathek by the wealthy dilettante William Beckford, first written in the French language but published in an English translation before the appearance of the original. Eastern tales, introduced to European literature early in the eighteenth century through Galland's French translation of the inexhaustibly opulent Arabian Nights, had become a reigning fashion; being used both for allegory and for amusement. The sly humour which only the Eastern mind knows how to mix with weirdness had captivated a sophisticated generation, till Bagdad and Damascus names became as freely strewn through popular literature as dashing Italian and Spanish ones were soon to be. Beckford, well read in Eastern romance, caught the atmosphere with unusual receptivity; and in his fantastic volume reflected very potently the haughty luxury, sly disillusion, bland cruelty, urbane treachery, and shadowy spectral horror of the Saracen spirit. His seasoning of the ridiculous seldom mars the force of his sinister theme, and the tale marches onward with a phantasmagoric pomp in which the laughter is that of skeletons feasting under arabesque domes. Vathek is a tale of the grandson of the Caliph Haroun, who, tormented by that ambition for super-terrestrial power, pleasure and learning which animates the average Gothic villain or Byronic hero (essentially cognate types), is lured by an evil genius to seek the subterranean throne of the mighty and fabulous pre-Adamite sultans in the fiery halls of Eblis, the Mahometan Devil. The descriptions of Vathek's palaces and diversions, of his scheming sorceress-mother Carathis and her witch-tower with the fifty one-eyed negresses, of his pilgrimage to the haunted ruins of Istakhar (Persepolis) and of the impish bride Nouronihar whom he treacherously acquired on the way, of Istakhar's primordial towers and terraces in the burning moonlight of the waste, and of the terrible Cyclopean halls of Eblis, where, lured by glittering promises, each victim is compelled to wander in anguish for ever, his right hand upon his blazingly ignited and eternally burning heart, are triumphs of weird colouring which raise the book to a permaneat place in English letters. No less notable are the three Episodes of Vathek, intended for insertion in the tale as narratives of Vathek's fellow-victims in Eblis' infernal halls, which remained unpublished throughout the author's lifetime and were discovered as recently as 1909 by the scholar Lewis Melville whilst collecting material for his Life and Letters of William Beckford. Beckford, however, lacks the essential mysticism which marks the acutest form of the weird; so that his tales have a certain knowing Latin hardness and clearness preclusive of sheer panic fright.

But Beckford remained alone in his devotion to the Orient. Other writers, closer to the Gothic tradition and to European life in general, were content to follow more faithfully in the lead of Walpole. Among the countless producers of terror-literature in these times may be mentioned the Utopian economic theorist William Godwin, who followed his famous but non-supernatural Caleb Williams (1794) with the intendedly weird St. Leon (1799), in which the theme of the elixir of life, as developed by the imaginary secret order of "Rosicrucians," is handled with ingeniousness if not with atmospheric convincingness. This element of Rosicrucianism, fostered by a wave of popular magical interest exemplified in the vogue of the charlatan Cagliostro and the publication of Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801), a curious and compendious treatise on occult principles and ceremonies, of which a reprint was made as lately as 1896, figures in Bulwer-Lytton and in many late Gothic novels, especially that remote and enfeebled posterity which straggled far down into the nineteenth century and was represented by George W.M. Reynold's Faust and the Demon and Wagner the Wehr-Wolf. Caleb Williams, though non-supernatural, has many authentic touches of terror. It is the tale of a servant persecuted by a master whom he has found guilty of murder, and displays an invention and skill which have kept it alive in a fashion to this day. It was dramatized as The Iron Chest, and in that form was almost equally celebrated. Godwin, however, was too much the conscious teacher and prosaic man of thought to create a genuine weird masterpiece.


His daughter, the wife of Shelley, was much more successful; and her inimitable Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1817) is one of the horror-classics of all time. Composed in competition with her husband, Lord Byron, and Dr. John William Polidori in an effort to prove supremacy in horror-making, Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein was the only one of the rival narratives to be brought to an elaborate completion; and criticism has failed to prove that the best parts are due to Shelley rather than to her. The novel, somewhat tinged but scarcely marred by moral didacticism, tells of the artificial human being moulded from charnel fragments by Victor Frankenstein, a young Swiss medical student. Created by its designer "in the mad pride of intellectuality," the monster possesses full intelligence but owns a hideously loathsome form. It is rejected by mankind, becomes embittered, and at length begins the successive murder of all whom Frankenstein loves best, friends and family. It demands that Frankenstein create a wife for it; and when the student finally refuses in horror lest the world be populated with such monsters, it departs with a hideous threat "to be with him on his wedding night." Upon that night the bride is strangled, and from that time on Frankenstein hunts down the monster, even into the wastes of the Arctic. In the end, whilst seeking shelter on the ship of the man who tells the story, Frankenstein himself is killed by the shocking object of his search and creation of his presumptuous pride. Some of the scenes in Frankenstein are unforgettable, as when the newly animated monster enters its creator's room, parts the curtains of his bed, and gazes at him in the yellow moonlight with watery eyes--"if eyes they may be called." Mrs. Shelley wrote other novels, including the fairly notable Last Man; but never duplicated the success of her first effort. It has the true touch of cosmic fear, no matter how much the movement may lag in places. Dr. Polidori developed his competing idea as a long short story, The Vampyre; in which we behold a suave villain of the true Gothic or Byronic type, and encounter some excellent passages of stark fright, including a terrible nocturnal experience in a shunned Grecian wood.

In this same period Sir Walter Scott frequently concerned himself with the weird, weaving it into many of his novels and poems, and sometimes producing such independent bits of narration as The Tapestried Chamber or Wandering Willie's Tale in Redgauntlet, in the latter of which the force of the spectral and the diabolic is enhanced by a grotesque homeliness of speech and atmosphere. In 1830 Scott published his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, which still forms one of our best compendia of European witch-lore. Washington Irving is another famous figure not unconnected with the weird; for though most of his ghosts are too whimsical and humorous to form genuinely spectral literature, a distinct inclination in this direction is to be noted in many of his productions. "The German Student" in Tales of a Traveler (1824) is a slyly concise and effective presentation of the old legend of the dead bride, whilst woven into the cosmic tissue of "The Money Diggers" in the same volume is more than one hint of piratical apparitions in the realms which Captain Kidd once roamed. Thomas Moore also joined the ranks of the macabre artists in the poem Alciphron, which he later elaborated into the prose novel of The Epicurean (1827). Though merely relating the adventures of a young Athenian duped by the artifice of cunning Egyptian priests, Moore manages to infuse much genuine horror into his account of subterranean frights and wonders beneath the primordial temples of Memphis. De Quincey more than once revels in grotesque and arabesque terrors, though with a desultoriness and learned pomp which deny him the rank of specialist.

This era likewise saw the rise of William Harrison Ainsworth, whose romantic novels teem with the eerie and the gruesome. Capt. Marryat, besides writing such short tales as "The Werewolf," made a memorable contribution in The Phantom Ship (1839), founded on the legend of the Flying Dutchman, whose spectral and accursed vessel sails for ever near the Cape of Good Hope. Dickens now rises with occasional weird bits like “The Signalman,” a tale of ghastly warning conforming to a very common pattern and touched with a verisimilitude which allied it as much with the coming psychological school as with the dying Gothic school. At this time a wave of interest in spiritualistic charlatanry, mediumism, Hindoo theosophy, and such matters, much like that of the present day, was flourishing; so that the number of weird tales with a "Psychic" or pseudo-scientific basis became very considerable. For a number of these the prolific and popular Edward Bulwer-Lytton was responsible; and despite the large doses of turgid rhetoric and empty romanticism in his products, his success in the weaving of a certain kind of bizarre charm cannot be denied.

The House and the Brain, which hints of Rosicrucianism and at a malign and deathless figure perhaps suggested by Louis XV's mysterious courtier St. Germain, yet survives as one of the best short haunted-house tales ever written. The novel Zanoni (1842) contains similar elements more elaborately handled, and introduces a vast unknown sphere of being pressing on our own world and guarded by a horrible "Dweller of the Threshold" who haunts those who try to enter and fail. Here we have a benign brotherhood kept alive from age to age till finally reduced to a single member, and as a hero an ancient Chaldaean sorcerer surviving in the pristine bloom of youth to perish on the guillotine of the French Revolution. Though full of the conventional spirit of romance, marred by a ponderous network of symbolic and didactic meanings, and left unconvincing through lack of perfect atmospheric realization of the situations hinging on the spectral world, Zanoni is really an excellent performance as a romantic novel; and can be read with genuine interest by the not too sophisticated reader. It is amusing to note that in describing an attempted initiation into the ancient brotherhood the author cannot escape using the stock Gothic castle of Walpolian lineage.

In A Strange Story (1862) Bulwer-Lytton shows a marked improvement in the creation of weird images and moods. The novel, despite enormous length, a highly artificial plot bolstered up by opportune coincidences, and an atmosphere of homiletic pseudo-science designed to please the matter-of-fact and purposeful Victorian reader, is exceedingly effective as a narrative; evoking instantaneous and unflagging interest, and furnishing many potent--if somewhat melodramatic--tableaux and climaxes. Again we have the mysterious user of life's elixir in the person of the soulless magician Margrave, whose dark exploits stand out with dramatic vividness against the modern background of a quiet English town and of the Australian bush; and again we have shadowy intimations of a vast spectral world of the unknown in the very air about us--this time handled with much greater power and vitality than in Zanoni. One of the two great incantation passages, where the hero is driven by a luminous evil spirit to rise at night in his sleep, take a strange Egyptian wand, and evoke nameless presences in the haunted and mausoleum-facing pavilion of a famous Renaissance alchemist, truly stands among the major terror scenes of literature. Just enough is suggested, and just little enough is told. Unknown words are twice dictated to the sleep-walker, and as he repeats them the ground trembles, and all the dogs of the countryside begin to bay at half-seen amorphous shadows that stalk athwart the moonlight. When a third set of unknown words is prompted, the sleep-walker's spirit suddenly rebels at uttering them, as if the soul could recognize ultimate abysmal horrors concealed from the mind; and at last an apparition of an absent sweetheart and good angel breaks the malign spell. This fragment well illustrates how far Lord Lytton was capable of progressing beyond his usual pomp and stock romance toward that crystalline essence of artistic fear which belongs to the domain of poetry. In describing certain details of incantations, Lytton was greatly indebted to his amusingly serious occult studies, in the course of which he came in touch with that odd French scholar and cabalist Alphonse Louis Constant ("Eliphas Levy"), who claimed to possess the secrets of ancient magic, and to have evoked the spectre of the old Grecian wizard Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in Nero's times.

The romantic, semi-Gothic, quasi-moral tradition here represented was carried far down the nineteenth century by such authors as Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Wilkie Collins, the late Sir H. Rider Haggard (whose She is really remarkably good), Sir A. Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Robert Louis Stevenson--the latter of whom, despite an atrocious tendency toward jaunty mannerisms, created permanent classics in Markheim, The Body Snatcher, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Indeed, we may say that this school still survives; for to it clearly belong such of our contemporary horror-tales as specialise in events rather than atmospheric details, address the intellect rather than a malign tensity or psychological verisimilitude, and take a definite stand in sympathy with mankind and its welfare. It has its undeniable strength, and because of its "human element" commands a wider audience than does the sheer artistic nightmare. If not quite so potent as the latter, it is because a diluted product can never achieve the intensity of a concentrated essence.


Quite alone both as a novel and as a piece of terror-literature stands the famous Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë, with its mad vistas of bleak, windswept Yorkshire moors and the violent, distorted lives they foster. Though primarily a tale of life, and of human passions in agony and conflict, its epically cosmic setting affords room for horror of the most spiritual sort. Heathcliff, the modified Byronic villain-hero, is a strange dark waif found in the streets as a small child and speaking only a strange gibberish till adopted by the family he ultimately ruins. That he is in truth a diabolic spirit rather than a human being is more than once suggested, and the unreal is further approached in the experience of the visitor who encounters a plaintive child-ghost at a bough-brushed upper window. Between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is a tie deeper and more terrible than human love. After her death he twice disturbs her grave, and is haunted by an impalpable presence which can be nothing less than her spirit. The spirit enters his life more and more, and at last he becomes confident of some imminent mystical reunion. He says he feels a strange change approaching, and ceases to take nourishment. At night he either walks abroad or opens the casement by his bed. When he dies the casement is still swinging open to the pouring rain, and a queer smile pervades the stiffened face. They bury him in a grave beside the mound he has haunted for eighteen years, and small shepherd boys say that he yet walks with his Catherine in the churchyard and on the moor when it rains. Their faces, too, are sometimes seen on rainy nights behind that upper casement at Wuthering Heights. Miss Brontë's eerie terror is no mere Gothic echoe, but a tense expression of man's shuddering reaction to the unknown. In this respect, Wuthering Heights becomes the symbol of a literary transition, and marks the growth of a new and sounder school.

Masters of the Macabre

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Genre fiction focuses upon the conveyance of one emotion. For science fiction, according to C. S. Lewis, the emotion is wonder, whereas, Edgar Allan Poe implies, horror fiction, as the genre’s name suggests, evokes horror. Why readers would want to be frightened out of their wits is taken up in another post, “Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear.” Other genres inspire other emotions, but this post is concerned simply with naming names--that is, with identifying authors who have written works of horror fiction. Many mined the mother lode of horror; others panned for the gold only once or twice. In every respect, though, each of the authors listed has written at least one satisfying poem, short story, novel, play, or motion picture that delves into fear, and, in this regard, may be considered a master of the macabre. When a writer has written many works in the genre, only his or her name is listed; when the author has written only one or two instances of the fiction of fear (or a truly seminal work* in the field), the title of the work is also listed. Some of the names on our roster are likely to surprise those for whom horror fiction is not one’s daily bread. We thought of listing the names chronologically, by sex, by the stature of the author’s literary reputation, by the volume of works that he or she wrote in the horror genre, and in various other ways, but decided, at last, upon an alphabetical listing.

• Adam, Richard, The Girl in a Swing
• Andrews, V. C.
• Anson, Jay, The Amityville Horror
• Barker, Clive
• Beaumont, Charles
• Benchley, Peter, Jaws
• Bierce, Ambrose
• Blackwood, Algernon

William Peter Blatty

• Blatty, William Peter, The Exorcist (seminal)
• Bloch, Robert, Psycho (seminal)

Robert Bloch

• Bradbury, Ray, Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Brandner, Gary, The Howling
• Brite, Poppy Z.
• Browning, Robert
• Campbell, Ramsey
• Clark, Mary Higgins
• Clegg, Douglas
• Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel (seminal)
• Dante, Alighieri, The Inferno
• De Felitta, Frank, Audrey Rose
• Dickens, Charles, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, “The Signalman”
• Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan
• Du Maurier, Daphne, The Birds (seminal)
• Duncan, Lois, I Know What You Did Last Summer
• Eddy, Jr., C. M.
• Ehrlich, Max, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud
• Faulkner, William, “A Rose for Emily”
• Farris, John
• Finney, Jack, Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Fowles, John, The Collector
• Gilbert, Stephen
• Golding, William, Lord of the Flies

Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Hawthorne, Nathaniel (seminal)
• Irving, Washington, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
• Jackson, Shirley, The Haunting of Hill House (seminal), “The Lottery”
• Jacobs, W. W., “The Monkey’s Paw”
• James, Henry, “The Turn of the Screw”
• James, M. R.
• Kafka, Franz, The Metamorphosis
• Keene, Brian

Stephen King

• King, Stephen (seminal)
• Koontz, Dean (seminal)
• Laimo, Michael
• Le Fanu, Sheridan
• Levin, Ira, Rosemary’s Baby (seminal)
• Ligotti, Thomas
• Little, Bentley
• Lovecraft, H. P. (seminal)
• Machen, Arthur
• Marasco, Robert, Burnt Offerings
• Matheson, Richard
• McCammon, Robert
• Milton, John, Paradise Lost
• Oates, Joyce Carol

Flannery O'Connor

• O’Connor, Flannery (seminal)
• Onion, Oliver, “The Beckoning Fair One”
• Peck, Richard, Are You Alone in the House?
• Peretti, Frank E. (seminal)
• Perkins, Charlotte, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
• Pike, Christopher

Edgar Allan Poe

• Poe, Edgar Allan, Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque (seminal)
• Polidori, John William, The Vampyre
• Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child
• Price, E. Hoffman
• Quinn, Seabury
• Radcliffe, Ann, The Mysteries of Udolpho
• Rice, Anne
• Rollins, James
• Saul, John
• Shakespeare, William, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet (seminal)
• Shan, Darren

Mary Shelley

• Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (seminal)
• Simmons, Dan
• Smith, Clark Ashton

Robert Louis Stevenson

• Stevenson, Robert Louis, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (seminal)
• Stine, R. L.

Bram Stoker

• Stoker, Bram, Dracula (seminal)
• Straub, Peter
• Tem, Steve and Melanie
• Tryon, Thomas
• Twain, Mark, “A Ghost Story” (seminal)
• Van Vogt, A. E., “The Black Destroyer”
• Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Faust
• Wakefield, H. Russell
• Wallace, Edgar, King Kong (seminal)
• Walpole, Horace, The Castle or Otranto (seminal)

H. G. Wells

• Wells, H. G. (seminal)
• Wilde, Oscar, The Picture of Dorian Gray (seminal)
• Wilson, Colin
• Wordsworth, William, the “Lucy” poems
• Wyndham, John, The Village of the Damned (seminal)

* Although what one considers to be a "seminal work" is apt to be controversial, the term as it is used in this post is attributed to literary works that have had a lasting importance upon the horror genre or that proved innovative in having established a new direction for succeeding works in the same genre or in expanding its subject matter.

Buffy: More than Pastiche

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a pastiche, as executive producer Marti Noxon freely admits in a comment on the series’ third season compact disc (CD). Most viewers believe the series was far superior during its first three seasons than it was thereafter. One reason for this, perhaps, is that the show based many of its earlier episodes upon classic horror monsters, offering Buffy’s take on them. If “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” as Charles Caleb Cotton said, Buffy is positively sycophantic toward such artists and movies as:

• Cat People (“The Pack”)
• The Terminator, and (if only in the title) Tarzan the Ape Man (“I Robot, You Jane”)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (“Nightmares”)
• H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (“Out of Sight, Out of Mind”)
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (“Some Assembly Required”)
• The Mummy (“Inca Mummy Girl”)
• The Terminator (“Ted”)
• Werewolf films and folklore (“Phases” and others)
• The Creature from the Black Lagoon (“Go Fish”)
• Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, Night of the Living Dead and the Gorgons (Greek mythology) (“Dead Man’s Party”)
• Hansel and Gretel (“Gingerbread”)
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (“Primeval” and other episodes featuring Adam)
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (“Buffy vs. Dracula”)
• Ground Hog Day (“Life Serial”)
• Tremors (“Beneath You”)

It’s fine to be “inspired” by other writers and their works, as long as other writers’ ideas are treated differently in one’s own work--as long as, to paraphrase Noxon, one makes the other’s creature feature one’s own. Just by relating classic horror monsters to contemporary teens and the problems and issues that they face in their daily lives, Buffy goes a long way in doing this. Of course, the characters, the setting, the conflicts, the themes, and pretty much every other dramatic element also differs as a result of bringing the monsters into a new arena, just as these elements are drastically different in Bram Stoker’s Dracula as compared to Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, despite the fact that both stories feature vampires.

It may be instructive to examine Buffy’s treatment of a couple of the classic horror monsters, so, in this post, we’ll take a look at the show’s use of three in the same episode: Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, Night of the Living Dead and the Gorgons of Greek mythology, all of which inform the plot of “Dead Man’s Party,” and at werewolf lore, which is developed in “Phases” and several of the series’ other episodes.

In “Dead Man’s Party,” Buffy Summers has just returned home to Sunnydale after running away to Los Angeles, where she’d been living in a motel and working as a waitress in Helen’s Kitchen (an allusion to New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen), calling herself by her middle name, Anne. Now that she’s returned, her friends and her mother, Joyce, insist upon throwing her a welcome-home party. Unfortunately, Buffy is still struggling with the “fallout” from her “love life,” as she characterizes her problematic relationship with Angel in “I Only Have Eyes for You”: in the episode previous to “Anne,” Buffy had to dispatch Angel to hell in order to prevent him from sucking the world into the same dimension, and, in an argument with her mother, who forbade her to leave the house, Joyce told Buffy not to come back if she left the house. Buffy’s attempts to repress her feelings are not working.

After Joyce, the owner of an art gallery, hangs a Nigerian mask on her bedroom wall, she announces to Buffy that she is hosting Buffy’s welcome-home party, and sends Buffy to the basement to retrieve their better dishes. As she does so, Buffy discovers the cadaver of a cat, which mother and daughter bury in the back yard. That night, the mask glows, and the cat is resurrected. The next day, it returns to the Summers’ house, shocking Buffy and Joyce, who call Buffy’s watcher (mentor), Rupert Giles, the high school librarian. Giles traps the animal in a cage and takes it to the library to study. The resurrection of the dead, buried cat is an allusion to Stephen King’s novel, Pet Sematary, in which a beloved pet is buried after being killed and returns (as, later, a dead child, buried in the same cemetery, does, as well).

During the party, it’s clear that Buffy is not coping well with her difficulties. She seems to have been avoiding her best friend and confidante, Willow Rosenberg. Xander, on the other hand, is too busy spending time with Cordelia Chase, his newfound girlfriend, to pay Buffy much attention. Buffy overhears Joyce confide in a friend as to how difficult it is for her to have Buffy back home again. Meanwhile, Buffy is surrounded by strangers who have crashed her party. Feeling alienated and alone, she packs her bags to run away again, but she’s caught by Joyce and Willow. In a confrontation between mother and daughter, in front of her friends and the other partygoers, Buffy is humiliated. Xander also confronts her, telling her that she must deal with her problems rather than trying to repress them: “You can’t just bury things, Buffy. They’ll come right back to get you.” They do just this, in the form of zombies.

In his research, Giles learns the secret of the Nigerian mask that Joyce has hung on her bedroom wall, and rushes to the Summers house to warn Joyce and Buffy, but, on the way, he’s attacked by the zombies.

As Joyce and Xander confront Buffy, the zombies crash Buffy’s party, attacking and killing guests in a scene reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead.

One drags Joyce’s friend, Pat, down a hallway. Buffy, Joyce, Xander, and Willow take refuge in Joyce’s bedroom, where they find Pat lying on the floor, while Willow’s boyfriend, Oz, and Cordelia hide in a closet downstairs. Checking her pulse, Willow confirms their fears: Pat is dead.
As Oz and Cordelia step out of the closet, they encounter Giles, who’s just arrived, and he explains that Joyce’s mask is imbued with the power of a zombie demon, Ovu Monabi, or Evil Eye. The zombies have come to retrieve it. Whoever dons the mask becomes the demon.

Pat shocks everyone by recovering. She was dead, but, now, she lives. She’s also wearing the mask, having become the zombie demon. In a fight with Buffy, the slayer knocks the demon through Joyce’s bedroom window, and both combatants tumble off the roof, to land in the yard below. During the fight, Buffy learns that the demon can paralyze people, after the fashion of Medusa and the other Gorgons of Greek mythology, whose look could turn their victims into stone. When Oz distracts the demon, it paralyzes him, giving Buffy the chance she needs to attack the monster, and she shoves a shovel into its eyes, blinding it. Defenseless, the demon (and the body of Pat) vanishes, and those who were paralyzed recover.

The episode ends with Buffy and Willow bonding as life returns to as-close-to-normal as it gets in Sunnydale.

This episode fuses elements of the plots of King’s Pet Sematary, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, and the Greek myth of the Gorgons. However, these elements are synthesized in a way that makes them unique to the demands of Buffy’s continuing storyline. The resurrection of the dead cat foreshadows Pat’s resurrection, both of which are accomplished by virtue of the power of the mask; the zombies are associated with the mask, but they also represent the powerful negative emotions that Buffy has sought to repress, or bury; and the power of unresolved emotional trauma, represented by the demonic mask and the demon’s power to paralyze its victims, represents Buffy’s alienation, her inability to cope, and the destructiveness to others of her unwillingness to communicate. In using these elements, the Buffy writers have made them their own, as Noxon says, and, in doing so, have transformed them rather than simply copied them off from other writers and stories.

“Phases,” “Wild at Heart,” and other Buffy episodes use werewolf legends and folklore in a similar way to develop the TV show’s continuing storylines and themes.

There hasn’t been a definitive story about werewolves the way there has been, with Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, a definitive story about vampires. The closest that the literature of horror has come in distilling the legends and folklore regarding the hirsute horror is, perhaps, The Wolfman, starring Lon Chaney. For the most part, however, the stories concerning werewolves remains fragmented and diverse, lacking a center. In the episodes of Buffy that concern the werewolf as an antagonist, the series provides a center, if not a definitive one, for this character, as it appears in the Buffy mythos.

The show’s writers cleverly play upon the idea that the creature is a monster only on the night preceding a full moon, on the night of the full moon, and on the night following the full moon, or three days out of a month. (Traditionally, a werewolf is a werewolf only on the night of the full moon, but the show’s writers wanted to suggests that their three-day period is equivalent to a woman’s menstrual period, as Willow tells her boyfriend, Oz, the show‘s sometime-werewolf, “Three days out of the month, I’m not much fun to be around, either.”)

Willow, Buffy, Giles, and the other members of their clique protect Oz from a poacher whose specialty is werewolves. (He makes necklaces of their teeth and sells their pelts.) To protect Oz and those whom he might kill and devour were he allowed to run free during his “period,” Oz is locked inside the library’s rare books cage. In another departure from most werewolf lore, Oz suffers guilt, in “Beauty and the Beasts,” when he escapes from the cage and believes that he may be responsible for the death of a human being. In the same episode, he says, after having devoured part of the actual killer after a fight with him, which Oz, in his werewolf avatar, wins, he says, that, oddly enough, he feels full although he hasn’t eaten. Oz doesn’t recall his actions as a werewolf when he reverts to human form. Such forgetfulness is in keeping with traditional werewolf lore. However, this will change, he is assured by a fellow werewolf, Veruca, whom he meets in “Wild at Heart.” Veruca has been a werewolf longer than Oz, and, after they are intimate as werewolves (if such creatures can in any real sense of the word be intimate), she tells him that she can recall some of her experiences as a werewolf, and relishes them, as he will do as well, eventually. The prospect horrifies Oz rather than delighting him.

When Veruca approaches Oz the next night, he locks her inside the library book cage with him, and Willow finds their naked bodies, there, the next morning. Later, Veruca attacks Willow, but is saved by Oz, who, in his werewolf state, attacks and kills Veruca. Next, he turns on Willow, but Buffy’s arrival saves the witch, and, the next day, distraught at the thought that he may have killed Willow, Oz leaves Sunnydale to seek a cure for his lycanthropy.

When he finds the cure, Oz returns, finding that Willow has become enamored of another woman, her fellow college student, Tara Maclay. Enraged, he reverts to his vampire self, and attacks Tara, but he is subdued by a military platoon led by Buffy’s new boyfriend, Riley Finn. When Oz escapes, he leaves Sunnydale for good, accepting the fact that Willow loves Tara rather than him.

The romantic relationship that Oz has with Willow is another departure from traditional werewolf lore. One reason that the legends concerning this monster may remain fragmented and diverse rather than having acquired coherence and a more cohesive structure is that the beast, rather than the human, aspects of the monster have been highlighted historically. When the protagonist is more animal than man, character development is unlikely. One of Buffy’s more creative innovations with regard to the show’s use of werewolf folklore is to reverse this treatment, showing the humanity of the monster rather than the bestiality of the human. Because Oz is allowed to be not only a beast but a man, the writers can more fully develop both his character and the tradition out of which it, in part, comes. After all, werewolf is motivated, primarily, by instincts, but a person, being far more complex, is motivated by many impulses, instinctive, emotional, rational, and otherwise. The show’s use of the werewolf motif, like its use of the zombie motif, is complex, but it is also unique, because it makes it serve its own narrative and dramatic purposes. In so doing, the show makes these classic monsters its own, rather than simply using them as the monster of the week or the creature feature of the moment.

Everyday Horrors: Bureaucrats

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Come on, come on, come on, now, touch me, babe.
Can’t you see that I am not afraid?

-- The Doors

Caution: The Yuck Factor of this paragraph is 8.8 on a scale of 10! A couple of years back, upon visiting a restroom at a fast-food restaurant, I witnessed an employee exit a toilet stall. He didn’t so much as pause at the sink on his way out. Sure enough, I saw him behind the counter, in the food preparation area, and I promptly notified his manger, who was chewing him out (but should have fired him on the spot) as I left, making a mental note never to frequent this establishment again.

In public restrooms, we put paper sanitary shields on toilet seats before using the commode (although we’re not sure how effective a barrier to germs a thin layer of paper really is) and most of us use a paper towel as a makeshift glove before turning the door handle to let ourselves out of the facility (although we’re not sure how effective a barrier to germs a thin layer of paper really is).

Caution: The Yuck Factor of this paragraph is 9.8 on a scale of 10! The ladies among Chillers and Thrillers' vast audience of readers and writers may not realize this, as most of them are unlikely to have entered many men’s rooms, especially when men have been present within these rooms, but many men do not wash their hands after urinating! They simply walk past the waiting sinks as if neither these fixtures, hand soap, nor paper towels are there. (Fortunately, with a few exceptions, such as the one mentioned in the first paragraph, men do wash their hands after performing the other restroom task.) What’s frightening about men with poor hygiene habits is that not washing one’s hands after urinating is a known transmission route for hepatitis, a particularly nasty disease. (Mothers, do us all a favor, and teach your boys to wash up after using the toilet or the urinal, please!)

We are all victims of systems beyond our control.

-- The Jefferson Airplane

In more innocent days, we used to believe that the government (a) cared about us, (b) was looking out for our welfare, and (c) is competent. We’ve since learned the truth that the government (a) cares only about our tax dollars, (b) is looking out for its own welfare, and (c) is incompetent. In the old days, the government sometimes subjected its citizens to bizarre medical or scientific studies, as when, during the Tuskegee Experiment, black American males who’d become infected with syphilis went untreated so that doctors could study the progress of disease--up to the point, at least, that it killed the subjects.

Now, as far as anyone knows, the government isn’t seeking our death and destruction by any such active neglect (except by its refusal to protect and defend its own borders, which may be creating a resurgence of diseases that the medical establishment once had on the ropes).

The government's incompetence and indifference to its responsibilities causes many significant and dangerous problems, such as the possible infection of 40,000 patients of a handful of medical clinics in Las Vegas, Reno, and Henderson, Nevada, in which medical personnel reused syringes while administering anesthetics to endoscopic and other patients. It turns out that, in many cases, the Clark County Health Department may have been remiss in inspecting these facilities. A lawsuit is in the works, but cash awards and prison time for the doctors and nurses (if, indeed, any are punished in such a fashion) is little comfort to someone who may have been given hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or HIV along with their joy juice.

Science fiction and horror writers have warned readers of the amoral and immoral conduct of government officials and mad scientists for years, but many have supposed such fictional accounts of human greed, sloth, and the other so-called deadly sins inherent in such behavior to have been purely imaginary. Such indifference, arrogance, and greed might provide fodder for suspenseful fiction, many thought, but the U. S. of A. is not, and never will be, Nazi Germany. Americans, in government offices and in scientific laboratories, have morals. They are principled. They have consciences. Doctors even swear to “do no harm.” The terrors unleashed in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in H. G. Wells’ The Food of the Gods or The Island of Dr. Moreau, in Robin Cook’s Coma, in Stephen King’s Firestarter and The Stand, in Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, in Douglas Preston’s and Lincoln Child’s Mount Dragon, in James Rollins’ Amazonia, and the many other novels devoted to bureaucratic and scientific insanity and malice couldn’t happen here, not in America.
In most cases, of course, this is true, if for no other reason than that these novels, for the most part, depict terrors and horrors that remain beyond the possibility of science and technology.

For the moment, at least.


“Everyday Horrors: Bureaucrats” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured on Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.

Everyday Horrors: Castles and Hotels

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Gothic romance is a product of the European imagination and of the European landscape. Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764) was one of the earliest novels to combine elements of horror with elements of literary romance. (The novel may be downloaded free from Project Gutenberg.) Other important Gothic romances include The History of the Caliph Vathek (1786) by William Beckford, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk (1796) by Gregory Lewis, Wieland (1798) by Charles Brockden Brown, Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley, Melmouth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Robert Maturin, Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan le Fanu, Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker, and Gormenghast (1946-1959) by Mervyn Peake. Many of these books are set in gloomy castles in which supernatural incidents occur.

Occasionally, the castles in such novels are modeled upon, in part, at least, actual castles, and the one in Peake’s novels, Gormenghast, is comprised of a mixture of features from various actual castles as well as cities, mansions, and universities: its walls are like those of Normal castles and those of ancient Chinese cities, while the buildings resemble those of Gothic and Regency mansions and English country houses. The professors’ living quarters and the courtyards within Gormenghast are similar to those at Oxford and Cambridge.

Bran Castle (Dracula's Castle)

In other instances, the castles are based upon a single actual fortress. Frankenstein’s castle is modeled upon eighteenth-century Lord Konrad Dippel Von Frankenstein’s residence near the small village of Muhltal, not far from Darmstadt, Germany, and Dracula’s residence, is derived from Bran Castle (now a museum), which stands near Bran, Romania, on the Transylvania-Wallachia border.

Castle Frankenstein

Because of their antiquity, the privileged lives of the nobles who dwelled within their walls, the horrible punishments endured in their dungeons, their remote locations, and their vast, dark and dank interiors, many castles are said to be haunted, including, in England alone, Arundle Castle (Sussex), Bamburgh Castle (Northumberland), Berkeley Castle (Berkeley Gloucestershire), Berry Pomeroy Castle (Berry Pomeroy Devon), Bramber Castle (West Sussex), Castle Rising (Castle Rising, Norfolk), Chillingham Castle (Northumberland), Corby Castle (Cumbria), Corfe Castle (Wareham Dorset), Dacre Castle (Cumbria), Dunstanburgh Castle (Northumberland), Dunster Castle (Somerset), Featherstone Castle (Northumberland), Hever Castle (Kent), Lowther Castle (Cumbria), Morton Corbet Castle (Shropshire), Muncaster Castle (Cumbria), Okehampton Castle (Devon), Pevensey Castle (Sussex), Pontefract Castle (West Yorkshire), Raby Castle (County Durham), Tamworth Castle (Tamworth, Staffordshire), Tintagel Castle (Tintagel Cornwall), Tower of London, Warkworth Castle (Northumberland), and Windsor Castle (Berkshire). Castles in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and mainland Europe are also said to be haunted. For example, Windsor Castle, built by William the Conqueror to “guard the western approaches to the capital,” is believed to be haunted by several ghosts, among them Queen Elizabeth I, who favors the library and a boy’s ghost, who favors the chapel. The grounds and nearby forest are also rumored to be haunted, the former by a band of interlopers, the latter by King Richard II’s favorite huntsman, Herne the Hunter. Likewise, the Tower of London, which was also built by William the Conqueror, as were many other English castles, is reportedly haunted by the ghosts of Saint Thomas a Becket, the murdered sons of King Edward IV, Anne Boleyn, one of King Henry XIII’s wives, Catherine Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many commoners who were tortured and executed in the Tower’s dungeons and torture chambers.

Oddly, the castles in the United States (yes, there are several, in addition to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California) seem quiet and restful in comparison to their European counterparts.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The White House is said to be haunted, though, by no less illustrious a ghost than that of its former occupant, President Abraham Lincoln. In yet another example of our tax dollars at work, the official White House website shares videos in which staff members relate stories of their encounters with Lincoln’s ghost.

Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado

Despite the availability of American castles, Stephen King has preferred to locate some of his more contemporary ghost stories in hotels. The action of The Shining takes place in the Overlook Hotel, which is based upon the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. The movie 1408, based upon King’s short story of the same title, which appeared in Everything’s Eventual (2002) used exterior shots of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City to depict the exterior of the film’s Dolphin Hotel and shots of a London hotel’s lobby to depict the Dolphin Hotel‘s lobby, but the short story was inspired by stories of parapsychologist Christopher Chacon’s investigation of a supposedly haunted room in the famous San Diego, California, inn, Hotel Del Coronado. In America, where everyone’s a king or queen, hotels seem the logical--or, at least, the democratic--alternative to castles and manor houses for traveling or long-term guests of the ghostly variety.

“Everyday Horrors: Castles and Hotels” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured on Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.

Free Horror Films, Part III

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

The Internet Archive houses thousands of free items. They’re free because, their copyrights having expired, they’ve fallen into the public domain. Among the offerings are a number of classic horror films (descriptions are from the Internet Archives, where the authors are credited). (Click the title of the movie to visit its download site.)

Werewolf of Washington

A reporter who has had an affair with the daughter of the U.S. President is sent to Hungary. There he is bitten by a werewolf, and then gets transferred back to Washington, where he gets a job as press assistant to the President. Then bodies start turning up in D.C

Revolt of the Zombies

An expedition to Cambodia leads to the discovery of the process for creating zombie slaves.

Fall of the House of Usher

English dubs over French cards in this haunting version of Poe's classic tale. A stranger called Allan. . . goes to an inn and requests transportation to the House of Usher. The locals remain reluctant, but he gets a coach to transport him to the place. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher. . . , who leaves in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine Usher. . . and her doctor.

Frankenstein

This is [Thomas] Edison’s COMPLETE 1910 silent Frankenstein film.

Killer Shrews

No summary available.

The Little Shop of Horrors

Roger Corman classic about a nerdy flower shop clerk who grows a giant, man-eating plant. Jack Nicholson makes his film debut as a dental patient who loves pain.

The Mad Monster

No summary available.

White Zombie

A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiancée, but instead turns her into a zombie slave.

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter

Legendary outlaw of the Old West Jesse James, on the run from Marshal MacPhee, hides out in the castle of Baron Frankenstein's granddaughter Maria, who proceeds to transform Jesse's slow-witted pal Hank into a bald zombie, which she names Igor.

Black Dragons

It is prior to the commencement of World War II, and Japan's fiendish Black Dragon Society is hatching an evil plot with the Nazis. They instruct a brilliant scientist, Dr. Melcher, to travel to Japan on a secret mission. There he operates on six Japanese conspirators, transforming them to resemble six American leaders. The actual leaders are murdered and replaced with their likeness and Dr. Melcher is condemned to a lifetime of imprisonment so the secret may die with him.

The Phantom Ship

Also known as "The Mystery of the Marie Celeste". [sic]

Indestructible Man

No summary available.

The Corpse Vanishes

A newspaper reporter begins to investigate after a series of brides die suddenly during their wedding. Her quest leads her to the secret of eternal youth and almost gets her killed.

Teenage Zombies

Teenagers Reg, Skip, Julie and Pam go out for an afternoon of water skiing on a nice day. They come ashore on an island that is being used as a testing center for a scientist and agents from "an eastern power." They seek to turn the people of the United States into easily controlled zombie like creatures. The agents steal Reg's boat, stranding the teens on the island. The four friends are then held captive in cages able only to speculate on their fate.

Nightmare Castle

No summary available.

The Red House

Curiosity propels two teens, Meg and Nath. . . to explore an apparently abandoned house in the countryside. Of course they are warned to stay away from the secluded place.

Bluebeard

Young female models are being strangled inexplicably. Will law enforcement be able to stop the crime wave before more women become victims?

The Ghost Walks

No summary available.

The Terror

A young officer in Napoleon's army pursues a mysterious woman to the castle of an elderly Baron where he discovers that she is the pawn of an old witch bent on driving the Baron to suicide.

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

A team of astronauts crashes on the surface of Venus. Accompanied by their robot, they explore the surface and end up destroying the Venusian God. This film is also known as "The Gill Women" and "The Gill Women of Venus". This film began life as a Soviet-produced work. An American producer then added some new footage and changed the credits to hide the film's Soviet origin.

To download the movies:
After you find the title you want, using the categories and the search windows at the top of the homepage, click on the blue link to the film you want (it will usually be the title). Then, at the left of the screen, select FTP. (This way, if the download is interrupted, it will resume downloading at the point of interruption.) Right-click the link to open it in another window. Then, select from among the file types. Mpg (not the .mpeg) file is usually best. Right-click the selected file and click "Save Target As." The file will automatically download, but you can specify the directory that you want it to be saved in (or just let the computer determine the directory). The "My Videos" folder in the "My Documents" directory is a reasonable choice. Then, pop some corn, grab a soda, and enjoy!

(You can also watch the movies, cartoons, etc. without downloading them, although the screen area is rather small and you need high-speed Internet capability.)

Free Horror Films, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

The Internet Archive houses thousands of free items. They’re free because, their copyrights having expired, they’ve fallen into the public domain. Among the offerings are a number of classic horror films (descriptions are from the Internet Archives, where the authors are credited). (Click the movie's title to visit the Archive's download page.)

Daughter of Horror

Also known as Dementia.

Midnight Manhunt

Reporter Sue Gallagher. . . finds an infamous gangster's corpse in a wax museum. Her desire for a scoop is hindered by a meddling rival. . . , the museum's goofy aintenance man. . . , and the ruthless killer.

The Monster Maker

[A] mad scientist injects his enemies with acromegaly virus, causing them to become hideously deformed.

The World Gone Mad

The World Gone Mad is a 1933 drama/horror film which pits the district attorney's office against crooks defrauding a corporation from within, unbeknownst to the company's owner.

Scared to Death

A woman tells the story of the events leading up to her death.

Mystery of the Wax Museum

In London, sculptor Ivan Igor. . . struggles in vain to prevent his partner Worth. . . from burning his wax museum. . . and his 'children.' Years later, Igor starts a new museum in New York, but his maimed hands confine him to directing lesser artists. People begin disappearing (including a corpse from the morgue); Igor takes a sinister interest in Charlotte Duncan. . . , fiancée of his assistant Ralph. . . , but arouses the suspicions of Charlotte's roommate.

The Devil’s Messenger

Lon Chaney stars as Satan in this three part story based on a collection of episodes from the never-aired TV series No. 13 Demon St. The Devil sends his reluctant messenger to the surface to recruit new souls. Once in Hell; the damned are instructed to prepare for the delivery of Satan's horrifying "final message" to earth.

The Rogue’s Tavern

No summary available.

Horrors of Spider Island

A plane crash leaves a dance troupe stranded on a deserted island where a mutant spider bite turns the troupe's leader into a monster.

Svengali

Svengali can control the actions of women through hypnotism and his telepathic rowers. When a pupil he has seduced announces she has left her husband for him, he uses his powers to cause her suicide and promptly forgets her. He meets a beautiful model, Trilby, and becomes infatuated with her, but she, in turn, falls for a young artist called Billee who also loves her.

The Sadist

This is believed to be the first feature film based on real life serial killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate. Mainstream Hollywood would not produce films inspired by the pair until a decade after this one.

Attack of the Giant Leeches

No summary available.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

John Barrymore stars in the renowned silent adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic about a Victorian scientist who turns himself into a murderous
abomination.

Bride of the Gorilla

No summary available.

Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory

The new science teacher Dr. Julian Olcott. . . with a mysterious past arrives in an institutional boarding school for troublemaker girls. Along the night, the intern Mary Smith. . . , who is blackmailing another teacher--Sir Alfred Whiteman. . . --with some love letters, is slaughtered by a werewolf. The detective in charge of the investigation attributes the crime to a wolf, while her mate Priscilla. . . believes she was killed by Sir Alfred.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula

London in the 1970s, Scotland Yard police investigators think they have uncovered a case of vampirism. They call in an expert vampire researcher named Van Helsing (an ancestor of the great vampire-hunter himself, no less) to help them put a stop to these hideous crimes. It becomes apparent that the culprit is Count Dracula himself, disguised as a reclusive property developer, but secretly plotting to unleash a fatal virus upon the world.

Bloodlust

Two beautiful young girls...Defenseless against the deadly ancient crossbow!

Bad Taste

A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb's Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country's Astro-Investigation and Defense Service is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day.

Creature from the Haunted Sea

When a Carribean Island is engulfed by a revolution, one unscrupulous American mobster, Renzo Capeto plans to clean up with a get-rich-quick scheme. His diabolical plan is to provide refuge for the loyalists, and the contents of the government coffers, on his boat. He would then murder his passenger and escape with a fortune. Planning to blame their deaths on a mythical sea monster, no one is more surprised than Renzo, when the real monster appears with its own agenda.

King of the Zombies

A plane flying to the Bahamas gets blown off course and crashes on the island of the mysterious Dr. Sangare. Jefferson Jackson. . . tries to warn his fellow survivors that the island's haunted but they all soon learn there's more going on than they initially supposed.

The She Beast

A couple on their honeymoon in Transylvania crash their car into a lake-the same lake where a witch was drowned many years before. The witch takes over the wife's body and it's up to her husband and a descendent of Van Helsing to save her.

The Screaming Skull

A widower remarries and the couple move into the house he shared with his previous wife. Only the ghost of the last wife might still be hanging around.

Dead Men Walk

After being killed by his twin brother, Elwyn Clayton rises from the grave as a vampire intent on ruining his brother's life.

The Last Woman on Earth

No summary available.

To download the movies:

After you find the title you want, using the categories and the search windows at the top of the homepage, click on the blue link to the film you want (it will usually be the title). Then, at the left of the screen, select FTP. (This way, if the download is interrupted, it will resume downloading at the point of interruption.) Right-click the link to open it in another window. Then, select from among the file types. Mpg (not the .mpeg) file is usually best. Right-click the selected file and click "Save Target As." The file will automatically download, but you can specify the directory that you want it to be saved in (or just let the computer determine the directory). The "My Videos" folder in the "My Documents" directory is a reasonable choice. Then, pop some corn, grab a soda, and enjoy!

(You can also watch the movies, cartoons, etc. without downloading them, although the screen area is rather small and you need high-speed Internet capability.)