Child's play Real story behind 'haunted' island of the Dolls in Mexico
Deep in the heart of the canals of Xochimilco—Mexico City’s last
vestige of the Aztecs—is one of the world’s most haunted and tragic
locations: the Island of the Dolls
Killer goods
Museum devoted to serial killers & cults is pandemic's hot tourist spot
The Graveface Museum, which
opened its doors on Valentine’s Day 2020, is filled with eerie oddities
like Charles Mansion’s sweatpants, packets of Flavor-Aid taken from the
scene of the Jonestown cult mass suicide and even the actual spine of
Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.
Time marches on! Fascinating snaps show how the years take their
toll on objects - from a moss-covered chair to the shadow of an ID photo
on its plastic cover
. . . after death, a persons’ corpse, embalmed or mummified, might be put on
public display, as an exhibit visitors would pay to see. For we who yet
live, this list of 10 creepy corpses that were on public display at one
time or another suggests just how ghastly and gruesome such a posthumous
fate would be.
10 More Cinematic Chillers & Thrillers Based on Horrific Crimes
The[se] criminal offenses, which include body-snatching, train robbery,
kidnapping, and fraud, involve the use of picks and shovels, dynamite,
“burking,” pistols, ropes, knives, water, machine guns, and, yes, even
cameras. In addition, each has inspired a cinematic chiller or thriller
nearly as terrifying and electrifying as the crime itself.
An analysis of horror
films discloses the use of a number of specific types of scenic
elements that tend to recur frequently in such movies. Except for the
prologue and the epilogue, the order in which these scenic elements
occur may differ, and not all may be present in a film, although,
typically, many, if not all, appear. In addition, each scenic element
can be shown by itself or in combination with another (for example,
an abduction can stand alone or be followed by a rescue or a murder). (Those common to more than one of the films analyzed in this post are in bold font.)
In Halloween (1978),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Prologue
(introduction)
Escape
(flight from antagonist or captivity)
Stalking
(hunting)
Investigation
(search for information by either amateur or professional sleuth[s])
Murder(s)
(unjustified killing[s])
Encounter
of protagonist and antagonist (first meeting of hero or heroine and
villain, usually without violence)
Initial
attack on protagonist (first attack upon the hero or heroine)
Escape
Sustained
attack on protagonist (sustained attack on hero or heroine, often by
antagonist)
Rescue
(deliverance from danger)
Epilogue
(conclusion following main action of plot)
In
Annabelle (2014),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Prologue
Murder(s)
Investigation
Attack
Rescue
Intelligence
(provision or acquisition of information, often about the villain
[e. g., origin, past, relationships], through secondary sources,
such as television or radio news broadcasts, Internet browsing,
books, police reports)
Paranormal
or supernatural incidents: (events inexplicable by science or
reason)
Relocation
(displacement from one location to another)
Pursuit
Escape
Discovery
(finding of intelligence through own or others' actions)
Attack
Discovery
Attack
Warning
(advisory of imminent danger)
Attempted
abduction (carrying away by force)
Epilogue
In
The Exorcist, (1973),
these scenic elements occur in this order:
Prologue
Paranormal
or supernatural incidents
Investigation
(medical)
Investigation
(constabulary)
Encounter
of protagonist and antagonist
Intelligence
Paranormal
or supernatural incidents
Attack
Death
(loss of life due to natural causes)
Attack
Death
Rescue
Epilogue
In
Psycho (1960), these
scenic elements occur in this order:
Tryst
(private meeting between lovers)
Crime
other than murder (theft)
Escape
Investigation
Relocation
Concealment
of stolen property
Encounter
of protagonist and antagonist
Argument
(heated discussion between two or more characters)
Repeated
encounter of protagonist and antagonist
Decision
to make restitution (deciding to restore to the rightful owner
something that has been taken away, lost, or surrendered)
Murder
Disposal
of incriminating evidence
Intelligence
Investigation
Murder
Investigation
Discovery
Intelligence
Investigation
Distraction
(deliberate diversion of someone's attention from one incident or
action to another)
Attack
Concealment
of oneself or another
Discovery
Attack
Rescue
Intelligence
As
this partial analysis of the recurring types of scenic elements
common to horror films shows, such movies frequently use the same
ones, despite the dramatic details of their plots. A writer who is
interested in writing a horror novel or screenplay can use these same
scenic elements to construct a plot based on a structure that has
stood the test of time.
According to Google, these are the most
popular Chillers and Thrillers
posts so far from 2021 and 2020. In case you missed them, click the
link to any you care to read.
In
The Annotated Poe, the
observation is made that Edgar Allan Poe's work has suggested
storytelling techniques that filmmakers have adopted in dramatizing
their scripts:
.
. . his influence in the history
of cinema has been profound. He has since the early days of
motion pictures provided filmmakers with subjects, while influencing
the development of cinematic theory and technique (21).
For
example, Poe “anticipates the technique of cinematic montage,
in which brief shots are joined together to form a sequence that
compresses space, time, and information” in order to accelerate
“the action of the story, propelling readers towards its climax”
(43).
In
addition, Poe pioneered the narrative equivalent of alternating
close-up shots, distance shots, and extreme close-ups combined with
sound effects:
Poe
depicts Metzengerstein
in close-up (the “agony of his countenance'”, pulls back to show
him from a distance (“the convulsive struggling of his frame”),
and then supplies an extreme close-up (“his lacerated lips, which
were bitten through and through”). The rapid shifting of the images
quickens the narrative pace, which the ensuing cacophony of sound—the
shriek of Metzengerstein, the clatter of hooves, the roar of the
flames, and the shriek of the wind—further intensifies, thus
providing a running start for the horse's final bound up the stairs”
(34).
There's
no reason that the cinema shouldn't return the favor, as short story
writers and novelists adopt some of the camera
angles that directors and cameramen (and women) have found most
effective in filming horror movies.
In
doing so, the writer simply adopts the strategy of using description
to depict in words what the camera would show in images. In writing,
the writer is also the director and the cameraman (or woman); the
writer, therefore, calls the shots.
Here
are a few examples. (In the descriptions, specific references to
characters and situations have been deliberately eliminated in the
interests of describing more generic scenes. The video clips are more
specific, suggesting how particular writers, actors, directors, and
other filmmaking crew members have depicted such situations.)
The
extreme closeup is called for when “specific facial
expressions” indicate that action “that might scare . . . a
character” is about to occur or “has happened.”
Here's
the same scene, from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980),
captured in the “camera” of descriptive writing:
Behind
him, above the immense fireplace and its burning log, a mural of
stylized girls in triangular skirts adorns the wall. To the left, Art
Deco windows are set in the wall, beneath a mounted moose head; a
table; chairs; twin candles in matching wall sconces. But decorative
features are indistinct, pale, ghostly images, suggestions, more than
realities. One's gaze is drawn to and fixated upon him.
His high forehead, his winged eyebrows, his staring eyes, his parted
lips command absolute attention, allegiance, devotion, as does his
stance, exuding confidence and power. As I approach, his features
remain the same; he does not blink, does not stir, does not change.
Nearer still, and his eyes, his gaze, without altering, expresses, in
its stillness and intensity, in its indomitable and unchanging will,
in its immutable and insistent being,
a demonic essence, at once both terrifying and mesmerizing,
inescapable and compelling.
A
point-of-view shotcaptures a
character's own visual experience, showing what he or she would see
in a particular situation, letting the reader view the scene as
character sees the action.
The
opening scene of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978):
Movement,
a march, a cadence measured and purposeful, past a jack-o-lantern
flickering from the fire inside; past dark foliage shapes; past the
shadows of leaves upon a wall white in the darkness, to a scene
framed by a window: inside a teens locked in an embrace kiss,
frantic, until they hear a sound; they break, listening. Then, they
run upstairs, excited. Movement, march, cadence, in reverse, back
past the leaf-shadows, the dark foliage shapes, the fiery carved
pumpkin, to the front yard. Up. The second-story window is
illuminated, then dark. Around, through the darkness, to the door
through the windows of which shows the kitchen. Enter. Light. Stove.
Sink. Open a drawer, remove a knife, huge and sharp of edge and
point. Dining room: table, candles, chairs, sideboard, shadow of a
chandelier upon a wall. Hallway. Living room: television, rocking
chair, sofa, pole lamp. A staircase, leading up. The teenage boy,
walking downstairs, exits the front door, closing it behind him. Up
the stairs, past a painting, framed and hanging on the wall, into the
darkness. Cast-off clothing on the floor: jacket, bra, panties. The
corner of a chair. Through a doorway, she sits, naked, the teenage
girl, running a brush through her hair. Behind her, the bedding is in
disarray, disheveled with the remnants of her lust. She brushes her
hair. Turns. Screams, covering her breasts with her hands, modest
now. The stabbing of the knife. Her fall, a collision with a dresser
and the floor. Down the stairs, through the darkness. Ceiling lights,
the foyer's hardwood floor, the door, opening upon deeper darkness
and car lights. A man and a woman, hurry through the night, toward
the house, their parked car abandoned. The mask is pulled away, and
the killer, bloody knife in hand, their eight-year-old son, a clown,
is revealed, is born,
this Halloween.
The
over-the-shoulder shot
is used either to suggest that a character is conversing with another
character or that another character is following the character shown
in the shot. This camera angle focuses on a single character,
emphasizing him or her, but implies that one or more other
characters, although unseen, are also present. It can also set up a
shock; for example, “the character could turn around and look
possessed.”
Grace
Newman learns something about herself in this scene from The
Others (2001):
Seated
on the floor, her back to the door, covered in a heavy, white voile
veil and bundled in a matching dress, her young daughter, the
puppeteer, has gnarly, old hands; an aged face, half-hidden beneath
the ectoplasmic veil, attempts to deceive, but the pale, shocked
thirty-year-old redhead in the black dress is not deceived: she knows
this person, this thing,
is not her daughter.
The mother chokes the old crone, the impostor, the changeling; yanks
the veil from her; and sees—the child in the dress is
her daughter, after all. The child stares at her mother in disbelief,
in terror: the stranger, her mother, this mad woman who disowned her,
has tried to kill her!
The
establishing shot,
“usually shot at a distance” is 'a wide shot” that sets the
scene by showing the site of upcoming action. Such a shot may be
devoid of characters; if characters are present, they are merely
window dressing, part of the scene itself—unless and until the
“camera” (the description) zeroes in on them, picking them out
from the crowd.
Stanley
Kubrick's establishing shot is the sequence with which The
Shining
begins, as Jack Torrance drives to the Overlook Hotel:
A
dark blue lake, a green island in its midst, parallels a two-lane
mountain road meandering, a gray ribbon, or a snake, through a forest
thick with shaggy conifers, passing no other cars for miles and
miles. Wide, open land stretches away, before the mountains' jagged,
snow-covered peaks. The car looks like a toy, as it follows the
sweeping grandeur of the terrain. Up a slope, tight against a cliff
on the right, a sheer drop-off on the left shored up by a retaining
wall, the yellow VW rounds a curve, and the highway seems to open up,
wide. Finally, another car, a white limousine—stalled, it seems—is
seen; the VW swings past, leaving it behind. Ahead, a tunnel plunges
through the mountainside beneath the pines; for a few moments, the VW
disappears, then emerges, passes another stopped car, on the left
shoulder, continuing to pursue the highway between the towering cliff
on the right and the plummeting drop-off on the left. Passing another
car—the third in what seems forever—the yellow VW now travels
along a stretch of road cut into the steep slope of the mountainside
itself; gone, for the moment, are the cliffs; all is mountainside,
green with grass and stands, but no forests, of pines. In the
distance, craggy mountains loom. Another car, a canoe on top, passes,
and then, there is snow on the mountains and the roadside. At the
base of a mountain decorated with fields of snow, a hotel sits,
immense in itself, but tiny compared to the mountain rearing behind
it, into the clear, dark-blue sky. Finally, the yellow VW has
arrived.
The
wide shot
is similar to the establishing shot, but the wide shot focuses on the
characters and can lend a sense of depth to the action' all the
characters and objects are in focus and perspective, so this shot
equalizes rather than highlights characters, objects, and actions.
Another
clip from Halloween
includes a wide shot:
A
young woman in blue denim bell-bottom jeans and a light-blue blouse,
hands in pockets, mounts the steps leading from a suburban lawn to a
broad porch. At the entrance flanked by windows, she rings the
doorbell, leans left to peer into the window, turns, and leaves, back
across the porch and down the steps. She crosses the front yard,
passes the porch railing and the fiery jack-o-lantern seated there,
walks down the side of the house, with her shadow on the wall, and is
lost to the darkness. She emerges from the night, approaching the
back door, which is open. She hesitates. Steps into the kitchen,
closing the door behind her. Passing through dark rooms, she climbs
the stairs to the second floor, and is swallowed by the darkness. To
her left, at the top of the stairs, light shines around and beneath a
closed door. She approaches, down the hallway. Illuminated by ambient
light, her face is a picture of curiosity. She opens the door, and
her eyes widen. Laid out in the bed, her arms extended so that her
corpse forms a cross, a woman lies, dead; a headstone propped behind
her, against the head of the bed, reads, “Judith Myers.” A
pumpkin, lit by candlelight, grins on the night table beside her.
Gasping, the young woman covers her mouth in her hands and backs into
the wall behind her. She turns, and the body of a young man,
suspended upside-down, swings through the doorway beside her, back
and forth, back and forth, back and forth. She retreats, and a
cabinet door opens to reveal a blonde woman her own age, blouse open,
breasts revealed, staring at nothing. She flees into the hallway,
crying, distraught and terrified, leaning against another room's
doorjamb. A white mask appears in the darkness of the room beside
her. The masked man emerges, and a butcher's knife plunges, ripping
the sleeve of her blouse. She turns, falls over the staircase
railing, onto the steps, and slides down the stairs. The masked man
follows, standing at the head of the stairs for a moment, framed by
the light of the room behind him, where the two female corpses are
posed and the male body is rigged. Not dead, the young woman rises
and steps forth, into the darkness.
The
high-angleshot
looks down on the action, making characters, objects, and settings
seem small and insignificant, thus heightening their vulnerability.
Breaking
Bad: Crawl Space
(2011), directed by Scott Winant, alternates between high-angle shots
and low-angle shots. The low-angle shots show a man in a crawlspace;
these shots alternate with high-angle shots showing a blonde woman in
the house, looking down at him.
A
man on his hands and knees tears frantically at a sheet of plastic.
He turns over, clutching bundles of cash. A blonde woman peers down
at him. He demands to know something. Taken aback, the woman shakes
her head. Lying on his back in the crawlspace, he kicks his heels,
dislodging dirt, yelling up, through the opening in the floor that
connects the crawlspace to the house. She gasps. In the crawlspace,
he looks desperate. She closes her eyes, makes a response. He stares
up at her, disbelief on his face, as asks more questions. Frightened,
she explains. He puts his hands atop his head. She apologizes. He
rants, clenching his fists. She kneels, looking down upon him,
concerned. He rolls onto his left side, hands covering is face,
whimpering. He rolls back onto his back, weeping and sobbing. She
looks down, pity on her face, and makes a comment. His wailing turns
to laughter, and her rolls onto his left shoulder, then onto his back
again. Looking both concerned and frightened, the blonde woman backs
away from the opening to the crawlspace, into the hallway. Elsewhere,
a woman in dim light paces back and forth as she talks on a cell
phone. The blonde walks along a hallway, past the door to a kitchen,
and picks up the receiver to a telephone on a kitchen counter
accessible from the hallway. She starts to talk, walking away, down
the hallway. In the crawlspace, among the bundled cash, the man
continues to laugh, as the view of him, framed by the opening to the
crawlspace, becomes more and more distant, suggesting he is
insignificant, alone, vulnerable, and trapped.
A
shot similar to the high-angle shot, the bird's-eye
view shot
also looks down upon a character. Thanks to the bird's eye view shot,
which looks 'straight down . . . usually [at] a setting” or a
“place,” a character appears “short and squashed,” which
makes this shot “effective in a
horror movie” in which a character's movement is being tracked or
as an establishing shot.
The
low-angle shot is
the opposite of the high-angle shot, looking up to another character,
object, or aspect of the setting. This shot can suggest a character's
lack of power or authority and can indicate confusion and
“disorientation.”
The low-angle shots showing the
man in the crawlspace alternate with the high-angle shots showing the
woman in the house, looking down at him.
A
shot similar to the low-angle shot, the worm's
eye view shot
also looks down upon a character. In the worm's eye view shot, the
angle is even lower than that found in the low-angle shot. The angle
in the worm's eye view shot is so low that it could be a worm's
vision on things. This angle makes “things look tall and mighty”
and can show a character “walking around a house” or some other
location, without giving away the character's identity.
The
canted-angle shot
sets a character at a diagonal, tilting him or her, and suggests
“imbalance and instability,” especially if it is combined with a
point of vie shot. The canted angle shot implies that “something
strange is about to happen.”
This
example of the canted-angle shot, from Cindy Kaye's Dutch Angle:
The Movie (2016) could be
described this way:
A
closed door at the end of a hallway, like the door frame, the vase of
flowers at the in the hallway, near the door, the walls, and the
corridor itself, tilt to the left. Another door opens, and a boy
leans out. He looks at the door at the end of the hall. He starts
toward it. The lights go out. The lights come back on. They blink,
off and on, off and on. The boy turns left at the end of the hall.
The lights go out. When they come on again, he is walking down the
stairs to the first floor. The lights continue to blink off and on.
At the bottom of the stairs, he turns left. The lights continue to
blink off and on. Through an open doorway, the boy is seen lying
prone, on the floor of a chamber that appears to be a dining room: it
is furnished with a table and chairs and a cabinet full of dishes,
but, there is also a made-up bed in the room. The lights go out; they
do not come on again.
By
deciding on the elements you want to include in a situation and the
envisioning it as a scene, you can write descriptions that have
immediacy, drama, unity, and coherence. At the same time, such
descriptions will appeal to readers' senses, heightening
verisimilitude, and facilitating the identification between the
reader and the characters involved in such situations. Such
descriptions guarantee that the scene you describe will have
characters in conflict, thematic significance, narrative purpose, and
interconnection with previous and subsequent scenes as well as a
cause-and-effect relationship with other scenes in the plot.
It
helps, when writing short stories or novels, to plot them
meticulously, even to the storyboarding level that Alfred Hitchcock
used in planning his movies' plots and the way action would be
presented and appear on the screen. His care about details of
audiovisual storytelling are one of the reasons for his great
success and the respect he received and continues to receive. Best of
all, the techniques he used, one of which was calling the shots well
before filming a movie, are available to all storytellers and to
storytellers of all kinds.
Many horror stories are
mysteries which typically follow a well-established format:
An unknown monster is
killing people.
Often, as the
killings continue, the protagonist, sometimes aided by friends or
others, investigates; intelligence is gathered, clues are solved.
The monster is
identified; it is known.
Knowledge about the
monster is used to neutralize or eliminate it.
The status quo
returns.
This same formula can
apply to plagues:
An unknown disease is
killing people.
Often, as the
killings continue, the protagonist, sometimes aided by friends or
others, investigates; intelligence is gathered, clues are solved.
The pathogen is
identified; it is known.
Knowledge about the
pathogen is used to neutralize or eliminate it.
The status quo
returns.
Of course, many a
detective story also follows this path:
An unknown murderer is
killing people.
Often, as the
killings continue, the protagonist, sometimes aided by friends or
others, investigates; intelligence is gathered, clues are solved.
The murderer is
identified; it is known.
Knowledge about the
murderer is used to neutralize or eliminate him or her.
The status quo
returns.
Where does variation come
into play? The same variables that make the structure of fairy tales,
as this structure is defined by Vladimir Propp in Morphology of
the Folktale, makes the
particulars fresh and intriguing, despite the sameness of the
underlying formula's structure.
What
is the monster? How is he, she, or it different than others of his,
her, or its kind? Physically different? Emotionally different?
Behaviorally different? Volitionally different? What motivates it?
Whom
are the victims? Why are they targeted? How does the monster kill
them?
Where
do the killings occur? Why here and now, rather than elsewhere at
another time?
What
theme does the story suggest, and how does it do so?
A
dictionary definition can help us to answer the question, What is the
monster?
A
dictionary definition does two things: it classifies, or groups, and
it distinguishes, or differentiates. First, a dictionary definition
tells to which group the term being defined belongs. What type
of person, place, or thing is it? Then, a dictionary definition
explains how it differs from the other members of its group. The
group is the genus; the differences, the differentia.
Monster
(n.): an imaginary creature (genus) that is typically large, ugly,
and frightening (differentia).
In
what way is your
monster “large”? Height? Length? Weight? Strength? Intelligence?
Tall? Godzilla fills the bill. Long? What about the worms in Tremors?
Heavy? The Blob! Strong? There's a reason King Kong was king of the
jungle on Skull Island. Intelligent? The computer in Demon
Seed or, for that matter, the
extraterrestrial of Species
sure turned out to be to die for.
What
makes your monster
“ugly”? Appearance (but be specific)? Behavior? (but, again, be
specific)? Lack of emotion or twisted emotions? Other (specificity
counts, always!)? Although Michael Myers, of Halloween,
wasn't a bad-looking guy—some say he looks a lot like William
Shatner, in fact—his penchant for murdering randy teens and
sexually aroused young adults made him a lot less attractive, to be
sure.
Why
is your monster
frightening? It's hard to defeat, perhaps? It has amazing powers,
maybe? It is absolutely relentless, possibly? It is supernatural or
otherworldly? Other (specificity counts, always!)? The dinosaurs in
Jurassic Park, like
the alien in Alien,
had all these characteristics and more.
The
same process applies to other characters, such as the protagonist,
victims, experts, warriors or soldiers . . . . How do they differ
from everybody else's? What makes yours
unique? The expert in The Sixth Sense,
the psychiatrist, differs from his peers (or most of them, at any
rate) by his being dead.
A
setting should be integral to the story's plot, of course. If it is,
it can be used not only to frighten—it's a spooky place, after
all—but also to symbolize, to suggest, and to reveal, even as it
conceals. In The Descent,
for example, the caverns through which the female spelunkers spelunk may symbolize the female reproductive system itself; the
cave-creatures they encounter, their aborted fetuses. On the literal
level, the underground passages also add to the characters—and the
audience's—claustrophobia.
Plug
your own versions of
these characters and an appropriate setting of your own into the
horror-movie-as-a-mystery formula and you, too, can offer a new
wrinkle to the subgenre.
In Shock Value; How a
Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and
Invented Modern Horror (2011),
Jason Zinoman offers some insights concerning John Carpenter's 1978
film Halloween.
Jason Zinoman
The
movie is an example of what I refer to as an invasion movie, which I
define as the invasion of an idyllic community by a corrupting,
external evil (think, as a prototype, The Garden of Eden): “Halloween
begins,” Zinoman writes, “with a decidedly normal, safe
environment, an idyllic middle-class suburb” (178). During the
course of the movie, this “familiar” setting and its “ordinary”
character “turns into something ambiguous, confusing, and
repulsive,” as “middle-class suburbia is [shown to be] the home
of unexplainable evil” (208). However, the suburbs is not the only
familiar and ordinary environment in such movies; others include “the
beach, the hospital, the bedroom, the prom, the highway,” and
“right next door” (208).
At
the beginning of the movie, the camera views the action from the
perspective of “the predator,” as the audience sees what the
invisible intruder sees, but the point of view then alternates back
and forth, between “the predator” and the “victim” (180). To
differentiate the audience from the killer, the director, John
Carpenter, shows them the killer's “knife,” which “reminds us
that our perspective,” as members of the audience, “is not the
same as that of the killer” (180).
Zinoman
provides a couple of theories as to why female characters are more
often victimized (and killed) than are their male counterparts,
including the greater perceived vulnerability of female characters
and the established tradition of the presence of a damsel in
distress.
“The
pleasures of horror are more masochistic than sadistic,” he claims
(181), which may be another reason for the tendency of horror movies
to feature female characters as their victims. By identifying with
the film's victims, rather than with its predator, the audience
vicariously becomes victims themselves; if they are males, it would
seem (although Zinoman does not say this) that they are also, to some
extent, feminized, seeing female surrogates of themselves as
vulnerable, weak, ineffective, and helpless. However, viewers, male
and female alike, presumably, would also learn, through the survival
of the so-called Final Girl, that young women can also be survivors,
provided that they possess the personality traits it takes to go
toe-to-toe with a monster and win.
Zinoman
seems more interested in the nature (or lack thereof) of modern
monsters than he does in the implied feminization of male audience
members. He contrasts monsters past with monsters present. The
former, he suggests, was “a stand-in for some anxiety, political,
social, or cultural,” but the latter represent something else
entirely.
For
example, Zinoman contends, “[Michael] Myers doesn't represent
anything . . . Myers doesn't represent the cold calculus of
scientific progress or a religious conception of evil” (181), the
two sources, traditionally, that are used to explain the monstrous.
In the past, the monster has usually been a freak of nature (giant
ants or a hostile extraterrestrial life form) (or a freak of the
scientific lab [Frankenstein's monster or Mr. Hyde] or a freak, as it
were, of the supernatural [the devil or a vampire).
The
“New Horror” that was spawned by the likes of Dan O'Bannon,
John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, William Friedkin, and
others, on the other hand, is the face of nothingness. Myers is
“defined,” Zinoman says, by “the absence of meaning”; it is
“by emptying out all the details from the character [that]
Carpenter” creates a monster that contains nothing, a monster of
the void, who acts without meaning, without purpose, and “has no
motive” (182-183).
Although
Zinoman often provides food for thought, he is, at times, a bit
Emersonian in his tantalizing vagueness and fails to follow up on
some of his intriguing insights, such as the effects of sadism as a
perspective and, indeed, a technique of the cinema and his insight
that the presence of female characters as victims may tend to
feminize male members of the audience. Both ideas are stimulating and
rich in possibilities, but they are largely undeveloped.
Nevertheless, after Shock Value,
readers won't be the same moviegoers they were before they
encountered Zinoman's highly interesting and suggestive study of “New
Horror.”
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.
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