Thursday, July 26, 2018
Villages Under Attack
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Everyday Horrors: Worms
In Tremors and Dune, they’re the size of trains. Worse yet, they have teeth. And they’re hard--almost impossible--to kill. In death, we become their food. Ugh!
What are they?
Worms, of course.
To scientists, worms are long (okay, elongated), spineless (okay, invertebrate), gushy (okay, soft-bodied) animals, and they’re everywhere--in rivers and lakes and oceans, in the ground, and in plants, animals, and, yes, people--even dead people (well, not really; read on). Some of them, those of the nastier sort, are parasites, too lazy to work for a living, that live off honest, hardworking folk. There are flatworms, roundworms, hookworms, threadworms, bristle worms, and, of course, earthworms. There are also spiny-headed worms, tapeworms, arrow worms, goblet worms, jaw worms, tongue worms, horsehair worms, ribbon worms, velvet worms, peanut worms, and--we’re not making this up--phallus, or penis, worms. The lowly earthworm, like many of its snootier cousins, has been around since the dinosaurs.
According to the Internet article, “Death to Dust. . .,” worms got a bad rap as consumers of corpses because maggots, which were once thought to be worms, because they look like rice, but are really fly larvae, do infest corpses, arriving by air. The flies land on the corpse, if it hasn’t been wrapped or buried, and lay eggs inside the body’s mouth, ears, nose, and any open wounds the corpse may have been considerate enough to have provided for this purpose. Beetles, spiders, mites, and millipedes next visit the remains, to feed on their predecessors or on the corpse itself, and forensic scientists can use insect infestation (or the lack thereof) to help determine when death occurred: “Since the exact feeding pattern varies with a body's location, the time of death, and the climate, forensic entomologists are often able to determine the date of death very accurately-even a decade later.”
The same article cites the “first recorded episode of insects revealing a killer,” which “occurred in thirteenth-century China, where an individual had been slashed to death in a rural village”:
When no one confessed, authorities ordered all of the villagers to lay down their sickles. The murderer was identified when flies swarmed to only his sickle, an apparently clean implement that still retained small traces of the victim's flesh and blood. Insects were also used to identify the killer in England's famous Lydney murder trial, when the time of death, as determined from insect evidence, invalidated the killer's alibi.
To collect worms for bait, some fishermen (and, maybe some fisherwomen as well) “charm” worms by vibrating the ground, which causes them to surface (but not to impale themselves on fishhooks, except, perhaps the hookworms; they’re brainless, sure, but that doesn’t make them stupid--they do have nerve centers, or ganglia, after all.)
Despite Dune’s claims to the contrary, worms don’t really live in the desert (although some do have crystalline teeth like their Dune cousins). They prefer wet soil and will pack up and leave if the earth becomes too dry for their tastes.
The longest worm on record, one source declares, is a bootlace worm, which measured 180 feet, and, according to another article:
The Center for Biological Diversity, Palouse Prairie Foundation, Palouse Audubon Society, and Friends of the Clearwater yesterday took the first step in a lawsuit to protect the giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus)--a three-foot-long, spitting worm that is native to parts of Idaho and Washington--under the Endangered Species Act.
Even a giant like this is a far cry from the worms is Dune and Tremors, though. Worms also appear in Bram Stoker’s novel The Lair of the White Worm, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem about the “conqueror worm,” the Harry Potter novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Beneath You” episode, The X-Files’ “Host” episode, and other science fiction and horror fiction.
“Everyday Horrors: Worms” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured in Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Toppers
copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman
We all have our ideas as to which movies are the best of their kind, which is fine, of course, as long as we’re able to give some indication as to why we hold these views (or, if you prefer, prejudices). Here are my picks, awarded one (terrible!) to five (great!) skulls, and the reasons behind them: 10. Tremors: Giant, burrowing worms? It’s campy. It’s funny. It also has it’s moments of sheer fear. Three stars. 9. It: The Terror from Beyond Space: A hungry alien aboard a spaceship is never seen--until it’s too late. The monster earns this one three stars. 8. Invaders from Mars: Sure, it’s sci fi, but anyone who thinks it’s not also horror hasn’t seen it. When even one’s parents can become something else--something alien--we’re in nightmare land, for sure. Three stars. 7. Halloween: There’s Jamie Lee Curtis. There’s also Michael Myers. Sibling rivalry stalks the silver screen, drenching us in the blood of teen victims. When her brother’s one of the undead and he has a yen for fratricide, what’s a poor girl to do? You can almost feel that oh-so-phallic knife as it rips and tears the maidens’ tender flesh. Babysitting’s overrated, but, at four skulls, this movie’s not. 6. A Nightmare on Elm Street: Some wouldn’t rate it as high, but I love the premise, which allows even the stupidest incidents, because, after all, anything’s possible in a dream. This movie conveys an honest, usually realistic sense of what it’s like to be trapped inside one’s own nightmare, and Freddy Kreuger’s a hoot. The protagonist, Nancy, is fetching, too, in a girl-next-door sort of way. Four skulls don’t seem too many. 5. The Thing (original): Sci fi, sure, but with a subtext of horror that’s not always submerged. Imagine being trapped inside a remote arctic outpost, far from the crowd’s maddening strife, with a thawed-out shape-shifter out for blood--your blood--and you get just the faintest impression of the claustrophobic terror this flick unleashes. James Arness makes a pretty good Thing, too. Four skulls. 4. King Kong (original): The werewolf writ large (and transformed into a gorilla). Besides, it’s beauty who kills the beast, not the other way around. The remake starring Naomi Watts has better special effects, but the original, although a bit campy, is superb for its time. It deserves four stars. 3. Psycho: Dated? Sure. But the shower scene! The creepy mansion. The fleabag motel. Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Based, in part, at least, on America’s worst serial killer of all time, Ed Gein. These elements alone make this a great among horror movies and rates it five skulls. 2. The Exorcist: The special effects may not be quite so special anymore, but it’s hard to beat the plot. What parent hasn’t wondered, at least once, whether his or her child isn’t possessed by the devil? The revolving head and the pea soup vomit alone are worth a visit to the Georgetown residence where priests take on the adversary of God himself. Five skulls for sure! 1. Alien: Some might argue, quite reasonably, that this is really a sci fi pic. It is. But it’s also a horror movie, in a broader context, because of the spectacle of blood, guts, and gore. The constant escalation of suspense and outright terror also qualify this film as a horror movie. The monsters, based upon the artwork of H. R. Giger, don’t hurt, either. It’s definitely a pulse-pounder and worthy of five skulls.
Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?
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’ Dictionary contends 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.
My Cup of Blood
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.
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.
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