Showing posts with label figures of speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label figures of speech. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Poster Pointers: Color, Imagery, Figures of Speech, and Horror

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Artists often learn from one another, especially with regard to technique. In particular, visual artists—illustrators, painters, and the like—use techniques that writers can adopt, just as the reverse is true.


In this post, we'll take a look at how horror movie poster artists use color to express themes, evoke emotions, and sell films. Microsoft's Bing image browser lets users choose the color (that is, the predominant color) of images. (Other browsers may do so as well; I'm not sure.) This ability helps observers to focus on an artist's exploitation of a particular color as a means of highlighting and conveying themes and emotions.


Sometimes, a writer may be able to accomplish something similar, through description, but, even when doing so is impossible, the painter's use of color can show a writer what the painter emphasized; as a result, the writer can view his or her own subject through the eyes of another artist, one who is, in all likelihood, more visually oriented than writers, in general, as we tend to be more linguistic than visual in our orientation.


Against a black background, a poster for Craig Anderson's 2016 movie Red Christmas shows a round, red Christmas ornament inside which is a human fetus, umbilicus attached. The ornament, transformed by the presence of the fetus into a womb image, drips blood. The poster's text, in white font to the left of the ornament-womb, against the black background, reads, “This Christmas the only thing under the tree is terror.”

By using only the image of the ornament-womb, the artist stresses the metaphor which compares the ornament to a mother's womb. The metaphor also alludes to the birth of Christ, for Jesus's birth is celebrated on Christmas Day, a holiday often represented by the colors green and red. However, blood leaks from the ornament-womb, suggesting the fetus's viability is at risk. Thus, red, which is both one of the colors of Christmas and of blood, fuses the holiday with a suggestion of violence. (In the movie, a woman sought to abort her fetus, but the procedure failed when the clinic was bombed, and her child, a son, survived. Now, on Christmas Day, he returns to exact vengeance.)

The poster seems simple, but it attains depth through the artist's expert used of an image that is both metaphorical and allusive on several levels. Writers frequently use metaphors, too, of course, sometimes as central tropes, but, more often, as figures of speech related to specific narrative points, rather than as an all-encompassing, unifying, central trope. By using metaphors more deliberately and purposefully, writers can heighten and enrich the horror they seek to effect. The tip from this artist to writers seems to be not only to think in images, but also to use metaphors to encapsulate the story's theme.

A poster for Alexandre Aja's 2010 comedy horror film Piranha 3D, a spoof of the 1978 film Piranha, both alludes to and lampoons the famous poster for Steven Spielberg's 1975 horror movie, Jaws. Here are the posters, side by side:


In both posters, positioned at the top center, a young, nude blonde swims upon the surface of the ocean. In the Jaws poster, a shark, its mouth open to show its long, jagged teeth, streaks toward the unsuspecting swimmer. There is no accompanying text; the artist is willing to let the images speak for themselves. In the Piranha 3D poster, a piranha, shown close-up, appears huge in relation to the woman above it. Behind this fish, a school of other sharp-toothed piranha crowd the sea. Their shadowy presence looks eerie, as their features are somewhat indistinct, making them resemble fish, but also plants or rocks, emphasizing their primitive, prehistoric origin. They are clearly a species altogether different from that of human beings. The caption, in title case and sea-green letters, beneath the movie's title, which appears in all-capital, blood-red letters, advises, “Sea, Sex, and Blood—Don't Scream . . . Just Swim!”

The Piranha 3D poster's school of piranha, as opposed to the single shark in the Jaws poster, suggests that the latter movie is many times more horrific than the latter film; after all, an entire school of the deadly fish, not a lone shark, are about to attack the helpless swimmer. The unlikelihood of the swimmer's escaping the predatory piranha by swimming heightens the horror, just as the tongue-in-cheek advice heightens the poster's humor.

Since both posters promote horror movies associated with attacks by marine predators, their dominant color is green; however, the Jaws poster also employs shades and hues of blue (another sea color, reflective of the sky), while Piranha 3D includes grays and red (in the title). In the latter poster, the swimmer is also more clearly seen, as is her golden skin and her blonde hair, which helps her assume presence among the predatory fish that are about to attack her. The woman's placement near the top of each poster devotes much more room to depict the ocean below her. She is small, in comparison to the shark or the school of piranha, which emphasizes her helplessness while highlighting the shark or the size of the school of piranha, which makes them seem all the more formidable.

What lesson does the Piranha 3D poster offer horror novelists and short story writers? If a story is to include humor alongside horror, the humor is apt to arise from the situation. Although the situation itself is horrific, the humor is accomplished by undercutting the horror. The story alternates between presenting scenes that are truly horrific and, at the end (or, sometimes, during) the same scenes, undermining the horror, perhaps with ludicrous advice (swim—maybe you can outpace the piranha) or some other means. Mixing humor and horror is difficult. Before attempting such a feat, it is a good idea to study how screenwriters accomplish this task. Buffy the Vampire Slayer offers some excellent examples.

These posters also show the need to design the action of a scene to maximize its horror. The woman's comparably small size, her isolation—she is alone in the sea—and her utter helplessness in the face of predators much larger than she, increase the horror of her situation. At the same time, the poster's design focuses the action of the scene on the conflict between the woman, as victim, and the shark or piranha as monstrous creatures intent upon attacking, killing, and gorging upon her, even before she dies. A well-planned combination of images can both direct action and unify the scene in which it occurs.


Some horror movie posters use a dominant color because the color is suggested by the film's title (Red Eye, Red Water, Red Christmas); because the color is associated with a holiday or the season of the year during which the story unfolds (Red Christmas uses red; Halloween, orange); because the color has symbolic associations with the movie's subject matter (Red Eye's caption makes it plain that this is one of the reasons for its use of red: “He wants to see your insides”); because it contrasts sharply with, and, therefore, emphasizes, the subject matter or its representation, in the case of The Eyes of Laura Mars, by way of a synecdoche, which shows the whites of her eyes against her shadowed face and a black background); or, in some cases, as an alternate way to convey a condition or a situation (dark blue is often used to represent darkness, as it is in the poster for Poltergeist and many other films, because black is too dark). Doubtlessly, there are many other reasons that a particular color is chosen. What is done with the color is what separates amateur designers and artists from the pros. Use the color selection tab on Bing or the image browser of your choice, and see what you can discover.


Many other horror movie posters show how carefully planned images can convey unity, theme, action, emotion, and other elements of a story using color, the positioning of models (in stories, characters), settings, figures of speech, lighting, camera angles, points of view, and other elements of storytelling and cinema. Studying them can suggest similar ways of accomplishing these goals in a novel or a short story.

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

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

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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