Horror Story Plot Formulas

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In every horror movie, there is, of course, a protagonist and an antagonist. For convenience, I'm going to refer to them as the monster and the hero. Of course, the monster, both human and non-human, and the “hero” can just as easily be a girl or a woman as a boy or a man.

For there to be a story, there has to be conflict, and the major and most important type of conflict, that between the monster and the hero, results from their encounter. Therefore, they must come together, usually in the first part of the story. Writers have come up with a variety of ways for the monster and the hero to meet, if not greet, one another. These methods of encounter, in turn, help to establish various narrative formulas.

Some of these formulas we might call The Return, The Invasion, The Trespass, The Act of Vengeance, and The Fish Out of Water. Here are the breakdowns of these plots and a few examples of each.

The Return

Beginning

A monster (an ancient evil) awakens or returns.

Middle

The monster becomes active again.

End

By learning the monster's origin or nature, the hero eliminates or neutralizes the monster.

Examples: Summer of Night, It

The Invasion

Beginning

A monster moves into a community foreign to itself.

Middle

The monster becomes active in its new surroundings, behaving as it did in its original habitat.

End

By learning the monster's origin or nature, the hero eliminates or neutralizes the monster.

Examples: Dracula, 'Salem's Lot

The Trespass

Beginning

Trespassers disturb or threaten a monster's habitat.

Middle

The monster defends its turf.

End

The trespassers capture or kill the monster, escape from the monster, or are killed by the monster.

Examples: The Descent, Poltergeist, King Kong, The Thing

The Act of Vengeance

Beginning

The monster or his or her loved one is wronged.

Middle

The monster seeks to avenge him- or herself or a loved one.

End

The monster is imprisoned, killed, or otherwise neutralized or escapes.

Examples: The Abominable Dr. Phibes, I Know What You Did Last Summer, A Nightmare on Elm Street

The Fish Out of Water

Beginning

The hero, relocated to a strange new environment, usually that of the monster, is out of his or her depth.

Middle

The monster, at home in the environment, maintains the upper hand against the hero.

End

The hero kills the monster or escapes or is killed by the monster.

Examples: Open Water, Backcountry, Jaws.

Note: A future post may present other horror story plot formulas.

Horror Again (and Again): Increasing Your Audience by Using Universal Themes

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Diogenes the Cynic observed that it is impossible to step twice into the same river. The writer Tom Wolfe said we can't go home again. George Santayana proclaimed that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” A more colloquial expression of the same thought is “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Horror fiction tends to repeat itself.

In his Republic, Plato mentions the Ring of Gyges, an artifact the wearing of which is supposed to render one invisible. Invisibility, whether it is effected through a ring or by supposedly scientific means, has become a staple of both horror fiction and science fiction. Ambrose Bierce's “damned thing” is an invisible creature, just as H. G. Wells's invisible man is, well, an invisible man. More recently, invisibility is featured in The Invisible Man (2000), a combination science fiction-horror film “in which a woman believes she is being stalked by her abusive and wealthy boyfriend, even after his apparent suicide,” until she “deduces that he has acquired the ability to become invisible.”

A vast number of short stories, novels, and movies are based on the premise that human beings can be hunted like any other animal. One of the first stories of this type, if not, indeed, the original story, is Richard Cornell's 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game” (aka “The Hounds of Zariff”), wherein “a big-game hunter from New York City . . . falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean [Sea], where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.” This same theme is reprised yet again in the 2020 movie The Hunt, in which twelve strangers are gathered as prey for a hunting party, and in the 2015 film Final Girl, in which a group of sadistic young men stalk a young woman through a forest, intent upon hunting her down and killing her.

The idea that the door to a locked room should not be opened (sometimes the opening of the door is explicitly forbidden) is as old, at least, as the story of Bluebeard, who allows his newlywed wife to open any door in his palace but one. When she defies his order, horror ensues. The idea of the forbidden room reappears in The Skeleton Key (2005). In this film, horror also results when Caroline opens the attic of the house in which she acts as a caregiver to Ben, an elderly bedridden gentleman who has suffered a stroke. Although she has not been expressly forbidden to open the attic, the fact that the skeleton key she is given does not open the attic's door suggests that Caroline is not intended to have access to it.

Many other examples can be given of horror movies that recycle themes that have already been used many times before. Of course, each time, the repetition changes some elements, omits others, adds still others, presents a new twist, or otherwise diverges at least a little from the stories that have used the same theme before it. Such changes keep the motif fresh (or, perhaps, seemingly fresh).

Why, besides convenience and obvious box office or sales appeal, do short stories, novels, and movies recycle past themes?

Advertising executive Jib Fowles offers one possible explanation. He wrote that advertisers typically appeal to one or more of fifteen basic needs that everyone has. Among these needs are the need to dominate. Invisibility confers the ability to manipulate and control other people more so than almost any other power. Invisibility blinds by stripping away our sight—but selectively. We can see all things but the one thing that matters most in a dangerous situation—the danger itself, our invisible adversary. We become helpless to resist, which heightens both our fear and our vulnerability, making it easy for the invisible foe to dominate us.

At the same time, from the hunter's point of view, stories in which human beings are hunted as prey appeal to the basic need to agress (as almost all horror stories do) and the need to dominate. From the perspective of the hunted, these stories appeal to the need to escape and the need to feel safe. (Paradoxically, according to Fowles, advertisements can appeal to needs by thwarting them.)

The expression “curiosity killed the cat” is exemplified in many movies, including The Skeleton Key. Often, such cautionary tales remind us, being nosy about other people's business can be costly—perhaps even fatal.

Fowles's observations about basic human needs goes a long way to explain the universal appeal—and, therefore, the recycling—of such themes as invisibility, hunting humans, and the lure of the forbidden, but there are probably other reasons for the repetition of these themes in horror stories.

How much do we trust others? Would we trust someone we couldn't see? Someone who could watch us unseen, who could alter our environment without our knowledge, even in our presence? Someone who could hear—or see—everything we did in private? We might not trust even a good friend under such circumstances. Now, imagine that the unseen person is an enemy intent upon harming or killing us! Stripped of sight, we are helpless and vulnerable.

Dehumanization might explain the appeal of stories involving the hunting of human beings. Although we are, from a biological point of view, animals, we don't like to think of ourselves as such. We prefer to think that there is a difference between animals and human beings. We'd rather imagine ourselves as the Bible characterizes us, as being “a little below the angels” (Hebrews 2:7) or as Hamlet describes us: “What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! / how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how / express and admirable! in action how like an angel! / in apprehension how like a god . . . !” If we must think of ourselves as animals, we should consider ourselves, at least, to be, as Hamlet says, “the paragon of animals.” Most peoples, especially in our own day, regard cannibalism as not only a criminal act but also as a moral outrage. People should not be hunted, whether for sport or for food. Stories in which human beings are hunted are, therefore, regarded as horrific; the very theme itself makes such narratives or dramas horror stories.

We are curious by nature, which can be a good attribute. Science, for example, is built upon curiosity. However, the attempt to satisfy curiosity can also lead to danger or even death. Why, we might ask ourselves, before charging in where angels fear to tread, is this room locked? What sort of valuables does the locked door protect? Treasure? Secrets too dark and dangerous to be exposed? Crimes or sins unimaginable? What skeletons lie in wait within this closet, this chamber, this attic, this basement, or this wing of the house? Or, perhaps, the door is locked not to keep us out but to keep someone—or some thing—from escaping!

Another film in which a forbidden space awaits behind a locked door.

A locked room creates a private space, a space reserved, a space off limits to everyone but the holder of the key or keys. A locked room as much as commands, “Keep Out!” A locked room as much as warns, “No Trespassing!” A locked room is a forbidden space. A locked room prompts questions, evokes curiosity. A locked room is temptation. All such impulses are familiar to all men and women and, indeed, children. A locked room story has universal appeal.

Repeated themes often indicate universal concerns, needs, fears, or impulses. Depending on how such themes are handled, their inclusion as the bases of additional horror stories, whether in print or on film, can appeal to a wide audience. They could result in a bestseller or a blockbuster.

Maybe.

Werewolves: Three Scientific Explanations

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Chillers and Thrillers has devoted quite a bit of space to several articles on Tzvetan Todorov's insightful analysis of the literary fantastic. At this point, despite the oversimplification that results, we can say, for Todorov, the fantastic usually resolves itself into the explained and the unexplained. The former he calls “uncanny”; the latter, “marvelous.” Only when there is no resolution, one way or another, does the fantastic remain fantastic.

In our first post in this series, “Ghosts: A Half-Dozen Explanations,” we include a few examples of each type of story.

We also noted that, to write such a story, an author must allow either of two understandings of the action: either reason or science can explain the phenomena, bizarre though they may, as natural events or the strange phenomena are beyond explanation and, as such, may actually be of an otherworldly or supernatural origin. The tension between these two alternatives creates and maintains suspense. It is only when the story shows that the action is natural (explicable by reason or science) or supernatural (inexplicable by reason or science) that the story itself is no longer fantastic, but either uncanny or marvelous, respectively.

It helps, therefore, to know how scientists explain seemingly fantastic phenomena, such as (for example) ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.

Werewolves are, like most beasts, especially hairy. Sometimes, so do human beings, due to hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder that results in the covering of the face and body in thick hair resembling an animal's fur. Before genetics was understood (about the turn of the twentieth century), this condition could have led people to believe that victims of hypertrichosis were men or women who'd transformed into wolves—in other words, werewolves (in Old English, “wer” means “man” and “wulf” means “wolf”).

Porphyria, a condition mentioned in a previous post, could have contributed to people's belief, in earlier times, in werewolves: the condition “is characterized by extreme sensitivity to light (thus encouraging its victims to only go out at night), seizures, anxiety, and other symptoms.” (Often, scenes of people transforming into werewolves include behavior that closely resembles seizures, as does this scene from the movie The Howling [1977].)

A medical condition known as clinical lycanthropy is more about the mind that the body: it causes its victims to believe that they are werewolves, which, in turn, causes them to act accordingly. Serial killer Peter Stubbe is a case in point. He believed he owned “a belt of wolfskin that allowed him to change into a wolf.” His confessions to his murders were extracted under torture, as his “flesh was . . . ripped out with hot pincers and his limbs [were] crushed with stones.”

Once again, scientific accounts of the werewolf phenomenon offer suggestions about characters, including therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, police officers and detectives, medical doctors and specialists, and even torturers. In addition, the offices of these personnel might occur as settings in some scenes, but, depending on the century in which a story is set, settings might also feature dungeons, torture chambers, prisons, or mental asylums. Of course, forests are a virtual certainty with regard to the settings of such stories.

There have been many movies about werewolves, including Silver Bullet (1985), which is based on Stephen King's 1983 novella Cycle of the Werewolf. Such imaginary beasts have also been popular with well-known short story authors, Robert Louis Stevenson (“Olalla” [1887]), Algernon Blackwood (“The Camp of the Dog” [1908]), Bram Stoker (“Dracula's Guest” [1914)], and Robert E. Howard (“Wolfshead” [1968]). Alexander Dumas wrote a novella on the subject, The Wolf-Leader (1857), and Guy Endore penned a novel, The Werewolf of Paris (1933). (There's even a werewolf romance subgenre!)

 Studying these stories will show readers how such writers give new blood, so to speak, to a truly ancient horror trope.

In our next post, we'll take a peek at what science says about zombies.

Knowing Your Endgame

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Flash fiction works well for horror. We have the word from both Edgar Allan Poe, who said that a reader should be able to read a horror story in “a single sitting”—and he was talking short stories, not flash fiction as such. Although he was vague (what constitutes “a single sitting”?), we can, perhaps, get some direction from famed director Alfred Hitchcock, who brought both Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) to the big screen. He declared, “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”

Of course, his definition is also somewhat obscure: the “endurance of the human bladder” is apt to differ, sometimes considerably, among individuals. However, adults average 120 to 240 minutes between visits to the restroom to urinate. Assuming that Hitchcock applied his own criterion to the films he directed, a horror film, at least, should be between 109 minutes (Psycho) and 119 minutes (The Birds), which are well within the guidelines that he himself established.

Definitions of the permissible word length of “flash fiction” stories differ, with some suggesting that such stories should be no more than 600 to 1,000 words, while others argue that flash fiction stories could be as long as 2,000 words. Flash fiction author Michael Williams, author of Tales with a Twist, tries to stay at or below 1,000 words, but, occasionally, he admits, one of his stories reaches 1,200 words:

“I think setting my goal as 1,000 words, maximum, helps me focus. It gives me something to shoot for, but I wouldn't sacrifice a good story just to stay within an artificially imposed limit; if I have to go beyond, 1,000 words, I have to go beyond 1,000 words. For me, though, that's the exception. Most stories I write can be done well—probably better—in 1,000 words or fewer.”

Research finds that most people read at a rate of between 200 and 250 words per minute, so a flash fiction story, for most readers, would certainly meet both Poe's and Hitchcock's definitions:

A flash fiction story isn't characterized only by its brevity, however. “Flash fiction stories—I usually refer to them as flashes—usually end with a twist,” Williams says. “That's part of the their appeal, part of their fun. It's also a large part of their popularity.”

There are various ways to “twist a tale.”

One is to start with an outrageous, or even seemingly impossible, incident or situation. That's part one, the beginning, of the story. It hooks the reader. Then, follow with a logical result of this initial incident or situation. That's the middle of the story. The end of the story, part three, delivers the twist.

One way to generate the twist itself is to play with the six questions related to any form of communication: Who?, What?, When?, Where? How? and Why? Make a list, as complete as possible, of possible answers to each of these questions as they relate to your story's premise.”

Here's an example:

Beginning: A snowman melts, revealing a corpse.

Middle: Police respond.

End (twist): . . . .

To come up with the twist, start the list of answers to the seven questions that apply to any form of communication, including fiction:

1. WHO? WHO is the dead person? If he or she was murdered, WHO is the murder? WHO might be a character in the story? The body, of course and the murderer (if there was a murder). The police officers. A neighbor. The mail carrier. A repair person. A bus or a taxi driver or passenger. A spouse. A child, minor or adult. A delivery person. A maintenance person. A utility worker. A meter reader. A sanitation employee.
2. WHAT? What happened to the dead person? Murder? Suicide? A prank gone wrong? An ill-advised advertisement? An attention-seeking act gone astray?
3. WHEN? A two-day interval, on day one of which the person is encased in snow and, on day two of which, he or she is found as the snowman begins to melt.
4. WHERE? The front yard of a suburban home.
5. HOW? The person encased in snow freezes to death over night.
6. WHY? (This is usually the point at which the twist suggests itself, although any of the six questions could prompt an answer that includes the story's twist): A prop master who remains employed by his uncle, a movie director, despite the prop master's Alzheimer's, forgets that he has packed snow over an actor's body, and repeatedly does so, rather than freeing the actor from the “snowman” after the shot is complete, causing the unintended victim to die of exposure overnight.

 

Notice that the twist, in this example, is the result of the WHY? question, but the identity of the killer does not appear among the answers to the WHO? question. This just goes to show that, in actual practice, the questions themselves may not produce the “answer” that provides the twist, but, without having gone through this process, it's unlikely that the idea would have occur at all. Answering the questions starts the ball rolling, the mind thinking, and the imagination visualizing.

Now, we can complete the framework, or skeleton, of the story's plot:

Beginning: A snowman melts, revealing a corpse.

Middle: Police respond.

End (twist): A prop master, having developed Alzheimer's, forgets that he has packed snow over an actor's body and repeatedly does so, rather than freeing the actor from the “snowman” after the shot is complete, causing the unintended victim to die of exposure overnight.

Note: As in any story, before writing it, you need to research any technical aspects of the plot to make sure they are accurate. For example, would a person freeze to death if encased in snow overnight or would he or she suffocate? How long would such a death, whether of hypothermia or suffocation, take? Maybe overnight isn't long enough. Research and revise, as necessary. If the technical reality doesn't allow the ending you've conceived, think of one that will stand the test of the facts.

Article Word Length: 1,014

Estimated Reading Time: 4.05 to 5.07 minutes

The Z Plot

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Although it would be ludicrous to suggest that a story could follow a “Z” plot, the concept is, nevertheless, a good reminder that thrillers and chillers should move from one action scene to another at a fairly fast pace.

What is a “Z” plot? It's an imaginary sequence of action that is on the fact that, in English, readers read from left to right and from top to bottom. In other words, their eyes, in reading, trace the figure of a “Z.” Sometimes the stem (the diagonal line connecting the upper and the lower arms of the “S”) is shorter; other times, longer, than typical, depending on the length of the paragraph the combined sentences of which make up the stem of the letter. For example, a short paragraph produces a short stem; a long paragraph, a long stem:

Think of the paragraph as representing a scene. Each point at the beginning or the end of the arm of the “Z” represents a point of possible change. Perhaps the first point would be to establish the setting, while the second point would be to introduce the protagonist. At the third point, maybe you would contrast two supporting characters. The fourth point might be that at which you relocate the main character. These four points, regardless of the length of the scene (represented, in the “Z” plot by a paragraph), would make up the entire scene. However, the next scene, with its four points, would provide opportunities for additional, perhaps different (depending on the scene's purpose), plot changes, such as changing the pace of the story (with a longer or a shorter scene), using dialogue between tow or more characters to inform the reader of necessary background material, having circumstances or an incident impede the protagonist, and arranging for the antagonist to confront the protagonist (or vice versa). The next scenes would, likewise, present opportunities, at each of their four points, to change the plot again, again, again, and again.

Besides the actions indicated above, writers can use these points of the “Z” plot to heighten suspense, bolster the protagonist (or the antagonist) with reinforcements or assistants, capture a character, have a character escape, pursue a character, bring about a character's return home or to an earlier point of departure, characterize a character, have a character learn something important, or change a character's attitude, beliefs, feelings, perspective, or values.

Although the structure of your story's your plot, in reality, is unlikely to resemble a “Z,” helping to think of the progress of the action in such a manner could help you to remember to change the course of action frequently not only throughout the story as a whole, but also during each and every one of its scenes. As a result, it's unlikely your readers will become bored; in fact, they should be as excited as hell!

The Means to an End, or Catch and Release

 Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In plotting horror fiction, as in other genres, it helps to think of the phrase “a means to an end.”

The “means” are the means that the writer employs to encourage the reader to continue to read the story.

The “end” is the theme, or the “meaning,” of the story of film, the point of the narrative or the drama, what it is all “about.”

Here is a simple illustration: an attractive young woman in a bikini is the “means”; the reason for her being a part of a story about a serial killer who preys upon attractive young women in bikinis is the “end.”

We can think of the means as a series of hooks. The writer hooks the reader, but releases him or her; hooks the reader again, and releases him or her a second time; hooks the reader yet again, and releases him or her a third time; and so on, until, at last, the writer releases the reader for good, at the end of the story.

Too often, writers think of not a series of hooks, but of a single hook: the hook that lands the reader, that succeeds in getting him or her to read the rest of the story. However, the idea that even a short story has but a single hook does not work, and it does not work for a novella or a novel, either. (It also doesn't apply to a feature-length film—and what we say here, in this post, about written stories also applies in general to filmed ones; simply substitute “screenwriter” for “writer,” “film” or “movie” for “story” or “novel,” and “audience,” “spectator,” or “viewer” for “reader.”)

We might also note that every hook leaves behind a question which is answered either sooner or later. The hooks (usually actions) generate questions; the questions generate suspense. Once the suspense is satisfied—temporarily—the next hook is set.

Let's take, as an example, H. G. Wells's short story “The Red Room.” Here are the hooks:

Hook 1: Castle caretakers warn a young man who has recently arrived not to spend the night in the Red Room, which, they say, is haunted.

Question: Will the young man be dissuaded?

Hook 2: The warning is repeated.

Question: Will the young man be dissuaded?

Hook 3: The warning is repeated again.

Question: Will the young man be dissuaded?

Hook 4: The young man proceeds upstairs to the Red Room.

Question: Will the young man continue to the room or change his mind and depart from the castle?

Hook 5: The young man locks himself inside the room.

Question: Will he stay in the room?

Hook 6: Having secured himself inside the room, the young man inspects the chamber for any signs of secret entrances or hiding places.

Question: Will the young man find any secret entrances or hiding places.?

Hook 7: A candle goes out.

Question: Why?

Hook 8: The young man suspects a draft, but he cannot find a source of an air current.

Question: What caused the draft that blew out the candle—or was it a draft that extinguished the flame?

Hooks 9-12*: One by one, additional candles are apparently snuffed.

Question: What caused the drafts that blew out these additional candles—or were they drafts that extinguished the flame?

Hook 13: The fire in the fireplace is abruptly extinguished.

Question: What caused the fire to go out? (Here, the reader may draw a tentative conclusion: a draft of air certainly could not have extinguished the fire!)

Hook 14: The young man panics, running through the room, and is knocked out.

Question: Did ghosts attack him?

Hook 15: The castle's caretakers ask him whether the room is haunted, as rumored?

Question: What will the young man answer: is the room haunted?

End: The room is haunted—by the young man's own imagination, which ran away with him.

*The numbers are invented, as the exact number escape me at present.

While the incidents of a plot must be linked by cause and effect, they should also be related through actions, or hooks, that cause questions, generating suspense, until, at the end, all is explained.

But must stories be explained? Isn't ambiguity best, in some cases? That's a question for a future post.

The Horror of Objective and Subjective Threats

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Some horror fiction, both on the page and on the sound stage, features threats which are both objective and subjective. Just as objective threats can vary, so can subjective ones. If there is the threat of a loss of limb, or of mobility, or of stamina, or of life itself, there is also the threat of such losses as trust, of scruples, of faith, or of sanity.

These dual threats are depicted or dramatized through conflict: the villain or the monster is the agent by whom the objective threat is presented, and the physical threat, in turn, causes the subjective threat.

 

The outcome of conflict involving these two types of threat is resolved in one of at least seven ways:

1. The protagonist wins, overcoming both the objective threat and the subjective threat.
2. The protagonist partially wins, overcoming the objective, but not the subjective, threat.
3. The protagonist partially wins, being overcome by the objective, but overcoming the subjective, threat.
4. The protagonist loses, being overcome by both the objective threat and the subjective threat.
5. The protagonist overcomes the subjective threat, but the resolution regarding the objective threat remains unknown.
6. The protagonist overcomes the objective threat, but the resolution regarding the subjective threat remains unknown.
7. It remains unknown whether the protagonist overcomes either the objective or the subjective threat.
   
   
   
   
   

In the hands of skilled writers, these seven permutations can seem to multiply, as various twists are put upon each threat and each possible outcome.

Edgar Allan Poe's short stories often involve both objective and subjective threats. The outcome of the stories' conflicts vary across the spectrum of possibilities.

1. The protagonist wins, overcoming both the objective threat and the subjective threat. Hop-Frog and Tripetta, of “Hop-Frog,” not only overcome the threat of violence and possible death at the hands of the cruel king they serve, escaping after immolating the villain and his courtiers, but they also overcome the subjective threats to their pride and self-respect posed by the king's dehumanizing conduct toward them. Their victory is double; they regain both their physical freedom and their autonomy and self-esteem.

2. The protagonist partially wins, overcoming the objective, but not the subjective, threat. The protagonist of Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart” imagines that an old man with a “vulture's eye” is a menace. He vanquishes this perceived objective threat by killing the old man. However, the police, alerted by a neighbor who'd heard the victim's screams, arrest the killer, and readers realize that the protagonist has not vanquished the subjective threat of his own madness—nor is he likely to escape the additional, real objective threat of prison or, possibly, hanging.

3. The protagonist partially wins, being overcome by the objective, but overcoming the subjective, threat. William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist is a good example of this variation. Father Karras is questioning his religious faith until, in an act of self-sacrifice, he bids the devil to forsake a girl he's possessed and possess him instead. However, when the devil makes the jump from the girl into the priest, Father Karras foils his adversary by leaping to his death from the upper-story window of the girl's bedroom, in which the exorcism had been being conducted. Although the objective threat of possession by the devil overcomes Father Karras, the priest retains his faith.

4. The protagonist loses, being overcome by both the objective threat and the subjective threat. During the American Civil War, Second-Lieutenant Brainerd Byring of the Union Army succumbs to his on imaginary fears when, on an isolated portion of terrain over which he stands guard, he encounters a dead enemy soldier. Byring fancies that he sees the Confederate soldier's body moving slowly, stealthily toward him. A captain and a surgeon find Byring the next morning.

He has driven his own sword through his heart, after hacking the dead Confederate's cadaver. The enemy soldier's weapon lies on the ground, unfired, and his body is rotten enough to indicate that he has been dead some days before Byring “killed” him. The fight hinted at in Ambrose Bierce's “The Tough Tussle” has been entirely Byring's own; he has survived neither the objective struggle with the corpse nor his delusion that the body was alive, that the dead Confederate soldier was, indeed, sneaking up on him under the cover of darkness to kill him.

5. The protagonist overcomes the objective threat, but the resolution regarding the subjective threat remains unknown. The protagonist of Poe's “The Pit and the Pendulum” avoids the objective threat—execution—when the Inquisition that has imposed the sentence of death upon him is defeated by its enemies and he is rescued. It is unclear whether he also triumphs over the terrors of helplessness and the horrors of physical and emotional abuse. The story's ending does not say or even imply.

6. The protagonist overcomes the objective threat, but the resolution regarding the subjective threat remains unknown. In H. G. Wells' short story “The Cone,” the protagonist, Raut, avenges himself upon Horrocks, the adulterer who has cuckolded him, by causing his wife's lover to fall into a furnace. The objective threat to his wife's violated fidelity has been ended, but the murderer himself may not as easily be rid of the humiliation and rage that appear to have driven him to this desperate act. Even if he does vanquish these emotions, he may have to struggle with another subjective threat, for he seems horrified at the terrible crime—the sin—he has committed: “God have mercy upon me!,” he prays, saying, “O God! what have I done?”

7. It remains unknown whether the protagonist overcomes either the objective or the subjective threat. Legs and his companion Hugh Tarpaulin escape the mad, self-proclaimed King Pest and his courtiers, who have taken refuge from the plague in the basement of an undertaker's shop, but it is unknown whether the rash sailors also escape the plague that has disfigured the afflicted. They might, in fact, be taking the disease aboard the very ship from which they earlier departed, for the narrator of Poe's “King Pest” informs readers,

the victorious Legs, seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out with her into the street, and made a bee-line for the “Free and Easy,” followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who, having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him with the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.

 

If they have not escaped the plague, it is doubtful that they will escape the terror that it will bring and, if the rest of the crew they infect understand that it was they who infected them, it is unlikely that they will escape the ire of their fellow seamen; indeed, a new objective threat may arise, one which costs them their very lives. They may have merely escaped one type of death to flee into hands of a death of another kind.

These seven variations on the theme of an objective threat coupled with an often-related subjective threat provide a fertile foundation for a multitude of treatments so that no story needs to be like another, even if they are based on the same dynamics—or, indeed, a specific dynamic within the seven-fold group of dynamics. Likewise, the same writer can produce a story from any one of the objective-subjective threat pairings or from the same one, treated differently.

Hungry Again: A Review of Sult, a Short Horror Film

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Sult (2018), a Norwegian short erotic horror film runs about seven minutes and thirty-six minutes (not counting the credits that roll as the end of the action). In English, the movie's title is Hunger. A brunette hairstylist, Vera (Sarah-Stephanie Skjoldevik) has an appetite for an aloof blonde, Suzanne (Marianne Lindbeck), but Vera's love, if not her passion, is unrequited. However, Suzanne does seem attracted to brunettes: the woman with whom she cheats on Vera is also a dark-haired beauty.

The film starts in the present. It's Friday, and Vera joins Suzanne in a booth in a bar. Suzanne wears the necklace that Vera gives her (in a flashback scene not yet shown). Suzanne does not look overjoyed to see Vera; in fact, Suzanne appears barely able to tolerate the brunette. Vera drinks a glass of wine on the rim of which is a split cherry. Then, Vera strokes Suzanne's cheek, throat, and chin, as Suzanne appears to put up with Vera's attentions, rather than to enjoy them. However, when Vera kisses Suzanne, the women exchange a series of additional kisses, during which Suzanne, becoming aroused, slips the tip of her tongue into Vera's mouth. Reaching behind her own back, Vera removes a pair of scissors from her waistband. Biting Suzanne's tongue, Vera snips the tip of it off with her scissors, and Suzanne falls back, against the seat in the booth, a bloody mess, in pain, disbelief, and horror.

During a flashback, Vera is at home. It's Tuesday, and she prepares for her date with Suzanne. Later, they play billiards, and Suzanne wins. Afterward, Vera gives Suzanne a necklace—the same one the blonde wears in the bar in the film's opening scene. However, Vera seems indifferent about the gift—she even rolls her eyes as Vera fastens it about her neck—and, indeed, Suzanne seems to care nothing for Vera's love for her. The next day, Vera visits Suzanne's modest apartment, where the brunette sees Suzanne kissing and caressing another woman, who is also a brunette. On Thursday, while styling a client's hair, Vera cuts her finger, which seems to suggest the revenge she takes upon Suzanne.

Back in the present, watching Suzanne bleed and shudder, Vera, now shows the same indifference toward Suzanne's pain and horror as Suzanne had earlier shown concerning Vera's gift. After retrieving the necklace she'd given Suzanne, Vera takes the tip of Suzanne's tongue from Suzanne's bloody hand, inserts the severed piece of the appendage into her own mouth, chews, and swallows, before abandoning Suzanne, who continues to bleed and shudder in the booth.

Sult is a revenge film, but there is a bit more to the interpersonal dynamics between Vera and Suzanne than simply courtship. When she meets Suzanne in the bar, Vera wears a black leather outfit that suggests a penchant on her part for BDSM. In a stereotype dating from pulp fiction lesbian erotica, Vera's hair color and dress characterize her as a dominant, or top, while Suzanne's contrasting blonde locks identify her as a submissive, or bottom. Throughout the film Vera displays her dominance over Suzanne. She makes Suzanne wait for her to arrive at the bar. Vera always initiates the action between them. Vera gazes upon Suzanne as though the blonde is a prized possession, rather than a person. Vera bestows a gift upon Suzanne, which identifies the blonde as the recipient of Vera's generosity.

Suzanne maintains a relationship with Vera, but it is a superficial one. She tolerates Vera, but she does not love her. She waits for her. She endures Vera's kisses and caresses, but she never initiates the intimacy between them, and she does not appear to treasure the gift of the necklace. She accepts it the same was that she tolerates Vera, with aloofness, with coolness, with indifference. She even expresses her disdain by rolling her eyes as Vera fastens the clasp of the necklace about her lover's neck. There is the suggestion, in Vera's large, luxurious apartment, in her clothing, in her gift, and in her bearing, of a woman who has money, but she is a controlled, as well as a controlling, mistress: she wears tight, restrictive clothing—the leather outfit and the corset into which she laces herself quite tightly as she prepares for her date with Suzanne.

It is because of Vera's money, rather than for Vera herself, perhaps, that Suzanne unenthusiastically tolerates Vera and her romantic inclinations. It is clear, though, that Suzanne does not love Vera, despite the occasional passion that Vera's lovemaking ignites in Suzanne.

Certainly, Vera is not Suzanne's only paramour. Suzanne embraces, kisses, and caresses the woman in her own apartment, and, although Vera later watches Suzanne grope and be groped by another woman—a brunette, like Vera herself—and pleasures herself, it is clear that Vera does not like sharing Suzanne with someone else.

Suzanne's intimate interaction with the other woman also suggests that Suzanne is not exclusively submissive, for, in these interactions, Suzanne not only takes the lead, but she treats her lover in a manner similar to the one in which Vera treats Suzanne herself: Suzanne, in these interactions, is the dominant person. With Vera, she reverses this role, albeit reluctantly. Suzanne, like Vera, appears to be a naturally dominant person. If such is the case, she may well resent submitting to Vera, which could explain Suzanne's reluctance and indifference to her playing the role of the submissive participant in her relationship with Vera.

It is when Vera accidentally cuts herself while styling another woman's hair—and a blonde woman, like Suzanne, at that—that Vera conceives her plan to cut off the tip of Suzanne's tongue. She will punish Suzanne's infidelity. She will hurt Suzanne, as Vera has just hurt herself. Indeed, the same pair of scissors with which she accidentally cut her own finger become the instrument with which she severs Suzanne's tongue.

The tongue is an instrument of taste. It is an instrument of communication, helping to form words. The lips resemble the labia, and, in lesbian lovemaking, the lips are often a primary instrument in providing pleasure for one's lover—in Suzanne's case, Vera. However, Suzanne has betrayed Vera with her lips and her tongue, kissing other women, women with whom Suzanne takes the lead, acting as the initiator, conducting herself in an aggressive, dominant manner.

By cutting off the tip of Suzanne's tongue, Vera mutilates her, degrading Suzanne's beauty while eliminating or severely reducing Suzanne's ability to provide erotic pleasure to other lovers. In a sense, by this act, Vera claims Suzanne as her own. However, she does so only to abandon her, to leave her moaning in horror and pain, shuddering and bloody. Henceforth, if she survives, Suzanne will be less beautiful and less able to attract and please other women.

The “hunger” that Vera feels for Suzanne is sexual, but it is also psychological. Vera wants Suzanne both physically and emotionally. Vera wants to dominate Suzanne, body and soul, When Suzanne refuses to give Vera what she wants most—her autonomy, her freedom, her will, her very existence—Vera takes it. Courtship becomes assault, physical, sexual, and emotional.

 

In certain societies, consuming part of a vanquished enemy's body—usually, the heart—indicates that the consumer has ingested the foe's courage, literally taking it into himself, so that the enemy's attribute becomes an attribute of the vanquishing hero himself. By eating the tip of Suzanne's tongue, Vera symbolically takes into herself Suzanne's own beauty and passion; Suzanne's characteristics become Vera's own. It is the final act of dominance, of control, of possession.

The question is, Does the cannibalistic act satisfy Vera's hunger? Can such a hunger ever be satisfied? Will Vera, at some time in the future, become hungry again?