In the wilderness, we have little control over our surroundings, and,
whether a provincial park, a rain forest, a crocodile-infested area
along a flooded river, or another forbidding location, our environment
can be hostile, dangerous, or even deadly.
Trees obscure lines of
sight; darkness impedes vision; sounds in the darkness seem ominous.
Especially in remote locations, the wilderness isolates us, cutting us
off from civilization and the assistance that social institutions and
government agencies could otherwise provide. No ambulances, fire trucks,
or police cruisers are standing by; no emergency telephone operators
await our calls; no infrastructure of highways, hospitals, and other
resources is available.
In movies that combine horror with
wilderness environments, characters are likewise vulnerable and
helpless. They are alone, in the dark, among wild animals or other
threats. They may find themselves in the presence of killers, some of
whom could be family members or friends. These 10 wilderness horror
movies based on horrific true stories may make us think twice about
power outages, camping, traveling, or even staying home alone.
The listicle for which the above paragraphs are the introduction appears on Listverse.
Although The Cat's
Pajamas, published in 2004, may
not be one of Ray Bradbury's finest collections of short stories, it
does contain some good ones.
“The
Island,” in which a family of four (Mrs. Benton, her daughters
Alice and Madeline, and her 15-year-old son Robert) live in a large
house, isolated from the larger world and imprisoned by their
paranoia, may not be an altogether successful story. It does,
however, show Bradbury's talent for indirection.
It
seems that Mrs. Benton's fears have infected her children. Bedridden,
the matriarch fears that her home may be invaded, either by robbers
seeking to steal the $40,000 she's hidden beneath her bed, to rape
her and her daughters, or to do both before killing them all. The
children share her fears. Their defenses are to arm themselves and to
ensure that “the house was locked and bolted” (15).
They
have also discontinued their telephone service, except for a
battery-powered “intercommunication phone circuit” (18) that lets
them talk to one another in their separate rooms. Preferring not to
rely upon the world beyond their own house, they've also discontinued
the electric service, opting for “oil lamps” and the light and
heat of logs blazing in the house's fireplaces (20). To protect
themselves, each of the family members, except Mrs. Benson, keeps a
pistol at hand in his or her bedroom. These decisions add to their
jeopardy after they hear one of the downstairs windows break and fear
that a stranger has invaded the sanctuary of their isolated home.
Their
maid does not live in the family home, and she does not share the
family's fears: “She lived but a few hours each day in this
outrageous home, untouched by the mother's wild panics and fears.
[She had been] made practical with years of living in the town beyond
the wide moat of lawn, hedge, and wall” (20).
According
to the omniscient narrator, everyone hears the breaking of the
window. The family responds as the reader might predict, based upon
Bradbury's characterization of them: “Rushing en masse, each [to a]
room, a duplicate of the one above or below, four people flung
themselves to their doors, to scrabble locks, throw bolts, and attach
chains, twist keys” (20). (Bradbury makes a mistake in having his
omniscient narrator declare that “ four people flung themselves to
their doors,” etc., since Mrs. Benton is bedridden. Confined to her
bed, she would not be able to rush back to her room or lock her door;
indeed, she would never have gotten out of bed to begin with.)
By contrast, the maid does the sensible thing, as she performs “what
should have been a saving, but became a despairing gesture”: she
rushes from the kitchen, where she'd been cleaning and putting away
“the supper wineglasses,” and “into the lower hallway,” where
she calls the family members' names (20). After the family hears her
“one small dismayed and accusing cry,” the mother and her
children wait “for some new sound” (21).
They
seem to want to confirm their worst fear (the invasion of their home)
the same way that they earlier confirmed, to their own satisfaction,
that their house had been invaded, by taking the sound of “metal
rattling” as proof that the earlier sound of a breaking windowpane
was not due to “a
falling tree limb” or to a snowball (19). In other words, the
residents interpret a succession of incidents as confirming one
another (or as failing to do so), whether the incidents have anything
to do with one another or not.
The
Maid as Killer
Has
the maid been killed by an intruder, someone who'd entered the house,
perhaps to steal the money hidden under Mrs. Benton's bed, to rape
her and her daughters, or to kill the family?
Or is
the maid really dead? Has she only faked her own murder? Is she
herself the killer?
The
maid might have a motive: the $40,000. As the person who cleans the
house, she might have found the cache, although, since Mrs. Benton is
bedridden, it seems unlikely. The maid could have heard of the money,
perhaps when, “in the years before,” Alice and her mother debated
the wisdom of locking the house and of keeping the large sum of money
on hand:
“But all a robber has to do,” said Alice, “is
smash a window, undo the still locks, and—”
“Break
a window! And warn us?
Nonsense!”
“It
would all be so simple if we only kept our money in the bank.”
“Again,
nonsense! I learned in 1929 to keep hard cash from soft hands!
There's a gun under my pillow and our money under my
bed! I'm the First
National Bank of Oak Green Island!”
“A bank worth forty thousand dollars?!”
“Hush!
Why don't you stand at the landing and tell all the fishermen?
Besides, it's not just cash that the fiends would come for. Yourself,
Madeline—me!” (17)
All
the maid would have to do is to break a window. Then, as panic ensues
among the members of the family, she could visit the room of each,
individually, and murder them, one by one. Neither Mrs. Benton nor
Robert is said to fire a weapon at their killer. Madeline does and
miss her aim. Alice also fires at her attacker—three times, in
fact—but with her eyes closed, so it is easy to imagine that Alice
misses her target, as the omniscient narrator verifies for the
reader, stating that one bullet penetrates “the wall, another . . .
the bottom of the door, [and the] third . . . the top” of the door
(26).
The
failure to fire a gun or poor aim protects the maid. As a result, the
money is hers, and she can retire from the “outrageous home.” In
1952, the year in which Bradbury wrote this story, $40,000 was a lot
of money, after all. As a suspect, the maid has the same three
requisites for murder that a stranger would have: means, motive, and
opportunity.
Alice
as the Killer
Three
of the family members are attacked and killed (or otherwise dies) in
their respective bedrooms. Alice, who is in the library, alone
survives. Shooting three times at the stranger who seeks to enter the
library—and missing each time—Alice falls from the window she's
opened, the sill of which she straddles, and makes good her escape
through the snow. Was the maid also murdered? Is Alice, the sole
survivor, the killer?
Because
of the indirect style that Bradbury employs, which often describes
actions, frequently in fragments without much context, and offers
only snippets of conversation, while flitting from one character to
another, either possibility seems to exist: either the maid or Alice,
it appears, could be the killer.
Either
could have broken a downstairs window, thereby precipitating the
family's panic, and picked the victims off, one by one.
If
Alice is the murderer, she certainly has the means (her gun) and the
opportunity (she lives in the same house as the victims, her family),
but what about the motive? What reason would she have to kill her
mother, her sister, and her brother? After all, as a member of the
family, she already enjoys the benefits such status confers upon her:
food, clothing, shelter, even luxury.
However,
she also must suffer the isolation, the deprivation (there is neither
telephone service beyond the house nor electricity; nor is there much
companionship, and there is no normalcy) in the “outrageous house,”
which is occupied by eccentric and paranoid family members. With
$40,000, she might start life anew. She alone is in the library,
which suggests she has an interest in the wider world and in art and
culture, articles which are in short supply in the madhouse in which
she lives.
At the
end of the story, objectivity appears in the figure of “the sheriff
and his men” (26). Finally, there are individuals from the wider
world, authorities trained to respond to emergencies and to solve
crimes. Alice has been away; she has escaped; now, “hours later,”
she has returned “with the police” (26).
The
sheriff, observing the open front door, is surprised by the audacity
of the intruder: “He must have just opened up the front door and
strolled out, damn,
not caring who saw!”
(27)
The
sheriff and his men also confirm the second set of footprints leading
“down the front porch stairs into the white soft velvet snow.”
The footprints are “evenly spaced,” suggesting “a certain
serenity” and confidence (27).
Alice
is amazed at the size of the footprints and the implication of their
dimensions: “Oh, God, what a little man”
(27).
But
are the footprints
those of a man?
Could
they be the maid's footprints? Alice thinks they are the footprints
of a man, but Alice never saw the person at the door to the library
who'd sought to get to her; she'd fired at the library door with her
“eyes shut” when she'd observed the doorknob turning, and all
three of “her shots had gone wide” (26).
If
the maid faked her own death, prior to killing the other family
members, maybe the footprints are the maid's and not those of a male
intruder. Maybe Alice has merely supposed
the footprints are those of a man. After all, her mother often warned
that rapists could assault them: “Besides, it's not just cash that
the fiends would come for. Yourself, Madeline—me!”
she'd told Alice (17). In this case, the maid left the footprints
descending the front porch stairs and parading from the house
“neatly” and “evenly spaced, with a certain serenity,” and
Alice left the other set of footprints, those that begin outside the
library window and run “away from silence” (26-27).
The
first set of footprints could also be those of Alice herself. But
what about the other set of footprints that Alice sees when she
returns with the police, those “in the snow, running away from the
silence” of the house? They are not the same set of footprints that
she sees and calls to the attention of the sheriff and his men, those
which lead down the front porch's stairs and across the lawn,
“vanishing away into the cold night and snowing town” (27). Does
this second set of footprints constitute an insurmountable problem
for the idea that Alice is the killer?
After
opening the front door, she could have left it open and run down the
porch stairs and across the lawn to notify the police of the alleged
intruder's dastardly deeds. This would be the reason that the
footprints are small for a man; they were not left by a male intruder
at all, but by Alice herself. The footprints that Alice sees fleeing
from the library's open window could be imaginary footprints, which
only she alone sees, possibly as a means of supporting her fantasy
that an intruder, rather than she herself, murdered her family.
If
this is the case, it makes sense that, suffering guilt, she would try
to obliterate the only set of footprints at the scene, those of the
“little man”
(Alice herself): “Alice bent and put out her hand. She measured
then tried to cover them with a thrust of her numb fingers.” And it
makes sense that she stops crying only after “the wind and the
winter and the night did her a gentle kindness. . . [by] filling and
erasing” the incriminating evidence “until at last, with no
trace, with no memory of their smallness, they were gone” (27).
Interestingly,
the omniscient narrator states only that Alice saw the set of
footprints leading from the open library window, but acknowledges
that both she and the police see the footprints descending the front
porch stairs and heading across the lawn, toward the distant,
“snowing town.” Is one sight a hallucination, the other a
reality?
Thanks
to Bradbury's indirect communication, maybe not. The omniscient
narrator does not tell the reader that the police see this second set
of footprints. The omniscient narrator states only that “she
[Alice] saw her footprints in the snow, running away from silence.”
If Alice is the killer, after dispatching the maid, her mother, her
brother, and her sister, she could have “fallen” out the library
window and run to the front porch, covering her footprints as she
went, the same way the wind eliminates the “small” footprints of
the presumed intruder, by “smoothing and erasing them until at last
. . . they were gone” (27).
An
Intruder as a Killer
Alternatively,
the killer could be a stranger, an intruder, come to rob or rape the
women of the house, as Mrs. Benton has long imagined and feared might
happen. This is the story's straightforward interpretation, and,
despite a few incredulities, such as the intruder's remaining alive
despite being the target of several shots fired by different
individuals, the small footprints said to be his, the unlikelihood of
his knowing about the cache of cash, and his breaking and entering
without knowing what he risks he might face from the family inside
the house, is a plausible—and perhaps the most
plausible—interpretation of the plot.
Thee Family Are the Killers
Finally,
another interpretation is possible concerning the killer's
identity—or identities.
Maybe
neither an intruder, the maid, nor Alice is the murderer. Perhaps the
family members each killed him- or herself or died of fright. They
are paranoid. Each has a loaded gun at hand. Although panicked by the
breaking of a window, they allow (at first) that the broken window
could have resulted from nothing more sinister than “a falling tree
limb” or a thrown snowball. It's only after they hear a second
sound, that of “metal rattling,” that they irrationally conclude
that a window has been raised and that an intruder has entered their
home (19). Their frantic telephone calls to one another fan the
flames of their panic, as do the sounds of each successive gunshot,
as the family members suppose one of their own seeks to defend him-
or herself against the intruder.
While
such defenses are possible, it's also possible that the disturbed,
terrified mother and children, afraid of being robbed or raped and
murdered, dispatch themselves, preferring a bullet to the savagery
that the intruder might unleash upon them. Certainly, Bradbury's
omniscient narrator impresses their terror upon the story's readers.
Each is shut up alone, behind a locked door, separated from each
other and from society at large.
Mrs.
Benton sees (or imagines) her door opening, and she does not respond
thereafter to Alice's frantic pleas over the telephone (24). Did she
somehow take her own life?
Robert
expires with a groan, perhaps dying of fright: “His heart stopped”
(24).
Madeline
says the intruder is at her door, “fumbling with the lock,” and
the others hear “one shot and only one” (25). Has Madeline shot
at the intruder—and missed? Or has she killed herself?
Only
Alice now survives (unless the maid faked her own death and is, in
fact, the killer). When Alice sees the knob to the library door turn,
she also shoots, with her eyes closed—three times—and also misses
the intruder (if there is
an intruder).
How
unlikely is it that two armed, terrified, paranoid people—Madeline,
and Alice—would fail to kill their attacker or that Madeline would
fire only once at someone she feared was trying to rob, rape, or kill
her? Yet precisely this happens!
But
what about the maid? In this scenario, how is her death
explained? She is not like the family for whom she works. She does
not share their paranoia. She is not isolated by choice, but lives in
the town and works only a few hours each day in the family's home.
She is “practical.” As far as we know, she is unarmed. Besides,
even if she has a gun, why would she kill herself? The story is all
but silent as to her demise (if she does die). All the omniscient
narrator tells readers is that the maid has entered the “main lower
hallway,” calling the names of the family members, apparently
trying to get them to assemble.
Previously,
however, readers have learned that Mrs. Benton objects to and
discourages shouting, afraid that it could attract the attention of
“fiends” (17). Alice thinks, as, in their panic, the others begin
to scream, “I hear . . . . We all hear. And he'll
hear . . . too” (22). Using their intercommunication phone service,
Alice tells Mrs. Benton, “Quiet, he'll hear you” (23). Later, she
is more direct: “Mother, shut up” (24). After her mother's death,
Alice thinks, “If only she hadn't yelled. . . . If only she hadn't
showed him the way” (24). Alice is downstairs, as is the maid.
Could Alice have shot the maid to silence her and protect herself and
her family?
As
we've seen, there are at least four possibilities for interpreting
Bradbury's story. So, what does
happen in “The Island”?
Does
an intruder actually enter the house and kill its occupants?
Does
the maid fake her own death and then execute the members of the
family, except Alice, who escapes?
Does
Alice kill everyone else, the maid included, before she “escapes”
an imaginary killer?
Do the
family members kill themselves, while Alice kills the maid?
Thanks
to Bradbury's indirect style, the possibilities multiply. While some
may seem less likely than others, each is apt to have its own
subscribers.
Among
the other stories in The Cat's Pajamas that I found
particularly interesting are “Ole, Orozco! Siqueiros, Si!”
and “The Completist,” each of which will be murdered and
dissected in future Chillers and Thrillers posts.
Roald Dahl won two Edgar Awards, one in 1954 for “Someone Like You” and the other in 1960 for “The Landlady.”
In the first story, two war veterans, both of whom flew fighters, bombing enemy cities, discuss how they killed more people than would die were the bartender of the public house in which they buy one another drinks were to poison his customers’ drinks. They decide to leave the establishment and go somewhere else, where there is either but the two of them and a bartender or to “a place with a hundred thousand people in it.” Apparently, the former warriors can be comfortable in only these two locales, among killers of their own kind, who have shared combat experience and the horrors of killing other human beings on a massive scale, or in a place that is large and populous enough for them to lose themselves in the anonymity of the crowds. However, neither man, it appears, is likely to be comfortable for long in either set of circumstances, for each is haunted by his past deeds.
In the second story, a seventeen-year-old man takes a room in a rooming house in which two other young men, before him, had lived for a time. The landlady seems a bit scatterbrained. She has trouble remembering the names of her former tenants and asks her current renter to sign her guestbook, so she can look up his name if she should happen to forget it. Then, despite his having declined her offer to serve him a snack, she insists that he have a cup of tea and “a ginger biscuit” before he retires for the night. Her mention of the previous tenants arouses the young man’s curiosity, for he seems to remember having seen their names, linked in a newspaper account of the disappearance of two young men in the vicinity of his landlady’s rooming house. A few clues alert the reader to the possibility that the landlady is not as innocent and harmless as she seems and is, in fact, likely to be extremely dangerous and, rather than merely scatterbrained, insane: she stuffs parrots and other animals; the last names to have been entered in her guestbook are three years old, and it was three years ago that the young men who’d been traveling through the area were reported missing; and, even though she is confused about her former tenants’ names and speaks of them in the past tense, she tells her latest renter that neither of the young men have left her house. On the contrary, she insists, “They’re on the third floor, both of them together”--together, the reader is led to believe, and dead. Moreover, like the parrot, they have probably been stuffed. The current tenant himself seems likely to meet the same fate.
Typically, the story starts in media res, with the discovery of a body. Early on, perhaps in the second chapter, the detective is introduced. He or she is often slightly eccentric, unassuming, and of superior intellect, although he or she may disguise his or her intellectual superiority in various ways. During the course of the investigation, the detective discovers various clues and red herrings as he or she examines evidence and unofficially deposes suspects. Finally, the detective learns how and why the murderer committed the crime, identifies the killer, and an arrest is made.
To plot the story, the writer may begin with character (the killer, the victim, the detective, or a supporting character, such as a suspect or an eye witness); with scene (the when and the where of the murder); with the crime and its commission; with the motive (or motives) for the murder; or with the means by which the murder was committed. Eventually, all six of the following questions should be answered in a single sentence: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?
Here are three examples, one fictional and two actual (but the actual ones could be fictionalized as novels or movies)*:
Adrian Monk [who] fingers a Mexican coroner [who] as the culprit who faked the cause of death (midair drowning) [what] of a parachutist [who] in order to lure the consulting detective south of the border so he (the coroner) could engineer Monk’s death [why] after Monk had tarnished the coroner’s professional reputation [when].
Three years ago [when], Casey Anthony [who] (allegedly) kills [what] her three-year-old daughter Calley [who] by drugging and asphyxiating her [how] in Orlando, Florida [where], so she (Casey) [who] can resume her carefree, single, party girl lifestyle [why].
After his mother dies [when], Ed Gein [who] shoots [what] Bernice Worden [who] in her hardware store in Plainfield, Wisconsin [where], so he can use her body as food, clothing, and decorations [why].
*Actually, Gein has been the subject of a movie, Ed Gein (2000), starring Steve Railsback and Carrie Snodgress and directed by Chuck Parello.
A sociopath suffers from an anti-social personality disorder. A psychopath is a conscienceless individual. According to a longer definition of the latter, the psychopath is “a person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, exploitiveness, heedlessness, arrogance, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, and lack of empathy and remorse. Such an individual may be especially prone to violent and criminal offenses” (“Definition of Psychopath”).
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the anti-social personality disorder’s “essential feature. . . is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.”
The public tends to use these terms pretty much interchangeably to denote a seriously disturbed, dangerous person who is prone to mindless acts of rage and violence.
Herbert got into trouble on a few occasions. Once, when the school bus stopped, he jumped off and climbed a tree, refusing to come down. On another occasion, the local minister caught him holding a cat by the tail over an open fire “to see what it would do.” It was rumored that he stabbed a Boy Scout in the foot during a camping trip because the boy's foot “was sticking out of the tent.” Shortly before adolescence, Herbert moved with his family into the mountains, and we never saw him again until he’d become a young man. (According to psychologists, the anti-social personality disorder is often indicated by the so-called MacDonald triad, which consists of animal cruelty, arson, and bedwetting.)
Herbert returned in a late-model car with a friend. They stopped by our house and asked whether I’d like to go for a ride with them. Herbert said he’d bought the car for fifty dollars. Although I suspected he and his friend had stolen the vehicle, I agreed, against my better judgment, to go with them. As we left the driveway, I said, “So, what have you been up to, Herbert?”
NASA Photograph of Mars
Herbert told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he’d just returned from Mars, describing the planet’s flora and fauna. Since he has limited intelligence and an inadequate imagination, it was obvious that he believed, on some level, that he had, in fact, just arrived home from the red planet. Maybe he’d read a science fiction magazine story or, more likely, had seen a science fiction movie about an expedition to Mars and had come to believe that he had been among those who’d visited the planet. I decided that the wisest course of action was to go along with him, and I said something on the order of “that’s nice.” He also told me that he’d tried to enlist in the army but had been refused admission on the grounds that he lacks a conscience. “They said I don’t know right from wrong,” was the way, I think, Herbert put it. He said, since, his ambition had changed, and he now aspired to end his days in prison.
As we pulled up to a tank at a filling station, Herbert, indicating his need for gasoline, asked me whether I had any money on me. “No,” I told him, “I’m broke.” It was after I’d replied that I saw Herbert’s friend nod toward a bank of nearby vending machines. Suspecting that they planned to rob the machines, I told Herbert I had to get home. Fortunately for me, he took me home without robbing the machines--or me--first.
I never saw Herbert again after that, but, occasionally, I wonder whether he’d ever realized his ambition, entering a prison somewhere.
At the time, Herbert hadn’t seemed especially scary, although I was wary around him. He’d always been strange, after all, and I’d known him, casually, most of my life. Mountaineering had built his body, and just his appearance showed that he’d become as strong as a bull. He could be dangerous, even deadly, if he wanted to be, I thought, and who knew what it would take to make him want to hurt, to maim, or to kill? It could have been nothing more than the desire to fill his gas tank or to secure enough money to buy a sandwich and a soda. I shouldn’t have gotten into his car, I shouldn’t have gone for a drive with him, and I am fortunate not to have incited him to anger by asserting my indigence. In retrospect, Herbert had been very scary, indeed.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface
From Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of the Amontillado” to Psycho and its sequels and The Silence of the Lambs and its sequel Red Dragon, the sociopath and the psychopath have been stock characters in horror fiction. Other horror stories in which madmen are the antagonists include:
Brimstone, Dance of Death, The Book of the Dead (Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child trilogy novels): Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast investigates a series of bizarre deaths in which Lucifer himself seems to be the killer (Brimstone); Pendergast’s brother, the evil genius Diogenes, rescues him from certain death so that the FBI agent can stop him from committing the perfect crime--if Pendergast is able to do so (Dance of Death); and Diogenes implements his plan to commit the perfect crime (The Book of the Dead).
Good Guy, The (Dean Koontz novel): A stone mason mistaken for a mob hit man seeks to rescue the intended target from the real killers.
Husband (Dean Koontz novel): A husband’s wife is kidnapped; the husband must save her.
Icebound (Dean Koontz): An iceberg is the scene of this killer's horrific crimes.
Intensity (Dean Koontz novel): A sadistic killer chases his prey across country before the woman he’s chasing, to save herself and the child she’s protecting, sets him afire.
Misery (Stephen King novel): A romance novelist’s greatest fan is a nurse, but she has second thoughts about nursing him back to health after he wrecks his car in a blizzard when he kills off the woman’s favorite protagonist.
Psycho (Robert Bloch novel): A mommy’s boy becomes his mother, murdering young women to whom her son takes a shine.
Rose Madder (Stephen King novel): An abused wife escapes through a painting into the land of the minotaur (really).
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hunter film series): He’s armed and dangerous!
Velocity (Dean Koontz novel): A bartender has to rescue a targeted victim before she’s killed by the psychopath who hunts her (if this plot seems familiar, maybe you read Koontz’s The Good Guy).
Wheel of Darkness, The (Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child): a sequel to the trilogy that pits the FBI’s Special Agent Pendergast against his evil genius brother Diogenes.
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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