Everyday Horrors: Castles and Hotels

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Gothic romance is a product of the European imagination and of the European landscape. Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764) was one of the earliest novels to combine elements of horror with elements of literary romance. (The novel may be downloaded free from Project Gutenberg.) Other important Gothic romances include The History of the Caliph Vathek (1786) by William Beckford, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk (1796) by Gregory Lewis, Wieland (1798) by Charles Brockden Brown, Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley, Melmouth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Robert Maturin, Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan le Fanu, Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker, and Gormenghast (1946-1959) by Mervyn Peake. Many of these books are set in gloomy castles in which supernatural incidents occur.

Occasionally, the castles in such novels are modeled upon, in part, at least, actual castles, and the one in Peake’s novels, Gormenghast, is comprised of a mixture of features from various actual castles as well as cities, mansions, and universities: its walls are like those of Normal castles and those of ancient Chinese cities, while the buildings resemble those of Gothic and Regency mansions and English country houses. The professors’ living quarters and the courtyards within Gormenghast are similar to those at Oxford and Cambridge.

Bran Castle (Dracula's Castle)

In other instances, the castles are based upon a single actual fortress. Frankenstein’s castle is modeled upon eighteenth-century Lord Konrad Dippel Von Frankenstein’s residence near the small village of Muhltal, not far from Darmstadt, Germany, and Dracula’s residence, is derived from Bran Castle (now a museum), which stands near Bran, Romania, on the Transylvania-Wallachia border.

Castle Frankenstein

Because of their antiquity, the privileged lives of the nobles who dwelled within their walls, the horrible punishments endured in their dungeons, their remote locations, and their vast, dark and dank interiors, many castles are said to be haunted, including, in England alone, Arundle Castle (Sussex), Bamburgh Castle (Northumberland), Berkeley Castle (Berkeley Gloucestershire), Berry Pomeroy Castle (Berry Pomeroy Devon), Bramber Castle (West Sussex), Castle Rising (Castle Rising, Norfolk), Chillingham Castle (Northumberland), Corby Castle (Cumbria), Corfe Castle (Wareham Dorset), Dacre Castle (Cumbria), Dunstanburgh Castle (Northumberland), Dunster Castle (Somerset), Featherstone Castle (Northumberland), Hever Castle (Kent), Lowther Castle (Cumbria), Morton Corbet Castle (Shropshire), Muncaster Castle (Cumbria), Okehampton Castle (Devon), Pevensey Castle (Sussex), Pontefract Castle (West Yorkshire), Raby Castle (County Durham), Tamworth Castle (Tamworth, Staffordshire), Tintagel Castle (Tintagel Cornwall), Tower of London, Warkworth Castle (Northumberland), and Windsor Castle (Berkshire). Castles in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and mainland Europe are also said to be haunted. For example, Windsor Castle, built by William the Conqueror to “guard the western approaches to the capital,” is believed to be haunted by several ghosts, among them Queen Elizabeth I, who favors the library and a boy’s ghost, who favors the chapel. The grounds and nearby forest are also rumored to be haunted, the former by a band of interlopers, the latter by King Richard II’s favorite huntsman, Herne the Hunter. Likewise, the Tower of London, which was also built by William the Conqueror, as were many other English castles, is reportedly haunted by the ghosts of Saint Thomas a Becket, the murdered sons of King Edward IV, Anne Boleyn, one of King Henry XIII’s wives, Catherine Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many commoners who were tortured and executed in the Tower’s dungeons and torture chambers.

Oddly, the castles in the United States (yes, there are several, in addition to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California) seem quiet and restful in comparison to their European counterparts.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The White House is said to be haunted, though, by no less illustrious a ghost than that of its former occupant, President Abraham Lincoln. In yet another example of our tax dollars at work, the official White House website shares videos in which staff members relate stories of their encounters with Lincoln’s ghost.

Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado

Despite the availability of American castles, Stephen King has preferred to locate some of his more contemporary ghost stories in hotels. The action of The Shining takes place in the Overlook Hotel, which is based upon the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. The movie 1408, based upon King’s short story of the same title, which appeared in Everything’s Eventual (2002) used exterior shots of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City to depict the exterior of the film’s Dolphin Hotel and shots of a London hotel’s lobby to depict the Dolphin Hotel‘s lobby, but the short story was inspired by stories of parapsychologist Christopher Chacon’s investigation of a supposedly haunted room in the famous San Diego, California, inn, Hotel Del Coronado. In America, where everyone’s a king or queen, hotels seem the logical--or, at least, the democratic--alternative to castles and manor houses for traveling or long-term guests of the ghostly variety.

“Everyday Horrors: Castles and Hotels” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured on Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.

Download Free Stories

In an earlier post, we supplied links to specific pages of a website from which you can download free, full-length motion pictures in a variety of genres, including, of course, horror. Now, because we're looking out for you, we're sharing a website at which you can download free short stories, most of which are in the sci fi, fantasy, and horror genres. Here's the link.

Everyday Horrors: Mummies

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Mummies appear in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “Some Words with a Mummy” (1845); in several horror novels, including Anne Rice’s The Mummy, or Ramses the Dead (1991) and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Book of the Dead (2007); in such movies as The Mummy (1932), The Mummy’s Hand (1949), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Mummy’s Shroud (1966), Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971), The Mummy Lives (1993), The Mummy (1999), and The Mummy Returns (2001); and in episodes in television series, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Inca Mummy Girl” and “Life Serial.”

Mummies--preserved corpses from whom internal organs have been removed and preserved in jars--have been found in many countries, including Chile, China, Egypt, India, and Italy (Sicily and Vatican City), Pakistan, Persia, Peru, and Russia.

When most people think of mummies (which we do all the time, right?), they tend to think of Egyptian mummies. The corpses of important people, usually pharaohs, were deliberately mummified by the ancient Egyptians so as to ensure that the resurrected ka (personality) and ba (life force) had a home in which to live. Were the body not preserved, these vital aspects of the deceased’s soul would be homeless vagrants, doomed to wander the earth.


To mummify a mummy, the internal organs, except for the heart, were removed and stored in canopic jars, or carved and painted funerary urns. These jars were made in the images of four of the Egyptians’ gods, each of whom, it was believed, guarded the organ that the jar in its likeness contained. The man-headed Imsety guarded the liver, the baboon-headed Hapi protected the lungs, the jackal-headed Duamutef looked after the stomach, and the falcon-headed Qebehsenuef watched over the intestines. The heart was left inside the body because it was believed to be the repository of the soul. The brain was relatively unimportant (by ancient Egyptians’ standards), for it was believed only to be the organ that supplied mucus. Therefore, it was smashed and extracted through the nostrils using a hook.

To preserve the body, salts were used to dry and preserve the corpse’s flesh and tissues, and the remains were covered in natron to assist in the dehydration and preservation. The body was then wrapped in linen strips to further protect it, and amulets were provided to ward off threats and other evils. As a finishing touch, the mummy was equipped with false eyes. The tomb was furnished and decorated, and the mouth was opened so that the resurrected body could eat and speak. The mummy was then laid to rest inside a sarcophagus within the burial chamber of its pyramid. The walls of the tomb were inscribed with incantations from the Book of the Dead that the resurrected mummy could chant to gain access to the upper world.

Mummies became merchandise. Ground into powder, they were sold as medicines, paints, and even fertilizer. Mark Twain claimed that mummies were also used as locomotive fuel, although this contention has never been substantiated. The linen in which mummies were wrapped may have been used, during the American Civil War, as a source for paper.

Often, mummies are associated with curses. These curses were often plot vehicles for horror movies. When a grave robber broke into a pyramid to steal a mummy or the jewels with which such corpses were often buried so that the resurrected pharaoh would have a little spending money in the afterlife, the curse was activated, causing much suffering, death, and destruction.


“Everyday Horrors: Mummies” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured on Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.

Everyday Horrors: Plants

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Plants are our friends. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to breathe--or eat. Only they can convert carbon dioxide and water into chemical energy (sugars and starch) using ultraviolet energy (sunlight). Without them, all animal, including human, life would die. Actually, without them, there would be no life to live or die.

Plants themselves, in fact, are food. Their ripened ovaries are hard to beat when one craves a sweet and succulent treat. Plants are also the source of hundreds of products that we sometimes take for granted, but, without which, we wouldn’t live nearly as well as we’re accustomed to do: paper, lumber, fabrics, fuel, medicines, plastics, dyes, soaps, paints, shampoos, perfumes, and a host of others. Without plants, men wouldn’t be able to bribe women into forgiving them or put them in the mood for romance with the gift of a dozen roses or a bouquet of flowers, either, and, of course, gardens would be rather colorless affairs.

So, what’s so horrible about plants?

Like people, many are good eggs, but, to torture a metaphor, there are a few bad apples among them as well. In most cases, the horrible plants are poisonous. Some are horrible for other reasons, though.

Let’s start with the poisonous ones. According to Live Science, the “Top 10 Poisonous Plants,” in descending order, are:

10. Narcissus
9. Rhododendron
8. Ficus
7. Oleander
6. Chrysanthemum
5. Anthurium
4. Lily-of-the-valley
3. Hydrangea
2. Foxglove
1. Wisteria

In no particular order, for pets, these are the five deadliest plants:

• Azalea
• Castor bean plant
• Lily
• Oleander
• Sago palm

The stinging tree is an interesting plant. Indigenous to tropical rainforests, it has thick, hair-like structures on its leaves and stems that, when brushed against, deliver a painful sting. The tips of the leaves and stems penetrate the skin, in which they break off, releasing a poisonous irritant, the effect of which may last for months. There’s no antidote. However, stick insects, weevils, chrisom lid beetles, and even opossums enjoy the taste of them.

In horror fiction, plants can be dangerous--or even deadly--even when they’re not poisonous. In Dean Koontz’s The Taking, demons use a hellish fungus to help to prepare the earth for conquest. In Stephen King’s “The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verril” segment of Creepshow, an extraterrestrial fertilizer, delivered by the courtesy of a meteorite, causes an alien fungus to overrun everything--and everyone--in its past, Jordy Verril (played by King himself) included. In Seed People, alien seeds turn humans into zombies. The campy Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978) has mutated tomatoes turning into mad killers.

As “Man-eating Plants”points out out, no carnivorous plant is large enough to threaten humans. These plants’ largest victim, according to this article, was a rat that, dead, was found, partially digested, inside a pitcher plant. However, “Man-eating Plants” suggests that the legends of such plants as the one in Little Shop of Horrors might have been inspired by an actual plant, the Amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, which is definitely not recommended for milady’s (or yours) bridal bouquet:

Amorphophallus titanum, which is said to be the biggest, smelliest flower in the world, looks like something that could eat a human being. When it blooms it can reach at height over nine feet in height and smells like a mixture of rotting flesh and excrement. . . .

. . . Although the Amorphophallus titanum looks a lot like you would imagine a man-eating plant to look like, and it even smells like somebody is dead inside, it is not carnivorous.

As horrible as man-eating plants might be (were they to exist), intelligent plants might be even more appalling. For a long time, scientists maintained that animals are not able to reason, and philosophers have always excluded them from such abilities, defining humans alone as “thinking reeds” or res cogitans. If animals were to be denied anything more than sentience, plants certainly weren’t likely to be considered potential Nobel laureates any time soon.

However, this bias may be changing. If Professor Stefano Mancuso has anything to say about the issue, it may not be long before plants are his tenured colleagues. He operates the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV) near Florence, Italy, where he hopes to demonstrate that plants are not only intelligent, but are also capable of solving problems. According to Mancuso, “If you define intelligence as the capacity to solve problems, plants have a lot to teach us. Not only are they ‘smart’ in how they grow, adapt and thrive, [but] they [also] do it without neuroses. Intelligence isn't only about having a brain.”

According to “Smarty Plants: Inside the World’s Only Plant-Intelligence Lab,” the laboratory is exploring a variety of research topics: “In addition to studies on the effects of music on vineyards, the center's researchers have also published papers on gravity sensing, plant synapses and long-distance signal transmission in trees.”

Plants have been found to be able to distinguish between siblings and strangers, and, perhaps as xenophobic as people, among them, sap apparently is thicker than water. According to Live Science’s “Plants Recognize Siblings”: “Plants can recognize when they are potted with their siblings or with strangers. . . . When strangers share a pot, they develop a competitive streak, but siblings are more considerate of each other.”

In science fiction, plants have demonstrated intelligence for years. As far back as Dante and Virgil, humans dreamed of communing with greenery. However, the desirability of doing so, at least as far as William Hope Hodgson is concerned, might be questionable. In “The Lands of Lonesomeness” chapter of his novel, The Boats of Glen Caring, “evil trees are prone to wrap their branches round the unwary traveller,” and “human souls are somehow sucked into the trees and then beckon for more to join them.”

Intelligent plants also betray evil designs on humans in Murray Leinster’s “Proxima Centauri,” Clark Ashton Smith’s “Seedling of Mars,” and Raymond Z. Gallun’s “Seeds of the Dusk.” Bizarre, threatening plants also appear in H. G. Wells’ short story, “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid.”

Until the discovery of the euglena, scientists believed that there was a hard and fast differences between plants and animals. The main difference was that the former could photosynthesize, while the latter could not. The discovery of the euglena changed this view. Like animals, they can move under their own power, by means of a flailing flagellum, engulf and ingest food using a “phagotrophic. . . apparatus,” “sense light using a red pigmented eyespot,” and change color to match their red or green environment. The euglena also has chloroplasts that enable it to do what only plants can do--photosynthesize. So is it a plant or an animal? Neither--and both. It’s a euglena!

Swamp Thing could be the lowly euglena, writ large. He’s a humanoid vegetable or, if one prefers, a vegetative humanoid, who lives in a swamp and, in the 1982 movie named for him, dated Adrienne Barbeau (a. k. a. Alice Cable).

There’s something else eerie about plants. They’re quiet. They loom. They seem to wait, if not to lurk. They appear to be biding their time, awaiting their chance. To do what? We don’t want to know. What may go on inside those leafy branches and green stems? We don’t even want to guess. Plants are so different from us that, in their majestic, grand silence and their seeming indifference to us, they seem, at times, as when the wind is in the treetops, to whisper of plans that may be not as cool and green and comforting as their stoic postures suggest they are.

If science fiction and horror stories featuring plant-monsters teach us anything worthwhile, it’s to listen to Mom and eat our vegetables--before they eat us!

“Everyday Horrors: Plants” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured on Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.