Images of Horror, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Psst! Here’s a secret: Horror writers should analyze visual images (such as occur both on screen and in movie posters) for ideas as to what is horrible about everyday situations. That’s such a good tip that it bears repetition (and a larger font size):

Horror writers should analyze visual images (such as occur both on screen and in movie posters) for ideas as to what is horrible about everyday situations.

Sounds pretty basic, right? A matter of common sense? You’d be surprised, perhaps, at how uncommon common sense is and at how often people forget the basics. Let’s practice this technique. Here’s a movie poster advertising Cujo, a movie based upon Stephen King’s novel of the same title. For the two or three who don’t know the story line, it goes something like this:

A faithful St. Bernard, having been bitten by a rabid bat, bites the hand that feeds him; the hand belongs to Donna Trenton (and her family).

(In analyzing images, one should remember to “read” them the same way that one reads text, from left to right and from top to bottom.) Centered at the top of the poster is the text, “From Stephen King’s novel comes a chilling tale of a quiet New England town and a horrible evil in the dead of summer.” The text drops the name of today’s most celebrated horror novelist, Stephen King, citing his novel, Cujo, as the film’s source. It also tells the reader how he or she should feel about the film: it narrates a “chilling tale.” There is the suggestion of a violent intrusion upon the serene, everyday world, and the menace that threatens to assault the film’s characters is heightened by the description of “dead summer”: the “horrible evil” is so “chilling” that it can, as it were, kill even the sunniest part of the year. (Summer is often symbolic of one’s youth, and, of course, one of Cujo’s victims will be Donna Trenton’s young son [sun], Tad). In short, the poster’s text suggests horror, fear, and a violent assault by “horrible evil.” The poster’s visual images build upon these linguistic images. Below the text and to the right is a large house. It stands alone in a large expanse of empty, treeless lawn, below a dark, ominous sky rippling with storm clouds. The house seems about to be blown away by the force of the wind that drives the black and gray clouds. Closer to the poster’s viewer, in the foreground, is a white picket fence. White picket fences have long been associated with suburban domestic bliss, and although the house seems to be more rural than suburban, the psychological associations of domesticity and happiness are retained--at least in part--by this symbol. However, there is something not quite right about the fence. It needs a fresh coat of paint. The slats are weathered and stained. Some bear long scratches. At the base of the fence, just before the image is lost to darkness, tufts of grass suggest that the lawn needs to be trimmed. It is a fence that, although not yet in a state of total disrepair, needs maintenance. It is neglected. If the fence symbolizes the bliss of domestic and suburban life, it is a happiness that could use a bit more care. In fact, Donna's own life is in an emotional, moral, and spiritual state of disrepair because of the adulterous affair she’s been having, a secret that her husband, Vic, has since learned. The destructiveness of her infidelity is about to destroy her family, Tad included. But there is more than a little thin paint, stains, and scratches wrong with the white picket fence. Centered upon it is a blood-red, streaming, dripping message to the viewer: “Now there’s a new name for terror. Cujo.” As Vic’s wife, Donna should have been his best friend. Instead, seized by a rabid lust for an itinerant furniture repairman and poet, she has betrayed her husband’s trust and her son’s welfare. In a way, she is Cujo. At the same time, Cujo represents the effects of her infidelity, which trap her, indirectly kill her son (Tad dies of heatstroke from being trapped inside his mother’s automobile), and emotionally devastate Vic. The novel and the movie are cautionary tales concerning the madness of adultery and the fatal consequences it may have, both literally and figuratively, upon the members of the betrayed family. The poster is an effective way of tying the overt action of the rabid dog’s attack upon Donna and Tad (and, indirectly, upon Vic) to the narrative’s covert message regarding the devastating effects of the threat to domestic bliss that the bestial monster, adultery, may have and shows, more than many movie posters, the strong relationship of plot to theme. At the same time, it intrigues potential moviegoers, interesting them in seeing another scary Stephen King story brought to the big screen--this one about a mad dog. (Of course, it’s really about adultery, but what’s scary about marital infidelity? This question is the very one that the story answers: infidelity is destructive to the family relationship and to the members of the family themselves.) Horror movie posters, when they are well executed, as the Cujo poster is, can show writers how to tie plot and theme together on a symbolic and metaphorical level while, at the same time, appealing to readers’ fears or other emotions, which is another reason that (psst!) horror writers should analyze visual images (such as occur both on screen and in movie posters) for ideas as to what is horrible about everyday situations.

Toward a Taxonomy of Horror Fiction

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

“Taxonomy” is a fancy word for classification system--a sort of intellectual file cabinet for grouping things on the basis of their similarity to one another or their sharing of a common trait that excludes anything that lacks this trait. In biology, organisms are grouped by whether they have a backbone (vertebrates) or not (invertebrates), and animals are grouped as reptiles (scales), amphibians (able to breathe in water or on land), and mammals (ability to bear live young).

Whether horror fiction can be so classified is a debatable point. What is the single trait that is essential to literature that would be cause it to be considered horror fiction? Literary works that cause readers to feel fear, one might suggest, are specimens of horror fiction. This approach to the taxonomic problem classifies the work by its effect. Certainly, Edgar Allan Poe would subscribe to such a principle, as his essay “The Philosophy of Composition” makes clear.

Many things that one would not ordinarily, if at all, regard as horrific nevertheless disturb us: a steelworker’s accidental fall from a skyscraper, the crash landing of a jet airplane on the ocean, a house on fire, the sight of an animal’s cadaver alongside the highway. We tend to speak of such events as “tragic” or “unfortunate,” or “gross,” but, although they shock, sicken, and disturb us, they seldom actually frighten us.


For an incident or a situation to be horrifying, it must be personal: it must affect us individually and personally, directly or vicariously. Otherwise, it may be terrifying, atrocious, and sickening, but it is not horrific or horrifying.

This seems to be the first criterion for classifying a narrative as a horror story, then: it must affect us individually and personally, directly or vicariously.

If we are on board, a runaway train is terrifying, as would be a car that won’t stop, no matter how many times or how hard the brake pedal is stomped, or an airplane that takes a sudden and irreversible nosedive into the planet. However, it is not the train, the car, or the airplane itself that terrifies. Rather, it is the fact that it is on an uncontrollable course that could well result in our own injuries, deaths, and destruction. Since we are passengers aboard the train, or in the car, or aboard the airplane, the uncontrollable, headlong dash toward injury, death, and destruction makes the situation personal. It affects us directly and individually. Even if the runaway train, out-of-control car, or plummeting airplane were to be brought under control, its initial behavior would be harrowing. During the time that we were, as it were, at the mercy of the vehicle, we would experience true horror. If we analyze the cause of our horror, however, we understand that it is not the mere train, car, or airplane that horrifies but the fact that it is out of control. We can make no appeal to a machine, for it has neither ears to hear nor brain to think nor heart to feel.


This seems to be the second criterion for classifying a narrative as a horror story, then: the menace with which we are threatened must be out of control (beyond appeal). When the menace is a human being, part of what may make him or her uncontrollable, or beyond appeal, could be his or her inhumanity. A lack of the ability to experience emotions or the lack of a conscience, for example, puts a sociopath beyond appeal. Emotional pleas mean nothing, because he or she feels neither sympathy nor empathy, and moral appeals mean nothing, because he or she has no sense of right and wrong.

Although the threats with which horror fiction confronts its readers need not be human, and, therefore, may lack discernment and purpose, a third criterion, perhaps more desirable than necessary, as an ingredient of horror fiction is consciousness, or intelligence, for it seems that an out-of-control menace that threatens us personally and individually, directly or vicariously, is more horrific if it is intelligent than if it is merely a insentient force or being like a forest fire, a disease, or a runaway train. Intelligence gives the menace will and the ability to execute sophisticated plots. A madman, who is able to reason, after a fashion, and yet who lacks humanity--a sociopath, in other words--is far more horrific a threat than even a plummeting airplane, because he or she threatens us personally and individually, is out of control (beyond appeal), and is able to carry out his or her schemes relentlessly.

Perhaps we can classify any story, in print or on film, that meets these two criteria as being an instance of horror fiction:

1. The threat must affect the reader or audience individually and personally, whether directly or vicariously.
2. The menace with which the reader or audience is threatened must be out of control (beyond appeal).

These two elements, we may say, are essential characteristics of the horror story. To them, we can add a nice-to-have element, which, like a good seasoning, spices the plot:

3. The menace with which the reader or audience is threatened should be conscious, or intelligent, if possible.

The adoption of these criteria leaves ample room for the most monstrous monster, but it also allows us to include such stories as Psycho, Jaws, Cujo, and The Island of Dr. Moreau in our taxonomy, and most horror writers, fans, and critics would agree that these stories, involving a mad, transvestite killer; a shark; a rabid dog; and quasi-intelligent human-animal hybrids, respectively, should be accorded room on the genre’s specimen boards.

Of course, a taxonomy usually also includes subtypes. Perhaps they shall be the topic of a future post.

Story Deck

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a deck of cards that consists of four suits: Characters, Settings, Inciting Moments, and Themes. One card is dealt from each suit. After the cards are acquired, the player can modify them or add others, as long as the modifications are appropriate to the context that is created by the other cards in the player’s hand and any cards that are added from one or more of the deck’s constituent suits. For example, New York City, a Settings card, could be modified so that New York City Subway System and New York City Art Gallery are added as modified cards in the Settings suit. Likewise, such additional cards as Commuter’s Girlfriend, Serial Killer, Cannibals, and Art Gallery Owner could be added to the Characters suit. The recipient of the resulting hand must create a plot for a horror story from the cards that he or she has been dealt.

Characters: A commuter
Settings: New York City

Inciting Moments: Struggling photographer Leon Kaufman’s latest body of work--a collection of provocative, nighttime studies of the city and its inhabitants--attracts the attention of prominent art gallery owner Susan Hoff. For his upcoming debut at her downtown art space, she encourages him to get even grittier pictures that humanity's darker side.

Themes: Fascination with evil is a dangerous obsession.

Result: Midnight Meat Train: Leon Kaufman's photos of the darker side of humanity inspires art gallery owner Susan Hoff to promise Leon a place to showcase his work at her gallery if he can get even edgier pictures. He begins to film a serial killer, Mahogany, who stalks and kills late-night commuters, thereby endangering not only himself but his girlfriend, Maya, as well.

Here’s another example.

Characters: Crank caller
Settings: College campus
Inciting Moments: During the holiday season a house of sorority girls are harassed by a person making crank phone calls.

Themes: Christmas can bring out the worst in a person.

Result: Black Christmas: On Christmas, a creep begins to male crank calls to sorority girls, who start to disappear, one by one.

Your turn. Here are your cards:

Characters: A mortician
Settings: A funeral home
Inciting Moments: A mortician earns his real living selling corpses to organ harvesters, cremating or burying whatever remains of the remains.
Themes: Disrespect doesn’t stop at death.

What is the result, your story?

Frustrating Formulaic Fiction

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Genre fiction is formulaic fiction. It must be. There’s an unwritten law somewhere that requires it to be. (Or maybe it’s a written law.) Formulaic fiction fails to entertain after a while, because most people get tired of reading yet another variation on the same tired and tattered narrative formula, especially when the formula is fairly straightforward and simple. Formulaic fiction fails because it is predicable. A reader pretty much knows what to expect from the beginning and pretty much every time before something happens. Formulaic fiction is unimaginative, unoriginal, predictable, and boring. It’s a cliché. Actually, it’s a series of clichés strung together like so many faux pearls. There are no surprises, shocks, chills, or thrills because everything that happens is seen coming way before it actually arrives. Familiarity breeds contempt, and formulaic fiction, whether it’s adventure, detective, horror, fantasy, romance, science fiction, Western, or otherwise, is all too familiar to its readers. In a word, formulaic fiction is frustrating, but there are ways to frustrate formulaic fiction. In this post, we will consider a few techniques for doing so. Mostly, though, these methods boil down to this: become a Boy Scout. In other words, as a writer, expect the unexpected--from yourself and your characters. Formulaic fiction is formulaic largely because it is routine and repetitive rather than exploratory. It follows the same path over the same ground, leading around and around in the same concentric circles. To frustrate formulaic fiction, a writer must become a stranger in a strange land. He or she must choose the little-worn over the well-worn path. Better yet, he or she should choose from one of several other possible paths. Just as some moviemakers now make movies with one official ending, as it were, and several “alternative endings,” a writer should have several pathways (and possibly a few byways) from any major (or even minor) incident of the plot. Stories are, by and large, linear, but the any point from “B” to “Z” can end up as point “B.” Only after it is chosen, does it become the chosen one. Until then, several other incidents should compete for the honor and distinction of being this second incident. The same is true of incidents “C,” “D,” and so on, all the way to “Z” (or however many incidents make up the chain of actions, events, and situations that form the story’s plot). Let’s try an example. A man finds a love letter, in his wife’s hand, addressed to another man. Oops! What might he do?

• Confront his wife about the affair.
• Confront his rival about the affair.
• Confront both is rival and his wife about the affair.
• Leave his wife, without divorcing her.
• Divorce his wife.
• Kill his rival.
• Kill his wife.
• Kill himself.
• Kill both his rival and his wife.
• Kill both his rival and himself.
• Kill both his wife and himself.
• Kill all three parties--his rival, his wife, and himself.
• Show the love letter to his (and his wife’s) children.
• Show the love letter to his wife’s parents.
• Show the love letter to his own parents.
• Pretend he never found the love letter.
• Write a “love letter” of his own to his rival, signing his wife’s name (or using a photocopy of her signature).
• Do two or more of these options.

Of course, there are many other possibilities, some much more imaginative than any that we’ve listed, and some may suggest still others. The point is that, by listing these alternatives, the writer will have expanded his or her options considerably. If he or she chooses the more imaginative, even if it is also the more unlikely, option, his or her story will be correspondingly less predictable and, therefore, that much less formulaic.