Breasts as Emblems of Horror

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Bare breasts are big in horror movies, which begs the question: what's so horrific about mammary glands? 

Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb) devotes several pages to listing “Most Popular 'female-frontal-nudity,' Horror Feature Films.” There are a lot of them on the list: 665, in fact, to date. Perhaps these films may indicate why filmmakers consider women's breasts terrifying enough to feature prominently in the movies they make, if the exhibition of breasts is not merely gratuitous—in other words, presented only to sell tickets.

In TheShining, Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer who is earning money by taking care of a vast hotel that's closed for the off-season, sees a naked succubus. The female sex demon appears to be a beautiful young woman, but she soon reveals her true self, taking on her actual appearance as a withered old crone. Is Jack hallucinating, or has the succubus actually transformed, shedding her youth and beauty? Does her change in appearance have a psychological or a supernatural cause? In the words of Tzvetan Todorov, is she, respectively, a specimen of the uncanny or the marvelous?

In a sense, the succubus embodies the crux of the matter investigated by Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of Stephen King's novel. The producer believed in the possibility of the survival of death. His succubus suggests this state of existence in the presence of the sex demon. However, Kubrick leaves room for a psychological explanation of the female sex demon: maybe Jack is psychotic and she's merely an hallucination. Since the succubus can be understood in either natural or supernatural terms, depending on one's world view, her presence in the film is not gratuitous, but symbolic and thematic.

But what about her nudity? Must she be naked? Again, the answer to this question will be determined by the individual viewer's view of the nature of ultimate reality. If she is regarded as being of a supernatural origin, her nudity is not gratuitous, for it accords with the legend of the succubus, a female sex demon who invariably appears in the altogether as a temptress intent upon collecting human semen. Once successful, according to some stories, she assumes the form of a male sex demon, the incubus, appearing to women, usually during their sleep, to seduce and inseminate them—with the demon (or female sex demon) collected from human males in his (or her) previous incarnations as a succubus. (Demon sex is more complicated than we might have imagined.)

If she is a succubus, though, it is difficult to imagine why she gives herself away by transforming her appearance as a beautiful young woman into a shape that's not merely undesirable, but repulsive. As a succubus, she would be intent upon collecting Jack's seed in order to inseminate a woman. Assuming the appearance of someone who's undesirable doesn't help her to achieve her goals.

Perhaps, then, the succubus isn't a sex female demon, after all, except in Jack's own tormented mind. She is his version of a succubus, a demonic Galatea fashioned in his own image of a desirable woman. As such, she is far from the reality of womanhood embodied by his wife, Wendy, who is portrayed by Shelley Duvall, the same actress who played Olive Oyl opposite Robin Williams's Popeye. Wendy is not undesirable as a woman—Jack married her and fathered a son by her, after all—but, in Jack's twisted mind, if the succubus is a hallucination, Wendy (and all women) becomes so: her transformation isn't real, but a projection of Jack's own thoughts about women, Wendy, perhaps, in particular. Seductive one moment, women can transform themselves (or be transformed by Jack's fears of women) into repulsive monsters—or female sex demon—the next instant. Woman, Jack's ambiguous thoughts about the opposite sex seem to suggest, thy name is mutability.

The scene in which the succubus makes her appearance suggests Jack's ambiguity concerning women, female nudity, and sex. His hand appears from the left, as he slowly opens a bathroom door. The slowness with which Jack opens the door highlights the moment, dramatizing the revelation that is now at hand. This slow movement, like the lighting during the first half of the scene, gives an ethereal quality to the picture, emphasizing the ideal way in which Jack views the nubile young woman.

As the door opens, Jack sees a bathtub and a half-drawn shower curtain. The tub occupies an arched niche at the rear of the bathroom, which, with the shower curtain, gives the alcove the appearance of being a theater, if not, indeed, an altar. Jack has entered a forbidden (or sacred) zone, symbolized by the closed, if not locked, door. He is about to see something half-hidden from his consciousness, as the half-drawn shower curtain suggests. His staring eyes and a close-up shot of his throat as he gulps, his Adam's apple rising and falling, shows his anxiety. The half-drawn shower curtain opens, as a beautiful young nude woman draws it aside. She is wet (with Freudian significance and otherwise), as her breasts are revealed. Again, the slowness with which the curtain is drawn aside focuses viewers on the revelatory aspect of the moment.

Jack's expression changes from one of anxiety to one of enchanted. He smiles, Slowly, the woman rises. Jack's look of enchantment. changes to one of lust, as his gaze intensifies, Slowly, the woman steps out of the tub, one long leg advancing, the other, just as slowly, following. Jack's gaze is riveted. His smile broadens. The seductive woman advances, her gait slow, measured, as if she is walking in tandem with the wedding march. Her gaze is locked on Jack. Returning her stare, he seems transfixed, but then he walks, slowly, to meet her, as the camera turns slightly to view her from a three-quarters angle. Her breasts and pubes seem to fill the screen, as they do Jack's consciousness.

As they face one another, staring into one another's eyes, the woman's fingertips make contact with Jack's abdomen, gliding upward, across his chest. Her movement, as has been typical throughout the scene, is slow and deliberate. Her hands continue to glide, over Jack's shoulders and around his neck. He has not moved, but stands as if he were a statue. Then, he responds, encircling her waist with his hand. She turns this way and that, offering viewers a glimpse of her buttocks, before she kisses Jack, who now fully embraces her. Jack's eyes close. Theirs is a long kiss, an extended kiss, a passionate kiss.

Jack opens his eyes. They widen, as he sees something over her shoulder. The camera shares his view, in a mirror on the wall behind him: the body of the woman he holds in his arms, as revealed in the looking-glass, is scarred. Her upper left arm, her lower back, and her right buttock are marred by massive discolorations and hideous blemishes. Astonished and horrified, Jack begins to back away from the transformed woman.

For a moment, his shaken son Danny's discovery of a dead older woman, lying, partially submerged in the bathtub, scabrous discolorations and blotches on her body, is interspersed.

Jack continues to retreat, his head shaking, just as Danny's head shook when he saw the drowned, older woman's corpse. As he backs through the doorway, the portal of revelation, the hideous crone follows, her arms parted, as if to embrace Jack.

The scene is interrupted again by Danny's sight of the drowned woman, lying, partially submerged in the bathtub, her body displaying terrible scars and bruises.

Jack retreats down the steps, into the suite's living room, followed by the succubus.

Danny trembles, uncontrollably, as the dead woman's body sits up.

Outside the suite, Jack locks the door to the rooms, leaving the key in the lock, as he staggers backwards, down the hall, away from the rooms,leaving the scene of the revelation behind.

It seems apparent that the nude woman whom Jack encountered is the same one Danny encountered, but Jack saw the woman in her beautiful and desirable guise, whereas Danny saw her as an apparition of a drowned, older woman. For Jack, the woman was a female demon; for Danny, a ghost. Danny is too young to conceptualize women sexually; Jack is not. Therein lies the differences in their conscious understanding and their unconscious depictions of the opposite sex. Danny can see a woman in her physical aspect as a body which, despite the presence of breasts and genitalia, is primarily, or even exclusively, merely anatomical. Jack can see a woman as both physical and sexual, and it is to the latter image that he is anxious, while, at the same time, himself sexually responsive.

Essentially, Danny is frightened of death, a it is represented by the female corpse he encounters, whereas Jack is terrified of something other than death. Jack is horrified by female sexuality itself, which is alive with beauty and sex appeal, but, at the same time, diseased and repulsive because capable of transforming in various ways. A woman can become pregnant, deliver a baby, suckle an infant, and age. She seems to be in transition, as she undergoes transformations throughout her life. She is manifold in function and in appearance, seemingly unstable and mutable—in a word, from Jack's point of view, monstrous and demonic.

His encounter with the beautiful nude young woman shows Jack's feelings about women as desirable, but his attraction to them, as they are represented in particular by his wife Wendy, is contradicted by his revulsion of them. He seems to think that, beneath their apparent glamour, they are diseased and hideous.

The sexist dichotomy of women which separates them into virtuous and charming companions versus untrustworthy sluts is alive and well in Jack's subconscious mind. In the hotel, whether through supernatural or psychological influences, this unconscious view of women become conscious, at least until the locks the succubus in the hotel suite (his unconscious mind) by repressing the knowledge, which he finds too threatening to embrace, or accept. Therefore, his view of women, and of Wendy in particular, remains dualistic. At the same time, he sees them as beautiful and desirable, seductive temptresses and as hideous and unwelcome, destructive female sex demons.

In The Shining, as symbols of femininity, of female sexuality, of pregnancy, and of motherhood, breasts, as synecdoches of womanhood, are horrific for Jack because he is unable to come to terms with women as they are in themselves. Women are too complex for him, too changeable, too mysterious, too other. He can conceive of them only as beautiful seductresses or as monstrous female sex demons. Despite his marriage to Wendy, he is unable to view women, including his wife, as they are in and of themselves, as human beings, complex and, yes, in the final analysis, mysterious, as all life is ultimately mysterious.

For viewers, watching the movie through more objective eyes, Jack's behavior, stemming, as it does from his beliefs, is insane. However, from his own point of view, his delusions and hallucinations are real. From his perspective, he sees things as they are. When he acts upon his own understanding of reality, horror results. It is this horror, resulting from his monstrous ideas of women, his wife included, that the true horror of Kubrick's film arises.

Of course, plenty of other horror movies feature breasts as symbols of the particular horrors with which they are concerned. While such horror, in general, centers upon women, who sport these accouterments of femininity, the precise sorts of horror that breasts, as synecdoches of the physicality and sexuality of women, represent for other characters, in other movies, differ, because every man—and some women—are Pygmalions who fashion their ideas of women into psychological and, sometimes theological, representations of women. When those concepts of womanhood are irrational, horror can, and, unfortunately, often does, result. Future essays will consider the additional ways in which, in such movies, breasts are emblems of horror.

Page and Stage

Writers who want to incorporate cinematic techniques into their fiction need, first, to translate the latter into their literary equivalents. I use the word “equivalents” loosely, of course, as there is not precise equivalence between the techniques of the soundstage and the page.

So, what are these “equivalents”?

The camera = description. Everything the camera “sees” can be communicated, in writing, only by way of description. The camera has the advantage of showing everything at once, if it chooses, or of focusing exclusively, and in minute detail, on only one person or object, close up, leaving it to the viewer to perceive that which is displayed and to sort for him- or herself those people (actors) or objects included in the scene upon whom or which he or she chooses to concentrate attention. Of course, through a variety of other techniques—camera angle, intensity, contrast, special effects, and so forth—the director, the cinematographer, and others involved in shooting the scene—can direct the viewer's attention and direct the audience's focus, but, ultimately, it is up to those who watch the movie to see what they will. novelists have a different advantage. Unlike filmmakers, they can appeal to the senses of touch, smell, and taste, as well s to the two senses available for moviemakers' exploitation—sight and hearing. Literary authors can also take their readers inside the minds of their characters, describing their thoughts and feelings about the sights, sounds, tactile sensations, tastes, and sounds they experience during a scene. (A word of caution: novelists should be careful not to overuse description. Unless a picture, or word-picture, is central to a scene or some other narrative element, such as theme, it should be spare, rather than florid. Because filming a movie is enormously expensive, screenwriters have learned to make every image and word count, and most directors plan every second of the filming of each scene. Economy is the filmmaker's watchword, as it should be that of the novelist. As Mark Twain advised, writers should be careful to “eschew surplusage.”)

The camera = point of view. In film, the movie is shown from the camera's point of view, whether the perspective is that of an omniscient, a first-person, or a limited third-person “narrator.” In literary fiction, the point of view can be more complex and experimental and can more easily involve the shifting or alternating perspectives of two or more characters.

Actor = character. It's only partly true that the actor = the literary character, because the screenwriter also creates the movie character. The writer puts the words into the characters' mouths, and, through such dialogue, the character's personality becomes apparent, as does his or her attitude, emotions, values, principles, beliefs, and so forth. By interpreting and projecting these words on the page, actors bring these qualities to life on the screen, making these intangibles tangible.

Audio bridge = transition. In cinema, there are more techniques to indicate a transition from one time to another or from one place to another than there in literary fiction. In the latter, space breaks on thee page or a phrase, or a sentence is all a writer can use to indicate such a shift in time or place. Filmmakers, on the other hand, can use an audio bridge, defined, in Filmsite's “Film Terms Glossary,” as “an outgoing sound (either dialogue or sound effects) in one scene that continues over into a new image or shot [that] connects the two shots or scenes.” As an example of an audio bridge, the Filmsite's article cites Apocalypse Now's use of “the sound of helicopter blades are linked to the next scene of the spinning blades of an overhead fan.” Films also use a number of visual transitions to indicate a change in scene, including the “cut, fade, dissolve, and wipe” (“Film terms Glossary”).

Cut – transition. A cut is “an abrupt or sudden change or jump in camera angle, location, placement, or time, from one shot to another” and may be accomplished in numerous ways.

Fade = transition. A fade can also be accomplished in a number of ways:

[A fade is] a transitional device consisting of a gradual change in the intensity of an image or sound, such as from a normally-lit scene to darkness (fade out, fade-to-black) or vice versa, from complete black to full exposure (fade in), or from silence to sound or vice versa; a 'fade in' is often at the beginning of a sequence, and a 'fade out' at the end of a sequence; a cross-fade means fading out from one scene and into another (often with a slight dissolve or interruption) (“Film Terms Glossary).

Dissolve = transition. A dissolve is “the visible image of one shot or scene is gradually replaced, superimposed or blended (by an overlapping fade out or fade in and dissolve) with the image from another shot or scene.” For example, in Metropolis, this technique “dissolves that transform the face of the heroine Maria into the face of an evil robot.” (“Film Terms Glossary”).

Wipe = transition. A wipe occurs when “one shot appears to be "pushed off" or "wiped off" the screen by another shot replacing it and moving across the existing image.”

There are other film techniques that correspond, roughly, with literary techniques, which is not surprising, since filmmakers, limited to sight and sound, have had to devise ways, using these two methods of storytelling to communicate what novelists accomplish through linguistic means. Now that the stage has largely replaced the page as the storytelling medium of choice for the general public, at least, novelists, in telling their tales, might want to adopt, as far as possible, some of the techniques their cinematographic friends have developed. That mean, first of all, thinking in terms of showing, rather than telling. Thinking as a screenwriter, rather than as a novelist, should facilitate this objective. Again, there is no precise match between the techniques of filmmaking and those of writing novels, but these media's approaches to storytelling are close enough to allow an approximation on the part of the novelist. For example, a novelist cannot use an audio bridge (unless, perhaps, in an audiobook). However, he or she can simulate the use of this technique. Here's an example, using the audio bridge in Apocalypse Now (mentioned above):

The helicopter's whirling rotors were louder and much faster than the leisurely turning blades of the softly humming ceiling fan.

By using sights and sound to appeal the senses of vision and hearing, this transitional sentence imitates an audio bridge, indicating a shift in time and place, as the story's scene changes.

Similar approaches can be taken to suggest many of the other cinematographic techniques motion picture crews use to tell—or show—their stories.

Novelists who want to emulate screenwriters should familiarize themselves with the terms associated with moviemaking and adapt them to the process of writing novels to develop their own set of similar approaches to storytelling. Filmsite's “Film Terms Glossary” is a good resource for this purpose. Novelists who seek cinematographers' techniques for characterization, plot development, story structure, narration, setting, and theme and then, with these (and some actual examples from films) in mind, devise their own similar approaches, are likely to write “cinematographic” novels, which show more than tell. General audiences everywhere will thank them.

Note: Read “The Exorcist: A Marriage of Spirit and Matter in the Style of William Peter Blatty,” my post about William Peter Blatty's use of in his novel The Exorcist for a sense of how a novelist (who was also a screenwriter) uses cinematographic techniques to write a compelling “cinematographic” novel. Novelists can also learn to write this hybrid type of story by reading novels by other screenwriters. Stephen J. Cannel's book, TheProstitutes' Ball, is not only a novel, but, in a sense, a how-to book about writing screenplays and novels!

Poe's Influence on H. G. Wells

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Although H. G. Wells claimed that the only standard for judging the value of a short story is whether it has readers, he also suggests, by way of his literary mentor, Edgar Allan Poe, that a few additional criteria may be used to assess the quality of such a work of fiction. He learned from Poe that a short story exists to create a “single effect.”

Whereas Poe wrote, in “The Philosophy of Composition,” that a writer, after “having deliberately conceived a certain single effect to be wrought, he then invents such incidents . . . combines such incidents, and discusses them in such a tone as may serve him best in establishing this preconceived effect,” Wells wrote, in “The Contemporary Novel,” “a short story is, or should be, a simple thing; it aims at producing one single, vivid effect; it has to seize the attention at the outset, and never relaxing, gather it together more and more until the climax is reached.”

According to J. R. Hammond, having learned this lesson from Poe, Wells “adhered to” it “throughout his long career as a practitioner of the short story” (20).

Based on Wells' own statements, then, it seems that a short story, which he suggests can be read in less than an hour, should be judged on the bases that it:

1. Produces an effect that is both “single” and “vivid”;
2. Seizes the reader's “attention at the outset”;
3. Heightens the reader's attention as the story progresses;
4. Attains a “climax”;
5. Can be read in an hour or less; and
6. Is a work that people want to read.

Hammond elucidates several of Wells' terms. By “effect,” Wells seems to have in mind a narrative outcome that is of a specific sort (“informative, amusing, or terrifying”), “depending on the particular story” and which is also unquestionably real. In other words, the story's effect may be cognitive, diverting, or emotional in nature, relating to epistemology, amusement, or affect (20). Wells' own short stories, Hammond says, are often of a “disturbing quality” (20).

As in Poe's fiction, Wells' short stories are concerned with generating a “single effect”; all incidents of the plot, like the story's tone, are intended to produce what Poe calls “the predetermined effect.” Therefore, of the six elements which Wells suggests are the bases for the criticism of the short story, that of the effect seems paramount.

In writing his stories, Wells developed a formula, or “characteristic devise,” Hammond observes, for depicting the climax of any of his stories: “a moment of revelation or discovery in the life of an otherwise unremarkable individual whose outlook is transformed as a result,” and “the story focuses on the moment of crisis or climax and in doing so sets in motion speculations and doubts in the mind of the reader” concerning what he or she might do in a situation or set of circumstances similar to that of the story's protagonist (20). Due to the abbreviated length of the short story, as compared to the novel, Hammond says, “in place of the leisurely working-out of the plot through character and incident there is a single moment of illumination or decision” (20).

Hammond's elucidations allow the critic, as Wells envisions him or her, to expand on his or her analysis and evaluation of the story's effect, the story's climax, and, possibly, the narrative techniques by which the author motivates people to want to read the story. Therefore, one who is interested in criticizing a short story by Wells should begin by isolating its climax, for this is the “characteristic devise” by which Wells provides the transformational “moment of revelation or discovery in the life of” his “otherwise unremarkable individual.”

Then, if desirable, the critic can contend with the other five elements of what may be called the Wellsian critical approach: the production of an effect that is both “single” and “vivid”; the seizing of the reader's “attention at the outset” of the story; the heightening of the reader's attention as the story progresses; the story's length; and the techniques by which the author motivates people to want to read his or her story. (Part of the heightening of the reader's interest must surely lie in the ironic juxtaposing of the life of the “otherwise unremarkable” protagonist's view of the world “before” the revelation or discovery that shatters his [all of Wells' protagonists are male] complacency and the protagonist's view of the world “after” his complacency has been so shattered.)

Hammond is helpful, once again, in identifying the climax of Wells' short story “A Slip Under the Microscope”: The protagonist, a biology student named Hill, is seeking to “identify a specimen placed on a glass slide under a microscope.” Students are “strictly forbidden to move the slide,” but, as Hill adjusts the instrument, he accidentally slips, moving the slide. No one has seen him do so. Now, he must decide whether to “own up to the fact” or “remain silent.” His actions, Hill says, presents a “grotesque puzzle in ethics” (106).

According to Hammond, the climax of the story should be the vehicle by which Wells presents the “moment of revelation or discovery in the life of” Hill, “an otherwise unremarkable individual whose outlook is transformed as a result.” If the slip hadn't occurred, Hill would have continued in ignorance of the significance of “how easily normal life can be deflected by chance . . . occurrences” (20)

Wells heightens the reader's interest in the outcome of the story by relating Hill's ethical dilemma to a personal situation. Hill resents another student Wedderburn, because Wedderburn, whose parents are wealthy, has both the means and the confidence that Hill himself lacks—and because they are both interested in the same coed classmate. If he does what he believes to be the right thing, he may be expelled and lose any chance to court the coed.

When Hill informs the college's authorities, he is, in fact, expelled. He suspects that Wedderburn, who may also have cheated, chose not to confess; by not telling the truth, Hill's rival remains in school, able to woo the coed student whom they both admire. As Hammond points out, Wells implicitly asks his reader whether any “circumstances” may warrant one's lying by omission. The narrative, in this way, is, in effect, “disturbing,” as most of Wells' short stories are.

Hammond, J. R. H.G. Wells and the Short Story. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1992. Print.

"Backcountry": A Study in the Causes and Consquences of Poor Judgments

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

 

In Backcountry, in Powassan, Ontario, and Caddy Lake, Manitoba, Alex convinces his girlfriend Jenn to go camping with him in one of Canada's remote provincial parks. She's a lawyer, while he's a landscaper. He believes his expertise as a woodsman will allow him to shine once he's in his element, and he wants to impress her, because he plans to pop the question while they're on their trip. Nothing goes as he'd hoped, and, despite his rudimentary skills as a woodsman—he can pitch a tent, chop wood, start a fire, and read sign—it's soon clear he's in over his head. In fact, once she's forced to fend for herself, Jenn, ironically, proves herself to be more competent than Alex, whose vanity, eagerness to impress Jenn at any cost, and minimal woodcraft, led him to make a series of poor judgments that, if it were not for their catastrophic consequences, might have made the film a comedy. He makes at least a dozen serious errors in judgment:

He refuses a ranger's offer of a park map. He's been to the park so many times, he says, he has no need of a map. As a result, when he later becomes lost, he and Jenn have no guidance out of the forest.

Annoyed that Jenn returns telephone calls during their trip to the park, Alex removes her cell phone from her backpack, leaving it behind, in the trunk of his car. Once the couple becomes lost, they have no way to call for help.

He leaves Jenn alone when he goes to chop wood for their campfire. In his absence, a stranger, Brad, happens upon Jenn. As Alex himself later points out, both to Jenn and to Brad, Brad could have been a dangerous “nut” who might have raped or killed Jenn. Despite this realization, Alex again leaves Jenn alone when he goes to retrieve the hatchet he left in the side of a tree at the site at which he'd chopped the wood.

When he spies a bear print, Alex doesn't share this sign with Jenn. Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone.

Although he is uncertain of the correct path to the lake, Alex continues their trek through the forest, despite his not having a map, a cell phone, or a weapon (other than, perhaps, his hatchet).

During the night, Jenn hears mysterious sounds. Without investigating, Alex tells Jenn she's hearing nothing more than acorns falling from the trees, onto their tent. He may believe the sounds are the effects of falling acorns, as he says, or he may not want Jenn to think the sounds are caused by a bear, whether to keep her from being afraid or to prevent her from wanting to leave, in which case he is also being deceitful.

After hearing the sounds of what be a bear, instead of falling acorns, Alex refuses to leave the park.

After seeing a broken tree branch indicative of a bear's nearby presence, Alex refuses to leave the park.

After seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park.

Even after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park.

Early in the movie, Alex injures himself by dropping the canoe in which he and Jenn arrive at their initial campsite on his foot. He doesn't tend to the injury for over a day, by which time his sock is soaked in his blood. He hangs the sock in a tree, and the blood attracts a hungry black bear.

Alex leaves his hatchet outside the couple's tent. Had he brought the hatchet inside the tent, he would have had a weapon with which to fight off the attacking bear; without it, he has nothing but his hands and feet.

Jenn also makes several errors in judgment. She is mindful of Alex's need to assert his masculinity and defers to his wishes and judgments, which, under other circumstances, might not have life-and-death significance; in the wilds of the Canadian park they visit, such deference can, and does, have such consequences. These are the more significant errors in judgment Jenn makes:

She does not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept one herself.

In Alex's absence, Jenn invites Brad into their campsite.

She does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are falling on their tent really are acorns.

She does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear.

She returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her.

Although Jenn, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her. When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness.

Despite these mistakes, Jenn also makes wise decisions, even in the face of danger and under the pressure of stress:

She has the presence of mind to use her bear spray and her whistle to twice frighten off the bear before it can attack her.

She bathes her right arm, which was injured in the bear attack, and bandages it.

She sleeps in the fork of a tree's high branches.

She uses her flare to signal for help.

She recalls Alex's advice about eating spearmint berries and Brad's counsel that hikers should climb down the right, not the left, side of the park's waterfall.

She follows a buck, hoping it will lead her to water or out of the forest. The animal leads her to the waterfall.

She makes a splint and sets the leg she breaks in a fall during her descent of the cliff beside the waterfall.

Despite her amateur status as a woodsman, Jenn is more successful in navigating the forest and escaping the bear than Alex had been. His decisions endangered their lives. Some of hers did as well, although most of them helped her to survive her ordeal.

The movie does a good job of depicting the consequences of the characters' respective behaviors, suggesting that what one does results from his or her character no less than his or her motives.

Alex wants to impress Jenn, but he wants to do so because of his own insecurities. He feels inferior to her, because, in the everyday world in which they live the majority of the time, she, as a lawyer, occupies a position of greater status that he has as a landscaper.

Although she frequently defers to him and is eager, most of the time, to support his sense of himself and to shore up any doubts he may have of his masculinity or personal worth, she seems ambiguous about these aspects of his character. When she loses her temper after they become lost in the park, she says she wants to speak honestly to him “for once,” calling him a “loser” who always manages to mishandle or otherwise botch “everything.”

Alex also seems to care less about Jenn than he does about his own fragile self-image. He often rushes up and down the trail, leaving Jenn in his wake to fend for herself in the rough terrain, among tree branches, logs, brambles, and other obstacles. Even after he knows that a dangerous bear is following them and lurks in the vicinity of their campsites, he continues, without regard for his safety of her own, to proceed on their misguided journey, endangering their lives. In preparing for their trip, he took no precautions, failing to bring bear spray, a whistle, or a rifle.

In his mind, he is too macho to need such provisions or to heed the danger signs he sees in the forest. His poor judgment, however, is no match for the starving bear. The animal's ripping and tearing him apart, which is shown in grisly detail, is proof that he is no match for nature. In trying to impress Jenn by proving his manhood, Alex endangers both his life and hers.

At the beginning of the movie, as they are driving to the remote park, Jenn gives Alex a multiple-choice “boyfriend test” published in an issue of a women's magazine she's brought with her. Many of the items deal with consideration. Alex fails the test miserably, suggesting he isn't considerate at all of Jenn. He cares more about himself than he does her. Although he dies protecting her, giving her an opportunity to escape, it is he who, through his own insecurities and poor judgments, put her—and himself—in such a dire situation to begin with. As the test predicted, Alex was poor boyfriend material. Chances are, he'd have been poor marriage material as well. Jenn was lucky to survive the bear, as she was lucky to survive Alex.

How Buffy Was Written

Copyright 2016 by Gary Pullman

In Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffythe Vampire Slayer, Buffy writer Jane Espenson explains how the series' team of writers wrote the show's weekly scripts.

First, Espenson says, they'd start with the emotion upon which a particular episode would be built.

Then, they would create a metaphor expressive of this emotion.

Using “A New Man,” an episode that she wrote, Espenson says the team decided that Rupert Giles feels alienated from Buffy and her friends, who are now enrolled at the University of California, Sunnydale, pursuing lives and interests of their own. He feels left out, almost as if he is estranged from them, because, during high school, as the school librarian, he saw them frequently and was more central to their lives. To prepare for this emotional experience, Espenson observes, previous episodes of the series had marginalized Giles.

The writers decided that Giles' transformation into a demon would be the metaphor expressive of his feeling alienated.

After deciding upon the emotion and the metaphor, the show's creator, Joss Whedon, and the writing team determine the “emotional high point,” or cliffhanger, that is to occur at the end, or “break,” of each act, Espenson says. In “The New man,” these incidents occur during the episode's four act breaks:

Act I: Sorcerer Ethan Rayne appears. (It is he who casts the spell that transforms Giles into a demon.)

Act II: Giles is a demon.

Act II: Buffy, believing that demon-Giles has murdered Giles, threatens to slay him.

Act IV: Despite his demonic appearance, Buffy recognizes Giles as she is about to slay him.

Prior to Act I, a brief “teaser” captures viewers' interest in the story to come.

After the emotion, the metaphor, and the act breaks are identified, the writers, working “scene by scene, from the general to the specific,” Espenson explains, break each scene of the episode into beats. (Espenson defines a “beat” as the smallest dramatic moment, which expresses an emotion or presents an action, and, according to her colleague, writer Tracy Forbes, each scene contains from seven to nine beats.)

Then, an outline is constructed.

Finally, with feedback from Whedon, between each draft, the writer responsible for writing the week's episode's script—Espenson, in the case of “A New Man”—writes one or two preliminary drafts, depending upon the time available, before writing the final draft of the script.

Forbes points out that every Buffy episode is built upon three elements: “emotional arc,” “metaphor,” and “monster.”

To sum up, Buffy episodes were written according to this process:

1. The emotion upon which a particular episode would be built was determined.
2. A metaphor expressive of this emotion was created.
3. The “emotional high point,” or cliffhanger, that is to occur at the end, or “break,” of each act was identified.
4. Working “scene by scene, from the general to the specific,” from seven to nine beats are created for each scene.
5. An outline is developed.
6. One or two preliminary drafts are written, with revisions involving feedback from Whedon.
7. A final draft is written.

"Large. . . and Startling Figures," Indeed

copyright 2014 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror hides inside us all, actually or potentially, taking many forms.

What horrifies us is our own demise.

We are horrified, too, by the measures we will take to survive.

In an us-against-them scenario, it is we who will survive—or will to survive—whatever the cost, including the destruction of another person. We are horrified that we may be killed, but we are horrified, also, that we may kill, even if we should be compelled to do so to prevent ourselves from being killed.

We kill or we are killed; therein lies our horror, the secret horror within, which assumes a multitude of disguises, but is always only the same fear, the same loathing.

Sometimes, though, the survival of the fittest is disguised. We compete for laurels and for jobs, for love and attention, for fame and devotion, for men and women, as well as for life and not death.

Each time we win, we kill; every time we lose, we die.

Horror fiction is horrible because it tells this truth about us: we are all both predator and prey, hunter and hunted, stalker and stalked, quick and dead.

Sometimes, we are, simultaneously, one and the same, as when, for example, we commit suicide.

There are several ways to kill oneself, to be both predator and prey, perpetrator and victim: morally, psychologically, and, yes, physically.

When we look the other way, introspectively or with extroversion; when we deny or reject the truth, we die.

Little by little, we die every day.

But slow death is often overlooked, in the moment, at least, when we are too busy with our lives:

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me

EmilyDickinson tells us.

In the literature of horror, death stops for us, and, in doing so, he employs the strategy of Flannery O'Connor:

To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

Blood and gore, deformity and disfigurement, madness and mayhem, death and destruction, disease and pestilence, fear and trembling are “large” and “startling figures,” indeed, but even they may not succeed, in every case, to startle us out of the complacency of ourselves, and, when they are not, we are not.

The Monster as Sexual Menace

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

On one level, most horror fiction is about sex. Monsters are rapists. Monsters are penises. Monsters are sperm. Monsters assault, force their way in, invade. Their victims are vaginas, wombs, and ova, disguised as men and women or, less often, children. Because monsters are often of or related to body parts or their secretions—saliva, mucus, semen, blood—they themselves often produce visceral reactions and such dark emotions as fear and loathing, disgust and repulsion.

What is the Frankenstein monster but the womb bypassed? It is the embodiment of technological, rather than natural, reproduction and the denial and the dismissal of woman as a necessary participant in and contributor to the replenishment of the human species.

The vampire is an embodiment of non-procreative sex or, more specifically, oral sex. It's love bites represent its sex life. There is need for neither vagina nor penis, ovary nor testicle, ovum nor sperm. The end served by the vampire is not new life, however, but the end of life; it is death.

In some stories, such as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the monster as sexual threat is merely suggested in its seeking out of female victims. In others, such as Species, the message is explicit and direct: the monster (whether male, as in Lagoon, or female, as in Species) is out to kill us, and its modus operandi is sexual, whether the scriptwriter is circumspect or in our faces about it.

It helps, in writing (and reading) horror fiction to remember the lesson of Freud: everything is sexual, because there are two forces, eros and thanatos, in conflict with one another, with human beings their battleground, no matter the shape and the name the monster, in its present disguise, takes, and whether the story being told is classic or contemporary, literary or popular. Such text (or subtext, as the case may be) enriches horror fiction, just as it grounds it in both the human anatomy and human experience.

Images of Horror as Not-So-Friendly Reminders

copyright 2014 by Gary Pullman

Bodies severed at their waists. Eyes without irises or pupils. Furry faces full of fangs. Cheeks stitched from the corners of the mouth to the ears. Mouths devoid of lips. Decapitated bodies. Skulls showing through flesh. Bloody necks slashed and slashed. Faces streaming blood. Crowns of skulls cut away. Craniums transformed into slug-like monstrosities. Faces without noses. Eyes become fanged mouths. Flesh pockmarked and riddled with open sores.

The results of special effects, these images of violence horrify because they display death, dismemberment, injury, monstrous transformation, and disease. They are graphic reminders of our humanity—and, thus, our vulnerability—as much as they are mementos mori.

These pictures remind us of the facts: we are not only going to die someday, but we are, in fact, dying day by day.

Life itself reminds us of our mortality, but in much more subtle ways, ways that seem too small to disturb us more than a moment, if at all.

Our skin wrinkles and sags.

Our hair grays, recedes, or thins.

We put on a little weight.

Our joints ache and stiffen.

Our ears and noses sprout hair.

Our ears get bigger.

Age spots appear on our faces and hands.

Our bones become brittle.

Vision or hearing erode.

We become forgetful.

We wear dentures where, once, we had teeth.

We fall and we cannot get up.

But these signs of aging (and of eventual death) occur gradually, giving us time to adjust and to accept the inevitable. We say that we are getting older, not that we are dying.

And, yet, we are dying, day by day, a wrinkle here, an age spot there.

But we become accustomed to our fate.

Images of horror—of death and destruction, injury and pain, madness and loss of control—don't allow us such a luxury. Such depictions shock and frighten.

They get the blood running and the adrenaline flowing, preparing us to fight or to take flight.

In reminding us of death, they also remind us of life.

Such images remind us to stop, to think, to listen, and to smell the roses. . .

. . . while we can.

Before it's too late.

And the bogeyman hiding within emerges, born of blood and flesh, pain and bone, reducing us, at last, to food for worms.

The WHO?, WHAT?, WHEN?, WHERE?, HOW?, and WHY? of Horror: A Sampler

copyright 2014 by Gary Pullman

WHO?: A motel owner; the devil; a writer—what is scary about some is what they are by nature, in and of themselves (the devil); what is scary about others is what they are secretly (Norman Bates), what they are incipiently (Jack Torrance), or what they become (Seth Brundle). Human beings gone bad, in other words, are frightening. The selves we present to others are our personas, masks that we wear to appear normal and rational and acceptable; horror fiction shows readers or audiences the true face behind these masks. We do what we are.

WHAT?: Madness, evil, experiments gone awry—what is scary about some is that they represent loss of control (madness); what is scary about others is that they represent helplessness in the face of merciless cruelty (evil); what is scary about still others is that they represent the unintended harm that can come of good intentions or mistakes (experiments gone awry). Actions are frightening because they show that human behavior is not insignificant, but causal. We are what we do.

WHEN/WHERE?: An isolated motel, a house in Georgetown, a vacant hotel in the middle of nowhere. Some settings are scary because they isolate (Bates' motel); others are scary because they show that evil can occur anywhere—and, therefore, everywhere—including the nation's capital); still others are scary because they combine two or more sources of fear, such as isolation and familial dysfunction). Places are frightening because they are the sites in which human behavior and its consequences are displayed. In building places, we reveal ourselves: the architect is visible in the buildings he or she designs.

HOW?: Rental, possession, experimentation. A motel room can be a motel room—or it can be a Venus flytrap-like chamber of death; the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, but it can also become the devil's pig sty; scientific instruments can deliver us into evil as well as good. The means we use to achieve our ends depend upon our ends—or, sometimes, they have unanticipated results too horrible to have imagined. We are not only what we do, but we are also often the victims of what we, or others, do.

WHY?: To appease another, to assert the self or to defy God, to discover new possibilities or to control nature—what is scary about appeasing others is that, in doing so, we subject our wills—indeed, our very selves—to the wills of those whom we seek to appease; what is scary about one's assertion of will is that, as Shakespeare observes, “one can smile and smile and be a villain”; what is scary about attempts to discover new possibilities is that some possibilities are better left alone, and what is scary about controlling nature is that doing so subverts or, at least, alters the effects of natural law. The “why” of behavior is, at bottom, a mystery, and this, too, makes motive and cause frightening in themselves; the unintended—or, sometimes, intended—consequences of such motives and causes make the whole cause-and-effect chain of events potentially even more horrible yet.

Techniques for Devising Plot Twists

copyright 2014 by Gary Pullman

By analyzing movies which end with an unexpected twist, one may discern various techniques that writers have employed to accomplish this feat. With some overlap among a few instances, here is one classification of such techniques:

Denial: the apparent experience never happened. Example: April Fool's Day (1986): It seems that a serial killer is murdering people, but the apparent deaths are all results of practical jokes (it's April Fool's Day, after all) perpetuated by pranksters who could be gainfully employed, if they weren't so immature, as Hollywood special effects wizards.

Inversion: life is but a dream (or an hallucination). Example: When  a Stranger Calls (1979): A babysitter is terrorized by a psychotic killer who calls her repeatedly on the family's telephone—and the killer is in the house! The Descent (2005) also relies upon inversion for its plot twist, as does HighTension (2005) and Identity (2003).

Substitution: one person, place, or thing is replaced by another person, place, or thing. Example: Fallen (1998): The hero says he almost died in an ordeal, but he is possessed by the killer while he's speaking, so, in fact, it's the killer who almost dies, while the hero is already dead. Fridaythe 13th (1980) also uses this technique to generate its plot twist.

Marvelous: that which seems, in Tzvetan Todorov's terms, to be uncanny actually turns out to be marvelous (in other words, that which appears to be natural is really supernatural). Example: Carnivalof Souls (1962): A woman who believes she is the lone survivor of a car crash sees strange ghouls chasing her, but she's dead all the while. The SixthSense (1999) and TheOthers (2001) also employ the marvelous to create their plot twists.

Multiplication: e pluribus unum, reversed. Example: Scream (1986): A serial killer who stalks teens turns out to be two killers.

Impersonation: The Cabinet ofDr. Caligari (1920): A man relates his tale of madman Dr. Caligari, who along with his zombie-like henchman, committed a string of murders, but the narrator is the real madman, and he's telling his tale in an insane asylum; Caligari is, in fact, his doctor in the asylum. Angel Heart (1987), Sleepaway Camp and Saw (2004) also use impersonation to generate their plot twists.

Impersonation via split personality: a character masquerades as someone else. Example: Psycho (1960): Norman Bates seeks to cover up his mother's murders. The problem is that, years earlier, Norman killed his mother and developed a split personality: he has become both himself and his mother. This same technique generates the plot twist in Hideand Seek (2005).

Mistaken identity and Irony: through mistaken identity, something happens that is other than that which the audience has been led to expect. Example: Black Christmas (1974): When a sorority house must deal with a series of threatening telephone calls and the disappearances of some of their sisters, it is discovered that the man who dies, who is assumed to have been the killer, was not the murderer; the actual killer is still inside the house.

Duplicity: an actual situation is misrepresented to deceive someone. Example: The Wicker Man (1973): A policeman investigates a missing child on a British isle that celebrates pagan customs, but the story of the missing girl was fabricated to lure the cop to the island so that he could be sacrificed to the gods after being enclosed inside a burning "wicker man." Diabolique (1964) also uses duplicity to create its plot twist.

Jumped Conclusion: someone other than the suspect is guilty of a crime. Example: Friday the 13th (1980): In 1957, Jason drowns at Camp Crystal Lake; a year later, two counselors are murdered and the camp is closed. In 1979, the camp reopens, and a mysterious killer—possibly Jason, whose body was never found—begins to stalk the camp's counselors once again, but it's not Jason; it's his mother, Mrs. Vorhees. Substitution also creates the plot twist in Fallen (1998).

Unanticipated consequences: an act that is believed to effect a specific result has unanticipated consequences. Example: The Ring (2000): Rachel, a reporter investigating a video tape rumored to bring death to anyone who watches it, finds out that it is somehow tied to a mysterious young girl named Samara, whose body Rachel retrieves from a well, thereby freeing her spirit to kill again, rather than putting the ghost to rest, as Rachel believed would happen.

Irony: something happens that is other than that which the audience has been led to expect. (In a sense, most twist endings are ironic in one way or another. However, this category is reserved for plots that are intrinsically ironic: the irony results from the very nature of the storyline, rather than an element added at the end.) Example: When a Stranger Calls (1979): A babysitter is terrorized by a psychotic killer who calls her repeatedly on the family's telephone, and the killer is calling from within the house. The Mist (2007) also uses irony to create its plot twist.

"The Cabin in the Woods": A Review

Okay, Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse) is the producer, and the film, The Cabin in the Woods, was scheduled to open on Friday the 13^th. So far, so good. Moreover, the poster advertising the movie promises something different, a new twist, an unexpected spin on a familiar story: “You think you know the story.” But, of course, we don't know the story. We only think we do. Surprises—probably shocks, even—are in store. We've been warned.

The imagery suggests a mystery, too, or a difficult puzzle. The cabin floats (or falls) before an indistinct, rather sketchy forest, and, like a Rubik's Cube, it's turned this way and that. In fact, there are three cabins, none of which are actually in the forest (in the poster, at least), and they're stacked atop one another, the topmost right-side up, the middle one set on its side, the lower one upside down. We're disoriented; we're confused; we don't know which way is “up” (or “down” or “sideways,” for that matter). This movie's going to turn us every way but loose.

Those in the know know that Whedon is to movies what Dean Koontz is to novels: a genre bender who throws in a little of everything: comedy, tragedy, romance, adventure, mystery, horror, and the kitchen sink, and, from what reviewers have said about this film, Cabin in the Woods was meant to be no exception to the Whedon formula: it's satire; it's pastiche; it's filmed in Vancouver, of all places. According to the A. V. Club, the script, which took Whedon and co-writer Drew Goddard a whole three days to write, exhibits ”Whedon’s love of subverting clichés while embracing them and teasing out their deeper meaning,” if any. (The film was produced in only three months, too, by the way.) The authors themselves claim that their masterpiece is intended to “revitalize” the slasher film, a genre that so deserves such effort.

It cost about $30 million to make and grossed $65 million worldwide, so it's judged a “financial success.” Critical reviews were mixed, but generally favorable. It seems that the whole thing is a bit unnecessary, to say the least. Whedon has the talent to offer more—much more—than a revitalization of death warmed over.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie, though, is the poster that promoted it.