Suburban Horror

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

During the 1800s and the 1900s, as railroads developed enough to provide dependable, relatively inexpensive travel for many, suburbs began to appear. In England, members of the nascent middle class, having improved their fortunes through industrialization, purchased homes in the environs of densely populated, polluted cities in which the factories and other industries that had, ironically, made them rich were located. The development of subways and bus routes accelerated this exodus from urban to suburban communities. Following World War I, such suburban developments as those at Kingsbury Garden Village, Wembley Park, Cecil Park and Grange Estate, and the Cedars Estate were built by the Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited, located in London.

In the United States, suburbs appeared in Boston and New York. In the latter state, on Long Island, the planned community Levittown was constructed after the end of World War II, becoming a model for other such developments. Its five styles of the ranch house were replicated thousands of times. By the twentieth century, there were suburbs in most of America's big cites. Their existence encouraged the construction of shopping malls, the development of roadways, and the spread of chain stores.

Although, in time, commentators began to criticize these planned communities for their architectural conformity and the “bland” lifestyles they promoted, many residents of suburbia found their environments to be pleasant, serene, safe, and comfortable. These qualities, of course, make suburbs ideal settings for horror, for, in novels and movies in this genre, terror and disgust often follow a period of calm or happy existence which, until the horror begins, was the standard, everyday ambiance and milieu.

In Ginger Snaps (2001), horror comes to Bailey Downs, a suburbs in Alberta, Canada, in the form of a beast that's more lupine than canine. Attracted by the scent of redhead Ginger Fitzgerald's menstrual blood, the animal attacks, but it's beaten back by Ginger's brunette sister, Brigitte, before being struck by a van as it crosses a road through the forest upon resuming its pursuit of the sisters. 

Although she's been scratched by the predator, Ginger decides not to seek medical attention, since her wounds close quickly. Ginger's subsequent transformations, both physical and mental, make it clear that the animal that had clawed her was a werewolf, which is what Ginger herself has become.

As might be expected, violence, sex, and death ensue. In the process, Bailey Downs is changed forever, its residents suffering tremendously at the jaws and paws of Ginger, who pummels Trina Sinclair, the school bully; kills a neighbor's dog; turns boyfriend Jason McCardy into a werewolf by having unprotected sex with him; murders her high school's guidance counselor and janitor; and breaks drug dealer Sam Miller's arm before killing him. The suburbs proves to be anything but the sanctuary it seems at the movie's start.

It might seem as though a new house in the suburbs would be a safe place, but appearances, of course, can be deceiving. As Travis Newton observes in an article on his blog, “The wonderful thing about living in a new suburban house is that there are no ghosts in it. Right? Wrong. Paranormal Activity took the security and safety of a new, modern home and tossed it right out the window.”

As Newton further points out, one of the scariest things about Paranormal Activity (2007) is the fact that the paranormal phenomena occur not “in some old castle or space station or haunted forest. It takes place in the kind of house your neighbors could live in. The kind of house that maybe you live in.”

Katie Featherstone and Micah Sloat have just bought a new home in San Diego, California. Afraid of the demon that has been harassing her for as long as she can remember, Katie prompts Micah to set up a camera to record any paranormal activity that may occur in the house while they're asleep or away from home.

The camera does record some disturbing incidents: flickering lights, doors moving by themselves, a planchette moving under its own power over a Ouija board, and strange creaking sounds. When the activity intensifies, the couple asks Dr. Fredrichs, a demonologist, to investigate, but, too, afraid to remain in the house, he deserts them.

The demon bites Katie, transforming her into a fiend, and the camera records her, in her demonic aspect, grinning as she crawls toward Micah's body after he's been hurled across the bedroom. At the end of the film, on-screen text informs the audience that police discovered Micah's corpse, but Katie is nowhere to be found.

Some time ago in a suburban community, Nancy Thompson and her friends battled a nightmarish dream figure, Freddy Krueger, who attacked them in their sleep. His motive for doing so—and his supernatural nature—are explained on the Fandom site devoted to the movie franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street, of which he is the central antagonist:

A family man on the surface, Krueger was actually the serial killer known as the “Springwood Slasher.” When he was caught and subsequently released on a technicality, the parents of his victims chased him to a shack out back of the power plant he once worked at and burned him alive. Rather than succumb to death, Krueger was offered the chance to continue his killing spree after death, becoming a Dream Demon that could enter his victims' dreams and kill them in the dream world, which would thus cause their death in the physical world and absorb their souls afterwards.

The murders he commits take place in two worlds: that of the dream in which he appears and the actual, “physical world.” The Fandom site does a good job of comparing and contrasting the two as it summarizes the details of the respective incidents. Here, for example, is the account of the death—or deaths—of Tina Gray, which occurs in the franchise's original, 1984 film:

Dream World description

Physical World description

Tina awakens to the sound of a stone, tapping on her window, breaking the contact area. Puzzled, Tina goes outside to hear Freddy Krueger calling her name. She walks out further. Just then, a trash can lid rolls in front of her making a startling noise. Then, Freddy's shadow appears around the corner, Freddy emerges. Tina says "Please God" and Freddy moves his claws threateningly saying "This... is God." He chases her down the alley. Tina turns back, he is gone. Just then he jumps from behind a tree and makes her watch as her cuts off his finger and it squirts green ooze. She runs, he chases her up the stairs, knocking her off and rolling around on the floor with her. She grabs his face which proceeds to tear off, he laughs.

Tina rolls all over her bed, her chest is slit with his claws, she floats up to the ceiling after being spun around in mid-air. Cutting continues until her bloody, lifeless body falls to the floor.

As a demon, Freddy is able to shift shape, and he has adopted a variety of forms, some human, others inanimate, including those of a hall guard; a telephone; a snake; a marionette; television talk show host Dick Cavett; a television set; a nurse named Marcie; Nancy Thompson's father, Donald; a model inside a water bed; a motorcycle; a video game character; a medical doctor, Christine Heffner; camp counselors; Jason Vorhees's mother, Pamela; and a caterpillar. Anything can happen in a dream, right?

The suburbs are no safer in Elm Street than they are in Ginger Snaps, Paranormal Activity, or several other horror movies with such settings. The franchise plays upon parents' concerns for their children's welfare, crimes against minors, physical and emotional abuse, psychological trauma, object permanence, the sometimes-fine line between fantasy and reality, the potential dangers of isolation and of in loco parentis, the effects of vigilantism and vengeance, and other unsettling themes. Apparently, if we are to believe horror movie directors, suburban life is far more dangerous and lawless than many might have imagined.

But it's not just moviemakers who suggest the suburbs may be the deaths of suburbanites. A number of novelists have also implied that such communities, in themselves neither urban nor rural, might well be the deaths of us: Stephen King in The Regulators, Bentley Little in The Association, and Ira Levin in The Stepford Wives venture forth into the forbidden lanes and cul-de-sacs of American suburbia, each offering a cautionary tale about the supposedly good life that's lived there.

Several of my own Sinister Stories (available at Amazon Books) also contain tales of terror associated with the suburbs.