Scenic Posters

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

A common formula for many horror stories, whether written on the page or enacted on the soundstage, consists of five acts:

1. The status quo is portrayed.
2. A series of bizarre incidents occur.
3. The protagonist discovers the cause of these incidents.
4. The protagonist, often aided by friends, uses his or her knowledge of the cause of the incidents to put things right.
5. A return to the status quo is shown (although the ending may also hint at a possible sequel).

As in describing a scene in order both to represent and to dramatize it, it can be helpful to draw inspiration from a horror movie poster (the book cover, as it were, of a film), this same process can be useful in generating scenes which comprise the bizarre incidents which occur in act two (and, perhaps, later as well). Remember that the scenes so created must be causally related, although their ultimate cause will be withheld until act three.

An inspiration for a scene might be the poster for Annabelle: Creation (2017). (In writing from movie posters, I usually select posters for movies I haven't seen, and I don't read a synopsis of the film. I want to be inspired by the poster's art; I don't want to steal the screenwriters' original treatment.) With this in mind, let's look at the way NOT to do this:

My senses on high alert, I stole glances to either side and over my shoulder, as I crept along the cold, damp corridor, feeling trapped by the ancient basement's gray stone walls, stone floor, and stone ceiling.

I was conscious of the tons of massive rock above me and of the cataclysm which would ensue should all that weight come tumbling down (not that it should), and I imagined the terrors that likely befell the poor lost souls shut away inside the subterranean chambers which opened off the warren of intersecting hallways—or would have opened, had they not been locked.

As I continued along the maze, I heard the grating of rusty hinges, as a great, thick iron door opened of its own accord. Its loud, high-pitched creaking noise made my heart shrink, even as I turned, staring with horror at the sight within the chamber thus revealed.

A girl stood, her arms raised and extended at shoulder level; her body limp; her legs, one of which wore a brace, together. She was pale, and her eyes were closed. Perhaps she was not standing, after all. She seemed to have recently died—after having been crucified. However, no nails had been driven through her wrists or ankles.

A chill of horror iced my spine, as I saw another disturbing anomaly: a doll seemed to float before her, positioned as though it were seated upon the girl's lap, although, of course, her hanging vertically from the wall precluded such a possibility. The doll must be pinned to the girl's dress.

But why would someone go to such trouble? The scene seemed some sort of bizarre tableau, but, if so, to what end? Or did it have a purpose? Perhaps the hole mise-en-scene was nothing more than the whim of a mind gone mad.

Run! For God's sake, flee this damned place!

At my peril, in my foolishness, my curiosity greater than my wisdom, I stayed, gazing at the figure of torment within the chamber to which the open door admitted my horrified gaze.

At the girl's feet, a small table had been overturned. I squinted, focusing my gaze, and drew back, horrified anew: the table, like the chair beside it, the doll, and, indeed, the girl herself floated! Suspended in midair, they were held stationary and aloft by a power both unseen and unknown.

The girl wore patent-leather shoes, which were all but invisible in the darkness of what, I realized now, was a window—or a long, narrow rectangular opening, without glass, within the chamber's wall, behind the female figure, unlit and indistinct. Its shape had added to the illusion that the girl had been crucified, for, in the dim light, it looked like a plank of wood to which her ankles might have been nailed, as her wrists, at first, had seemed to be fixed to the stone wall.

Aghast, I stumbled away from the open doorway, realizing my retreat only when my back encountered the immovable resistance of the corridor's opposite wall. As I continued to stare at the girl afloat against her chamber's wall, her eyes opened, revealing yet another horror: the whites were blood-red, her pupils elliptical and golden, as if ablaze with the fire of hell, an effect strengthened by the appearance, between her soft, pink lips of a split serpent's tongue!

The doll, the countenance of which was of a decidedly malevolent character, opened its mouth, and, in a voice more suitable to a demon than to a toy in the shape of a babe in arms, harshly croaked a plea both pathetic and horrendous: Help us!

Turning, I ran along the stony floor, the doll's croaking supplication seeming to reverberate throughout the underground hallways and subterranean chambers as if the labyrinth were the many mouths and throats of hell's damned souls crying in unison, Help us!

This description is too close to the picture on the poster to be used in a story of one's own, but, in writing it, I conceived an idea for a novel, or part of one, so the effort isn't necessarily lost, even though it didn't achieved its intended goal, which was to develop a scene that is inspired by, rather than merely repeats, a scene painted for a movie poster. It would be a mistake—and a significant, perhaps costly, one—to use the description I wrote of the Annabelle: Creation poster's picture in a story of my own; it is too close to the scene depicted by the poster and could, therefore, represent plagiarized content were it to be used as is in an independent work.

However, all may not be lost, even now, in this exercise.

Returning to my description (and to the poster), I can isolate the elements that are horrific and uncanny and repeat them in a new description that is sufficiently different to avoid copying the Annabelle: Creation artwork. So what are the poster's elements of horror and the uncanny? As I see them:

• isolation
• innocence mocked through parody
• religious faith mocked through parody
• victimization
• perversions of the Christian concepts of the crucifixion and the creation
• confusion created by a maze of underground corridors and chambers
• supernatural power displayed

With these elements in mind, a rewrite of the original description can perhaps salvage the scene, allowing it to be used in a work of one's own:

My senses on high alert, I stole glances to either side and over my shoulder, as I crept along the cold, damp corridor, feeling trapped by the ancient basement's gray stone walls, stone floor, and stone ceiling.

I was conscious of the tons of massive rock above me and of the cataclysm which would ensue should all that weight come tumbling down (not that it should), and I imagined the terrors that likely befell the poor lost souls shut away inside the subterranean chambers which opened off the warren of intersecting hallways—or would have opened, had they not been locked.

As I continued along the maze, I heard the grating of rusty hinges, as a great, thick iron door opened of its own accord. Its loud, high-pitched creaking noise made my heart shrink, even as I turned, staring with horror at the sight within the chamber thus revealed.

A boy lay upon an elevated stone slab inside a room resembling a tomb cut from a rock. He was naked but for a cloth laid over his groin. His arms were extended straight out, from his shoulders; his body was limp, his legs together. He was pale, and his eyes were closed. He seemed to have recently died—after having been crucified. Wounds from spikes driven through his wrists and ankles were crusted with the blood staining the altar upon which the body lay.

What had I stumbled upon? The result of the crucifixion of a child? What recent madness had happened here, in the bowels of a castle thought long deserted? Were the villains who'd committed this blasphemous murder still in secret residence? Was I being watched by the madmen who'd committed this unspeakable sacrilege?

Run! For God's sake, flee this damned place!

At my peril, in my foolishness, my curiosity greater than my wisdom, I stayed, gazing at the figure of torment within the chamber to which the open door had admitted my horrified gaze, until, aghast in contemplating the sight, I stumbled away from the open doorway, realizing my retreat had been underway only when my back encountered the immovable resistance of the corridor's opposite wall.

Now, as I continued to stare at the unfortunate boy, his eyes opened, revealing yet another horror: the whites were blood-red, his pupils elliptical and golden, as if ablaze with the fire of hell, an effect strengthened by the appearance, between his soft, pink lips, of a split serpent's tongue!

The features of his handsome face distorted, as a malevolent hatred akin to rage animated the corpse, its mouth opening as a voice more suitable to a demon than to a child, harshly croaked a plea both pathetic and horrendous: Help us!

Turning, I ran, finally, in headlong flight, along the stony floor, the demon-child's croaking supplication seeming to reverberate throughout the underground hallways and subterranean chambers, as if the labyrinth were the many mouths and throats of hell's damned souls, crying in unison, Help us! although, in their infernal state, neither deliverance nor succor was possible. All that was left them was this tableau of the damned, by which they not only tormented the living, but also continued their unholy protests against the Almighty whom, even in thethroes of their eternal torment, to curse and vilify.

This second description, inspired by the poster and by the unsuccessful attempt to capture in words, while avoiding copying, which would result, if included, as originally written, in my own, otherwise original work, in plagiarism, now works, for it is different enough to be my own, a work inspired by, rather than merely copied from, the original poster. It is itself original, instead of simply derivative.