Child's play Real story behind 'haunted' island of the Dolls in Mexico
Deep in the heart of the canals of Xochimilco—Mexico City’s last
vestige of the Aztecs—is one of the world’s most haunted and tragic
locations: the Island of the Dolls
Killer goods
Museum devoted to serial killers & cults is pandemic's hot tourist spot
The Graveface Museum, which
opened its doors on Valentine’s Day 2020, is filled with eerie oddities
like Charles Mansion’s sweatpants, packets of Flavor-Aid taken from the
scene of the Jonestown cult mass suicide and even the actual spine of
Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.
Time marches on! Fascinating snaps show how the years take their
toll on objects - from a moss-covered chair to the shadow of an ID photo
on its plastic cover
. . . after death, a persons’ corpse, embalmed or mummified, might be put on
public display, as an exhibit visitors would pay to see. For we who yet
live, this list of 10 creepy corpses that were on public display at one
time or another suggests just how ghastly and gruesome such a posthumous
fate would be.
10 More Cinematic Chillers & Thrillers Based on Horrific Crimes
The[se] criminal offenses, which include body-snatching, train robbery,
kidnapping, and fraud, involve the use of picks and shovels, dynamite,
“burking,” pistols, ropes, knives, water, machine guns, and, yes, even
cameras. In addition, each has inspired a cinematic chiller or thriller
nearly as terrifying and electrifying as the crime itself.
In
the middle of a pandemic, most of us might not care to read stories
involving plagues and pandemics. However, horror fiction appeals to
masochistic readers as well as to others and, if the truth were to be
told, there is, in most, if not all, of us, a bit of the masochist.
Fear is disturbing. It is stressful. It is unpleasant. Paradoxically,
however, it is also quite pleasurable to many of us. If it were not,
there would be no profit in making horror movies or in writing horror
novels or short stories.
Critics
and psychologists suggest that the reason that we enjoy horror dramas
and narratives is that we know that, despite what happens on the
sound stage or on the page, we ourselves, as spectators or readers,
are safe. What happens to the victims in the story cannot happen to
us. We enjoy the invincibility of the secret voyeur. We watch,
untouched and untouchable. That is our power. We survive the
slaughter because it cannot do to us what it does to the characters
in the movie or the book. (Only, in the case of the coronavirus, we
may not be quite as invincible as we
might imagine!)
So,
for the masochistic supermen and superwomen among us, Chillers and
Thrillers suggests a pair of horrific tales by the father of modern
horror himself, Edgar Allan Poe. One of the two tales caused Robert
Louis Stevenson to opine that “he who could write [this story] had
ceased to be a human being.” Which story occasioned this assessment
of its author, “The
Masque of the Red Death” or “King
Pest”? Chillers and Thrillers will leave the answer to this
question to you
to decide!
The
synopsis for The Last Halloween (2014),
a short horror film based on the comic book of the same title by Mark
Thibodeau, got me: “As they go from house to house, four young
trick-or-treaters collect strange treats that could signal the end of
Halloween.”
What
are the “strange treats”? Why are they given? What do they
signify? Why might they “signal the end of Halloween”?
We
are introduced to the four trick-or-treaters, a ghost (Jake Goodman),
a witch (Zoe Fraser), the Grim Reaper (Drew Davis), and the devil
(Brebdan Heard), as they visit the first of the three houses shown in
the short.
A
knock at the front door of the first house summons a woman in a pink
knit cap (Angela Besharah). Without disengaging the chain-lock, she
opens her door a crack, peering warily through the gap. “Wait
here,” she orders, returning a moment later with the child's
“treat”: a can of pet food. “You be careful out there,” the
woman cautions her visitor. The ghost accepts the item without
protest, and the group of children move on.
At
this point, there is only a few hints that something is wrong: the
woman's odd behavior, her strange “treat,” and the cheapness of
the ghost's costume—a dirty sheet.
Other
clues emerge as the film progresses. There are no streetlights. The
next house the children visit, a dark, boarded-up ramshackle affair,
looks abandoned. Why would the trick-or-treaters waste their time
stopping at such a house? Perhaps they are about to play a “trick”?
Only
two of the children, Sam the devil and Janet the witch, appear bold
enough to knock at the door; both the ghost and the Grim Reaper wait
on the sidewalk in front of the property. The face of the homeowner
(Julian Richings), a man with pustules on his face, appears in a gap
between planks covering the doorway. “Aren't you a little late to
be out this young?” he asks, his inverted syntax another clue, as
is the condition of his residence, that all is not well in the
suburbs. “Especially with the—” he breaks off his thought,
gesturing instead, and disappears inside his house, saying he will
see what he can find.
Returning,
he admits, “It's not much, I'm afraid,” and drops a plastic bat
into the devil's plastic pail. Once again, the offering is accepted
without complaint. The man tells Sam that he should “manage more
than anyone,” since he is “the devil. Lucifer, Beelzebub, The
Horned One.” He cackles as his visitors depart.
The
adults whom the children visit seem increasingly disturbed. The woman
appeared wary, if not paranoid, and her “treat,” a can of pet
food, is bizarre, to say the least. However, she is dressed in
ordinary attire, the lights are on in her house, and the house itself
appears to be in good repair. She is concerned about the children's
safety, bidding them to “be careful.”
The
second adult has suffered physical harm, and he seems much less
mentally stable than the woman. He lives in an abandoned, boarded-up
house, without lights, and offers a plastic bat as a “treat.” His
speech includes inverted syntax. He alludes to some mysterious
incident, and seems to mistake Sam for the actual devil, calling him
“Lucifer.” “Beelzebub,” and “The Horned One.”
However,
something is off about the children as well. They are not disturbed
by the bizarre “treats” they are given, and they are not afraid
of visiting a dark, boarded-up, seemingly abandoned house. They
accept the odd behavior of the adults as though neither the adults'
odd conduct nor their strange gifts are all that unusual.
The
third scene is the longest and most detailed. This time, the
trick-or-treaters, passing a sign labeled “EVACUATION ZONE,”
visit a house behind a tall wrought-iron fence. A bank of floodlights
illuminates as their approach to the property activates a motion
sensor.
On
the wall above a fireplace, rifles are mounted. A fire burns in the
fireplace. A made-up cot stands before the fireplace. A man observes
images of the children that are delivered to his computer through a
closed-circuit television camera. Outside, his own image appears on a
monitor, as he tells the children to “go away.” One of the
children, her image appearing on his own monitor, responds, “trick
or treat.”
A
young woman inside the house looks at a bassinet; it is empty except
for a teddy bear. The man tells his visitors to leave, warning them
that “bad things happen to trespassers.” The woman inside the
house looks down, from a second-story, through a lattice of boards;
outside, the trick-or-treaters see her watching them. Downstairs, the
man, armed, now, with a rifle, calls to the woman, “Kate! Get down
here!”
The
children have not left; they continue to cry “trick or treat,”
and the man continues to tell them to leave. Carrying a lantern and
coughing into a handkerchief, the woman descends a flight of stairs;
calling the man “Jack,” she says that maybe they should admit the
children, as they could need help or might be hungry. Watching the
monitor, he sees the children depart and tells the woman, Kate (Emily
Alatalo), his wife, that they seem to be leaving. She coughs more,
showing her husband the bruise on her neck.
Jack
(Ron Basch) says they can't take any more chances, as it is not safe
to “open the door to anyone anymore.” He argues, further, that
the kids “could be infected” or “crazy,” pointing out that
“they think it's Halloween.” Kate's reply, “I think it is
Halloween,” suggests that it may be either Jake and the kids or
Kate who is deluded. Kate, showing Jack the bruise on her neck,
implies that nothing can protect them.
Jake
checks the monitor; when he turns around, Kate is gone. The front
door slams. The ghost trick-or-treater appears in the room, behind
Jack. Arming himself with his rifle, which he had set aside, Jack
demands to know what the ghost has done with his wife. When the child
does not answer, Jack tells him to take food and leave, but the ghost
says, “It's too late, Jaaaccckkk.”
Approaching
the trick-or-treater, Jack pulls the sheet off the child, only to discover that,
beneath it, is an actual ghost (Ali Adatia). The other children, now
adults, appear, repeating, “It's too late, Jack.” The child in
the devil costume becomes an actual devil (Adrian G. Griffiths), and
the other two trick-or-treaters also transform into the figures
represented by their respective costumes, those of the Grim Reaper
(Alastair Forbes) and the witch (Kristina Uranowski).
As
they surround him, the front door opens, and Jack sees Kate, kneeling
on the porch. After a moment, she vanishes, Surrounding him, the
monsters move in on him, and the Grim Reaper embraces him. “Happy
Halloween,” it says.
The
children leave the house, in their original costumes, as fires burn
in the windows. After one of the fires in an upstairs window
explodes, the camera pans up, showing that other houses, for miles
around, are also on fire, as are high-rise buildings in the city
beyond.
This
short does a good job of introducing bizarre elements that become
explicable over a period of time, as details accumulate which, when
combined, provide a context for interpreting the whole situation of
which the individual elements are each but a part. In other words,
the introductions of these details are like the pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle (the film as a whole) that the audience (following the lead of
director Marc Roussel) put together, incident by incident, until the
whole picture is discernible and intelligible as a unified and
coherent whole.
This
initially piecemeal delivery of specific, isolated details also
heightens the horrific tone of the film, its mystery, and its
suspense. Each incident is disquieting in itself: the wary woman, the
madman, and the housebound survivalist are each, in their own ways,
disturbing.
As
we move from house to house, the domiciles become worse and worse, as
do the inhabitants. What appears abnormal (canned pet food for a
Halloween “treat,” inverted syntax and facial injuries, a dead or
abducted baby, and a young wife wasting away of some disease while her
husband and protector slowly loses contact with reality)
seems, in the world of the film, to be normal, while that which is
normal (trick-or-treating, wearing traditional Halloween costumes,
visiting neighborhood houses on Halloween) appears, increasingly, to
be abnormal.
The
world is upside-down and inside-out, and it's every man, woman, and
child for him- or herself. At first, we have no idea what has
happened to the suburbanites the children visit. Then, a clue: the
“EVACUATION ZONE” sign. There has been an evacuation. Apparently,
for whatever reason, the residents who remain in the suburbs have
been left behind. Now, they are facing the consequences: paranoia,
madness, self-isolation, distrust of others, sickness, and death.
The
parallels to the coronoavirus pandemic are striking, although
unintended. (The film was released in 2014; the pandemic began in
2020). Neighbors isolate themselves from everyone else, staying in
their homes. They are wary, even paranoid. One couple takes extreme
measures, hoarding food and taking refuge in their home.
Not everyone
survives: the bassinet is empty, as are many of the houses in the
neighborhood. Food seems to be in short supply: the kids' “treats”
include canned pet food and a plastic bat. The crisis is not local;
it affects other communities, including at least one nearby city, and
there has been an organized evacuation of the affected areas. These
similarities, of course, make the short even eerier and more
disturbing, even if they have no direct relationship to the
coronaviruss pandemic.
Just
as the coronavirus has brought out the worst in some people—those
who hoard essential supplies, engage in price gouging, spit on
produce, ignore government directives for minimizing health risks,
boast of their luxurious accommodations, and complain about minor
inconveniences—the catastrophe that has befallen the communities in
The Last Halloween
brings out the worst in some of the movie's cast of characters. Jack
refuses to open his door to the trick-or-treaters, refuses to help
them, refuses to share his horde of food with them, is prepared to
kill them.
The children themselves are transformed into monsters.
They are unforgiving toward Jack. They have laid waste to the
neighborhood and, the end of the film suggests, to others communities
as well. Under the right—or the wrong—circumstances, anyone, the
movie implies, could be a Jack, a ghost, a Grim Reaper, a witch, or a
devil.
On
a positive note, however, it is possible, also, to be generous, even
if wary: the woman who gives the ghost a can of her pet food offers
something from her larder that she could have eaten herself. The type
of the item—pet food—suggests the desperation in which she finds
herself: she is so hungry and so low on food supplies that she is
willing to eat pet food. Despite such extremity, she is,
nevertheless, willing to share what she can. Her act of
self-sacrifice, although bizarre, is also heroic. She represents the
opposite extreme of Jack, the alternative to his self-centeredness,
which excludes any others, except his wife, whom, ironically, he is
unable to save.
Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.
It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.
What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”
Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.
As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.
Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionarycontends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:
Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.
In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.
Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.
According to Todorov:
The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).
Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.
And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.
Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.
Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:
Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.
Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.
Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.
Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).
Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.
A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).
Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.
Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.
Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.
A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.
A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.
Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.
Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.