"Oculus": A Psychological Horror Movie with Philosophical Implications

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

I admit it: I'm a movie poster fan, especially if it's designed to promote a chiller or a thriller. Itself a work of art, such a poster often gets to the heart of the film's basic claim, or theme. By “theme,” I mean both the central idea the movie conveys and the primary, or core, emotion it elicits, for, in art, the mind and the heart are as one when thought and feeling agree. That's not to say there's such agreement throughout the film. Typically, there isn't. By the end of the movie, though, the mind and heart typically unite, supporting one another, and, through feeling, thought becomes belief.

Some contend that our personal and social values are the sources of our beliefs, and they may be right, but I believe—ironic this particular word should appear in my thoughts as I'm writing about thought, emotion, belief, and, now, value—that, without the marriage of thought and emotion at some point, belief will not take root, and belief, arising from a value we or our society holds as true, often without individual examination, will be based solely on one or the other, thought or emotion. Such a basis is weak and susceptible to surrender.

So, anyway, back to the topic at hand: movie themes as they're expressed in posters promoting chillers and thrillers.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Frederick Nietzsche wrote, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” The mirror in the horror movie Oculus could represent Nietzsche's abyss. But what, exactly, is this abyss—and how is one to prevent one's becoming a monster if he or she fights monsters? There are monsters aplenty in the film, as there are monster fighters, but none of the slayers appear to survive against the abyss. Could the title of the movie suggest an answer to the questions its symbolic mirror poses?

Let's begin our investigation of these questions with a consideration of the posters designed to promote the feature film. There are three in English, and one in Italian.

In one of the posters, a boy (10-year-old Tim Russell, we learn in the movie) and a redheaded girl (his 12-year-old sister, Kaylie) stand, facing away from a large mirror in an ornate, but rather grotesque, metal frame. Tim wears a red-, black-, and green-striped shirt; Kaylie, blue denim overalls over a light-blue sweater. Her hair is slightly disheveled, and both children look frightened—indeed, they seem near panic. Neither of them is reflected in the mirror, although Tim is tall enough for the back of his head to appear in the looking-glass and Kaylie is tall enough for the back of her head and her shoulders to be reflected in the glass. Instead, the mirror displays the opposite wall, showing a photograph or a painting (the image is blurry) above wall molding. Centered above the children, across the wall and the mirror, is the word “OCULUS,” in white letters; beneath it, also in white letters, in letter case, is the sentence, “You see what it wants you to see.” Presumably, the “it” in the sentence refers to the mirror.

In another poster, a close-up of the Kaylie is shown. She is older than she is in the first poster (23 years old, we learn in the movie). Her hair is neatly combed, falling to the sides of her face. She wears a natural-pink shade of lipstick, but no other makeup. A pair of small hands, one arising from either cheek, cover the locations in which her eyes would normally appear. The hands are the same color as her complexion and appear to be natural parts of her body. Below her chin, the sentence, in white font and title case, reads, “You see what it wants you to see.” Beneath this caption is the word “OCULUS,” in white font and capital letters. If the eyes are the mirrors of the soul, the girl has no mirror into her soul, for her eyes are missing, stolen, perhaps, but not by an external agent, for the hands which cover the locations in which her eyes would normally appear are parts of her; they grow from her own face.

The third poster shows the mirror, its frame now green in color, rather than leaden gray, but otherwise unchanged. It stands on a bare wooden floor, in profile. Kaylie, age 23, steps from the surface of the glass, wearing a dress the same color as the mirror's frame and surface. Only the parts of her body—her face, upper torso, left arm, right leg, and part of her left leg—that have emerged from the looking-glass are visible, as if the rest of her does not exist. The mirror appears to be a portal between two worlds or dimensions. In the darkness of the room, behind the mirror, the centered same word and sentence appear as are shown in the previously described posters. Both are in the same color and font styles: “You see what it wants you to see,” followed by “OCULUS.” This poster seems to allude to Lewis Carroll's novel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, thus casting Kaylie in a role similar to that of Alice, who enters Wonderland through an enchanted mirror.

In the fourth poster, Kaylie, age 23, stands in a room with a bare wooden floor. Her neatly combed hair is in a ponytail, and she wears a patterned dress. (She is shown from behind, down to her shoulder blades.) The mirror, in its ornate, but grotesque, gray metal frame, stands against the far wall. Although Kaylie gazes into it, the glass reflects someone else: a cadaverous, dark-haired girl with a ghostly pale complexion. She wears a white dress. Her left arm is at her side, its palm facing forward. Blood wreaths her neck, stains the bottom front of her dress, and is smeared across the palm of her hand. Across Kaylie's back, in white capital letters, “OCULUS” appears. Below it, also in capital letters, but in a smaller, yellow font, is the phrase, “IL RIFLESSO DEL MALE” (“THE REFLECTION OF EVIL”). If the mirror lets Kaylie see what it wants her to see and reflects evil, the implication appears to be that, in viewing herself, Kaylie sees the evil within herself. Is the image in the looking-glass a sort of portrait of Dorian Gray, then, an image of herself that decays as a result of the evil deeds she commits while Kaylie herself remains young, healthy, and beautiful?

The allusions to Alice and to Dorian Gray complexify and enrich the possible meanings of the posters, as does their apparent reference to Nietzsche's metaphor of the abyss. The movie's plot, of course, will suggest whether and to what extent any of these possibilities may apply to interpreting the theme of the film.

After Alan Russell, his wife Marie, and their children Tim and Kaylie move into a new house, Alan buys an antique mirror for his office. Shortly thereafter, he sees his body decaying, and he begins to have an affair with Marisol, a female ghost or incubus who has mirrors in lieu of eyes.

Gradually, he and Marie go mad. Marie withdraws, as she becomes paranoid. The family's dog vanishes. Kaylie, seeing her father with Marisol, tells her mother, and Marie and Alan argue. When Marie tries to kill their children, Alan locks her up. The food supply dwindles, and Kaylie, seeking help from her mother, finds Marie chained to a wall inside the house.

Tim seeks help from the neighbors, who refuse to assist him, believing he's making up a story about his parents. Kaylie's telephone calls are answered by the same masculine voice.

Alan frees Marie, and they attack the children. Alan kills Marie when she has a lucid moment. Aware that the mirror is the source of their parents' madness, Tim and Kaylie attempt to smash it, but hit the wall, thinking they are hitting the mirror. Like their parents' behavior, theirs, too, is controlled by the mirror.

During a rational moment, Alan tells his children to flee the house, before forcing Tim to shoot him, However, their escape is cut off by ghosts. Police arrest Tim, who sees his parents' ghosts watching him as he is escorted from the house.

After eleven years, Tim is released from the mental hospital in which he has been confined after “murdering” his father, no longer believing supernatural powers were associated with his parents' deaths. Kaylie, who works for an auction house, researches the antique mirror her father bought. Allowed to take the mirror home, she keeps it in a room in which it is monitored by surveillance cameras, an anchor suspended from the ceiling ready to smash the looking-glass at the flip of a switch. Before destroying the mirror, she plans to obtain evidence that it was responsible for Alan's death.

The siblings argue about Kaylie's plans. When plants begin to wither, they check the surveillance cameras' footage and discover they have performed deeds of which they have no awareness. Tim is now a believer in the mirror's supernatural powers, but the children's escape attempt is frustrated by the mirror's influence. Kaylie stabs an apparition of her mother in the neck, only to realize she has wounded her fiance. Attempting to telephone the police, she reaches the same mysterious masculine voice that answered her telephone when she was twelve years old. When Tim switches on the anchor, it strikes Kaylie, killing her. Tim is arrested and, once again, blames the mirror for his actions. As he is led away, he sees his sister's ghost standing with the spirits of his parents. The mirror has claimed another victim.

The authorities blame Tim for the deaths of Alan and Kaylie, but Tim blames the mirror. How should the series of fantastic incidents that occur in their new house be interpreted? According to Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Litearry Genre, the fantastic either remains fantastic—essentially, inexplicable—or is resolved as uncanny (natural, if unusual, and explicable in terms of scientific knowledge) or as marvelous (paranormal or supernatural in origin). Is Oculus fantastic, uncanny, or marvelous? The authorities view the events as uncanny; they are bizarre, but they are explicable; psychiatrists can explain them as effects of Tim's psychosis, which produced hallucinations. Tim, like Kaylie, believe the incidents that happened inside their new house were marvelous, having been caused by the mirror's supernatural powers. Depending upon one's belief system, either interpretation is possible within the framework of the movie's plot.

Let's examine the film's incidents from the stance that they are the results of madness, which means that not only Tim, but also Kaylie, Marie, and Alan were psychotic (and probably paranoid); they all hallucinated, seeing and hearing things that were present only in their own minds. Everything they believed actually happened occurred only in their own minds. As the text in one of the movie posters suggests, the mirror was not evil; it was merely a mirror. It did nothing more than exhibit a “REFLECTION OF EVIL.” The images it displayed were images of madness, of psychosis and paranoia. The mirror was, in Nietzsche's terms, an abyss. In gazing too long into this abyss, it also gazed into them.

What is the nature of the abyss? The answer to this question depends on who one asks, but it might represent, among other possibilities, despair (“the sickness unto death,” as Soren Kierkegaard calls it), death, existential meaninglessness, or absurdity; the inability to sustain a definite self; or a feeling of psychological impotence. But the abyss, in Nietzsche's formulation of the abysmal, is related to monsters: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” This association between the monstrous and the abysmal raises the question, what is the monstrous or, more specifically, what is a monster?

Historically, a monster was an omen created by God to warn of his impending wrath against sinful conduct. However, in more recent times, the monstrous has come to have psychological, rather than theological, significance. Today, many say people contend against personal or inner “demons,” metaphors for the inner conflicts that result from unresolved emotions.

It is by fixating, or becoming obsessed with, such feelings that one allows the “abyss” to gaze into oneself. People obsessed with vengeance may commit acts of vengeance; those fixated upon self-pity may become clinically depressed; people who dwell on fear may become paranoid; a person who ponders irrational behavior may become insane. An obsession with a particular type of abnormal behavior can not only cause such a behavior in oneself but intensify it, causing it to become extreme.

What monsters do the characters in Oculus see and hear? Their adversaries suggest whom they view as threats, as “monsters.”

Alan sees himself as being in a state of decadence; he sees his body as decaying. The body's physicality suggests he sees his flesh as the source of his decadence, a possibility borne out by his affair with the ghost or incubus Marisol. His personal demon is his emotional unfaithfulness toward his wife. His lack if fidelity causes him to view Marie as an enemy, rather than his spouse; he sees her as a monster whose relationship to him is emotionally unsatisfying.

Perhaps he feels trapped in his marriage. His purchase of an antique mirror suggests he is seeking self-awareness associated with his past. What has led to the emotional distance he feels between Marie and himself? Whatever he sees in Marisol is his own image of her; she has no eyes, no mirrors to a soul, because she has no soul. She doesn't exist, except as a delusion he has created out of his need for an emotionally fulfilling relationship. The mirrors of her “eyes” reflect only his own ideas about women, his own fantasies about what a woman should be and how she should behave.

Not surprisingly, her husband's own emotional distance makes Marie withdraw, and, afraid that her relationship with Alan is disintegrating, she becomes paranoid. She appears to blame her children for her failing marriage, because it is at them that she directs her rage. She argues with Alan, but she never attempts to harm him physically; instead, she tries to murder Tim and Kaylie. Consequently, Alan chains her to a wall—but is fettering her intended solely to protect his children or does chaining her also ensure that the distance between them is certain, affording him more time to fantasize about Marisol?

It's interesting that the Russell family's neighbors do not believe Tim's wild tale of his parents' insanity, nor so the authorities. Like the psychiatrist who treats Tim after his arrest for his father's murder, the neighbors may think Tim's ravings the products of insanity.

Was Tim's murder of his father an attempt to protect his mother from Alan? His parents argued. His father's emotional detachment from Marie obviously disturbed her greatly. She'd become withdrawn and paranoid. Finally, she'd snapped, attempting to kill her own children, and Alan had responded not by getting her the help she obviously needed, but by chaining her to a wall. In Freudian terms, the Oedipus complex may have had much to do with Tim's “accidental” killing of his father. The boy might also have been motivated by his concern for his and his sister's safety. If Alan treated their mother in such a manner, he might well treat them in the same way. 

 

Kaylie seems to have a problematic view of men, perhaps as a result of her father's treatment of her mother. They are distant emotionally, and her father seems to be emotionally unfaithful to Marie, an insight on Kaylie's part that causes her to imagine that her father is actually having an affair with Marisol and report this act of infidelity to her mother. When she calls for help, the same masculine voice always answers—her animus, Carl Jung might suggest—but no help is dispatched.

Men are not rescuers. They are more likely to be monsters than knights in white armor. Later, mistaking her fiance for an apparition of her mother, Kaylie will stab him. Does she fear that the example of her mother's withdrawal and paranoia concerning her father will also destroy her relationship with her fiance or does she fear her fiance will be distant and emotionally unfaithful to her, as Alan also been to Marie? In her mind, it seems clear, the guilt of her parents is interchangeable; they are both dangerous monsters.

During the movie, the characters have rare, brief moments of lucidity. During one such moment, Tim and Kaylie realize that their own twisted perceptions of others is causing psychological, interpersonal, and even physical mayhem. They attempt to break the mirror, that is, to escape the lens through which they view the other members of their family. However, their attempt to break through the filters they have created is inept, even absurd, and they remain captives of their own skewed perceptions and interpretations of events.

Eleven years later, Tim is believed to be well again and is released from the mental hospital. However, Kaylie is still deluded, believing the mirror has supernatural powers. The siblings argue, and Tim, whose madness seems only to have been dormant, again comes under the sway of his psychosis, as he and his sister imagine the houseplants are withering. Checking surveillance camera footage, they discover they've performed acts they cannot recall having done and blame their fugue states on the mirror.

Kaylie tries the same pitiful defense mechanism she employed eleven years ago. She telephones for help, but reaches the same mysterious masculine voice that answered her telephone when she was twelve years old. Instead of seeking help from the neighbors, Tim switches on the anchor suspended from the ceiling, but it strikes Kaylie, killing her.

Arrested, he blames the mirror for his actions, just as he'd done eleven years ago. As he is led away by the police, he sees his sister's ghost standing with the spirits of his parents. In his mind, the mirror has claimed another victim—the sister he himself killed, even as he had killed his father, who'd killed his mother. Truly, the mirror has been a “REFLECTION OF EVIL,” the evil of the family's own personal demons.

Although the idea that all the members of a family might go mad at the same time, their delusions, hallucinations, and behaviors reinforcing, sometimes complementing, and interacting with one another, is far-fetched, to say the least, such is horror fiction, a melodramatic genre that is, by both definition and convention, over the top. For those like me who are skeptical of psychoanalytical claims (and of psychoanalysis itself), Freudian and Jungian interpretations of human behavior, as represented in Oculus by the actions of the characters, are likely to seem too neat and tidy and too over the top to be satisfying.

For us, there are other possible explanations, some of which, as we've suggested, are despair (“the sickness unto death,” as Soren Kierkegaard calls it), death, existential meaninglessness, or absurdity; the inability to sustain a definite self; or a feeling of psychological impotence. There are also artistic possibilities for interpreting the meaning of the abyss. While Jean-Paul Sartre maintains that “hell is other people,” the director of Oculus might amend the philosopher's premise to suggest, as Tennessee Williams, who warned against looking in mirrors, put it, “Hell is yourself.”

Anthology Ideas (and a Few Freebies!)

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

There are probably as many ways to come up with an anthology idea as there are editors who come up with anthology ideas. In the brief head notes to his stories in his own anthology of twice-told tales, The Collection, Bentley Little mentions a few of them. For any who imagined that the innards of the publishing industry are as confused and messy as those of a dissected high school biology class frog, his comments on the matter suggest that such cynics are pretty much right on the money.

The ecology movement gave rise to the notion for one anthology: The Earth Strikes Back was to be a collection of tales concerning “the negative effects of pollution, overpopulation, and deforestation” upon the planet, or so Little supposed, at least, “judging by the title of the book.”

Another anthology, Cold Blood, was also to be centered on a “theme” and its stories were to have been written to “specific guidelines.”

A third anthology was to have included “stories based on titles the editor provided,” all of which “were. . . clichéd horror images.” This one, Little says, “never came to pass.”

According to Stephanie Bond, author of “Much Ado About Anthologies,” these collections “are assembled in various ways,” sometimes as the result of a group proposal by several authors, sometimes at the suggestion of an editor, sometimes as a way to test the marketability of an idea, and sometimes to capitalize upon a specific author’s unusual success. Usually, they come together because “editors formulate ideas for anthologies to fill holes they perceive in the market.”

I submitted a story for an anthology myself. It (the anthology, but my story also) concerned animals. My story was accepted, but I declined the invitation, because it was to have appeared in an electronic magazine and the editor wanted to pay via PayPal. At the time, I preferred payments by check, the old-fashioned way.

Anthologies have a common theme, of course, provided by a timely or evergreen topic, a holiday, an intriguing situation, or any other reasonably good excuse for a score or more (or fewer) stories by the same or different authors of the same genre.

Horror movies have also gone the anthology route. Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye and Creepshow are only two among many. Most follow the simple convention of sandwiching three of four short movies between an opening prologue that sets up the theme to be followed and an epilogue that rounds out the series and provides an appropriate sense of closure.

Were you yourself to publish a horror anthology, what short stories would you include? Your list could indicate not only your own interests in the genre, but also some of the narrative themes, writing techniques, and stylistic approaches your choice of stories represents, especially if you write a brief headnote to introduce each story.

My own imaginary anthology is an eclectic one, featuring some better-known and some lesser-known stories by well-known authors. A few might be by famous people who aren't known for writing chillers and thrillers, but who have written some admirable tales of terror and suspense, and a few others might be written by relatively unknown authors or by authors who are relatively unknown, at least, to most American readers.

In alphabetical order (by author's name), here's the list of the candidates I'd likely include, some of which might stretch the traditional definition of “horror story”:

Bierce, Ambrose: “The Damned Thing”

The color of “the damned thing” is the source of horror in this story about a creature never seen before among humanity. (You might also enjoy my two-part commentary on the story, “The Damned Thing": Bierce's Exercise in Existential Absurdity.”) 

Bierce, Ambrose: “A Tough Tussle”

This story shows what the Civil War was like, up close and personal, for the men who fought it. It's a haunting tale in which death stares the living in the face.

Bradbury, Ray: “Heavy-Set” (in I Sing the    Body Electric)

A childlike man has trouble fitting in, relying on bodybuilding and fantasy to get him through the day. His mother, with whom he lives, hopes his interest will be enough to sustain him—and to protect her. (You'll also want to read my analysis of this story, “'Heavy-Set': Learning from the Masters.”

Chopin, Kate: “The Story of an Hour”

When a woman learns her husband has been killed, his demise is a dream come true—or is it?

Churchill, Sir Winston: “Man Overboard”

Similar to Stephen Crane's short story, “The Open Boat,” the former British prime minister's tale confronts a pleasure-seeker with the indifference of nature. (My analysis of this story, “'Man Overboard': Questioning Nature and Its Creator,” offers food for thought.)

Crane, Stephen: “The Open Boat”

Four men in a dinghy learn the lesson of their lives concerning their place in the cosmic scheme of things. (“Taking Away the Teddy Bear” provides insights concerning this story, “Man Overboard,” and other works.)

Dickens, Charles: “The Signal-man”

Based on a true incident, Dickens revisits the scene of a tragic railway accident, suggesting the incident might have had a supernatural cause.

Du Maurier, Daphne: “The Birds”

We've seen Alfred Hitchcock's movie, but have we read the short story it's based on?

Faulkner, William: “A Rose for Emily”

What secrets is dear old Emily hiding in her family's decaying mansion?

Gilman Perkins Charlotte: “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The wallpaper will give you the willies.

Hemingway, Ernest: “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”

Feminism was never like this!

Jackson, Shirley: “Just an Ordinary Day”

At the end of the day, it's time to switch.

Lawrence, D. H.: “The Odour of Chrysanthemums”

Before there were funeral parlors, bodies of the deceased were prepared by family members and laid out in the parlor, as in this story.

O'Connor, Flannery: “Good Country People”

Her dark suspicions about God and religion don't save her from the traveling salesman with a morbid interest in her prosthesis.

Poe, Edgar Allan: “Hop-Frog”

A fool makes a fool of a sadistic king and his toadying couriers. (“'Hop-Frog': A Story of Reversals” investigates Poe's technique.)

Stoker, Bram: “Dracula's Guest”

A strange landscape. Rumors of vampires. A graveyard in the midst of a forest. A corpse revived. A werewolf. Military troops. This one has it all, including a note from the Count of Transylvania, soliciting assistance in the protection of his “guest.”

Rabindranath Tagore: “The Hungry Stones”

Visions of the dead have a hypnotic effect on tax collector.

Wells, H. G.: “The Cone”

The descriptions of an ironworks are extraordinary, as is this horrific tale of terror and revenge.

Wells, H. G.: “The Red Room”

Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Wells offers an eerie tale of terror in a haunted castle, offering an explanation opposite that presented in the film adaptation of Stephen King's “1408.” Reading Tzvetan Todorov's analysis of the fantastic and its tendency to be resolved as either marvelous or uncanny helps in understanding the nuances of both this story and the film version of King's story.

Fortunately, for those who may want to read one or more of them, many are available, free, online, as the links embedded in their titles indicate, or may be checked out on loan from local public libraries.

Plotting a Horror Story as a Mystery

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Many of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories start with Sherlock Holmes's observations about a client. In “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the detective makes declarations about the modes of transportation Helen Stoner used and about her truthfulness.

“You have come by train this morning, I see,” he tells her. He adds that she also “had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before [reaching] the station.” Helen is “bewildered” by Holmes's performance, until he explains how he deduced these facts: “I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove,” he says, adding, concerning her ride in the dog-cart, “the left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less [sic] than seven places. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver.”

Later, when he asks her whether she has told him everything and she answers that she has, Holmes says she has not; she is shielding her stepfather. The “five little livid spots” on her hand, representing pressure from “four fingers and a thumb” indicate that her stepfather has “cruelly used” her. Holmes's display of such skills characterize him as an astute detective, amazing readers, just as he has amazed Helen and as he regularly amazes his friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.

Doyle was inspired in employing this method of characterization by Dr. Joseph Bell, who taught classes at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary, where he frequently demonstrated the powers of observation and deduction to his students, one of whom was Doyle. In “ From Holmes to Sherlock: The Story of the Men and Women Who Created an Icon, Mattias Bostrom includes four examples of Bell's prowess.

In the first, Bell dips a finger into a “vial” filled with a “bitter liquid” before tasting it. He then invites his students to do the same, and they pass the container from one to the next. After all have complied with his request, he expresses his disappointment at their lack of observation, confessing to them, “While I placed my index finger in the awful brew, it was the middle finger—aye—which somehow found its way into my mouth” (7-8).

In the presence of his students, Bell demonstrated the degree to which a person can ascertain information concerning a patient's “history, nationality, and occupation” simply by means of observation and deduction. The doctor told the day's “first patient,” who wore “civilian clothes,” that the man had “served in the army,” in “a Highland regiment,” as a non-commissioned officer “stationed at Barbados,” and had only recently been discharged (8-9). When the patient confirmed the accuracy of Bell's statements, the doctor explained to his students how he'd reached these conclusions:

“The man was a respectful man but did not remove his hat. They do not in the army, but he would have learned civilian ways had he long been discharged. He has an air of authority and he is obviously Scottish. As to the Barbados, his complaint is elephantiasis, which is West Indian and nor British” (9).

The third example of the powers of observation and deduction occurs as Bell asks a woman at “another lecture” where her cutty pipe is, causing her to produce the item from her handbag. He deduced that she smoked such a pipe, he explains to his students, from the presence of “the ulcer on her lower lip and the glossy scar on her left cheek, indicating a superficial burn.” These marks were produced by the “short-stemmed clay pipe [she] held close to the cheek while smoking.”

Bostrom's fourth example of Bell's skills in observation and deduction follow a student's failed application of the doctor's method. Asked for his diagnosis concerning “another patient,” the student ventures the opinion that the patient suffers from “hip-joint disease.” Bell corrects his pupil:

“The man's limp isn't from his hip but from his foot. Were you to observe closely, you would see there are slits, cut by a knife, in those parts of the shoe where the pressure of the shoe is greater against the foot. The man is a sufferer from corns . . . and has no hip trouble at all. But he has not come here to be treated for corns . . . . His trouble is of a much more serious nature. This is a case of chronic alcoholism . . . . The rubicund nose, the puffed, bloated face, the bloodshot eyes, the tremulous hands and twitching face muscles, with the quick pulsating temporal arteries, all show this. These deductions, gentlemen, must however be confirmed by absolute and concrete evidence. In this instance my diagnosis is confirmed by the fact of my seeing the neck of a whiskey bottle protruding from the patient's right hand coat pocket. . . . Never neglect to ratify your deductions” (9-10).

In these examples, Holmes's own method, based on that of Bell, is summed up nicely: observe, deduce, and verify one's deductions with “absolute and concrete evidence.”

As Bostrom points out, “Bell's assertions, which had first seemed miraculous, appeared perfectly logical after his explanations” (9). In this statement rests the method of the mystery story: present effects, but withhold causes; show the what and even the how, but not the why. Without a full context, readers will find it difficult, if not impossible, to solve the mystery. Therefore, the cause should be provided only at the end of the story, when the detective explains the case.

Interesting, one may think, but what do the methods of detectives and the manner of the mystery have to do with horror fiction? Horror writers do much the same thing as authors of detective stories, except that the explanation, which typically includes an account of the nature or origin of the monster, provides the information the protagonist needs to neutralize or eliminate the monster (or other threat), rather than to solve a crime.

In an interview, Doyle revealed that he normally started the writing process by envisioning the story's end. “The art,” he said, “then lay in writing his way to the end while managing to conceal the finale from the reader” (Bostrom, 78). It's possible that Doyle learned this approach from Edgar Allan Poe, whose own earlier detective fiction Doyle admired; in explaining the process, in “The Philosophy of Composition,” by which he wrote his poem The Raven, Poe says he wrote the poem backward, first devising the end and then making everything lead toward this conclusion so that the story had unity of effect and the end seemed inevitable.

In Writing Monsters, Philip Athans quotes Lynn Abbey as recommending a similar backward approach to plotting horror fiction. She recommends determining how the monster will be neutralized or eliminated and then dismantling “the characters' knowledge and preparation” before developing the “plot details that allow the characters to pick up the pieces [i. e., the clues and other information] they're going to need.”

Such an approach allows writers of both detective and horror fiction to develop their plots since, at the heart of both genres, there is a mystery: a crime in the former case and the nature or origin of a monstrous menace in the latter instance.

Doyle also wrote according to “template,” or formula, from which he seldom varied, Bostrom observes: a client arrives for a consultation; based on observations, Holmes makes and explains deductions about the client; Holmes explains these deductions, identifying his observations; the client presents the facts of his or her case; Holmes investigates the case, sometimes in the company of Watson; Holmes solves the case; the perpetrator is captured (or, we might add, killed).

Applying the writing-backward approach and using this template, Doyle's short story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” might look like this:

The perpetrator is apprehended.	Dr. Grimesby Roylott is killed by a venomous snake.
Holmes solves the case.	Holmes explains that, to prevent his stepdaughters from inheriting most of the fortune their late mother left in his charge when they wed, Roylott uses milk to train a venomous snake to return, at the sound of a whistle, to his room, through a ventilator between his bedroom and that of his first victim, Helen Stoner's sister, Julia. He would then slip a leather loose around the snake's body to return the reptile to the safe he kept in his bedroom. To provide the snake with access from the vent to the bed he'd bolted in place in Julia's bedroom, Roylott installed a bell-cord unconnected to a bell. After Julia's death, he ordered Helen to switch from her own bedroom to her sister's, under the pretext that construction was underway in the wing of the house in which Helen's bedroom is located. He would release the snake at the same time every night until it bit its victim.
Holmes investigates the case.	Holmes, accompanied by Watson, travels to Roylott's house while Roylott is away from home. There, they determine that reliable shutters on the bedroom windows and its locked door are sufficient to have kept out both wild animals and gypsies roaming the estate. Holmes also discovers a vent that connects with the adjacent bedroom, that of Roylott, rather than emptying outdoors; a dummy bell cord; a bed bolted to the floor to make it immovable (a clue shared only at the end of the story); and, in Dr. Roylott's bedroom, a saucer of milk atop a safe (despite the absence of a house cat), a leather leash with a loop in it, and a chair beneath the vent leading to Julia's bedroom.
The client presents the facts of the case.	Helen recounts the engagement of her sister Julia to be married and Julia's mysterious death; the sound of a whistle she hears every night; unnecessary construction on her stepfather's estate; the fortune her late mother left for them, in Dr. Roylott's care, payable to them upon their marriage; and the presence of wild animals and gypsies that freely roam the estate.
Holmes makes and explains the deductions he makes about the client based on his observations.	“You have come by train this morning, I see,” Holmes tells Helen. He adds that she also “had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station.” Helen is “bewildered” by Holmes's performance, until he explains how he deduced these facts: “I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove,” he says, adding, concerning her ride in the dog-cart, “The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less [sic] than seven places. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver.” Later, when he asks her whether she has told him everything and she answers that she has, Holmes says she has not; she is shielding her stepfather. The “five little livid spots” on her hand, representing pressure from “four fingers and a thumb” indicate that her stepfather has “cruelly used” her.
A new client arrives to consult with Holmes.	Holmes's landlady and housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, announces the arrival of Helen Stoner to see him.

Note: The gypsies and the wild animals are introduced as possible suspects in Julia's death.

Not surprisingly, the same method can be used to plot a popular type of horror story. However, the template, or formula, for this type of story differs from the one Doyle used to write his Sherlock Holmes stories. Typically, the template for this type of horror story includes these phases:

1. A series of bizarre incidents occurs.
2. The protagonist learns the nature, origin, or cause of the bizarre incidents.
3. The protagonist uses the knowledge of the nature, origin, or cause of the bizarre incidents to put an end to them.
   
   

Applied to Them!, backward plotting from this horror template might result in something like this:

The protagonist uses the knowledge of the nature, origin, or cause of the bizarre incidents to put an end to them.	Army troops use flamethrowers to destroy two escaped queen ants and their brood. (By nature, queen ants are vital to the survival of their colony and, indeed, to the species itself, “producing thousands of eggs” over their lifetimes.
The protagonist learns the nature, origin, or cause of the bizarre incidents.	FBI agents destroy a gigantic ant with their sub-machine guns. A scientist theorizes that a colony of ants became giants after atomic radiation from a nuclear test at Alamogordo caused them to mutate.
A series of bizarre incidents occurs.	In shock, a girl wanders the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Her trailer appears to have been attacked and destroyed. Gramps Johnson, a store owner is found dead inside his ripped-open store. In an ambulance, the girl sits up when a high-pitched sound occurs. State Trooper Ed Blackburn screams as he goes outdoors to investigate a shrill sound. Since both Johnson, who died of a broken neck and whose body contains formic acid, and Blackburn were found with fired weapons, it seems unlikely their attackers were gunmen. The girl found wandering in the desert awakens from her catatonic state when exposed to formic acid and yells, “Them!”