In 1950s horror movies,
the military was called out, on occasion, to eliminate monsters. Less
frequently today, the armed forces sometimes carry out this duty. If
you've ever wondered how combined forces would take out Godzilla or
other monsters, the website We
Are the Mighty has the answers.
Taking down Godzilla would
involve mostly Air Force and Navy aircraft, with the Army playing a
supportive combat role involving tanks. Mostly, though, ground forces
would be used to evacuate civilians. For the answer to an even bigger
question, check out Military.com's
response to the query “Can
the Navy Handle a War Between King and Godzilla?”
According to the same
source,
zombies' threats would be twofold: surprise and superior numbers.
However, the Army, this time, would have the primary role and would
accomplish its objective by setting up a perimeter and channeling the
zombie horde into a narrow killing zone. If, for some reason, the war
turned into one of attrition, the Army would still win, since troops
have ample rations that can last five years, while zombies, cut off
from a ready supply of human brains, would run out of food fairly
soon.
The Army has also teamed
up with both vampires
and ghosts. Alerted to the fact that the Huks, Communist rebels
who'd taken up positions in the Philippines, were superstitious, U.
S. Army lieutenant colonel Edward G. Lansdale employed psychological
warfare against the insurgents. His troops spread the rumor that an
asuang (vampire) lived in the area. Then, they ambushed the last man
in a Huk patrol, punched holes in his jugular vein, and drained his
body of blood, before returning the bloodless corpse to the trail.
When the other rebels found his body, they were convinced that the
asuang had attacked him and ran for their lives. Government forces
reclaimed the area. Mission accomplished!
The recruitment of ghosts
was also successful. Aware of the superstitious belief of local enemy
forces that the souls of the unburied dead were doomed to wander
forever, tapes recorded by the U. S. Army featured “Buddhist
funeral music followed by a girl's cries for her father.” A ghost
replies to her grief with sorrow of his own, despondent that he chose
to fight a war in a far-flung field of battle rather than remain with
his family. Broadcast at various times, its doubtful that the enemy
was fooled by them; nevertheless, they didn't like to hear the tapes,
and it took a gunship to decimate the hostile ground forces. We
Are the Mighty links to the
chilling tape
recording!
Apparently, some spirits of
the dead are transvestites. Perhaps too embarrassed to buy clothes of their own
(or too poor—most ghosts, it seems, have little or no need, as a rule, for
cash, checks, credit cards, or bank accounts), one apparition decided to raid
the closet Maddie, of a University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Maddie and her roommates live
off-campus, in the Edge Apartments on Oakland Avenue, but it was Maddie whose
shirts and pants went missing. The ghost proved more tangible than most,
leaving its handprints on the apartment's bathroom wall.
When she heard “rattling” in
her closet on February 4, 2019, Maddie went to investigate, thinking maybe a
raccoon had been trapped inside. That's when she caught the ghost red-handed
(so to speak). He was wearing her socks and shoes and had heisted a bag of her
clothes. He tried on one of Maddie's hats, before inspecting himself in her
bathroom mirror and, after complimenting her appearance, asked for a hug, but
never touched her.
The ghost turned out to be
30-year-oldAndrew Swofford. He was
arrested on fourteen felony counts, including larceny and identity theft, and
held on a $26,000 bond. Maddie and her roomies have since moved out of the
apartment, having found their flesh-and-blood intruder more unnerving than the
ghost they'd believed was haunting their abode.
9 Krushna Chandra Nayak
In August, 2018,
forty-five-year-old Nakula Nayak and his brother Shyam Nayak, both of whom
lived out of town, in Chhelianala, India, came to the village of Angikala to
notify a relative, Sahadev Nayak, that their mother had died. Due to the
lateness of the hour, the brothers stayed overnight with Sahadev.
Around midnight, Nakula went
outside, to a field close by, to relieve himself. Coincidentally, Sahadev's
cousin, Krushna Nayak, was working outdoors. The night was quite dark, and when
Krushna sawNakula, Krushna mistook the
visitor for a ghost.
Terrified, Krushna began
beating Nakula with a lathi, a heavy, iron-bound bamboo stick. During the
struggle, Nakula managed to wrest the weapon from Krushna and began to strike
his assailant, believing his attacker to be a ghost, just as Krushna had
mistaken Nakula for a spirit. Nakula's assault on Krushna proved fatal, and
Nakula was arrested by the Turumunga police after Krushna's family lodged a
complaint against him.
8 Unidentified Helena,
Montana, Man
Was the shooter's reason for
shooting at a 27-year-old Helena man nothing more than a lame excuse, or did
the gunman really believe that his quarry, who was setting up targets on public
land, a Bigfoot?
The victim told police bullets
came flying at him, left and right, as he positioned the targets. When additional
rounds were fired at him, he sought cover among trees. Later, he emerged to
“confront” the shooter, who drove a black Ford F-150 full-size pickup truck.
The Helena man said the man
who targeted him in December, 2018, had mistaken him for Bigfoot. “I don’t
target practice,” he explained, “but if I see something that looks like
Bigfoot, I just shoot at it.” To prevent others from making a similar mistake,
the shooter suggested that his victim wear an orange vest.
Initially, police were
skeptical of the man's report, because he was unable to describe the alleged
shooter, did not want to file charges, and was reluctant to speak to deputies.
Authorities were unable to locate a truck in the area that fit the description
of the Ford F-150 pickup.
Then, a woman reported a
similar incident involving a man who drove a vehicle of the same color, make,
and model and had shot at her. She was able to provide a solid description of
her assailant.
“We’re working to find this
person,” Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said. “It is of great
concern that this individual might think it’s okay to shoot at anything he
thinks is Bigfoot.” If apprehended, the shooter could be charged with attempted
negligent homicide.
7 Wendy
Thinnamay Masuka
In April, 2018,
thirty-seven-year-old Zimbabwe pastor Masimba Chirayi killed Wendy Thinnamay Masuka while baptizing her. The adult
congregant had reacted violently to the baptism, he said.
Her
violence indicated to him that she was a “vampire possessed by demons,” and he
believed that she might “kill people.” To prevent this possibility, Chirayi
deliberately “kept her submerged in water until [he] overpowered her.”
Following
his appearance in a magistrate's court in Zimbabwe, the pastor was granted
bail.
6 Helaria Montepon Gumilid
Mistaking Helaria Montepon
Gumilid, a 79-year-old widow, for an aswang (a carnivorous shape-shifter that
may appear to be an ordinary person, despite “reclusive habits or magical
abilities,” Helaria's daughter-in-law, Myrna Damason Gumilid, age 49,
and Myrna's two sons, Rene Boy Gumilid, age 28, and Joseph Damason Gumilid, age
23, hacked her to death.
In April, 2014, the victim had
been visiting her mentally-ill grandson in Zamboanga City, Philippines, when
she was attacked and killed.Myrna, Rene
Boy, and Joseph bound Helaria, “slit her armpits,” hacked her to death, and
removed one of her organs to prevent her from “regenerating.”
Authorities arrested the
suspects, whom they planned to charge in the horrific crime.
5 African Man
In October, 2010, firefighters
responding to a report that people had jumped from the third-story balcony of a
housing unit in the village of La Verriere, France, discovered seriously
injured relatives among the eleven family members who'd made the leap. They
also found a two-year-old survivor, a baby, and a nude African man with a knife
wound to his hand. The baby later died at a hospital in Paris. (La Verriere is
located on the edge of the city.)
Thirteen people were watching television
in the apartment when the naked man, hearing the baby cry, rose to prepare a
bottle for the child. His wife screamed, “It's the devil! It's the devil!” His
sister-in-law stabbed him in the hand, and he was thrown out of the apartment.
When he tried to return, the
others panicked, leaping from through the window, one man with the two-year-old
girl in his arms. The man crawled away, hiding in bushes tow blocks away. “I
had to defend myself,” he screamed. Seven of the jumpers required medical treatment
for multiple injuries.
No hallucinogenics and no
indication of the practice of any occult rituals were found. The assistant
prosecutor from Versailles, Odile Faivre, admitted, “A number of points remain
to be cleared up.”
4 James Velasco
Hacked, bitten, and beaten,
James Velasco was killed by his grandfather, Orak Mantawil, during a December,
2015, power outage at their family-owned residence in Bliss, Barangay Nituran,
Parang, Maguindanao.
Mantawil was carrying his
four-year-old grandson in his arms when he mistook James for a tiyana, a
vampire who assumes the form of a child or a newborn infant. He apologized to
his family and the boy's parents, saying that he was drunk and cannot recall
what happened after he saw James as a tiyana. He told investigators that he
does not “use drugs.”
James's parents brought
charges of parricide against Mantawil. “He could no longer bring back my
child’s life even though he asked forgiveness,” said Fatima Velasco, James's
mother and Mantawil's daughter. She also said, “My child sustained human bites.
It appeared like his blood was sucked.”
Mantawil has been arrested and
will be subjected to a psychological examination and a drug test.
3 Stella
After Stella was caught
tiptoeing on graves at Luveve Cemetery in Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe, in 2018, a crowd meted out vigilante justice, beating the woman, who
they regarded as a witch searching for corpses she could cannibalize.
A
Luveve resident said, “I was on my way to work when I saw a woman with torn,
dirty clothes talking to herself while tiptoeing on the graves. I quickly
called out to other people passing by.” When asked her name, the woman
repeatedly replied “Stella.”
The
crowd set upon her, whipping her until she wailed in pain. Police rescued her
when they arrived on the scene, and Stella was taken to the police station,
where, Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube said, she was
found to be “mentally unstable” and to be guilty of nothing more than of having
been “at the wrong place at the wrong time.” A family who'd reported the woman
missing identified her as a relative.
2 Zana
Bryan Sykes, professor of
human genetics at the University of Oxford, said a West African DNA strain
might belong to a human subspecies.
The DNA sample was taken from
a hirsute, auburn-haired, 6'6”-tall, mid-19-century African slave named Zana
who lived in mid-19th-century Russia proves she was 100-percent African,
despite the fact that she didn't look like any modern African group of people.
In fact, according to a
Russian zoologist, “her expression . . . was pure animal.”
Sykes suggests that she and
her ancestors left Africa 100,000 years ago to dwell in the region of the
Caucasus Mountains. His most astonishing claim, however, is that Zana might
have been a yeti, or so-called abominable snowman.
Several critics are more than
a bit skeptical of Sykes's claims. For example, Jason Colavito points out that,
by Sykes's own admission, the geneticist “has found no genetic evidence that
yet points conclusively to a pre-modern origin for Zana” and suggests that the
characterization of her as being more “animal” than human might have a racist
origin: “As best I can tell, there are no nineteenth century primary sources
related to Zana, and all of the accounts of her large, apelike appearance
derive from local lore recorded more than a hundred years after the fact, and
during a time when Black Africans were routinely described as apelike,
particularly by isolated rural populations with little or no contact with other
races.”
It seems possible that Sykes
has mistaken Zana for a yeti, when, in fact, she was actually a 19th-century
African slave.
1 Horseman (Centaur)
Ancient people also sometimes
mistook people for imaginary creatures.
Imagine the shock that ancient
Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples experienced when they first witnessed
mounted Eurasian soldiers invading their lands. The cavalry was unknown to
them. The horsemen must have seemed a perfect union of man and horse, a hybrid
fusion of the human and the equine. Such warriors would have been terrifying,
and warriors wielding shields and striking with swords must have seemed
invincible.
As Bjarke Rink observes in his
book, The Rise of the Centaurs, “The impact of cavalry action upon
farming societies was shattering”—and this sight was the origin of the mythical
creature known as the centaur, a presumed hybrid of man and beast that the
ancient Greeks mistook for true monsters: “The weird creature that captured the
world's imagination for thousands of years was not a myth at all, but the first
sighting of fighting horsemen by the peasant farmers of Greece.”
In
plotting horror fiction, as in other genres, it helps to think of the
phrase “a means to an end.”
The
“means” are the means that the writer employs to encourage the
reader to continue to read the story.
The
“end” is the theme, or the “meaning,” of the story of film,
the point of the narrative or the drama, what it is all “about.”
Here
is a simple illustration: an attractive young woman in a bikini is
the “means”; the reason for her being a part of a story about a
serial killer who preys upon attractive young women in bikinis is the
“end.”
We
can think of the means as a series of hooks. The writer hooks the
reader, but releases him or her; hooks the reader again, and releases
him or her a second time; hooks the reader yet again, and releases
him or her a third time; and so on, until, at last, the writer
releases the reader for good, at the end of the story.
Too
often, writers think of not a series of hooks, but of a single
hook: the hook that lands the reader, that succeeds in getting him or
her to read the rest of the story. However, the idea that even a
short story has but a single hook does not work, and it does not work
for a novella or a novel, either. (It also doesn't apply to a
feature-length film—and what we say here, in this post, about
written stories also applies in general to filmed ones; simply
substitute “screenwriter” for “writer,” “film” or “movie”
for “story” or “novel,” and “audience,” “spectator,” or
“viewer” for “reader.”)
We
might also note that every hook leaves behind a question which is
answered either sooner or later. The hooks (usually actions)
generate questions; the questions generate suspense. Once the
suspense is satisfied—temporarily—the next hook is set.
Let's
take, as an example, H. G. Wells's short story “The Red Room.”
Here are the hooks:
Hook
1: Castle caretakers warn a young man who has recently arrived not to
spend the night in the Red Room, which, they say, is haunted.
Question:
Will the young man be dissuaded?
Hook
2: The warning is repeated.
Question:
Will the young man be dissuaded?
Hook
3: The warning is repeated again.
Question:
Will the young man be dissuaded?
Hook
4: The young man proceeds upstairs to the Red Room.
Question:
Will the young man continue to the room or change his mind and depart
from the castle?
Hook
5: The young man locks himself inside the room.
Question:
Will he stay in the room?
Hook
6: Having secured himself inside the room, the young man inspects the
chamber for any signs of secret entrances or hiding places.
Question:
Will the young man find any secret entrances or hiding places.?
Hook
7: A candle goes out.
Question:
Why?
Hook
8: The young man suspects a draft, but he cannot find a source of an
air current.
Question:
What caused the draft that blew out the candle—or was it a draft
that extinguished the flame?
Hooks
9-12*: One by one, additional candles are apparently snuffed.
Question:
What caused the drafts that blew out these additional candles—or
were they drafts that extinguished the flame?
Hook
13: The fire in the fireplace is abruptly extinguished.
Question:
What caused the fire to go out? (Here, the reader may draw a
tentative conclusion: a draft of air certainly could not have
extinguished the fire!)
Hook
14: The young man panics, running through the room, and is knocked
out.
Question:
Did ghosts attack him?
Hook
15: The castle's caretakers ask him whether the room is haunted, as
rumored?
Question:
What will the young man answer: is
the room haunted?
End:
The room is haunted—by the young man's own imagination, which ran
away with him.
*The
numbers are invented, as the exact number escape me at present.
While
the incidents of a plot must be linked by cause and effect, they
should also be related through actions, or hooks, that cause
questions, generating suspense, until, at the end, all is explained.
But
must stories be explained?
Isn't ambiguity best, in some cases? That's a question for a future
post.
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.
Do you sleep with a cross
or a crucifix around your neck?
Does your house (and your
breath) smell like garlic?
Do you keep a bottle of
holy water on hand?
Are you careful to be
home by dark every day?
Could an unsuspecting
guest stumble upon a few wooden stakes and a mallet stashed in your
dresser?
If so, you need not fear
bloodsucking dead people any longer!
A scientist has come to
the rescue with a mathematical proof against the possibility of the
existence of vampires!
University
of Central Florida physics professor Costas
Efthimiou starts with the human population on January 1, 1600,
which was 536,870,911. On this day, the first vampire appears and
bites one person each month. On the first day of February, there are
two bloodsucking freaks. On March 1, 1600, there are four vampires.
In 2.5 years, there are no more humans to feed on, because everyone
on the planet has been turned into a vampire! There's no food left
for the bloodsuckers, so they die of starvation. (On the downside,
there are no more people, either.)
Not even doubling the
human birthrate (if such a gambit were possible) could save the human
species, Dr. Efthimiou says: “In the long run, humans cannot
survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling
each month. And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of
reproduction.”
So, there you have it,
thanks to Professor Efthimiou: there's no need to fear the existence
of vampires. If there were, both vampires and humans would have
disappeared in mid-1603. Since we humans, at least, are still here,
there obviously are no such things as vampires.
For some folks, ghosts
are scary phenomena, too, but there's no need to worry about these
spectral beings, either, another scientist says.
Dr. Brian
Cox, a physicist, has proved there aren't any ghosts, either. If
they did exist, they'd be entities of pure energy, since, by
definition, they're incorporeal. According to the second law of
thermodynamics, energy is always “lost to heat”; therefore,
ghosts, as beings of pure energy, would soon drift apart and cease
to exist.
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.