Friday, April 17, 2020
The Means to an End, or Catch and Release
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Everyday Horrors: Castles and Hotels
copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman
Occasionally, the castles in such novels are modeled upon, in part, at least, actual castles, and the one in Peake’s novels, Gormenghast, is comprised of a mixture of features from various actual castles as well as cities, mansions, and universities: its walls are like those of Normal castles and those of ancient Chinese cities, while the buildings resemble those of Gothic and Regency mansions and English country houses. The professors’ living quarters and the courtyards within Gormenghast are similar to those at Oxford and Cambridge.
Bran Castle (Dracula's Castle)
In other instances, the castles are based upon a single actual fortress. Frankenstein’s castle is modeled upon eighteenth-century Lord Konrad Dippel Von Frankenstein’s residence near the small village of Muhltal, not far from Darmstadt, Germany, and Dracula’s residence, is derived from Bran Castle (now a museum), which stands near Bran, Romania, on the Transylvania-Wallachia border.
Castle Frankenstein
Because of their antiquity, the privileged lives of the nobles who dwelled within their walls, the horrible punishments endured in their dungeons, their remote locations, and their vast, dark and dank interiors, many castles are said to be haunted, including, in England alone, Arundle Castle (Sussex), Bamburgh Castle (Northumberland), Berkeley Castle (Berkeley Gloucestershire), Berry Pomeroy Castle (Berry Pomeroy Devon), Bramber Castle (West Sussex), Castle Rising (Castle Rising, Norfolk), Chillingham Castle (Northumberland), Corby Castle (Cumbria), Corfe Castle (Wareham Dorset), Dacre Castle (Cumbria), Dunstanburgh Castle (Northumberland), Dunster Castle (Somerset), Featherstone Castle (Northumberland), Hever Castle (Kent), Lowther Castle (Cumbria), Morton Corbet Castle (Shropshire), Muncaster Castle (Cumbria), Okehampton Castle (Devon), Pevensey Castle (Sussex), Pontefract Castle (West Yorkshire), Raby Castle (County Durham), Tamworth Castle (Tamworth, Staffordshire), Tintagel Castle (Tintagel Cornwall), Tower of London, Warkworth Castle (Northumberland), and Windsor Castle (Berkshire). Castles in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and mainland Europe are also said to be haunted. For example, Windsor Castle, built by William the Conqueror to “guard the western approaches to the capital,” is believed to be haunted by several ghosts, among them Queen Elizabeth I, who favors the library and a boy’s ghost, who favors the chapel. The grounds and nearby forest are also rumored to be haunted, the former by a band of interlopers, the latter by King Richard II’s favorite huntsman, Herne the Hunter. Likewise, the Tower of London, which was also built by William the Conqueror, as were many other English castles, is reportedly haunted by the ghosts of Saint Thomas a Becket, the murdered sons of King Edward IV, Anne Boleyn, one of King Henry XIII’s wives, Catherine Howard, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many commoners who were tortured and executed in the Tower’s dungeons and torture chambers.
Oddly, the castles in the United States (yes, there are several, in addition to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California) seem quiet and restful in comparison to their European counterparts.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
The White House is said to be haunted, though, by no less illustrious a ghost than that of its former occupant, President Abraham Lincoln. In yet another example of our tax dollars at work, the official White House website shares videos in which staff members relate stories of their encounters with Lincoln’s ghost.
Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado
Despite the availability of American castles, Stephen King has preferred to locate some of his more contemporary ghost stories in hotels. The action of The Shining takes place in the Overlook Hotel, which is based upon the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. The movie 1408, based upon King’s short story of the same title, which appeared in Everything’s Eventual (2002) used exterior shots of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City to depict the exterior of the film’s Dolphin Hotel and shots of a London hotel’s lobby to depict the Dolphin Hotel‘s lobby, but the short story was inspired by stories of parapsychologist Christopher Chacon’s investigation of a supposedly haunted room in the famous San Diego, California, inn, Hotel Del Coronado. In America, where everyone’s a king or queen, hotels seem the logical--or, at least, the democratic--alternative to castles and manor houses for traveling or long-term guests of the ghostly variety.
“Everyday Horrors: Castles and Hotels” is part of a series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured on Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Free Horror Films, Part I
In this classic yet still creepy horror film, strangers hold up in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse and battle constant attacks from dead locals who have been brought back to life by mysterious radiation.
F. W. Munarau's chilling and eerie adaption of Stoker's Dracula is a silent masterpiece of terror which to this day is the most striking and frightening portrayal of the legend.
Based on the chilling Richard Matheson science fiction Classic "I am Legend" [sic] and later remade as "The Omega Man" [sic] starring Charlton Heston. This classic features Vincent Price as scientist Robert Morgan in a post apocalyptic nightmare world. The world has been consumed by a ravenous plague that has transformed humanity into a race of bloodthirsty vampires. Only Morgan proves immune, and becomes the solitary vampire slayer.The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
A man named Francis relates a story about his best friend Alan and his fiancée Jane. Alan takes him to a fair where they meet Dr. Caligari, who exhibits a somnambulist, Cesare, that can predict the future. When Alan asks how long he has to live, Cesare says he has until dawn.
At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role.
When Dr. Frankenstein is killed by a monster he created, his daughter and his lab assistant Marshall continue his experiments. The two fall in love and attempt to transplant Marshall's brain in to the muscular body of a retarded servant Stephen, in order to prolong the aging Marshall's life. Meanwhile, the first monster seeks revenge on the grave robbers who sold the body parts used in its creation to Dr. Frankenstein.
Mary Henry is enjoying the day by riding around with two friends but everything goes wrong when challenged to a drag race and their car gets forced off of a bridge. The car sinks into the murky depths, and all three women are assumed drowned. Some time later Mary emerges unscathed from the river. She tries to start a new life by becoming a church organist but Mary finds herself haunted by a ghostly figure.
A group of models and cameramen go to a castle to shoot covers for horror novels where they're captured and tortured by the castle's owner, the Crimson Executioner.
Vincent Price gives a stellar performance as the suavely malevolent host of a haunted house party" who offers his guests $10,000 if they can survive a night in the murderous mansion.
College student Nan Barlow visits the village of Whitewood as research for her paper on witchcraft in New England, particularly the case of Elizabeth Selwyn. Her tutor, Professor Alan Driscoll. . . , recommends the Raven's Inn, run by a Mrs. Newless. Rather unwisely, given the amount of low-hanging fog outside (and against the advice of Mrs. Newless), Nan takes an immediate interest in the basement.
James Earl Jones plays a treasure hunter who awakens a monster under a Greek island.Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
A Fleet Street barber recounts the story of Sweeney Todd, a notorious barber who in the last century murdered many customers for their money.
A beautiful woman by day - a lusting queen wasp by night.
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, this horror film depicts a strange family, complete with insanity and axe murders.
A young alien. . . falls for a pretty teenage Earth girl. . . and they team up to try to stop the plans of his invading cohorts.
See the invention of fire! See the world's first swan dive! See the prehistoric beauties battle the giant caveman! See it all in the glory of beautiful Cinecolor!Attack of the Killer Mushrooms
A masterpiece of Japanese [sic] cinema about an island, where the mushrooms are the rulers.The Vampire Bat
The city of Kleinschloss is infected with a dark scourge from the past. A Legion of bloodsucking creatures who can assume human form have returned to prey upon the unsuspecting citizens. Detective Karl Brettschneider begins investigating numerous gory deaths at the request of the burgomaster. Despite the obvious evidence, he refuses to accept the existence of vampiric human bats, but soon their existence proves all too real.
An artist slowly loses his mind as he and his two female friends scrape to pay the bills. The punk band downstairs increasingly agitates him, his art dealer is demanding that he complete his big canvas painting as promised, and he gets into fights with his girlfriends. When the dealer laughs at his canvas he snaps, and begins taking it out on the people responsible for his pain and random transients in the manner suggested by the title.
After a beauty is mangled in a car accident, a researcher uses a treatment he has created to restore her to her former self. However, the treatment comes with a high price.... This was originialy [sic] an Italian film titled "Seddok, l'erede di Satana" which was later dubbed into English and retitled "Atomic Age Vampire". [sic]
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Dream Monsters
People may disagree as to whether the idea of dream analysis or interpretation has any real value or significance, as such psychologists as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Frederick Perls, and others contend they do, but, even if one determines that the idea is without foundation, he or she may benefit from the work that dream analysts or interpreters have done with regard to defining the symbolic significance of specific dream images, for the associations these researchers have compiled have longstanding parallels in literature and language that doesn’t depend upon psychological theory.
- Alien (extraterrestrial) - unknown parts of the personality
- Angel - moral qualities and values
- Blackbird - bad omen; lack of ambition or motivation
- Blood - life, passion, disappointments
- Cannibal - energy drain upon others
- Castle - recognition; self-esteem
- Cave - unconscious mind
- Caveman - uncivilized, instinctive aspects of the self
- Cemetery - end of a habit or behavior; sadness concerning the death of a loved one
- Corpse - discontinued or repressed aspect of the self; unresponsiveness
- Demon - socially undesirable or unacceptable aspects of the self; negative behaviors
- Devil - temptation to do or to continue doing socially undesirable or unacceptable actions
- Dragon - unbridled passion; wild behavior
- Exorcism - attempt or desire to regain control
- Fog - confusion; worry
- Ghost - aspects of the self of which one is afraid; memories; past deeds; alienation
- Giant - overwhelming obstacle or adversary
- God - perfection; higher self
- Goddess - feminine side (females); fear of women (men)
- Gorilla - extreme or wild behavior
- Grave - unconscious mind; death; feelings about death; uneasiness
- Graveyard - discarded aspects of the self
- Halloween - death
- Haunted house - unresolved childhood trauma
- Idol - false values
- Island - relaxation, comfort, leisure; boring routine; isolation and aloofness
- Lightning - revelation; awakening[ insight; purification; shock
- Mausoleum - illness, death
- Monster - grief, misfortune
- Ogre - self-criticism
- Poltergeist - lack of control
- Rabies - anger, hostility, lack of control
- Rat - doubt, worry, fear
- Rot - wasted opportunity, potential
- Satan - evil, wrongdoing
- Serpent - intelligence, deception, temptation, sexual freedom
- Skeleton - undeveloped potential or opportunity
- Skin - ego defenses; superficiality
- Skull - danger, death, evil
- Spirit - death
- Storm - overwhelming experience or emotion
- Thunder - rage
- Tomb - hidden aspects of the self
- Torture - feelings of victimization or need for punishment
- Vampire - sensuality, sexuality, death, drug addiction, dependency
- Werewolf - posturing, insincerity, hypocrisy
- Witch - destructive power of women
- Zombie - emotional detachment
Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?
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’ Dictionary contends 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.
My Cup of Blood
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.
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.
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