Okay, so in the chaos of finishing final papers and working at my jobs, I ended up not writing 1,700 words a day for my imminent novel. I will admit, being busy (which I was) became mixed with both some discomfort at how personal and emotional my writing was getting, how uncomfortable I was with other elements of the text that were unfolding, and how unsure I was (am) that I could ever add any sort of structure or plot twist that would make the strange storyline that’s unfolding, in my eyes, a viable novel, or novel-like production. I am not dropping my “Post Nano-wrimo” project, but I took a very Un-Nano-wrimo-like break and will probably return to the original project in a couple of days. The reason I write today is because I finally saw The Last Jedi and, as someone who contemplates the villainy of villains, the inherent evil-ness of characters and how we regard the bad guy, how we treat the monster, so-called, I found myself (as I was to a lesser degree in The Force Awakens) incredibly drawn to Kylo Ren. And that’s all I’ll say in the first paragraph, before I add more details about the film. I think it goes without saying that if you still haven’t seen The Last Jedi and you’re averse to spoilers, DON’T READ THIS. It will probably be necessary to reveal spoilers while delving into an analysis of Kylo. But I want to talk, I think, about reading Kylo as a monster –or not—and what that does to our conception of the monster. Continue reading “Contemplating Kylo Ren”
monsters
Have a Monstrous Christmas: Part One: A Sort of Tribute to the Grinch
Typically on this blog, when I discuss monsters, I discuss them in the classic sense of the word. I analyze those horrifying aberrations that upend our sense of consistency and comfort, that unsettle norms with their often hideous and hybrid bodies. It is far less typical that I engage the reader in a discussion of a circa 1960’s childrens’ Christmas classic that’s become a staple component of the pre-holiday viewing canon. Alas, I aim to surprise, so that’s exactly what we’re doing today. I sat down tonight to watch the always fantastic original “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and was reminded of the so-famous-it’s-almost-a-cliché Milton quote: “The mind is its own place, and can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell.” You see, for perception to be this malleable, I think the mind must pick out—and emphasize, or diminish—details of its choosing. The details the mind focuses on may have some bearing on one’s perception of reality. Similarly, the Grinch is a very different movie watching it as a child and as an adult. Here, then, are some questions and problems my adult mind focuses on while watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” along with, perhaps, some shameless fangirling over this movie made for six-year-olds. Continue reading “Have a Monstrous Christmas: Part One: A Sort of Tribute to the Grinch”
Re-visiting the Grotesque: Another Look at John Carpenter’s The Thing
Almost two years ago on this blog, I watched and wrote about John Carpenter’s widely viewed and broadly acclaimed The Thing. This year, for Halloween, I decided to re-visit this incredibly disgusting movie, which was, fortuitously, part of my coursework this week. In my first post, I wrote about the rampant paranoia fostered by knowing there’s a hideous, murderous monster in at least one of the people around you, but not knowing who houses it – whose body hides the formidable “thing.” I’m not really in the mood to look up my old post, re-read it, and make sure I’m writing something new, especially since it’s one of my least read posts on this blog. So, we’ll have to trust that, two years and ample coursework later, I’m making some new observations about this sickening, human-beast amalgam as I write this post. With that in mind, let’s dive into the uncomfortably unappealing (or, perhaps, the uncomfortably appealing – for whether “the thing” is appealing or unappealing is a question that remains to be grappled with, and perhaps will be grappled with in this post!) Continue reading “Re-visiting the Grotesque: Another Look at John Carpenter’s The Thing”
(No(?)) Sympathy for the Devil: Responding to the So-Called Monster
I was driving from Indiana PA to Erie one night not a few weeks ago, my mind enmeshed in rapid succession of thoughts. It was dark outside, and I noticed little except for fleeting, flickering glimpses of surreal roadside images, ambiguous shadow outlines in the night, as my car coasted across 422, and then across 1-79, headed north. My CD player has been broken for months, so I was flipping through the channels, trying to settle on a song even vaguely satisfying, a melody that didn’t wink out into a barrage of static thirty seconds after I found it. Reliable radio stations are difficult to come by in some parts of Western Pennsylvania.
Continue reading “(No(?)) Sympathy for the Devil: Responding to the So-Called Monster”
What Makes Sinister So Scary?
With the mass-produced barrage of horror movies available to us – sometimes formulaic, sometimes cheaply made – it can be tempting for the jaded horror-goer to presume that nothing is truly scary anymore. I offer no new argument, after all, when I contend that in our increasingly sensationalized visual culture, we become (or at least risk becoming) desensitized to so many horrible things, immune to so much tragedy. It takes far more, at least from a visual standpoint, to scare us than it did sixty years ago (a fact that will be evident to anyone who compares The Haunting to an Eli Roth film). This may not be the case universally, but it’s a general rule. And still, scary movies are manufactured, and the passionate horror fan does encounter, every now and then, a film that is particularly, unexpectedly scary. Such was my experience with the film Sinister, released about two weeks before Halloween in 2012 (although I saw it much later ). Granted, Sinister is not as artistically scintillating as my two favorite horror movies of reference – The Shining and It Follows – but it’s still a well-made, incredibly unsettling film. When I told Michael I wanted to write a piece about it, he reassured me that he wouldn’t be upset if I re-watched it without him; one time was enough for him. So I sat down tonight, in my little Indiana apartment, with a focusing question in mind: What makes this film so scary? While I may discuss other things in the post below, I am particularly interested in exploring possible answers to this question. Continue reading “What Makes Sinister So Scary?”
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
On the rare occasion that I write about a novel – especially a classic novel – on this horror site, I balk at the prospect. Reviewing a movie – even analyzing some of its salient components – is fairly easy, but how does one “review” a classic work of literature? To what extent am I just writing a paper? Who am I to say whether Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a great piece of literature? Haven’t preceding generations already decided that? And what in God’s name am I going to say about this novel that is original? Such hesitant speculation deterred me from writing for about a day after I finished the text, but since I haven’t written for my beloved website for over a month, and since I just read frickin’ Frankenstein, it was hard to justify my lassitude on a permanent basis.
“What a Lovely Throat!” – Getting Nosferatu’s Ultimate Hickey
One year, at the suggestion of another teacher, I required my Advanced Placement Literature students to read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. Hamilton was a serious scholar who compiled myths from varied sources and combined them into relatively easy to read, concise packages that, lined up one after another, formed a fat, enticing book. I was so compelled, as a 25-year-old, by the magical stories in her text, that I’d sit in my bedroom all night, reading, underlining, and scribbling notes in the book’s margins. I’d set the book down every so often and take manic walks in my pajama pants around Montrose, an artsy neighborhood in Houston, Texas, while listening to Joan Baez on my IPod and letting my mind roam. My decision to walk around 
downtown Houston at night was not a product of common sense or concern for safety, but I suppose none of the horror movie’s I’d watched up to that point properly indoctrinated me with a rational fear of the dark, or of other people. (I was watching The Ring on repeat then, so I likely thought that it was more dangerous to sit in front of the television – lest an evil little girl crawl out – than it was to walk outside.) Then, I’d hurry back in the house, run to my bedroom with its deep, maroon walls and black and brown bookshelves from Target, and re-enter the world of myth. Continue reading ““What a Lovely Throat!” – Getting Nosferatu’s Ultimate Hickey”
The Appeal of Horror
In his essay, “Why We Crave Horror,” Stephen King posits that we’re drawn to horror movies because they make us feel normal, essentially. When we compare ourselves to the debauchery of horror movies, we don’t feel so frighteningly different from others. We are not evil spirits or sociopathic serial killers, so we’re doing okay, and we’re not very unlike those around us. King’s theory makes sense; nobody wants to be the victim of “terminal uniqueness” – the state of feeling inherently and vastly different from others. But I think the theory is simplistic; it doesn’t fully embrace the multi-dimensional intrigue of the horror genre. The theory seems to imply that horror fans see themselves as quirky outcasts who crave the feeling of being like others. This is probably partially true. I’m a little strange, and there have been times in my life where I’ve felt both strange and estranged. But I think such a theory – without any supplementary reasoning – lends itself to a sort of “hasty generalization” of horror fans. It assumes that, first, all fans of the genre feel “less than normal,” and second, that they all desire a feeling of normalcy. I think King’s theory explains part of horror’s appeal, but it leaves room for further analysis. Continue reading “The Appeal of Horror”
Go for the Wendigo: What’s Appealing About this Classic Horror Story
So far this blog – dedicated to all that is slightly to majorly terrifying – has focused on contemporary T.V. shows and movies. But I have a broader objective. I want to explore all facets of horror in its myriad manifestations. I was browsing Barnes and Noble one idle Friday evening, seeking good horror between two covers. Michael, my significant other – who has an uncanny knack for sniffing out quality reads – found a decorative, hard-cover, 800 page Barnes and Noble collector’s edition entitled Classic Horror Stories, with a red ribbon bookmark and gold-trimmed pages, on the bargain shelf for $20. The book contains a lot of greats – Poe, unsurprisingly, Henry James, Bram Stoker, and Ambrose Bierce – but I thought I’d sample a lesser-known author, so I flipped to Algernon Blackwood’s telling of “The Wendigo.” Because Blackwood lived from 1869-1951, I estimate that it was written at the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century. Though “The Wendigo” doesn’t float in the realm of “absolutely terrifying,” this relatively brief 40-page story is sufficiently creepy, with an undercurrent of dread pervading its well-established mood. Continue reading “Go for the Wendigo: What’s Appealing About this Classic Horror Story”
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