Horror in Literature and Film

We’ll be starting with:

- VERY brief introduction on the origins of horror in film

- Brief introduction on the origins of horror in literature

- Brief introduction on the origins of horror in film that was specifically inspired by the text

Not meant to be exhaustive at all, but just as a quick orientation. For more in-depth analysis and history on horror in media (film, radio, fiction), see King’s Danse Macabre
(2001).

From there, we’ll discuss more modern horror in film and literature

At the conclusion, we’ll go over the schedule and plan for the series.
 In Early Film
First depiction of the supernatural: Le Manoir du
Diable (1896), directed by Georges Méliès

Translated as “The House of the Devil.” Tells the story of an encounter with the Devil (the bat) who plays tricks on fellows in a castle. The running time is just over 3
minutes, which equaled 60+ meters of film. Filmed outside in the garden of his property outside Montreal with painted scenery. During this time, actors performed
anonymously and there were no credits. The film was thought lost until 1988, when a copy was found in the New Zealand Film Archive.

It’s notable that the first few horror films had a comedic slant, and were not intended to invoke fear in the audience. Given the themes and subject material however,
these are still considered horror. Georges produced a number of these silent horror films.
 In Early Film
The X-Ray Fiend (1897)

Produced by George Albert Smith, this film came out only two years after x-rays were invented. While still appearing to be a comedy, at the time the audience would have
found this disturbing.
 In Early Literature
• Origins can be traced at least to Ancient Greece and Rome

• Werewolves, vampires, witches, and the afterlife were

written about during this time

• Art imitates life: stories inspired by real people

• Dracula: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia

• Bluebeard: Giles de Rais

• Vampiress: Elizabeth Bathory, noblewoman and murderess

Supernatural elements of horror can be found in the early poems by Homer, such as The Iliad, and The Odyssey

Dracula: AKA, “Vlad the Impaler,” his cruelty was well-known. Second son of Vlad Dracul, invaded Wallachia with the Hungarians in 1456. Brutal purging of Wallachia and
plundering of Transylvanian Saxons began his reputation.

Bluebeard: Leader in the French Army, served with Joan of Arc. Pursued alchemy and demon summoning, according to testimony from his trial in 1438. Confessed to
assaulting and murdering children.

Vampiress: Hungarian noblewoman in the 1500s known as a serial killer. Guinness World Records lists her as the most prolific female murderer, though exact figures are
unknown. Supposedly had over 650 victims. Vampire stories attributed to her bathing in her victims blood.
 Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia:
Not pictured here

“Vigo the Carpathian. Born

1505, died 1610. He didn’t die of
old age, either. He was
poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung,
stretched, disemboweled,
drawn and quartered. Not
exactly a man of the people.
Also known as Vigo the Cruel,
Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the
Despised, and Vigo the Unholy.
There was also a prophecy. Just
before his head died, his last
words were, ‘Death is but a
door, time is but a window: I’ll
be back.’”
- Dr. Egon Spengler

This is not actually Vlad the Impaler, this is Vigo the Carpathian, the villain in Ghostbusters II.
 Early Horror Literature
• The first horror novel is usually credited to be The Castle of
Otranto (1764), by Horace Walpole

• Other gothic horror novels soon followed

• Vathek (1786), William Beckford

• A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Mysteries of Udolpho

(1794), The Italian (1796), by Ann Radcliffe

• The Monk (1797), Matthew Lewis

• Much of the horror of this time was written by, and for, women

A definition of “gothic”:

- Firstly related to the Goths, of Eastern Germanic descent. Provides the earliest evidence of Germanic language, 4th-6th AD

- Reference to European architectural styles in the 12-16th centuries (later revived starting the 18th century), characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, flying
buttresses, along with large windows and elaborate decorative work. Why? In particular, these elements in themselves are not ‘gothic,’ but at the time they were
technological advances. Traditionally, ‘gothic’ has always been concerned with technology, contrary to the contemporary understanding of the word
 Film Meets Literature

Cinema was, and continues to be, influenced by

literature. Early examples in film include:

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1908)

• Frankenstein (1910)

• L’Inferno (1911)

• Nosferatu (1922)

- Nosferatu: unauthorized adaption of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This film was nearly lost to history due to copyright lawsuits when it came out, as it was unauthorized.

- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Produced by Selig Polyscope Company, the original version is now lost. Based on the gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
(1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson

- Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley. Edison Studios produced the film in 1910, which downplayed the horror elements for more of a psychological focus.

- L’Inferno: adapted from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. An “international success” and “arguably the first true blockbuster in cinema.”
 Recent Examples
• Rosemary’s Baby (1968) • It (1990, 2017)

• Novel: Rosemary’s Baby (1967), Ira Levin • It (1986), Stephen King

• The Silence of the Lambs (1991) • The Exorcist (1973)

• Novel: The Silence of the Lambs (1988),
• The Exorcist (1971), William Peter
Thomas Harris
Blatty
• Psycho (1960)
• The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
• Novel: Psycho (1959), Robert Bloch
• The Haunting of Hill House (1959),
• The Thing (1982) Shirley Jackson

• Novel: Who Goes There? (1928), John W.

Campbell Jr.
 Differences
• Atmosphere

Some movies so closely follow the book, they almost become boring to watch. Yet the difference in medium necessitates invention on behalf of those producing the film.
Conflict is King in storytelling. Without conflict, there is no story. By definition we find conflict in the differences between film and literature, and this is where we get into
the guts of book vs. movie. Good different, or bad different?

Atmosphere
Unique in our list so far is Alien (1979), which came before the novelization by Alan Dean Foster in 2015. In the movie, a tremendous amount of work is done to set the
tone and atmosphere before a single word is spoken. It’s interesting to note that the same part of your brain (the visual cortex) is activated when you see something and
as well as when you read something, however, when imaging something, other parts of the brain are activated as well.

Imagination affects how we see and hear

How we perceive the world around us is affected by our imagination to a much greater degree than we perhaps realize, researchers at the Karolinska Institute explained
in the journal Current Biology.

The thoughts that emerge "in our head" can alter our actual perception.

Senior author, Christopher Berger, said "We often think about the things we imagine and the things we perceive as being clearly dissociable. However, what this study
shows is that our imagination of a sound or a shape changes how we perceive the world around us in the same way actually hearing that sound or seeing that shape
does. Specifically, we found that what we imagine hearing can change what we actually see, and what we imagine seeing can change what we actually hear." via https://
[Link]/articles/[Link]
The Nostromo is dirty, dingy, and feels ‘lived in.’ When you watch it, the visual sense that you get may be akin to ‘truckers in space.’ The lengthy, slow pan of the ship’s
underbelly gives a sense of scale. The accompanying score however is what really sets the tone: foreboding, mysterious. When the computer (“Mother”) comes on by
itself, the sharp sounds of its beeps and clicks punctuate the previously placid, yet unsettling, scene. While this is going on, the crew is asleep, completely unaware of
what Mother has planned and the events set out before them.
 Differences

• Atmosphere

• Length and Location

• Detail

• Inner monologue

• Score

Length and Location

A movie is done in a couple of hours, yet the length of time spent reading a novel or short story can vary wildly. We can read a book fast, or slow. They can be read on a
train, in our favorite chair, at a coffee shop, or at any other number of places. Where we read something, and how long we take to read it influence our experience with it.
Cinema doesn’t have the ability to flavor our interpretation in the same way.

Detail
Bit of a double edged sword. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but how often do you hear people comment about how much had to get cut from the movie that
was in the book?

Inner monologue
We don’t know the exact thoughts going through someone’s head on screen, but you books give you that insight. It offers an extra dimension not otherwise afforded. The
first person narrative naturally facilitates this, yet when attempted in a movie, inner monologue instantly stands out to the audience as being awkward, and
uncomfortable.

Score
Music plays a huge role in our interpretation of a scene. The score tells us how to feel, and when to feel it.

via [Link]
 Similarities
• Emotional engagement

• Structure

• Plot

• Setting

• Arc

• Cognitive influence

While accomplished in different ways, which consequently affects us differently, literature and film share obvious similarities. Many of the differences between the two
formats are also similarities—it’s the vehicle that changes.

Emotional engagement

Structure
Plot, setting, characters, and arc can be similar, but it’s their differences that most often sparks debate. Stephen King famously hated Kubrick’s version of The Shining
partly because of the differences between the movie and book versions of Wendy Torrance, played by Shelly Duvall. I recently watched The Haunting of Hill House on
Netflix after reading the book, and can say that about the only thing these two have in common is the title. And yet, I enjoyed them both.

Cognitive Influence
What the book/film makes you think, how it makes you feel, the influence on your perception...these can all be similar.

Ultimately, the similarities as affected by their method is what is most interesting to me. This is what we will be primarily concerned when in this series.
 Racism

• Minorities are often used as monsters/villains—rarely

the hero

• Culture, lifestyle, and perspective is ignored in favored

of a white, Euro-centrist viewpoint

• Characterization is frequently poor

• Largely underrepresented

I love horror, but horror has traditionally had problems with “the other,” namely, racism, sexism, and misogyny. Discussed this at some length in previous Horror 101
series as we read Nightmare’s Women Destroy Horror! Unfortunately, these problems exist both in film and literature, and are frequently transposed from one format to
another. Why? Consider the gatekeepers to publication and film production: white men.

Monsters/villains:

- Candyman (1992–based on the short story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker): while the antagonist’s backstory explains how Candyman was lynched for loving a white
woman, he is most certainly portrayed as the villain, terrorizing the white characters in the film

- “Indian burial grounds” or “medicine man” as a source of evil found in Pet Sematary (Stephen King, 1983), Poltergeist (1982), The Amityville Horror (1979, 2005)

Culture:

The damage here can be more subtle. Because our taste is largely influenced by what we’re exposed to, and because white men have been the producers and
gatekeepers in film and publishing, as a consequence we remain ignorant of other perspectives. Indeed, given the natural “us vs. them” mentality we have, the “us”
becomes the white narrative, and the “them” becomes everything else

Characterization:

“The token black guy”: this is such a trope that popular culture has become aware of it. The non-white character has little to no backstory, no influence on the plot or
story arc, and often serves only as cannon fodder. See: Private Frost (Ricco Ross) and Sergeant Apone (Al Matthews) in Aliens (1986), one of the workers snatched by the
raptor in the beginning of Jurassic Park (1993), scores of other examples

Underrepresented:

 Misogyny

• Women are often the victims of violence and rape

• Exist as sexual objects to be won or protected by the

male lead

• Objectified purely for the benefit of the male audience

• “Sinfully” pregnant, giving birth to evil

Victims of violence

Women experience this far more often than male characters. The violent rape trope is so prevalent in fact that many markets will blanket-reject stories that have this
present.

Objects

- The male lead has to ‘get the girl’ in the end

- In situations that don’t at all require it, women are shown in states of undress as they retreat from the monster. This doesn’t happen as often with men.

Pregnancy

- Seen in Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Aliens 3 (1992)

The second book/movie pair we’ll be looking at, Annihilation, was chosen not only for its remarkable strength in storytelling, but because it usurps these tropes.
 Further Reading
• Racism in horror films: [Link]

• Misogyny in horror films: [Link]

• Nightmare’s Women Destory Horror! issue: [Link]

issues/oct-2014-issue-25/

• People of Colo(u)r Destroy special issues from the magazines Lightspeed, Nightmare,
and Fantasy: [Link]

• #Ownvoices and Women in Horror genre guide: [Link]

share/219366455/1299082017

• ‘Get Out’ + The Evolution of Race in Western Horror Films: [Link]

pov/get-out-the-evolution-of-race-in-western-horror-films/

• RA For All: Horror - WiHM: Sexism in Horror? [Link]

2014/02/[Link]
 Schedule
January

• Saturday, 19th @ 11:00 - 12:00: discuss The Shining, Stephen King

• Sunday, 27th @ 1:00 - 4:00: watch The Shining, discuss

February

• Saturday, 9th @ 11:00 - 12:00: discuss Annihilation, Jeff Vandermeet

• Saturday, 23rd @ 1:00 - 4:00: watch Annihilation, discuss

March

• Saturday, 9th @ 2:00 - 3:00: discuss Lovecraft Country, Skype interview w/ author Matt
Ruff

• Saturday, 23rd @ 1:00 - 4:00: watch Get Out, discuss

Lovecraft Country author Matt Ruff

 Contact

R. Leigh Hennig

hennirl@[Link]