Poe, Lovecraft, and The Movies: Part VIII

Fear causes us to regress into a childish mindset, and we have seen how this has been exploited in horror and the gothic. A social fear, such as an invasion or isolation from the modern world as seen in The Mist[1] scares the adult mind, causing us to regress back to childhood. Once we are trapped in that mental environment, we are assaulted by things that don’t scare us as adults, but did as children. This is seen in all the works studied, overgrown insects are present in The Mist, a spectral ghost that represents death in The Masque of The Red Death[2], and monsters in both Dagon[3] and The Call of The Cthulhu[4]. Although as mentioned previously, Lovecraft was criticised for his lack of characterisation, with the reasoning that a ‘good horror writer is a good character writer’[5], it is this lack of characterisation that makes the work of Poe and Lovecraft so timeless. It is easy for a contemporary reader to substitute themselves into the story at the expense of the narrator as they are given no defining characteristics. No traits or interests that would seem foreign to a reader in a hundred years are present, making them relatable no matter what year the reader is living in. Modern horror writers such as Stephen King retain this basic formula, but much like Roger Corman, are forced to improve characterisation in his novels to get the reader to invest in a story of that length. Interestingly King has written several collections of short stories, like Poe and Lovecraft before him. Only time will tell if these retain more horror for future generations than his novels.

The problem with analysing the cause of fear is that what scares us is unique to each individual. Studies can be done and theories can be made, but what frightens one may not frighten another. Artists who make their craft in the horror genre draw from popular fears when choosing what to implement in their work. Obscure phobias are seldom featured in the media, as this would narrow the target audience, limiting potential revenue, and revenue is the most important factor as far as contemporary publishers and production companies are concerned. Fortunately childhood and social fears have remained fairly constant throughout history, and are unlikely to change in the future. Timothy Evans stated that horror is ‘predicated upon feelings of insecurity brought about by cultural change, and that life as we know it is increasingly under assault by forces beyond our control’[6]. Man and technology continue to evolve, never staying still, meaning that every generation in existence will have felt this way. This enables those who create tales of horror to take these fears as a base for their stories, and simply substitute different settings and roots of fear into their stories to satisfy and terrify a contemporary market, as evidenced by the fact that Poe is still in print and influencing modern writers and film makers, over a century after his death.

 

We are left with the question of where horror artists of the 21^st century can find inspiration with which to create fear. We have seen that films don’t necessarily have the same staying power as literature. Modern cinema is too young however for us to truly assess how well films from the last fifty years will be regarded by future generations. Although even if these films are discarded in years to come, there are plenty of other places for us to get our fix of horror. Emerging forms of entertainment have embraced the genre, literature and film continue to produce horror, and it is even visible in music, with bands such as Black Sabbath and The Misfits drawing inspiration from the genre, basing their songs on horror films. Horror is also popular genre in the video game industry, with Silent Hill[7] and Resident Evil[8] being but two popular franchises that place the gamer directly into the role of the protagonist, causing them to experience the fear directly. If Lovecraft’s writing is prescient, there is nothing to say that any of the other texts discussed will become so in time. Some social fears may change, but most remain constant. Fear is a base emotion, and as a result what causes this fear is usually base too. Once we are reduced to the childish mindset fear causes, the horror artist can easily beset us with things we fear as children, as much like social fears, what scares a child is likely remain similar no matter how far into the future we go. Horror is timeless, as Lovecraft said, ‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear’[9] (p. 2) and the horror tale will evolve side by side with the mediums we enjoy it on.

[1] The Mist (2007) Film. Directed by FRANK DARABONT. USA: Dimension Films.

[2] Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (London: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 269-73

[3]H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of The Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories(London: Penguin Classics, 2002), p. 1-6

[4] H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of The Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories(London: Penguin Classics, 2002) p. 139-69

[5] G.W. Thomas ‘Scare the heck out of your readers—and other horror-writing tips.’ Writer, 121, 4 (2008), p. 15

[6] Timothy H. Evans, ‘A Last Defense against the Dark: Folklore, Horror, and the Uses of Tradition in the Works of H. P. Lovecraft’. Journal of Folklore Research, 42, 1 (2005), p. 100

[7] Silent Hill (1999) Video Game. Japan: Konami

[8] Resident Evil (1996) Video Game. Japan: Capcom

[9] H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror In Literature. [Ebook] Amazon Media, Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supernatural-Horror-in-Literature-ebook/dp/B005IZD612/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334933516&sr=1-3 [20/04/2012], p. 2

 

Poe, Lovecraft, and The Movies: Part VII

The Masque of the Red Death is a 1964 film starring Vincent Price as the evil Prince Prospero. The Poe story is a mere five pages long, so expanding that into a ninety minute film required the writer of the screen play to insert some new elements into the narrative. The narrative here is interpolated, the new material required to make a film of the master narrative joins seamlessly with the information we are given by Poe. The vast majority of this additional material focuses on Prospero and portrays him as a truly evil Devil worshipper. Played by the ‘suavely menacing’[1] Vincent Price, from the opening, Prospero is portrayed as a despicable person. Roger Corman makes his adaptation of Poe’s tale a commentary for the purpose of film. Corman has to alter the narrative to give us a protagonist in order to keep the story interesting for the audience. In the short story, Poe refrains from passing judgement on the Prince. Although the idea of isolating yourself from your people in order to survive while they suffer would seem evil, Poe does not imply this is the case. Nor does he state the opposite, saying only that Prospero gathers a thousand people from his court and ‘retired to the deep seclusion of one of the castellated abbeys.’ (p. 269). The opening scene sees him ride into a village neighbouring his castle, and threatening to kill two of the villagers that oppose him, before ordering for the entire village to be ‘burnt to the ground’ after discovering someone suffering from the red death. Prospero offers no sanctuary to the villagers and simply leaves them to burn in their own homes. This is one area in which the film betters the book. Lovecraft said ‘Poe excels in incidents and broad narrative effects rather than in character drawing.’[2] Vincent Price makes Prince Prospero his own, creating a truly horrible character that creates emotion in the audience. When he finally gets what he deserves, the audience cheers his demise. As the credits roll however, the audience is challenged to ‘look inside himself,’[3] recalling a technique visible in Poe’s prose, leaving an uncomfortable feeling in the audience as they leave the cinema.

One of the main tactics used by the director to create fear is to carefully choose the characters which are placed in danger. Throughout the film, it is women and children who are placed in danger more frequently than their male counterparts. It is usually the scorn of Prospero himself that is the cause of their anguish. When Prospero learns that his wife has betrayed him he orders one of his trained hawks to attack her until she bleeds to death in front of the congregation at the party. This is just one of many scenes where Prospero is built up to be seen as evil as possible. Although it is argued ‘discerning writers often evoke the fear response through the power of suggestion rather than with graphic descriptions’[4], this is difficult to pull off on the big screen, and the violence committed against Prospero’s wife is certainly graphic. However it works to great effect in this instance as it is the only real scene of violence in the film, and contrasted to the other graphically tame crimes in the film it leaves a lasting impression. This results in the audience feeling ‘drawn into the violence, we want it to be over because it lingers too long.’[5] However the scene does not last forever; and herein lies one of the problems with horror on screen ‘to see, to endure, such a shocking spectacle of violence enables us to overcome the horror, to enjoy it and expel it in a moral sense’[6]. Actually seeing these events is scary at the time, but films have helped us become desensitised to such horrors. Coming at the start of the final act of the film, it raises the fear level amongst the viewer as they know events are building to a crescendo.

 

Suspense is used to great effect at the end of the film. The Red Death appears at Prospero’s masquerade ball, and after a lengthy scene of the prince trying to catch up with him, they have a confrontation in the black room. Prospero is lead to believe that he is the only one who will survive by the personified Red Death, however when he is told that he too shall perish, he panics. Not knowing the face of death becomes too much for Prospero, and he rips the mask off his tormentor, only to reveal his own face. This is an interesting technique, as though it is not used in the hypotext, it runs with the common theme of Poe’s work that forces the audience to look at themselves and their own reactions to the narrative.

 

Film has a tendency of aging quicker than literature. Prose creates an individual image in each of our own minds. Film has to rely on special effects, cinematic techniques and even the quality of the print to create an image. The Masque of the Red Death has unfortunately aged faster on film than it ever could in print. Though The Mist is relatively young compared to the aforementioned, it is hard not to imagine it also ageing to its detriment in decades to come. There is nothing stopping either film from being enjoyed decades after release, movies such as The Exorcist[7] and The Shining[8] are still regarded by some as scary despite being released over thirty years ago. Yet social fears change over time, and as image in film is definitive, it is harder to reapply changing fears to the same text. As popular as Vincent Price was in the horror genre, his acting, whilst remaining sinister at points, has an exaggerated style that could garner more laughter than fear from a modern audience. The same can be said of the special effects in The Mist. These effects will not be as advanced in decades to come, and may look unrealistic to an audience in future decades. Again this would result in the audience failing to take them seriously. Both films use techniques popular in horror; the isolation of the shoppers and Propsero’s revellers, and the threat of something which we have no control over and little understanding of. However the fear created by these texts can be taken away over time a lot quicker than the fear instilled in us by writers such as Poe, Lovecraft and King.

 

[1] Peter B. Flint, ‘Vincent Price, Noted Actor Of Dark Roles, Dies at 82’. New York Times, 27, 10 (1993), p. 23

[2] H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror In Literature. [Ebook] Amazon Media, Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supernatural-Horror-in-Literature-ebook/dp/B005IZD612/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334933516&sr=1-3 [20/04/2012], p. 23

[3] Richard Badenhausen, ‘Fear and Trembling in Literature’. Studies in Short Fiction, 29, 4 (1992), p. 491

[4] John Edward Ames, ‘The art of terror: Tap into readers’ fears with 5 techniques for an emotionally rich story’. Writer, 123, 5 (2010), p.22

[5] Fred Botting, ‘Future Horror (the Redundancy of Gothic)’. Gothic Studies, 1, 2 (1999), p. 147

[6] Ibid.

[7] The Exorcist (1973) Film. Directed by WILLIAM FRIEDKIN, USA: Warner Bros. Pictures

[8] The Shining (1980) Film. Directed by STANLEY KUBRICK, USA: Warner Bros. Pictures

Poe, Lovecraft, and The Movies: Part 1

Fear is one of mankind’s strongest emotions. It is a natural instinct that allows us to protect ourselves from threats. As centuries have passed, fear has become something we no longer feel on an everyday basis, leading academics to reason that when we watch a horror film, or read a horror novel ‘we are hunting for the sensation of fear because we lack it in life’[1]. The world of entertainment has stepped in to provide us with a safe environment within which we can experience fear. Audiences continue to seek out this thrill, and although historically the horror genre is looked down upon and seen by many as being trash, with one critic going as far as to claim ‘ghost stories, or other horrible recitals of the same kind, are decidedly injurious under all circumstances’[2]. Despite this horror continues to make money and draw in a large audience. Being scared causes us to regress. Our senses heighten and we return to a primitive fight or flight mentality. Furthermore ‘there is something about fear that returns us to a state of childhood’[3]. Life is simpler as a child, and returning to that state through fear ironically takes us back to a time where instead of being scared by ‘social fears’[4] we are transported back to a time where we fear ‘monsters and the dark’[5]. Two things that are no longer unknown to us and that we can comfortably overcome.

It is suggested that ‘we must judge a weird tale not by the author’s intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point,’[6] and this statement exemplifies why someone would read or watch something from within the horror genre; to experience fear. The works of Edgar Allan Poe and Howard Phillips Lovecraft are both popular in horror literature. The Masque of The Red Death[7] and The Black Cat[8] are two famous works by Poe with different subject matter that create fear in very different ways. The former deals with the timeless social fear of disease and epidemic, whereas the latter looks at madness and how irrational behaviour brought about by the illness can have a devastating effect. In contrast, Dagon[9] and The Call of The Cthulhu[10] share similar subject matter, yet their methods of creating fear are slightly different. The works of these two writers have inspired many over the years, including film makers. The Masque of The Red Death[11] is a 1964 work based on Poe’s short story of the same name, whereas The Mist (2007)[12] is a film not based on any particular story of Lovecraft’s, yet his influence is clear throughout. By studying these works of Edgar Allan Poe and Howard Phillips Lovecraft, as well as the cinematic adaptations of their work, I will explore how fear has been created in the past, and how and why this has changed over time in accordance with new social cultural and historical contexts.

It would be naïve to suggest that what fills cinema audiences with dread today is the same thing that would terrify the theatre audiences and readers two centuries ago. The social and historical context that an audience is part of plays a huge part in constructing their fears and desires. This has been shown most effectively in cinema, as in the sixties horror focused on invasion and mind control, reflecting fears brought about by the cold war. In the 1970s America was horrified by killer Ed Gein and his collection of skeletal furnishings[13]. Suddenly the danger wasn’t across the ocean, but in your own neighbourhood. Hollywood latched onto this and filled the cinemas with films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)[14] and Halloween (1978)[15]. The different eras of horror cinema all come back to one thing though, no matter what form it takes, ‘we relish fear of the stranger – the mysterious murderer, the monster running untamed.’[16]. If the root of our fears can change that much in the space of ten years, how different would they have been several decades ago?

Sigmund Freud and Edmund Burke both published work on fear, looking into The Uncanny[17] and The Sublime[18] respectively. Freud defined the uncanny as ‘something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression’[19]. The Uncanny is something familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time, and this is what causes fear. It is a technique used frequently in gothic literature and horror movies, and the same can be said of the sublime, which Burke described as similar to horror, but ‘the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.’[20] anything that can ‘excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime.’[21]. The sublime is a fear that renders the person experiencing it frozen, unable to do anything but feel the terror running through them. Both of these techniques were discussed with a reference to literature, and they are visible in the writing of both Poe and Lovecraft. Since the theories were written they have also been applied to film, and any occurrences of these theories that arise in The Masque of The Red Death and The Mist will be discussed.

[1] Kate Williams, ‘Monsters Ink’. New Statesman, 141, 5088 (2012), p. 50

[2] Rendle, W. (1833) ‘On The Moral Education of Youth’ The Imperial Magazine, May, p. 219

[3] Kate Williams, ‘Monsters Ink’. New Statesman, 141, 5088 (2012), p. 51

[4] G.W. Thomas ‘Scare the heck out of your readers—and other horror-writing tips.’ Writer, 121, 4 (2008), p. 15

[5] Ibid.

[6] H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror In Literature. [Ebook] Amazon Media, Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supernatural-Horror-in-Literature-ebook/dp/B005IZD612/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334933516&sr=1-3 [20/04/2012], p.4

[7] Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (London: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 223-230

[8] Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (London: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 269-73

[9] H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of The Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories(London: Penguin Classics, 2002), p. 1-6

[10] H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of The Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories(London: Penguin Classics, 2002), p. 139-69

[11] The Masque Of The Red Death (1964) Film. Directed by ROGER CORMAN. USA: Alta Vista Productions.

[12] The Mist (2007) Film. Directed by FRANK DARABONT. USA: Dimension Films.

[13] BBC NEWS (2007) Ed Gein – The Orignal American Psycho [WWW] BBC News. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A21605636 [27/04/2012]

[14] The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Film. Directed by TOBE HOOPER, USA: Vortex

[15] Halloween (1978) Film. Direct by JOHN CARPENTER, USA: Compass International Pictures

[16] Kate Williams, ‘Monsters Ink’. New Statesman, 141, 5088 (2012), p. 50

[17] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny in Art and Literature, (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), p.363-4

[18] Edmund Burke (1757), Of The Sublime. [WWW] Bartleby. Available from: http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/107.html [27/4/2012]

[19] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny in Art and Literature, (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), p.363-4

[20] Edmund Burke (1757), Of The Sublime. [WWW] Bartleby. Available from: http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/107.html [27/4/2012]

[21] Edmund Burke (1757), Of The Sublime. [WWW] Bartleby. Available from: http://www.bartleby.com/24/2/107.html [27/4/2012]