Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-18: Something Came Over Me

No matter what setting it happens in one of the most frightening things that can happen to a person is for them to be possessed. People innately need to feel in control, if of nothing more, than at least their own bodies and their actions. This is merely the first level of this insidious invasion. Invasion is actually the next level. Not only do the possessed have the vital loss of control, but also it is lost to something else, some invader--making it worse than mere mind control. At the next level there is a divergence that happens with two different kinds of torment possible. On the one hand the possessed person blacks out and does not know what happened when the invading force is in control. The other hand is that the possessed person helplessly watches everything that the invader is doing.

Fear of the unknown is one of the greatest fears. The imagination comes up with all sorts of vivid, frightening images. It sees endless actions and consequences as terrible, depraved, and terrifying as the imaginer is capable of thinking. The blacked out possessed suffers not only the indignity and shame of their uncontrolled actions, and the inability to stop it. They learn piece by horrible piece what happened, and have the looming dread of what is yet unlearned. By contrast the suffering is immediate for the possessed that witnesses it all. That awareness brings with it greater guilt that they cannot stop it. These aware ones may even know what will happen just before it does. Either they are tapped into the consciousness of their possessor or it gleefully tells them what horrors await.

There are two ways that possessions happen in a magical horror setting. Possession spells allow someone’s consciousness to inhabit and control the body of another person. The tightest control comes form the magic being the possessor so that they can make sure everything goes as planned. A trusted bodyguard is required while the caster’s body is bereft of its intelligence. If the needs are less stringent the magic user may use an agent to be the controlling force of the possession. These agents can be other humans or summoned beings willing to entrust their bodies to others. The other way to possession comes from incorporeal beings that are naturally able to possess other beings. Brushes with the mind of an unnatural possessor are always an added terror.

Mood: impulsive.
Music: Public Animal #9 by Alice Cooper and Mr. Brownstone by Guns N' Roses.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy

Back to Too Much

New Schedule: Welcome to Horror on Hump Day, replacing my former every 4-day schedule. That's right, one post on Wednesday every week, only.

I'm back to thinking about things that cross the line, that are just to graphic, or sick, or plain annoying rather than scary, that some filmmakers insist upon doing. I'm going to start by pointing a finger. That finger is squarely aimed at a movie I was going to watch right up until the point I decided to do a little reading on why so many people claimed it to be controversial, or banned, or similar for being too much. That movie is called "Audition" from a Japanese director.

By all accounts the movie is anywhere from mildly interesting, to lacklustre, to dull for apparently two thirds of the movie then it's all gonzo with a tonne of stuff people would rather not see. Some of it made some viewers ill, one of those things at least one person nearly stopped breathing over because it was so gross, and then there was what could be either good or just plain meh depending on how it was done and what you've seen elsewhere. I can't say that I have much interesting in wasting my time with it, whether I'd find it over the line, or dull in its entirety. I've seen some things that are over the line and there are others I can imagine well enough not to have to actually see them with my eyes.

Often times the things in a movie that would cross the line are pulled out. It used to be they were never seen. Now on DVD some of them are seen in the extras. These bits are sometimes in the featurettes, sometimes in camera tests, and once and a while in properly formatted deleted scenes. Such an example is the raw, soundless, and long test shot for the scene from Last House on Left with, let's just say, Sadie playing with Phyllis after she tried to run away. Likewise in the extras of the super-duper DVD of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre there is a long lingering camera test shot of the one body from the beginning scenes.

Some things are just more effective, like those above, in the short term as the length of time involved volleys between dull and "hey that's actually really gross". Remember gross comes when all other modes of horror have failed. This of course only true if the auter is capable of greater things than the gross out. Not to say that I consider all gore to be in this vein. I'm not against gore; in fact it should be a staple. At least, in that where something happens and the result should be gore then by all means do it, but adding it where unnecessary or unrealistic don't use it. Finally of course there are spots where I say don't over do it, because unreality breaks both ways. There's only so much blood, etc. to be had in a body.

Mood: compressed.
Music: Always by Bon Jovi and Made In Heaven by Queen.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy