13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2010: Night #1 The Legend of Hell House

Hello and welcome to the first of the 13 Nights of Hallowe'en in 2010. Our first movie is The Legend of Hell House (1973). This is a hard one to pindown because there are other very similar movies, but this is the one based on the Richard Matheson novel of the same name and Matheson wrote the screenplay as well. A scientist--descriptions call him a physicist but essentially a parapsychologist--takes people to a supposedly haunted house to determine if there is life beyond death. A very popular plotline. So why this movie? Well for starters it's Matheson who brought us a lot of great novels and screenplays. Without spoiling anything this is a nicely atmospheric haunting movie. What I particularly like about it is the equipment Mr. Barrett uses in his investigation. The inclusion of Mrs. Barrett and what that adds is interesting as well.

It's easy to see what other movies the Hell House storyline has influenced. I won't go into most of them for the sake of those seeing this for the first time. It's not a direct comparison since he is not the psychic so I can tell you that I see Roddy McDowall's Benjamin Fischer as an influence on Matthew Lillard's Dennis Rafkin in Thir13en Ghosts. At the same time it's hard to deny the influence of Hell House on Stephen King's Rose Red. The film is considered a British horror movie despite Matheson's script. Most of it happens within the house so that doesn't really tie its location either. What is more telling about this production is that technology I mentioned before. While its purpose and inner makings might be timeless the outer design certainly wasn't. It was purely by happenstance that this first movie of the festivities is the oldest. Enjoy!

Mood: excited.

Music: Welcome To My Nightmare by Alice Cooper. MP3s

Arches Better than Stereos

Stereotypes may be overused, misused, and maligned. However when there is enough about them that is true why wouldn't they still be of use? The answer is that they would. However, they may do their work under the auspices of the different closely related word, archetype. What is the difference between the two? Well it is a matter of degree in the amount of thinking put into using the qualities being ascribed to the group/person who is a stereotypical or archetypal representation of others. A stereotype is shallow, possibly inaccurate, often negative or deprecating, and at the worst clichéd. The last of these really makes a mess of stereotypes, and into which archetypes are much less prone to fall. In other words shallow clichés are bad, deeply thought out archetypes are good.

The use of archetypes falls into two different camps as far as this discussion. The first is obviously archetypal characters. In horror these can be archetypal monsters. There are vampires, werewolves, zombies, constructs (like Frankenstein's monster), devils, and ghosts. These are in addition to normal people archetypes such as the gentle giant, the strong silent type, the loveable rogue, star crossed lovers, traitors, manipulators, abusers, and such. There is some crossover with types like the reluctant monster who, human or inhuman, is driven, or more likely provoked, to do evil and wreak havoc by others who figure him or her for the stereotypical monster. The part to remember of course is to maintain the character as an archetype and not stereotype it.

The other camp of archetypes are the archetypal conflicts, or plots. There are considered to be four of them with variations possible, but not held separate. These plots can even be combined in the same story line--perhaps even best used in pairs. They are defined as man versus himself, man versus man, man versus nature--the fourth is sometimes questioned whether it counts--and man versus society. Society doesn’t actually act on its own but via proxies, hence the debate. A lot of variations come from man versus man with the opposition being inhuman, such as supernatural beings and technological human approximations ranging from artificial intelligences to robots of myriad kinds. Of course the supernatural may take the place of nature, and technology of society.

Mood: relaxed.

Music: Chains Of Misery by Iron Maiden and Molly's Chambers by Kings of Leon.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #4-8: Industrial Phantasmagoria

Victorian Age horror is rife not only with the supernatural but also the mechanical and the scientific.  Steam locomotives had been in use for quite some time.  Photography came about as the age began.  Gas lighting became widespread.  The London sewer system was built. People were working on and produced motorised vehicles.  The tail end was witness to engineering feats like the Brooklyn Bridge, and modern innovations like the incandescent light and phonograph.  On the science front Darwin published his "On the Origin of Species", and Faraday laid the groundwork for understanding the connection between electricity, magnetism, and light.  Medical breakthroughs brought about surgery with anaesthesia, the creation of vaccines, and the first use of X-rays scans.

These wild and exotic innovations provide great twisting points for horror.  They start at a basic level with the mundane.  The industrialisation of the textile industry, the spread of mining, and the rise of tenements and slums provided hellish environments with dangerous and desperate conditions.  Child labour was an all too common occurrence.  Any of these could be the basis of revenge from beyond the grave or from the living.  As marvellous as the phonograph was there was also much fear over what it implied, which was compounded by later attempts to combine it with spiritualism ideas to build devices that could communicate with the dead.  Such merging of spirits and science owes its due back to Doctor Frankenstein galvanising the dead back to life.

Mad scientists also followed in the perverted footprints of Frankenstein, but with their eyes open, intent on creating monstrosity and working toward world domination--since Britain showed it could be done.  What kind of scientific perversity are they into though?  The process of Eugenics can be used to make super men and women bringing about a master race.  Hybridisation mixes different animals together or men with animals.  Mechanisation is another route.  Tear a subject apart, amputate limbs, remove organs and create openings.  Fill those voids with gears and mechanical assemblies and replace limbs with faster and stronger motor driven parts of cold hard steel.  All of them could ultimately be combined even, with a supernatural element added for extra terrifying potential.

Mood: relieved.

Music: Haunted by Evanescence and March Of The Pigs by Nine Inch Nails.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-3: Do You Feel Cyber, Punk?

An easy pairing for near future science fiction horror begins with the cyberpunk genre. Cyberpunk deals with technology that is more advanced than today and focused in two main directions. The Internet, computer software, and artificial intelligence play an important role. This is followed a close second by human augmentation that is commonly in the form of cybernetics, and military hardware. The technological level of sophistication depends on how many years in the future the story takes place. Another factor common to the genre is that most settings involve massive, global corporations that control just about everything between them, even the governments that are supposed to be running the world’s countries. These companies are great motivators of plot in the stories.

The protagonists in cyberpunk are the punk part of the equation. They battle against the monolithic corporations and work outside of the often-corrupt law. Keeping with the dark dystopian mood that permeates the genre these protagonists are not always the most moral of characters. To the common people they are indistinguishable from the criminal element. The heroes of the setting are aware of the true nature of their society and unwilling to leave things the way that they are. They end up fighting, incapacitating, and often killing people in authority even as they do the antagonists. They steal information Robin-hood style. It is not uncommon for them to work with and for criminals, and tread the fine line between doing what they’re paid for and what is right.

Horror is as natural a fit with cyberpunk as it is with modern settings, in some ways perhaps more so. The powerful cyborgs, the futuristic weapons, the surveillance society, and the great scientific achievements all make for a world--human emotions and intentions aside--that is strongly grounded in reality, practical, and logical. The power available to even a single person with the right connections lends to a sense of security unfelt any time before. What better place and milieu is there to shatter with the illogical, the incomprehensible, and the supernatural? Powerful technologies versus the supernatural have a long history hearkening back to the spectacular but ineffective lightning cannons in the Gojira movies. Cyberpunk brings this to the more intimate, personal, horror level.

Mood: roguish.
Music: Wilderness by Brian May and Pork and Beans by Weezer.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-2: Binomial Nomenclature Horrorificus

There are three classes of science fiction that are the initial focus of the horror/science fiction cross-genre author. There is Hard Science Fiction where there is great accuracy to the science. There is Cyberpunk, essentially already a fairly dark genre. Then there is Soft Science Fiction where the science is not that strictly correct. These classes can be broken down further. In addition there are other classes of science fiction. The class with the least to say about mixing it with horror would be the Hard Science Fiction. The reason for this is that focus on accuracy and reality. This is not to say that it is flawless, but it does not particularly settle for verisimilitude. The Hard sub-genre requires horror strongly based in reality and might be best relegated to thrillers.

Cyberpunk has restraints upon it that also limit the horror that can be mixed into it. Or so one would think. Anyone who has come across GURPS Cthulhupunk or Catalyst's CthulhuTech RPG will agree. Though the focus isn't on horror Shadownrun is another example of cyberpunk and the fantastical. Cyberpunk can actually be written as horror without stepping outside of the technology that makes up the backbone of its science. It's all a matter of focus, where criminals with advanced weaponry like cybernetics and smart guns roam the streets, and hackers get their brains fried plying their skills against faceless monolithic corporations that are more sadistic and powerful than the worst dictators. Still, it is a genre ripe for adding upon in even more nefarious ways.

Soft science fiction is the most open class of science fiction covering a multitude of different styles from Space Opera like Star Wars, to modern day uses of unconventional science like Fringe, to the goings-on of Utopias with trouble like Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel--itself a mystery cross-genre work--to dystopian stories like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Soft science fiction immediately has a built-in cast of characters directly usable for horror in the form of aliens. There is no lack of alien horror stories. Being alien means extra-terrestrial beings are an unknown. Its already been discussed that science can be used for nefarious purposes, however even benign purposes can have unseen affects. Soft science fiction often has strong social overtones, which lend themselves to horror.

Mood: bright.
Music: Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden and Before the Winter by Stratovarius.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #5: Psychics Versus Technology

Back in part #3 it was mentioned about the discovery of evil plots, and predicting events, through analysis involving traditional data gathering and spy work. The information put together, looked over, and interpreted is more and more done by technological means. At the least it involves tools that are used in the legwork of the old school kind. Whether it be listening devices or parabolic microphones, or wiretaps and keystroke loggers, technology is the spy's best friend. That is until the psychics become involved. Need to know what is happening in a room? Thread in a fibre optic camera, or hide a bug in the room. Or get the remote viewers and astral projectors to do the work. It's all a matter of options at this point.

A number of psychic powers fall into the category of fantastic replacement for a piece of technology. As loaded a word as fantastic is in that sentence it covers things nicely. Not only will that power replace that piece of electronics but also it will do everything that the device does, and likely much more. For instance, take the lie detector as an example. The lie detector shows when a subject's answer is not truthful. A psychic interrogator will not only know when the answer to the question is false or misleading, but will also likely be able to read the real answer from the subjects mind. Alternatively, the psychic might be getting the answer from other sources than a direct answer out of the mind. Such sources can include the subject's emotions leading to answers more in line with the lie detector.

In a way there might be a couple advantages that the tech route has over the psychic one. The first is in quantity of information. The information that a spy is looking for may take only a couple of minutes to be passed along, a couple of minutes out of hours to days of surveillance. It could become worse yet with multiple subjects being surveilled at once. How about if there isn't a subject to be watched, such as when they monitor Internet or phone communications for keywords? There is however the possibility of the psychic finding out the information after the fact rather than at the time it's divulged. The second advantage that technology has comes into play when it is time to take the evidence of malfeasance to a court or other governing body. More about that in the next article.

Mood: thrilled.
Music: Train of Consequences by Megadeth and Loco by Coal Chamber.

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Dating Stories

It seems like now is a poor time to be writing. It's perhaps harder than ever to write a story set in the present without including something that will quickly leave the story feeling dated. Technology of different stripes can be ignored certainly but more of them are becoming ubiquitous and should be involved. A good example is the cell phone. Cell phones can vastly change the playing field of a story. It's something of a downer to see every story involve there being no cell phone coverage. It's a cheap cop out to trying to craft a story where being able to immediately reach someone, even help, can still leave the characters with their conundrums.

The first of the Poltergeist movies was such a story that defies being changed if the time setting of the story were to be updated. The Freeling family was surrounded by neighbours, able to call upon the best people to try and help, and still the horror would not relent and the mood could not be dampened. The writers didn't need secluded woods, downed phone lines, or any kind of physical isolation. Yet isolation engulfed the movie's family just as fully as the haunting frightened them.

Phone calls aside there are other ways that the ever changing and evolving technological landscape will affect modern, current, fiction. Does the character have a CD player or an MP3 player, or is it in his phone? Is the character watching a DVD or a HD DVD or a Blu-Ray disc when the terrible event happens? Is the secret knowledge hidden in a book, or on a website, or stashed on a USB drive? Encoded on a blog? Did the stalker find his victim on MySpace or Facebook? Did he stick a GPS tracker to her car? Keystroke logger? Does the cell phone bearing crowd witnessing an accident have camera stills of it or streaming video? The options are there, and changing too fast or not they should be put to best use.

Mood: down.
Music: Vicious Circle by Quiet Riot and Poison Apples by Motley Crue.

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