Friday, October 12, 2007

Campfire Stories

All right, friends and neighbors, it's October 12th. Which means that we're nearly halfway through October. Which in turn means that it's nearly Halloween. It's scary story time. So let's play a game: I'll tell you about some of my favorite scary stories and then you can tell me about some of yours. It'll be like campfire time at summer camp. Feel free to chime in with anything in any medium: book, short story, film, tv episode, song, picture, internet urban legend, actual campfire story. They're all good. I'll give you three stories in three different mediums.


First: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. First of all, let me say that this book is a bit challenging to read. There are multiple entwined narratives, footnotes that may not refer to the page they're printed on, pages that you have to hold upside down or sideways or up to a mirror in order to read. If you're a fan of non-standard and non-linear narrative, this is the book for you.

The book opens with our narrator, Johnny Truant, being brought to the apartment of a dead man, Zampanò, who has left an enormous manuscript in a battered trunk. Johnny takes the manuscript home and begins to read it. From then on, we alternate between Johnny's narrative and Zampanò's manuscript.Johnny Truant's story is horrific enough - he is eventually driven mad by the manuscript he's discovered. But it's the manuscript itself that's the most interesting part of the book, to me. It concerns a nonexistent documentary called The Navidson Record, filmed by Will Navidson who discovers that his new house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. 1/4 of an inch bigger, to begin with. Now, I know that doesn't sound terribly frightening, on the face of it. (My first thought was "oh, the house is dimensionally transcendental" but that's because I'm a giant dork.) But think about it - we trust our homes to be safe. That's why the haunted house is the archetype it is. We trust reality to be solid, reliable, to act by certain rules. When those rules fall apart, nothing works anymore. House of Leaves is about being betrayed by reality. Eventually, that betrayal becomes much more spectacular and the house sprouts impossible endless hallways and cathedral-sized caverns. But the most frightening moment, for me, comes early on when a pile of books go tumbling off their bookshelf because it 's no longer flush with the wall.

House of Leaves isn't a traditional haunted house story. There are no ghosts in the house, no monsters that the human characters don't bring there themselves. The house is alien, unknowable, and implacable. The horror here is classically Lovecraftian* - there's no malice. The house won't destroy you because it hates you. The house destroys because it doesn't know you're there. Which is much more frightening, to my mind.


For my second story, I'm going to have to go to a vaguely dorky place because I'm going to talk about an episode of an obscure science fiction television show. Anyone out there ever watched Sapphire & Steel? It's an odd little British show from the late 70's/early 80's starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. Sapphire and Steel are...well, actually, no one really knows what they are but what they do is fix problems with time. But don't worry about that - it's not important right now. What is important is that the second arc of the show - "The Railway Station" - is a nearly perfect ghost story. An abandoned railway station is being haunted by the spirits of dead soldiers and it's Sapphire and Steel's job to get rid of them. By any means necessary.

I'm not going to spoil any of the story here but I do want to talk about atmosphere. Sapphire & Steel, as a show, moves very slowly. This is great, as it allows for build. There are very few big scare scenes - nothing jumping suddenly out of the shadows - but there's a constant and ever-building feeling of creep. The railway station is dimly lit and full of neglected rooms that echo with long-dead voices. The lamps are burnt out and the potted plants on the platform are wilted and dry. Except for when they're not. The other advantage the show has working for it is its lack of budget. Seriously, this thing had less money than Doctor Who and, unlike Doctor Who, its makers didn't react to this by trying to make convincing monsters out of bubblewrap and potted cacti. Instead, they decided to rely on the power of suggestion. The human brain is capable of conjuring horrors greater than anything that can convincingly be shown on screen, if you let it work. Sapphire & Steel lets your brain do all the heavy lifting.

The pacing is, as I said, very slow and the credit sequence is, I regret to say, a little embarrassing, but the show itself is well-worth making the effort. We don't have it in the library, alas, but it can be rented through Netflix, if you've got an account. "The Railway Station" is disc two, if you decide to seek it out specifically, though all of the show is worth watching.


Lastly, I leave you with a song. Sussex Ghost Story, by John Wesley Harding. (To download, click on the link, find where it says "download link", and click.) It's short, it's shivery, and it's an eminently singable little ghosty revenge story. It is our anniversary and you cannot run away from me...


So, greater blogosphere, what are some of your favorite scary stories?




*Well, perhaps not quite. There's nothing squishy enough to be perfectly Lovecraftian. 8)

10 comments:

Cronehenge said...

Well, you said "stories" not necessarily books, right?

Constance said...

Sara, it is indeed the time of the season for ghost stories, and I've already placed my hold on House of Leaves. My favorite campfire chiller is "The Ghost Writer" by John Harwood, a gorgeous puzzle box of intertwining ghost tales with a wonderful gothic feel. The overarching mystery--in which timid librarian Gerard seeks answers to his mysterious penpal's strange past and his own family's rather shrouded history through a series of odd Victorian manuscripts (ghost stories, of course)--gives an overall structure and thoughtfulness to what otherwise might be several unrelated atmospheric thrillers.

Two ghostly movies that really gave me the chills are the Korean film, A Tale of Two Sisters, and the Japanese film, Ju-On. Ju-On was the inspiration for the American film The Grudge, although Ju-On's chilling multi-layered visual style and parallel storylines make it perhaps the stronger of the two for multiple viewings.

Sara F. said...

hannah--

Yes, indeed. All media welcome. 8)

Sara F. said...

Constance--

Thank you for the recommendation. I've not read The Ghost Writer but I think I'll have to go and put it on hold.

Asian horror is not my forte (I tend towards the old Universal monster movies, honestly) and I've always meant to see more of it. Time to update my Netflix queue as well. 8)

Cronehenge said...

The 1960's epic blockbuster in 3D technology, 13 Ghosts.

After ripping off the special viewing glasses and running out of the theatre crying, I was found crouched behind a garbage can in the lobby, screaming "I see the ghosts! They're everywhere!" I would not go to sleep for months after that...and as a result I got acquainted with The Tonight Show at a very young age. I still haven't been able to view that movie again! Sort of like not being able to see the Wizard of OZ after the first time, until I was 39. Those monkeys were REALLY FREAKY to me. Scary. VERY scary!

Sara F. said...

hannah--

My family and I rented 13 Ghosts several years ago. Alas, we couldn't do it with the 3-D glasses, but I can definitely understand being freaked out by it.

Along the same lines, have you ever seen The Tingler? Because that right there is a marvelous piece of gimmicky horror film making. Also - Vincent Price! What could possibly be bad about that?

Constance said...

Since you're a Vincent Price fan, you're probably familiar with Theater of Blood. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend this campy amalgamation of the Phibes formula and Shakespeare, with the always wonderful Diana Rigg thrown in for good measure.

I love the old Universal monster movies, too--you can't beat them for atmosphere. My dad introduced me to Bride of Frankenstein when I was about 12, and another horror fan was born.

Sara F. said...

Constance--

I've always meant to see Theater of Blood but haven't yet gotten around to it. Alas, I've read about a lot more horror films than I've actually seen. (Though, in the case of things like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the like, I tend to think of this as an advantage.)

I saw Bela Lugosi's Dracula when I was 10 and fell in love. The Universal monster movies really are the best. And Bride is amazing. 8)

Susan T said...

when I was little, i thought that the lumps in my blankets were snakes, so I tried to keep my legs pulled up. I was afraid of the dark. I called for my dad and told him about the snakes, and he recited to me "The creamation of Sam Macgee", which was magical.

Sara F. said...

susan--

My childhood bogeyman was the dripping drainpipe outside my bedroom window. I was convinced that it was a dead man with a guitar, playing the same note over and over.

Eventually, I started watching Dracula movies, decided that the vampires were on my side, and that they could beat up the dead guitar player.