Halloween: Entertainment in Literature, Film and Society (course #25)

[twinflower]

Hello students!!  *girns*  I am Professor Holly Wassaling, a visiting Lecturer for the Kin’s Halloween Interterm.  My usual stomping grounds are up at the St. Nicholas University at the North Pole, where I teach about all things Holiday!  I am very excited and pleased to get to spend Halloween with all of you!!  *chuckles*  The dwarves just don’t seem to get into Halloween for some reason….

 

Anyway..we are going to be talking about the whole realm of Entertainment that surrounds this holiday of Halloween!  Every thing from TV traditions such as the Peanut’s special:  It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! The  movies we love at this time of year…Arsenic and Old Lace, Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, The Shining, The Haunted Mansion to the big business of entertainment like Haunted Houses and the most recent business:  agri-entertainment where you find the corn mazes and haunted mazes!  Then there is the literature that many of these very things originated from!

 

Imagine…this could be a whole genre of literature on it’s own!   The problem with that is defining a Halloween story.  Is it scary?  Is it filled with Horror?  Does it have to deal with evil?  Do the characters have to be supernatural or imaginary?  There are several schools of thought on this…some of course define this as a holiday celebrating evil..which I for one regard as nonsense!  That doesn’t mean I disregard evil though..it is a terrific motivation in literature!  The biggest division though is in the definition of what is frightening or scary.  *arches eyebrow and looks out at class*   What do you all think of as being frightening?

 

Think of some of the great classics….The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum, Masque of the Red Death, or more modern…Stephen King’s The Shining, Silence of the Lambs….what made them frightening to us?    Is it the presence of perceived evil?  Suspense?    The shocking surprises?  The unexpected?   Is it blood and guts and destruction?

 

Let’s jump into today’s chat here….what is frightening?  What story or movie or experience like a haunted house scared you so bad you screamed out loud and sent your popcorn flying?

 

[F Horn of Valere]

When I was little, the talking trees in Wizard of Oz freaked me out like no other....

[Taymist]

Stephen King's "It" is the scariest film I've ever watched  :-X Clowns now give me the heebie jeebies *shudders*

[twinflower]

Oh Horn...had forgotten all about that!!  It was the monkeys for me..maybe that's why I still don't like monkey's to much....

 

I don't think I have seen "It" although I have heard other people say that clowns scare them or that folks don't like clowns becaus of that movie.

 

But Horn and Tay...what was it about the talking tree's and "it"  that scared you? What was it about those tree's and clowns that made you uncomfortable?  frighteening even?  For example...I was terrified to go to sleep after seeing an episode of Hawaii Five-0 where a man fell off a cliff on fire.  I was terrified of burning to death.....especially since I had heard people talk about cremation.  At six years old, the burning man was my image of creation@  Eventually it went away@  So...any idea about why those tree's and clowns creeped you out?

[F Horn of Valere]

Well... the trees' voices were so rough and scary! And then they threw the apples at Dorothy... they were just mean, and I knew that they were out to get me! I would run out of the room and not come back in until my family told me it was safe.

[faerielin]

I remember being 4 and watching WoO. I was left all alone in the living room and when the Wicked Witch appeared, I couldn't stay in the room alone anymore. I had to find my mommy to come watch the rest of it with me.

 

She was terrible, and I was scared of her. Seeing her in her castle (is that where she lived?) threatening everyone and stuff made me cry. I don't think I had nightmares about it, but I just didn't want to be alone while she was on the screen, even though I knew Dorothy would "melt" her before it was done.

[Taymist]

*grins* Horn my dear, I'm seeing a whole new side to you  ;)

 

Hmm, clowns, I think it was the fact that Tim Currie was so excellent in the role, he was truly creepy as a clown. Also, seeing a huge red smile on a face with such evil eyes and knowing the face under the make up is NOT smiling... that was just freaky. Can't explain it any better than that lol.

[F Horn of Valere]

How would you like it if someone picked YOUR apples?

[twinflower]

*chuckles and twaps Horn*

 

Ok to kind of go in another direction, but not to far...what is scarier..the visuals or the psychological?

 

Many folks love to go to "horror" movies....like the Halloween conglomerate, Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw etc.  Most of them do have the blood and gore..the dicing and slicing, the action and violence.  For me these aren't really scary...more sickening than anything!

 

What terrifies me is when the movie or story messes with my mind.  The Shining terrifies me..as does Silence of the Lambs!  The other ones that do are like The Omen, or Ninth Gate..the tales that deal with evil. 

 

I believe evil is a real presence in the world..and insidius, not easily identified..

 

Anyway..what do y'all think?  visuals or mental?

[U4ea]

psychological is definitely scarier. My imagination can do SOOO much more than the graphics department can do. Hollywood seems to know that, too...

[faerielin]

I agree. It has to within my personal realm of possibility. Freddy Krugar (sp?) is so ridiculous that I don't fear him, even if I cringe at the gore.

But if you ever see Ed Gein The mostly true movie about the man that inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs and Psycho and a number of others... He's real, and he's creepy, and when the story is put in the correct context, I hope I never meet someone like him.

[Taymist]

Psychological for me too. Silence of the Lambs is a perfect example and The Omen too *nods*. Candyman is another, not so much violence or gore but just seriously creepy.

 

The blood and guts just makes me cringe. I don't tend to watch stuff like that. :-\ It's the film which, as Lor says, leaves your imagination working overtime that is the worst. The brain can conjure up some truly awful ideas.

[Samuraiflip05]

Psych vs visual

  Well in the early film horror movies it was all about perception.  The movie would give you just enough to MAKE you form your own thoughts, and quite honestly the human psyche is far worse than anything reality can throw at you.  As time went on people became accustomed to this and new methods, blood & guts, and startlers, were used (Lean towards visual).  Very common in the movies from the late 70's to early 80's.  People again became accustomed, and the ante was raised, until we had movies that were nothing but blood and guts, and movies where everything jumped out at you (remembder 3-D).  The blood and guts are here to stay, but the startle formula has been altered.  Now there are build ups that lead to nothing and nothings that have sudden action.  We are getting back to a form of psychological horror these days as everyone has seen blood and guts.  Now it hangs a lot on reality or possible reality.  Movies like Wrong Turn, Joy Ride, Saw, and Hostel, take possibilty (however improbable) and make it a reality. 

 

  Just a side note, I unfortunately have never found anything that left me in terror, or fear.  At four years old the first movie I saw in the theater was Friday the 13.  At the movie my mother was covering her eyes and I told her it was alright she could lok again...right as something happened (I'm a little mischevious like that).  A few years ago I convinced my wife that everything was fine at the end when the girl was in the canoe...told her see the police are there the music's calm it's okay...then I grabbed her right as Jason jumped out of the water to grab the girl (I may still have a bruise).  Needless to say I have grown up on horror movies and have worked EMS, so not much phases me....except the railroad spike scene in Serpent and the Rainbow.

[F Horn of Valere]

I agree with Taymist 100%. Psychological is FAR more effective.

 

For example... I HATE the Saw movies, but not because of any horror or suspense... I hate them because of the blood and guts, but I am not scared of them one bit. When I see a movie labelled as a horror movie, usually I am only cringing at the unnecessary and unrealistic (in that they tried too hard to be realistic and went over the edge) bloody graphics, not at the horror that is supposed to come with it.

 

 

The best example though is Alfred Hitchcock. He succeeded at scary because he aimed at the psych.

[Taymist]

Did you see that? He agreed with me... 100%. :o

 

*copies, pastes, saves for posterity* ;D

 

*has a nice warm glow now*  :P lol

[Samuraiflip05]

Well Horn while the Saw movies are a bit on the gory side...I don't know that it is wholly unnecessary.  "Dead Alive"  Now that gore is excessive.  But, in Saw it wasn't about the blood and guts it was about the will to survive and the ability to make some impossible choices of life or pain.  When compared to Hitchcock (one of the greats) who used very subtle suggestions for psych effect Saw would seem very over the top.  At the same time though Saw is more reflective of the times and societal standards...I don't know how well Saw could be told without the extreme visuals in place.

[Samuraiflip05]

Hello?....