Where I Began: Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural

 

This book became the basis of my independent life as a reader and a writer. Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert Wise and first published in 1944 by Modern Library. Before it came books that my parents read to me, or gave me to read, many wonderful works, children’s books, but this one I chose myself from my father’s shelves and read through and through repeatedly. I must have read Poe stories at around the same time too. I don’t remember now how old I was, some time between third grade and fifth, I can’t be more accurate. I read them many times for years. These stories set my mind off on all sorts of journeys and gave me a list of writers to read.

This photo isn’t of the original copy I had. That fell apart long ago.

The best thing you can do for some children is to give them the keys to their own imagination.

Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it. 

Shudder Folk Horror Movies Thumbnail Reviews Batch Two

 
I’m not sure how much longer the Folk Horror collection on Shudder will be available, since Shudder rotates its titles fairly frequently. In any case I’ve enjoyed watching all these movies, even the ones I didn’t like much. It was a fun project. The term “folk horror” feels pretty broad at times as a descriptor for all these films, but nothing I watched seem to fall outside the concept, which ultimately makes it pretty effective as a term for thinking about the subject matter and themes of these films.

The Wicker Man, British, 1973 (5 stars): Still often called the best British horror movie ever made, and I’ve not seen anything that makes me disagree. I have a DVD box set of this movie. Nearly every moment is beautiful; nearly every moment is eerie and disquieting, and the pervasive discomfort just keeps building. As a viewer, you always know something’s wrong, but the film is so surprising and original that you never know what it is. By the way, the hugely popular 2019 film Midsommar borrows tons from this movie and I haven’t seen anybody else note that. And I can say this and viewers still won’t know what to expect from this movie.

Il Demonio, Italian, 1963 (4 ½ stars): Surprisingly and effectively, this movie splits the difference between an Italian neorealist film and a horror movie. Set in a convincingly disturbing rural environment, the movie depends on Daliah Lavi’s outrageous and compelling portrayal of a out-of-control character who often turns out to be less disturbing than the more ordinary people around her. The movie’s not scary really, but it sure is disconcerting. Also, there’s a scene in it that’s the basis of an infamous scene in the director’s cut of The Exorcist. The scene was probably cut from The Exorcist for good reason, but the original in Il Demonio is riveting.

Kill List, British, 2011 (4 stars): This movie is even more brutal than its brutal trailer would lead you to believe. But it’s also a much better movie than the brutality might lead anyone to suspect. The situation is off-kilter and disturbing, the characterizations are effective, and even if one has a general sense of what way the mysterious elements of this film are going, I myself didn’t really see the ultimate turns coming. There’s more than a little Tarantino influence here, but this movie is really doing its own thing. I’m not kidding about the brutality though, so consider yourself warned.

The Blood on Satan’s Claw, British, 1971 (3 ½ stars): The term “folk horror” was originally used by reviewer Rod Cooper in describing this movie. It’s quite enjoyable although much of the story is ridiculous and the psychology of it paper thin. Good atmospherics and tone carry the day so that the action doesn’t become too ludicrous to bear. The atmospherics of this movie are quite foundational in terms of many horror movies that follow it, including The Wicker Man, so it’s an essential folk horror watch despite moments that might make you laugh derisively.

La Llorona, Guatemalan, 2020 (3 stars): There are some things to like about this movie and a lot not to like so much. Director Jayro Bustamante borrows heavily from Guillermo Del Toro, but as much as I like the idea of setting a horror movie in a rich historical and political context, the movie takes the worst part of Del Toro (and the reason I’m not a fan of Pan’s Labyrinth): a heavy-handed political moralizing that precludes much surprise. At every moment, this movie tells us exactly who is bad and for what reason and in what degree and then proceeds to sledgehammer its agenda into place. There’s a good sense of mood, good acting, and some memorable and at times chilling visuals, and those things help lift it above its dull and obvious moral lecture.

Dark in August, American, 1976 (3 stars): The first hour of this movie is quite good, a four star effort that establishes intriguing characters and a striking rural setting. J.J. Barry is an original presence as the main character. But then there’s the rest of the movie.

Clear Cut, Canadian, 1971 (2 ½ stars): Graham Greene is such a compellingly watchable actor that he almost pulls off the two-dimensional character he plays He also overwhelms the mediocre performances by the other actors. The plot, about a land struggle between white Canadians and indigenous people, has all of the expected features but not much more. I like it when horror gets political, but that like anything else needs to be done well. The film is supposedly controversial because of the stand it takes that sometimes violence might just be the best response to oppression, but I didn’t care enough about the white characters to be concerned at how badly they were beating treated. Don’t more conventional slashers also suggest that it’s tremendous fun to see stupid arrogant assholes get sliced and diced and that the world is a better place when they’re gone?

Tilbury, Icelandic, 1987 (2 ½ stars): The flat acting and lack of convincing action were on some level an important part of this odd little film, which tries to combine the presence of an ancient horror with a historical drama of World War II Iceland during a period of occupation by supposedly friendly British and American troops. The disjointedness made the action difficult to care about, so this movie survives on its weirdness mostly, and it was often weirder than I was expecting, with some scenes that are surrealist not in a loose sense but truly.

Roh, Malaysian, 2019 (2 stars): Sigh. I was rooting for this movie when I started watching it. But the story was verging on absent, and the mythology was general and vapid: bad things happen to bad people, and even the possible twist that everyone might be bad couldn’t save the slow scenes, the barely comprehensible narrative turns, and the lack of strong atmosphere. A lot of the story revolves around a mother failing her children, or supposedly failing her children, but I’ll be darned if I could ever figure out what it was she was supposed to have done. Apparently she became a bad mother right when her husband died, or was being accused of being one from that moment, not that the story ever resolved or even really approached an answer to what had created the problem.

The Folk Horror Collection on Shudder

 

Photograph from Psychomania


I’ve been enjoying the Folk Horror collection of movies on Shudder with its fun mix of national and international pictures. Here are my thumbnail reviews on a five-star scale of the ones I’ve seen so far (will maybe add to this list and post it again at a later time)in the order of my preferences.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, American, 1973 (5 stars)

Still one of a small handful of the best and most terrifying horror movies ever made.

Lake Mungo, Australian, 2008 (4 stars).
Easily the best of the movies I’d never seen before. Tense, creepy, surprising, and subtle, and because of the subtlety, the moments that are not subtle are very effective. Some underdeveloped or missing psychological elements bring this one down just a little.

Psychomania (also known as The Death Wheelers), British, 1985 (4 stars). There are few horrors movies this fun and this ridiculous and this unique. It’s not great except for the fact that it’s so great. “The greatest British zombie biker ever made”: for once, the hype is true.

Black Sunday, Italian, 1960 (4 stars). Mario Bava’s first horror film is legendary for a reason. I can’t say that this movie is great, exactly, but it’s very very satisfying horror, a mix of British and Italian elements and starring Barbara Steele, who’s just as good at this sort of movie as everybody says.

Black Sabbath, Italian, 1963 (3 ½ stars). This three-part horror anthology follow-up meant to capitalize on Black Sunday isn’t as great as that one, but it has Boris Karloff in it and the action is a lot of fun if not particularly scary. The effects are ludicrous but only make the movie more of a pleasure.

Wake Wood, Irish and English, 2009 (4 stars). This movie has a lot of great moments and others that aren’t as great as they could have been. Still, it’s the best of the recent horror movies from Ireland that I’ve seen.

Impetigore, Indonesian, 2019 (3 ½ stars). The first 30 to 45 minutes of this movie: wow. As frightening as any recent horror movie I’ve seen. After that, some of the key characters start becoming really dumb, which means that when the horror effects come on full bore it mostly seems like the idiots are getting what they deserve.

Alison’s Birthday, Australian, 1981 (3 ½ stars). The acting and effects are very B movie but they also work in the favor of this surprisingly enjoyable movie. Good claustrophobic tension. The characterizations are no more than expected but still fun. The action is often ridiculous but somehow still both fun and tense.

Rawhead Rex, British, 1986 (3 ½ stars). Sure, the special effects are exactly as terrible as everyone says, but for me at least that didn’t take away from the enjoyment I felt at this movie. I may be biased because it’s based on a Clive Barker short story and because its premise is basically that of classic M.R. James ghost stories: an ancient, pagan evil is lurking in a graveyard. It’s not slow, and there are some great surprises, some of them very unpleasant.

Pyewacket, Canadian 2017 (3 stars). The characterizations aren’t subtle yet this portrayal of a distressed teenager stuck in her relationship with her nasty mom does have some good scenes and good tension. As many reviews say, the movie is as much character study as horror, and while both elements show some promise, the movie doesn’t do as much with them as it might.

A Dark Song, English, 2016 (3 stars). This movie has an effectively tense pace at the start, with interesting characterizations and surprising scenes, but like so many horror movies it doesn’t always know what to do with its premise or the complexities it wishes to set in motion but can’t.

The Hallow, Irish and English, 2015 (3 stars). Essentially, this movie is the same story as Wake Wood with some small differences. Strong atmospherics at the start, and surprisingly interesting dialogue. At a certain point the characters get stuck in a permanent state of non-development and the well done but standard visuals take over with very little surprise.

Lake of the Dead, Norwegian, 1958 (3 stars). A historical curiosity, this black and white, low budget movie has some engaging characters and dialogue (some of it tense) and benefits from its rural setting. The mystery being uncovered is worth it, although the characters are much more frightened than viewers will be.

Children of the Corn, American, 1984 (3 stars) No, I didn’t bother to watch it again. Not the best Stephen King-based movie by any means, and not the worst either. This movie is not as bad as the people who think it’s bad like to think, but it’s also not as good as people think when they try to argue for it as underrated.

Lokis, Polish, 1970 (3 stars). A bit long and rambling, this movie has good atmosphere and tension and some surprises. As much a character study as horror, this movie’s main draw for me is that it’s based on a 1869 French gothic novel by Prosper Mérimée. The pace of the movie is slow so prepare to settle in.

Jug Face, American, 2016 (3 stars). Another of the movies in this collection whose opening parts are the best ones, this movie has some intriguing performances by women but, women-centered or not, it doesn’t do all that much beyond the expected with its dangerous backcountry hick premise.

Eyes of Fire, British, 1983 (2 ½ stars). This one has some moments of genuine strangeness and effective gore. Decent characterizations. The effects are goofy but sometimes enjoyable. Ultimately it settles for flatness and dreamy vagueness instead of really developing its core conflicts and concepts.

Viy, Russian, 1967 (2 ½ stars). Based on a novella by Nikolai Gogol, the main reason to watch this movie is that it’s billed as the first horror movie ever made in Russia. It’s a horror comedy that’s not scary and barely funny except when it’s most trying not to be. The visual effects as the movie goes on are really quite enjoyably strange, but this movie is mostly of historical interest only. Sidepoint: Russians probably don’t need a horror film tradition because their own history gives them all the horror anyone could want.

Messiah of Evil, American, 1973 (2 ½ stars). This is a standard low budget American horror of its era. A few compelling moments, but none of it is ever any better than it looks like it’s going to be. B movie fans might find a lot to enjoy.

 
Dark Waters, filmed in Ukraine, 1993 (2 stars). Great scenery, and at moments some of the characters are truly weird, but mostly the story is boring and obvious and never frightening or much of anything else, although Louise Salter as the main character is fun to watch.

The House on the Borderland (1908) by William Hope Hodgson

I enjoyed this brief trip into grand cosmic horror as a pleasant antidote to the restricted Virus Life I’m currently living in summer 2020. The book is an intriguingly original and very trashy combination of 19th century Gothic novel and 20th futuristic sci-fi by a British author who had clearly read H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine. Hodgson sets his time machine in an exaggerated campy version of a Gothic castle in a remote portion of the British countryside.

The characters are mostly cardboard but the mood is rich and the action constant, with many fun and illogical twists. Hodgson doesn’t care about realism or logic. The book is filled with a great combination of creepy images and playful concepts about space and time and infinity by an author who doesn’t try to be scientifically accurate although he likes metaphors that sound scientific.

Apparently H.P. Lovecraft didn’t read this book or any of Hodgson’s work until 1934, which seems surprising because The House on the Borderland feels like a clear transition between 19th century Gothic haunted house horror and Lovecraftian 20th century cosmic horror.

The fun, vivid and moody action is rarely emotionally gripping, which made it an easy-going pleasure despite the terror of the infinite that the author wants to explore. It’s a shame though that Hodgson isn’t a better writer on the level of sentences. Often he doesn’t seem to know how to use commas or more precisely know when not to use them.

I first read Hodgson years ago now after picking up one of the books in his Carnacki, Ghost Hunter series, similar works of campy, trashy horror fun, a series that Hodgson began writing in the early 1910s in an attempt to make more money.

Hodgson died in World War I at the Fourth Battle of Ypres in April 1918. He was 40 years old.

The Dunwich Horror

"You needn't ask how Wilbur called it out of the air. He didn't call it out. It was his twin brother, but it looked more like the father than he did."

A Thinking Again Guide to Modern and Contemporary Horror Fiction (1900-present)

Works on this list include literature with genuinely frightening or disturbing horror elements as well as genre works with some level of literary value, if only a powerful emotional effect. That is, in one way or another, all these are works of horror with significant merit as works of literature, to my mind.

This list is still in progress, so please help me add to it. Works of significant quality only, please–I understand the vagueness of the term “quality,” so using your own standards is fine. I’m hoping other people will have some good suggestions for me. As you can see, I’ve read a lot of this sort of thing, and I’m always worried I’m about to run out.

Robert Aickman, The Wine Dark Sea (1988) or any other collection
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1937)
Eric Basso, The Beak Doctor: Short Fiction 1972-76
Thomas Bernhard, Gargoyles (1967)
Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows” (1907), “Ancient Sorceries” (1908)
Paul Bowles, The Delicate Prey (1950)
Mary Butts, From Alter to Chimney-Piece: Selected Stories of Mary Butts (1992)–stories originally published between 1922 and 1937
Ramsey Campbell, The Face That Must Die (1979)
Walter De La Mare, The Return (1922)
Stephen Dobyns, The Church of Dead Girls (1997)
Guy Endore, The Werewolf of Paris (1933)
Brian Evenson, Dark Property (1995)
Dennis Etchison, The Dark Country (1982)
Thomas Harris, Red Dragon (1981), The Silence of the Lambs (1988)
John Hawkes, The Beetle Leg (1951), Travesty (1976)
Susan Hill, The Woman in Black (1983)
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” (1948), The Haunting of Hill House (1959), We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
Henry James, “The Beast in the Jungle,” (1903), “The Jolly Corner” (1908)
M.R. James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), or Collected Ghost Stories (1931).
T.E.D. Klein, The Ceremonies (1984)
Tanith Lee, Dark Dance (1992)
Tommaso Landolfi, An Autumn Story (1975)
Fritz Leiber, Conjure Wife (1943), Our Lady of Darkness (1978)
Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer (1989); those stories and others also in The Nightmare Factory (1996)
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Rats in the Walls” (1922), The Dunwich Horror” (1928), “The Shadow over Innsmouth” (1936)
Arthur Machen, “The White People” (1904)
Robert Marasco, Burnt Offerings (1973)
Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954)
Patrick McGrath, Spider (1990)
Gustav Meyrink, The Golem (1928)
David Morrell, The Totem (1979)
Oliver Onions, Widdershins (1911)
Victor Pelevin, “The News from Napal” in The Blue Lantern (1994)
Jean Ray, Malpertuis (1943)
Alain Robbe-Grillet, The Voyeur (1955), Jealousy (1958)
Dan Simmons, Song of Kali (1985)
Peter Straub, If You Could See Me Now (1977)
Whiltey Streiber, The Wolfen (1978)
Theodore Sturgeon, Some of Your Blood (1956)
Roland Topor, The Tenant (1964)
Wilfrid Sheed, The Blacking Factory & Pennsylvania Gothic (1968)
Dirik Van Sickle, Montana Gothic (1979)
Patrik Suskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (1986)
H. Russell Wakefield, The Best Ghost Stories of H. Russell Wakefield (1978)–stories first published mainly between 1928 and 1935
Paul West, The Women of Whitechappel and Jack the Ripper (1992)
Edith Wharton, The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton (1973)–stories first published between 1909 and 1937
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Collected Ghost Stories (1974)–most stories first published between 1903 and 1927)

a future for horror poetry?

All right. Enough seriousness. It’s time for a bit of the dark side’s subtle chuckle.

Halloween may be the one yearly celebration I support whole-heartedly, give or take a battery-operated glow-in-the-dark screaming skeleton or two. It doesn’t have much in the way of a questionable historical background and isn’t drenched in either patriotism or Christianity—which is why we don’t get a day off for it. Although I’m typically working myself to the point of zombie idiocy in October, the month also comes with various pleasures: baseball playoffs, Pumpkin Ale (Buffalo Bill’s original only please, no knockoffs), weekend trips to the mountains for the changing leaves (not in San Diego, but that’s another story), parties where people feel more free than usual to act like sexually depraved Puritans on the rampage, and finally my favorite: horror movies.

Once, half-jokingly, A.L. Nielsen called me a “goth poet.” I don’t look the part, but it’s not entirely untrue. Longer poems like The Haunted Baronet (essentially impossible to get at this point, although I'd be glad to send you the text) and “The Monstrious Failure of Contemplation” (in Haze) certainly use the history of horror literature as a taking off point for their explorations. My two books of fiction, Dead Carnival and Walking Dreams, are clearly related to horror literature as well, with many avant twists of course. But as I’ve been watching horror movies over the last few weeks, I’ve been wondering why there’s not that much use of the tropes of the horror genre in contemporary poetry.

There are exceptions. Kevin Killian’s Argento Series is a very strong work. Daphne Gottlieb’s 203 book Final Girl got quite a bit of attention, although its poems finally didn’t hold my attention. A little too flatly narrative, a little too gaudy in the packaging, which is like a horror movie, sure, but still. Alice Notley and C.A. Conrad are interested in tarot, but even though they both have something of a warrior mentality (of a very anti-war sort), they see their uses of magic as on some fundamental level healing, or at least as a kind of revolutionary freedom. But I’m talking horror here, the kind that may not have any redeeming qualities beyond exploring all the strange places that the human creature can imagine itself going. Fear, paranoia, dissociation, degeneracy, disintegration, that sort of thing. The moment when you go one way and your body another.

There are probably many reasons for the rather limited connections between contemporary poetry and horror literature. A politicized poet might rightly complain that the stylization of horror in a world of so much real violence remains a distraction from more profoundly important matters. And of course there’s the difficulty of lifting such work out of cliche. At least several of my musician friends from Philadelphia, for instance, (I won’t name them but they’re welcome to name themselves) think that horror images are just too cartoonish to lead to first rate music. Besides, genres like horror, sci fi, detective literature and others are often associated with the most naive, manipulative uses of narrative. To the extent that poetry (at least some of it) remains a kind of writing that can go beyond or question narrative, genre literature especially might seem that which poetry exists in opposition to, at least on the level of structure and development.

I can’t really say that horror is underused in contemporary poetry compared to other genre literatures. Poetry has taken up the concept of the detective perhaps more readily (especially French poets: I’m thinking of Oliver Cadiot and, if I’m recalling correctly, Emmanuel Hocquard), but uses of science fiction and speculative literature may be more rare. Frederick Turner’s The New World, a new formalist book from the mid 80s, is a book length science fiction epic that almost could be interesting, although it may very well be ruined by its pseudo-epic language. But I can’t think of much other science fiction poetry. And once we consider older literature like the graveyard poetry of the 18th century, as well as Coleridge, Poe, and Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” there may very well be more than enough poetry linked to the gothic tradition.

So, what about it? Is the idea of poetry and horror a contemporary dead end? Is there just as much of it as there needs to be? Is there more than I’m aware of? What am I missing? Is the very idea an irresponsible stylization of violence?

I welcome your responses as I head back to my very own 13 Days of Halloween. Up right now on my reading list is Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, which I’ll be teaching in my speculative literature course tomorrow.