Does every fan of gothic literature, or only of the gothic genre, know Edgar Allan Poe? If not, you should definitely read some of his works. He mostly writes short stories, each more disturbing than the previous one. So, I figured I would do something very different than what I usually do here. I wrote a poem related to The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, written in 1843. If you do not know what it is, briefly, it is the story of a young man, killing a presumably blind old man for he has a pale blue eye that frustrates him. Of course, this is a very brief summary, but you may certainly want to read the short story before the following poem.
Like a Veiled Vulture Eye
Admit it. Too loud it is.
It beats. Again and again, louder and louder.
How could they know? They did.
They felt my agony, fear filled my fearful heart
Did they hear it too? Did EYE even?
Sure like vultures they smelled it, circled it.
They found it, and death it is.
The EYE was damned anyway.
Why keep lying? EYE was dead.
Horror went away with it, him, EYE. Old man kept it.
Brought it with its last breath in the dark depth of
deep death.
Terror never left, how could it? The veil still is.
The I EYE was furious about. Not the old man. EYE
swears. Not mad. EYE swear.
In the night, he went cold, paler and paler.
EYE cannot remember. Blue
Was it how it looked like? Was it?
Pale days and dark nights. Oh yes.
Blue it was.
But he did not know.
What interest was there in it if he knew? None EYE’d
say.
EYE had secret that he ignored.
Ignorance killed him. EYE did not. Swear.
EYE lived for nothing. Out of all things nothing.
I loved the old man. I did and I do. It was only his
EYE.
Hannibal Lecter… For those who
know who this man is, does the only mention of his name give you goosebumps? What
do you feel when hearing about him if not fear? Well, maybe you think he is
somehow nice, and you feel empathy for him, but either way, Lecter is a very
interesting character, and this is why I decided to see what makes him so
frightening for most people. The novel I will take as a reference in this post
is The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas
Harris, originally published in 1988.
The first thing is that he is
in fact a very charismatic man. For example, when Clarice Starling, the
investigator, goes to the psychiatric hospital to meet with Lecter, a patient
called Miggs talks to her in a crude and rude way, which would suggest that
this man may be mentally deranged. On the contrary, during her first visit at
the hospital, Lecter is extremely polite with her, and acts like a gentleman.
Indeed, his gentleman-like behaviors make him even more scary since there is no
way someone can know whether he is “good” or “bad” without previously knowing
from the beginning that he murders people to eat them afterwards.
Lecter needs information to use
his psychological power. Without information, he is lost. This means that
without information, he has nothing. This reminds us slightly of Dracula from
Bram Stoker’s novel, right? Dracula’s power comes from the information he
obtains from the blood he drinks, or from the years he has lived. Hence, to
stay alive in this modern world, he seeks information. It is similar in the
case of Hannibal Lecter. He is indeed a surgeon, but also a psychiatrist. Psychiatry
requires a superior knowledge of how the human brain works, and also of social
behaviors, which can often be associated to different mental illnesses. Therefore,
a psychiatrist must know his or her patients in order to help them properly. The
problem in Lecter’s case is that he may be too good at his job, for he
instantly knows much information even before the person tells anything.
Moreover, once he is told some information, he is able to play with one’s mind
to make him or her do what he wants to a certain extent. An example of his need
of information is when Clarice Starling investigates the case of Fredrica
Bimmel, and for all the information he gives her, he asks for information about
her in return, despite the fact that Crawford clearly told her to avoid revealing
to him any personal information.
Briefly, if you are boring,
according to his standards, you will not last long. The issue is, we do not
know how Lecter defines “boring”. This means that there is no way we can adjust
to him to avoid being killed because we do not have any clues as to what he
considers as boring or not. Therefore, we are kept in obscurity when it comes
to Hannibal’s thoughts while this knowledge is the only thing that could
possibly save us from a horrible death. In other words, Hannibal does not need
to have a motif to kill. It does not matter to him whether we did something
wrong or not. That is, he can decide to kill someone because that person did
something he disliked, or just because a person is not entertaining enough for
him.
Finally, the previous
characteristics make him the “perfect” serial killer, but they also show that
from the outside, he is the most ordinary human being. Hence, from this fact,
another frightful thought arises: there could be a Hannibal Lecter everywhere
we go. We do not know what is going on in other people’s minds, and if Lecter
is able to hide his true nature so well, then, how many people are able to do
it too?
After reading these traits of
character, are you now scared of Hannibal Lecter? I know there are many
opinions about whether he is good or bad, and it is actually quite interesting
to see that a serial killer can make people hesitate in that manner.
Are you one of those who think he is fundamentally good, or fundamentally bad? Or neither?
Do not worry, there will not be any spoilers in this post! There will
only be brief descriptions of the movies, so maybe you can discover some you
never heard about.
I put them in the same
category because both are part of the period during which the horror movie industry
focused on torture. When watching those movies, your feelings may be hurt, but
if you are also an empathetic person, you may also have the impression that you
actually feel what those people are feeling, and this is… well, quite
terrifying.
There are seven Sawmovies, originally titled Saw (2004), Saw 2 (2005) and so on, until the last one Saw 3D: Final Chapter (2010). After seven years of inactivity, another Saw film appeared called Jigsaw (2017). The question is, were Saw movies good enough so their comeback would revive the public’s interest? The answer is that yes, it was, but even though many people went to see it, maybe the producers should have left it with the unforgettable Saw 6 (2009). Anyway, all of these are definitely worth seeing if ever you like this genre, and most interesting is that these movies raise the question: what are we willing to do to save our lives?
As for the Human Centipede, I will not even
describe it, or give the link to a trailer, because these three movies are too
horrible. And I think that the previous sentence says it all, but I could not
omit to mention it in the list, so here it is.
There are two of those, The Descent (2005) and The Descent 2 (2009), and they are both terrifying, even though in my opinion, the first one is better. If you are claustrophobic, avoid watching this movie. At first sight, the first movie does not even look like it is going to be a horror movie as it is actually quite funny. But obviously, everything changes when all six girl friends go down in a dark cave, somewhere in the middle of the Appalachian Massif. No need to say that the movie happens in an extremely confined and dark place. And most evidently, they are not alone in that cave. I would like to tell you a little bit about the second movie, but there is no way I could do this without revealing the end of the first one, so it is for you to see!
So, A Quiet Place is quite recent and very, very good. The title gives a clue about how the movie will take place: mostly in silence. Sure, the characters will talk to each other, but quietly and rarely. Why is that so? The creatures in this movie are blind, but as the movie ad says, “if they hear you, they hunt you”, meaning that their hearing is excessively well developed. So briefly, the world has been taken over by those creatures, and a family of four built their own little life somewhere in an isolated place, but they obviously had to adapt to the new life conditions in order to stay alive. From what I wrote, it seems like we saw this same pattern a million times already, but I swear, this one is really good, and I cannot tell more than that for if I do, I may spoil some important events.
I could not list some great horror movies without mentioning one with ghosts, right? So here it is. Paranormal Activity is once again a series of films with a total of six movies. The first one was released in 2007, and the last one, Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension, in 2015. It is a classic ghost series with possessed people, demons and scary paranormal activity. But who does not appreciate classics once in a while?
Finally, well, the five movies in that series are not really frightening, but still some people die. However, they are parodies of many horror movies; for example, there is always that stereotypical blond-haired and slightly dumb girl, as well as the stupid teen group of friends. Of course, like every other parody, these films are exaggerated; that is what makes them funny. The first one was out in the theatres in 2000 and the last one, Scary Movie 5, in 2013. I think that the two first ones are the best. I hope you will have a great time!
That is it for the best horror movies, but I mean, these are just a few of them. There are so many more out there. I tried to make a list with various genres, so everyone could find one that he or she likes among these. Have fun! 😊
Don’t breathe or he’s gonna catch you! That’s the essential
statement of Fede Álvarez’s movie called Don’t
Breathe. Essentially, the movie is set in an old blind man’s house because
three young adults try to steal the money the rumors say he is living with.
Since the old man is blind, his earing is impeccable, which the three friends
did not expect. The old man ears each and every single noise they make in the
house. During their chase for the money, the young adults try to escape from
the dangerous old man, but he actually is able to keep them locked into his
house, which allows him to try to catch evildoers. While trying to escape, they
realize that the old man is getting nearer to them and that they are more and
more in danger. When they see the old man around, they try not to breathe to
make sure the blind man doesn’t find them. That is the principal reason why the
movie is titled that way, but I’ll let you discover whether or not the young
adults were finally able to get out!
The American horror movie focused mainly on the aspect of
terror. During then whole movie, the three offenders are really scared of what
the old man could do because they didn’t know him, and they weren’t aware of
what he could potentially do to them. The apprehension of the actions of the
man was the aspect that frightened the most the delinquents. During their
adventure in the blind man’s house, they finally discover what was the old man
really hiding in his house, once again I’ll let you discover it by yourself,
and the young adults reached a state of horror. The fact that they could see
the old man as well as the scary things in his house let the delinquents change
their feeling from terror to horror. The scenarist really focused on those two
important gothic motifs to create suspense and tension in his movie, which
makes it that good.
If you love horror movies, I really suggest you watch it. And
if you’re more afraid of this kind of movies, I suggest you still watch it, but
in daytime maybe! 😉
Not so long ago, I
read a thriller that is so far, one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is
called The Good Girl, written by Mary
Kubica. This literary piece is a very high-intensity thriller because the
actions you expect to happen are definitely not the ones that actually happen.
This novel is mainly considered as a psychological thriller, but I still found
some gothic elements in it and I wanted to demonstrate that it is possible to
explore a specific literary genre while including some gothic elements in it.
First of, the
archetype of the damsel in distress is the main element of gothic literature in
this thriller. Mia, the main character of the book, is in complete distress
after she’s been kidnapped by a certain guy named Colin. Even if she tries to
escape, it is impossible to achieve it and waits for the help f the police and
her family. On the other hand, Mia’s mother could also be considered as a
damsel in distress. She constantly tries to find ways to find her daughter but,
because she is depressed by the loss other daughter, she waits for the police
to help her out. In that way, she qualifies as a damsel in distress.
Colin Thatcher, Mia’s one-night stand, turn
out to be a sociopath who kidnaps her. Here, the monster archetype found in gothic
pieces is a human monster. Colin’s purpose to take Mia away from her family was
simply to hurt her. The monster generally generates terror and horror to the
victim, in this case Mia.
That is what leads
me to explain you the aspects of terror and horror in this psychological
thriller. On one hand, Mia is completely terrorised by Collin because she
anticipates what he could do to her. Terror is defined as the anticipation of
the scary, and that is exactly what Mia is doing and feeling. On the other hand,
there’s horror. Horror is the realization of what is scary when seeing it in
front of your eyes. In this case, Mia also feels it when she realizes that she
had been kidnaped and that she’ll probably never see her family again.
Simply, I suggest
you read this psychological thriller that can also enter in the gothic genre
because it has a lot of suspense and you’ll have difficulty to stop reading it,
I swear.
R&D Gothic Discoveries 