Horror Jag?

[Matt H.]

What a great movie. I grew up on those cheap Roger Corman movies.

Here's a bit of trivia. It may or may not be true. Supposedly in the first cut of the movie after he did what he did to his eyes he screamed "I can still see!". The test audience was so unsettled by that last line it was cut from the movie.

If true it changes the whole ending.

Holy sh*t! No, I didn't know that! Thank goodness they did cut it, because it might have shattered my little phyche on the spot, Thank you. That's a wonderful tidbit, an external augmenting the released version.

PS. But this is un-verified? I guess a good story regardless...

 

[oberon55]

PS. But this is un-verified? I guess a good story regardless...

It's been years but I'm pretty sure I read that in "Danse Macabre" by Stephen King.

From wikipedia "Danse Macabre is a 1981 non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, TV, radio, film and comics, and the influence of contemporary societal fears and anxieties on the genre."

Another book I recommend.

One that had a happy ending tacked on that is verified is "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956). The original ending went like this:

Miles, driven mad by pod-people and lack of sleep, escapes the sleepy town of Santa Mira and runs into the middle of the highway, where he rants and raves at the passing cars. He leaps on a truck bound for Los Angeles—and finds it loaded with space-pods. He leaps off and screams, “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next!” He screams it right at the camera, right at the audience. Cut to black.

Added content:

Only no, don’t cut to black. Cue wavy flashback screen to return us to the present. Miles has finished his story. The shrink thinks he’s nuts—but then word comes in of a weird traffic accident. A truck crashed—a truck full of weird, giant pods! The cops call the FBI. Miles is vindicated. Everything’s going to be fine. The end.

 

[Matt H.]

Great stuff. It's been a while since I saw Body Snatchers film, but remember last time was surprised and pleased at overall quality of horror, relative scarcity of schlock , even effects stood up remarkably well.

 

[pogopossum]

Agree about the film.
The coda to it is that in the 1978 sequel to the film of the book (& of equal quality) the two main characters are driving and they see a hysterical man running in the road shouting, "They're coming! You'll be next!"
He is obviously Miles from the first film.

 

[Trollheart]

That film ended exactly as it should have. The tacked-on-happy-ending was ridiculous. Thankfully, the version I saw had the original ending. Then there was the one with Donald Sutherland - 1978 - in which the final scene is almost terrifyingly bleak, when the "last human" as it were in the film learns that Jack Bauer's father has been taken too, and he turns and points at her and emits that bloodcurdling scream - look, it scared the s**t out of me as a kid and I really don't want to go looking for it on YouTube and relive that horror, so if you don't know it look it up yourself. It chills the hell out of you.

 

[Matt H.]

Thread Update:

I'm in the process of remodeling the head post of this thread and I am going to change the title too. I will be messing with the format and intro a bit. Add, edit, evaluate and repeat. Bear with me. Eventually soon I'll find a stable version.

It's a hec of a task to give each of these 100 or so pieces an individual and worthwhile critical analysis, (no duh, huh?). If I try, it's going to be a long, long road. So , I'm going piecemeal story by story, not in order. I'm making a read-twice goal, since they are short. I'll probably use them off and on to give me a break from Sci Fi novel servitude.

You know I still find myself subtly or unconsciously disrespecting tales at times just because of their length. But you really need to take them seriously as works, just as you would a novel. They are almost always, by necessity more dense, compact and often more intense! A story can easily have more punch than a novel. Poe himself had a special appreciation of the fact that a short story can be experienced completely in a sitting - it's just a different animal. (insert cat screech) From a reviewer's perspective, it's great fun, and nice that you can get 2-4 complete readings in for a work. On the other you need to come up with non-repetitive ways of saying the same thing 100 times, one for each mini-review. I'll have a couple to post momentarily.

 

[Matt H.]

I remodeled the Head Post significantly. Please take a look if you can.

The story titles in gray text are those I haven't read yet.

I will link the stories as I get a chance to write my little mini-responses. I like to learn and study this stuff, but jeepers, might be a while!

Already dreaming of part II - 7 more collections. It must have Matheson et al, and the post 30;s writers.

 

[Matt H.]

Which 7 would you select for Part II? Very Roughly 1935-1975

Criteria: Post Lovecraft writers up to let's arbitrarily say 1975. Matheson must be in there correct? Leiber of course. Bloch, Beaumont, Ligotti? Who are the seven, creme de la creme, considering influence and merit?

 

[oberon55]

A few off the top of my head:

Night Shift by Stephen King. It was published in 1978 but almost all of the stories are from the early 1970s.
Dark Gods by T. E. D. Klein.
The Vampire Archives - huge vampire anthology edited by Otto Penzler.

 

[Randy M.]

I think Ligotti was post-1975, at least the bulk of his work would be.

Depending on how strict you are, T. E. D. Klein's Dark Gods was published in the '80s and the earliest story was from 1979 per ISFDB.

Consider Ray Russell's Haunted Castles, which was reissued in an affordable trade paperback edition by Penguin and should still be available. "Sardonicus" is one of the better known Gothic stories from the early 1960s.

Leiber, Beaumont, Bloch are good choices. Shirley Jackson is another. John Collier, who wrote for the slicks rather than the pulps, was a great writer of short stories, and his Fancies and Goodnights has been reissued frequently since, most recently from NYRB in the U.S.

Ray Bradbury's The October Country would be a good choice, as would be Fred Brown's Nightmares & Geezenstacks. Note that collections by Collier, Bradbury, Beaumont and Brown tend to mix genres. Jackson, too, but there is a collection Dark Tales that pulls her darker stories together (except for "The Lottery").

If there was a collection of his darker stories, I'd suggest Theodore Sturgeon, but I'm unaware of one.

Other post-1935 writers of interest, L.P. Hartley (The Travelling Grave, specifically), H. R. Wakefield, Joseph Payne Brennan (not a favorite of mine, but others would disagree), Jane Rice -- this probably has more to do with my ignorance than with reality, but 1935 to 1975 there seem like few women writing horror; post-1975 the field started to expand. That said, I did read The Last Seance by Agatha Christie last year, and some of them are good. A collection of Margery Allingham's short stories I read also had a scattering of supernatural stories.

In genre, post-1935 could (probably too simplistically) be viewed as a movement from Weird Tales to Unknown. The latter was John W. Campbell Jr.'s fantasy magazine featuring his Astounding stable writing outside of their usual s.f. That includes Brown, Sturgeon, Boucher, Heinlein, Kuttner & Moore, Kornbluth, even Asimov.

Oberon's suggestion of Danse Macabre is a good one. King was very aware of this time period, and the work from it was formative for him.


Later addition: Robert Aickman. Duh. He called his work "strange stories," and that's pretty accurate. More allusive that direct, and maybe more unnerving for that reason. "Ringing the Changes", "The Hospice", "The Inner Room", "The Visiting Star" are very good stories, but don't be surprised if you find some more to your taste than others. I haven't read much beyond those, but I respect the view of a lot of readers I've talked to who consider him a great writer, not just a great ghost story writer.

Randy M.

 

[Matt H.]

I think Ligotti was post-1975, at least the bulk of his work would be.
...

Thanks Randy! You've supplied many useful, comprehensive replies and this is another. Now, like I said, it's just a matter of effectively noting your recommendations, and not losing them in the shuffle! It may be a while for me to get them, but I intend to check out as many as I can.

What makes for sensible "time-blocks"/author groups (7 each for symetry) to consider 20th-21st Century horror-story writers/collections? Part I would seem a slam dunk, no? The Blackwood, Machen, etc. generation. Should it be ended around 1935? (Lovecraft died in 36, I think) Should there be 3 parts? Beaumont, Matheson would seem to r be roughly from the *next* period (Part II) ... Should it go up to and include King? Or should he be in part III? I know this is an extremely subjective task, but would appreciate any thoughts... Mark, others?

Part I - 1900-1935? 7 (Machen, Blackwood, Smith, Benson, Chambers, Lovecraft, M.R. James)
Part II -1935-1970? 7 (Leiber, Beaumont, Matheson.... (need four more of comparable stature)
Part III- 1970-2020? 7 (?? need 7 "biggies")

Btw, agreed about How Fear Departed the Long Gallery, a sweet little gem. Wonder if Benson pioneered that kind of ending?

 

[Randy M.]

1970-2020 moves into the era of the horror novel. In the late '60s, early '70s big Rosemary's Baby, The Other and The Exorcist were major best-sellers that started the trend. If you're looking for writers from that period, they include but are not limited to, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz and John Saul as best-sellers. Other, less famous writers include Poppy Z. Brite, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Elizabeth Massie, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Tessier, Dennis Etchison, Lisa Tuttle, Nancy Collins, Storm Constantine, Tanith Lee, Patrick Susskind, Jonathan Aycliffe, Phil Rickman, Laird Barron, Conrad Williams, John Ford, Gemma Files, Jeffrey Ford, Kim Newman, Christopher Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Brian MacNaughton, Kathe Koja ...

And these are just the writers who wrote primarily in dark fantasy/horror who wrote something I like. There are many others I haven't read or only read stories by that I didn't care for.

Then there are writers who wrote primarily in other genres but contributed, like Joe Haldeman, Karen Joy Fowler, Angela Carter, Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Chabon.

Many of both kinds of writer wrote short stories, which remained (and I think still do) popular in the horror genre. Narrowing to seven may be more difficult in this time frame than in the others. Go out to ISFDB and check out the contents of the various "Best of" anthologies -- Ellen Datlow, Stephen Jones and more recently Paula Guran have been editors on the best known, although Karl Edward Wagner and Glen Page were editors on a '70s version -- and you'll see lots of names other than these.

Randy M.

 

[Matt H.]

Great stuff!

So you think, 1970 makes sense as a cut off? Sounds like it as per your post.

I wonder if I should dial-back the end date a few years... 2015? Even further? It's easier to estimate who has stood even a short test of time in influence, etc. looking back at least 5 years or so...

Also, I'm stuck (probably stupidly) on hard-copy, single author story collections, (collection selected or not by author)

(added)

King, Staub, Rice, Koontz, Saul - Do you think these best sellers are also among the best actual writers? Could any of them be nixed in favor of one more critically acclaimed, or highly esteemed by yourself?

Part I - 1900-1935 7 (Machen, Blackwood, Smith, Benson, Chambers, Lovecraft, M.R. James)
Part II -1935-1970 7 (Leiber, Beaumont, Matheson, Bloch,.... (need 2 more of comparable stature)
Part III-1970-2015 7 (Ligotti, King, Staub, Rice, Koontz, Saul, (need 1 more of comparable stature)

 

[oberon55]

I don't know how influential they were but I probably have the most short story collections from these three authors for 1970-2000.

Ramsey Campbell
Stephen King
Clive Barker

I have more anthologies than collections.

 

[Matt H.]

Story Responses -- 7 Pillars of Horror Part I

Robert Chambers, from The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories

The Key To Greif
Posted 10/23/2020 (v 1.4)

Keywords: Lynching; Hanging; Murder; Burial; Escape, Rising from grave, Crime and punishment; Delirium; Thirst; Hunger; Delirious visions; Extended doubtful realities; Native American culture; Young female; Appearing girl; Canoe; The ocean; Sea setting; Seashore setting; Nature journey; Forrest animals; Transgression avenged

This is a likable story, with, I believe a pretty easily nameable foible. On the one hand it’s a modern-seeming third person-limited narrative, with an action-packed beginning and some pretty writing. On the other hand, it eventually strays in tone and perhaps overdoes it on the "reverential" mythologizing. But even with this flaw, in parts it still achieves memorable effect.

It begins as a group of men are in the process of hanging the main character for shooting one of their brothers. He fights desperately and escapes to the nearby shore. Using a canoe he makes his way a forsaken ocean key -- “The Key to Grief.” Soon he escapes further and comes to “The Island of Grief.” On the island he has a vision involving a maiden. There is a suggestion of distorted time. His extended vision will have a rather sudden end though, and he will have to face his pursuers.

This tale opens plunging you into exciting action as the main character fights for his life to escape. It kept me very engaged afterward too, as we transition to his poetic delirium, and atmospheric nature passages on the island. These passages are calmer, plaintive and in a way they fade objective reality from the picture. It’s pretty prose and very effective. However with the appearance of the maiden a certain additional tone sets in. Suddenly there is a huge proliferation of Native American words, poems, invocations and references, especially when it comes to the names of animals. I think it might have worked quite well in smaller doses, but in this case it was too much and something of a spoiler. It rings a little false after a while and the torrential and reverential tone eventually starts to sound a little like a nursery rhyme. A shame, because aside from this problem I felt the tale is a relative gem. A memorable passage is early in the story where one of the men proclaims angrily and with creepy, absolute assurance that his dead brother can still see and will rise from the his shallow seashore sand grave to witness his murder avenged.

 

[Matt H.]

Story Responses -- 7 Pillars of Horror Part I

Algernon Blackwood, from Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories

The Glamour of the Snow
Posted 10/25/2020 (v 1.0)

Keywords: Divided worlds; Snow; Nature, Nature spirits (harmful), Paganism, Folklore-mythology, Young female, Disappearing girl, Seductive female spirit, Sports-leisure-tourism, Character as writer, Christian symbols as protection, Christian evil, Church, Vision-dream-hallucination ambiguity, Empirical evidence (missing)​

This story is recommendable and achieves an overall success. It is a shortish, quiet and mostly non-sensational tale, told in the third person with no framing devices or narrative complications. It is about an English Tourist, apparently a writer, who has a strange vision among the snow and slopes nearby a ski village. He is visited by a mysterious and attractive female figure who seems to beckon him… the way leads to wild abandon and mortal danger.

Even though it is largely an account of his mental state and development, this has mostly a firm sense of objective reality and reasonableness. The non-creepy setting of the tourist village and its partying inhabitants bolsters this. The protagonist lives with 3 worlds contesting for his affection, Peasant, Tourist and Nature. And this inward contest of worlds is a great device to explore his psyche and to develop the inner plot.

Like in several of Blackwood’s tales of this collection, a certain set of connections is made. Nature equals paganism which equals moral wrong which equals devil-worship. Their linking is certainly artful and is a major feature of the story. But whether this is an actual story moral or merely a device and a formula that works, I’m not sure. Nature is not neutral, or ambiguous here, nature is evil. In my opinion we are told a few too many time that Hibbert has a “pagan soul”, but this statement is out-of-the-blue and unelaborated. One can imagine the story fine, completely without the Christian evil theme overlay. Could it have been better? A potential, but perhaps much duller reading is “be a good Christian; don’t have a pagan soul, and don’t get too enamored of nature.” Though this possible message is fairly explicit, fortunately, by virtue of predominant effect this conclusion is somewhat submerged. I’m referring to the excellently decorated portrayal of a psychological journey while cleverly connecting it with the outer world. But the final statement hits an almost stereotyped horror motif - empirical evidence that should/shouldn’t be there. For me, that ending stumble slightly dimmed the story’s final luster.

 

[Randy M.]

Great stuff!

So you think, 1970 makes sense as a cut off? Sounds like it as per your post.

I wonder if I should dial-back the end date a few years... 2015? Even further? It's easier to estimate who has stood even a short test of time in influence, etc. looking back at least 5 years or so...

Also, I'm stuck (probably stupidly) on hard-copy, single author story collections, (collection selected or not by author)

(added)

King, Staub, Rice, Koontz, Saul - Do you think these best sellers are also among the best actual writers? Could any of them be nixed in favor of one more critically acclaimed, or highly esteemed by yourself?

Part I - 1900-1935 7 (Machen, Blackwood, Smith, Benson, Chambers, Lovecraft, M.R. James)
Part II -1935-1970 7 (Leiber, Beaumont, Matheson, Bloch,.... (need 2 more of comparable stature)

If it's up for a vote, I'd go with Shirley Jackson and Robert Aickman. Jackson's "The Lottery" is a quintessential American story, at least for its time, questioning the value of tradition; the stories by her I've read strike me as in line with the other writers you've chosen; David Hartwell said she once told him that she owned the complete run of Unknown magazine. Aickman on the other hand was non-pulp, and not really even genre, a particular literary sensibility possibly in line with an earlier writer like Walter de la Mare, producing stories more like those of de la Mare and maybe L. P. Hartley and Daphne du Maurier than with Bloch, et al.

Two others, Ray Bradbury and John Collier, would also make good choices. I'd almost go with Bradbury over Beaumont, much as I enjoy the latter's stories.

Part III-1970-2015 7 (Ligotti, King, Staub, Rice, Koontz, Saul, (need 1 more of comparable stature)

I think 1970 is okay, but the period stretches a bit far. The horror boom period started roughly in 1967 with Rosemary's Baby and ended by 1995. In that time period short story writers of note would include King (he is worth reading), Ramsey Campbell (very worth reading), Charles Grant (a favorite of many readers, but I've only found him okay), Dennis Etchison (I've only skimmed the surface of his work), Lisa Tuttle (I'm currently enjoying A Nest of Nightmares though she's probably not a major figure for her short work), Clive Barker (major figure, especially in his early short stories in The Books of Blood, but I've read only one story). Peter Straub is more of a novelist, but has written some really good short stories and novellas, like "The Ghost Village" and "Pork Pie Hat." I've read less than a handful of short stories by Thomas Tessier but judging by them and the three novels I've read by him, they would be worthwhile reading. Still, some major figures at the time, I have yet to dive into like David Schow, Chet Williamson, Steve Rasnic Tem, Melanie Tem, Nancy Collins, Richard Christian Matheson (son of the other Richard Matheson), Douglas E. Winter, Christopher Fowler, and on and on.

My interest in horror/dark fantasy started in the early '70s, but my interests were elsewhere by around '82 or '83, so I didn't keep up with the massive amount of horror being produced -- not a bad thing because a lot of it wasn't very good according to reasonable sources. I'm a bit more well-read in the period following 1995.

 

[Matt H.]

Story Responses -- 7 Pillars of Horror Part I

Robert Chambers, from The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories

A Pleasant Evening
Posted 10/25/2020 (v 1.1)

Keywords: Letter, Ships sunk, Destitution, Boss and job, Unjust accussal, Corpse in morgue, Disappearing female, War and military, Military betrayal, Confused identity, Corpse, Morgue, Journalism, Jewelry, Art-sketching, Zoo-Bronx, Doubtful realities, Empirical evidence-at end (present)​

This is not the most enjoyable of the Chambers tales. It has a complicated plot for its length that involves unjust accussals, sunken ships, ghostly letters, significant diamond rings and mistaken identities. It’s just too much to gracefully encompass. The protagonist is a journalistic sketch artist with an odd and ultra-demanding boss. The story unfolds as he performs his job duties and creates sketches of the zoo and other subjects. A strange, semi-destitute woman quickly becomes involved in events that at time seem to be partly a dream or hallucination. Mysterious letters are passed. There is a murder, and at the end the protagonist seems to have evidence that inexplicable, eerie events did in fact occur.

I’m sure there were pieces of the “puzzle” that I missed. A work can have puzzles, but their solution by the reader should never be depended on for the primary effect. Better yet puzzles should be explained clearly before the end of the story. I just didn’t quite get this one, and the jumble of themes produced a diffuse effect. This ends with the classic material object that is (or isn’t) where it should be – the sketch.

 

[Matt H.]

Story Responses -- 7 Pillars of Horror Part I

Robert Chambers, from The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories

The Harbor Master
Posted 10/25/2020 (v 1.2)

Keywords: Written message; Letter; Incredible text; Organization hierarchy; Traditional science; Zoology; Crypto-zoology; Zoo-Brooklyn; Significant voyage; Remote sea shore; Seafaring; Grumpy old man; Hard-ribbing; Empirical monster; Fish-man; Pretty female; Monster wants the girl; Flirtation with sexual suggestion; Young wise-ass; What did I just see?; Humor; Humorous post-script; Otter-illusion; Thrill of scientific discovery​

This story has a sense of fun to it and a fairly naturalistic and unencumbered narrative as well as a simple, comprehensible plot and action. I’d rate it as one of the better in the collection in terms of my precious “unity” of tone and effect. There’s more than a hint of a moral twist too. Upon further thought and perhaps second reading it reflects unkindly on the narrator in a fairly obvious way, and that complicates and deepens the story.

The first person protagonist is superintendent of water-fowl at the new, under construction Bronx Zoological gardens (recurring setting in Chambers). He goes to investigate a man claiming to have two extinct birds – great Awks. But there will be an additional Sci Fi twist – the Harbor Master. This story has a remote seashore setting and some brief seafaring details.

In a play on the reader's title-based expectations, it turns out that the “harbor master” isn’t a creepy old man, but a slimy, slate-grey, slippery, awful-gilled, eyelid-less fish man! You’ll find a nice goopy description of him as well as a good exposition of “what did I just see?” as the monster scuttles around and the narrator rubs his eyes. Poor monster! It’s almost impossible to believe Chambers didn’t imply some sympathy for him, especially on second reading. All they want to do is kill, kill, kill! I didn’t get the sense he actually harmed anyone. His sin is being weird and ugly and unknown, and worst of all apparently being attracted to the girl. Is this a comment against the big-game and hunting-gentleman ethos of an era – that generally animals are for killing, even the rarest ones? Or is it an affirmation of this ethos? There’s also a note of selfish desire of the narrator for the nurse too. He goes very hard on the flirting. Is “help her find her thimble” code for something?

For me there was not much thematic integration between the monster and the quest for the Awks, that I could see anyway. But a real charmer in this story is the character of the very grumpy “invalid” Halyard and his repartee with the narrator. It’s an engaging and believable antagonism and very hard ribbing is part of it. This is exactly what Halyard loves and needs, and Chambers does it well. The narrator is young, unflappable and smug.

The climactic scene has a little of bathos in it. The final stanza indicates, that though the story has a smidge of horror tale to it too, and certainly more of Sci Fi, in the end mild humor will be the final flavor.

 

[Matt H.]

Story Responses -- 7 Pillars of Horror Part I

Algernon Blackwood, from Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories

The Man Who Found Out
Posted 10/26/2020 (v 1.2)

Keywords: Double-life, Cursed artifact, Tablets, Indestructibility, Cursed text, Ancient religion, Undeciphered text, Archeology, Near-East desert, Personal transformation for the worse, Mesmerism, Mesmerism as cure, Religious scriptures, Journey-return-with-discovery, Secrets from wider world​

This is an excellent tale, and pretty much the highest exposition of the “cursed text” theme I can think of. (A better treatment than Chambers “The King in Yellow” or Machen “The Novel of the Black Seal”) It’s about a professor who finds religious scriptural tablets, buried in the sands of the Near East, that, once deciphered and translated have a devastating effect on those who read them. A student and protégé of the professor narrates the tale.

The professor has the traditional “double-life” of a horror-story character, in this case as an Archeologist and Occultist. Much of the impact here is, as usual in Blackwood, about personal transformation for the worse and various flavors and places in between scholarship and personal spirituality, science and the overtly occult, mental clarity and mental illness.

The greatness of this story is there is nothing approaching definitive, “objective” supernatural events. There are also no distracting complications, and nothing superfluous to the artistic result apparently intended. The fear impact in this story is in the reader’s imagining what might be in these horrendous scriptures. Does it deny God? Does it somehow shatter all faith or reveal some religious secret? How? Is it some awful addendum to Christian Scripture? In this case, the title hits like a sledge hammer – "The man who found out..." Yes, the truth! Beware of truths you really don’t want to know. They are out there, buried in desert sands. This is a top-notch, tightly crafted exposition of that idea.