The Book of Lists: Horror

by Wallace, Amy

  madness and murder, as the evil force within the trench takes possession of the soldiers one by one, forcing them to torture and kill one another. Filled with some astounding imagery, filmed with great care, Deathwatch is an intelligent, wellacted, surrealistic nightmare.

  Novella: Iverson’s Pits, by Dan Simmons

  A brilliant story-within-a-story about a young boy who, in the summer of 1913, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg, is assigned to chaperone one of the Civil War veterans who fought there. The soldier in question tells the boy an incredible story about an area of the battlefield that literally came alive during the fight, and the dark reasons behind it. Like all Simmons’s work, this novella is painstakingly researched and executed, containing a horrifying revelation and a final line that will send a trickle of ice down your spine.

  Song: “War Pigs,” by Black Sabbath

  In 1971, parents the world over heard a sound that convinced them the mouth of Hell had just opened and spewed out a river of Satan’s own spit; that sound, of course, was the opening of Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” the first cut on the first side of their classic second album, Paranoid. Instead of singing about the Vietnam War, Tony, Ozzy, Geezer, and Bill roared a powerful warning about the nuclear arms race. The lyrics are filled with unforgettable imagery that remains just as disturbing today as it was thirty-six years ago.

  3. Identity

  Movie: 3 Women (1977, directed by Robert Altman) One of the tag lines used to describe this indescribable masterpiece read: “1 woman became 2; 2 women became 3; 3 women became 1,” and while it’s not exactly wrong, it grossly oversimplifies this story about loneliness, denial of the Self, and the ultimate fragility of a human being’s individual identity. Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and the late Janice Rule give rich performances as the three women in question, all of whom meet at the same emotional and psychological crossroad: Duvall, as Millie, is heartbreaking as a woman who has embraced an identity that only she can see (while others mock her behind her back); Spacek, as Pinky, is an unstable lost soul in search of an identity, and soon becomes something of a chameleon, assuming the characteristics of whomever she feels closest to at the time; and Rule, as Willie, is an enigmatic artist who is pregnant and speaks not at all until near the film’s end. The scene where Willie miscarries her baby is one of the most horrifying, heart-wrenching, and mesmerizing sequences to come out of American films during the seventies; and the final scene will leave you numbed and trembling.

  Short Story: “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  A nameless narrator, suffering from what is now called postpartum depression, is taken on vacation by her physician husband, who locks her in an upstairs room of a colonial mansion and refuses to let her leave. Sinking further into depression and delusion, the narrator comes to believe that she herself has become consumed by the yellow wallpaper in the room, and, separating even more from her grasp of individual identity, vows to “free” the woman trapped there. Considered by many to be the first piece of feminist fiction, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is also a devastating study of a mind and personality that chips away before the reader’s eyes, until, in the end, it shatters.

  Song: “Angie Baby,” by Helen Reddy

  A haunting story-song of loneliness and madness about a young, friendless girl named Angie who is shut off from the outside world, taking solace in the music from her radio and the fantasy lovers who come at night to dance with her. When Angie is left alone in the house one night, a neighbor boy breaks into the house to rape her, but never gets the chance; Angie’s loneliness and fantasies have achieved sentience, and what happens next is worthy of Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Reddy’s lilting vocals provide a chilling contrast to the darkness at the core of the song, one that serves as a perfect bridge between 3 Women and “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

  4. Music

  Movie: Fingers (1978, written and directed by James Toback)

  Harvey Keitel delivers a fine performance as Jimmy Fingers, a young virtuoso pianist who also happens to work as a strongarm collector for his mob-connected loan-shark father. Torn between his loyalty to his father, his mentally ill mother, and his desire to rise above his station in life by pursuing his dream of becoming a concert pianist, Jimmy’s love of music becomes his own personal demon as the film progresses, and every time Keitel looks at the fingers on his hands, the viewer begins to fear the horrible alternatives Jimmy might be considering. (Did I forget to mention that, during all of the Sturm und Drang, Jimmy is preparing for an audition that could launch his career on the concert circuit?) The overripe script teeters uncomfortably close to camp melodrama, but Keitel’s commanding performance—and the shocking final ten minutes—keep this film from falling into a pit of bathos.

  Novella: The Unfinished Music, by Christopher Conlon

  “Dolly,” a music history and critical theory professor who is writing a book on Mahler’s uncompleted Tenth Symphony, accepts an invitation to visit with her sister Anne during a summer sabbatical. The sisters, who have never been close, circle one another with a painful caution, neither of them wanting to address the emotional abuse they suffered as children. Anne’s husband, Ben—a professor of biology at the local university— serves as a buffer between Anne and Dolly. During her first night at her sister’s house, Dolly discovers a small human fetus in a jar on the floor of her closet. As this astonishing novella progresses, Mahler’s unfinished symphony becomes less of an abstract metaphor and more of a sentient force as Dolly’s relationship with the fetus—which appears to be slowly coming back to life—deepens. On the surface, the story appears to be about familial bonds and how isolation can fragment an individual’s psyche; but look deeper, and you’ll find a frightening and poignant parable about the pain, fear, and madness that is necessary to bring anything—music, art, a human life, even the reclamation of one’s sanity and self-worth—into existence, and just how fragile a thing that existence can be.

  Music: Bug (Original Film Score), by Brian Tyler

  A cross between King Crimson during their Larks’ Tongues in Aspic/Starless and Bible Black period and the more melodic, less percussion-based music of Thomas Newman, the Bug soundtrack is a deliberately discordant yet simultaneously elegiac mini-symphony, both electronic and acoustic, that is not only perfectly suited to the great William Friedkin film for which it was written, but echoes in certain areas the variety of tones to be found in both Fingers and The Unfinished Music. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes achingly beautiful, but always compelling, Brian Tyler’s score is a shattering experience.

  5. The Safety of One’s Children

  Movie: The Offence (1973, directed by Sidney Lumet)

  After twenty years on the British police force, Detective Sergeant Johnson (Sean Connery) has seen too much: murders, rapes, beatings, torture, and countless other unspeakable crimes. He has seen so much that the images of these horrible crimes are all he can think about, and as a result, he’s a bomb waiting to explode—and explode he does: during a long and painful interrogation of a suspected child molester (Ian Bannen), Johnson realizes that he has become as much of a monster as those he’s spent decades pursuing, and when the suspected child molester forces him to admit that “. . . nothing I’ve done is half as terrible as the thoughts in your head,” Johnson beats him to death and must face an official inquiry. Written by the late John Hopkins (based on his stage play This Story of Yours) and told in a nonlinear fashion, The Offence is an emotional and intellectual powerhouse of a film, never daring to blink when illustrating the ugliest and most brutal layers of the human animal. Connery and Bannen are electrifying, the script is literate and pulls no punches, and Lumet’s direction harkens back to Fail-Safe in its ability to keep your stomach in knots from start to finish.

  Short Story: “Finding Amy,” by Stewart O’Nan

  Like The Offence, O’Nan’s tour de force of a story unfolds in a nonlinear fashion, and challenges the reader to fill in what at first app
ear to be blanks but are, in fact, time-shifts in the chronology of events designed to distract the reader from the ugly truth that lies at the story’s center: that the people surrounding little Amy, the missing child, are more concerned about how the events are going to affect them, than they are about finding Amy alive. Told in an almost clinically detached manner, “Finding Amy” is a harrowing experience, ending with a final paragraph that will both chill you and punch you right in the heart.

  Song: “Daddy,” by Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  ELP return to the softer, more understated days of their debut album with this song that unfolds as a monologue delivered by a spirit-broken father whose little girl fails to come home from school at her regular time. A search turns up her socks and shoes, and she is never seen again, but her voice, pleading, “Daddy, come take me home,” echoes in the father’s mind day and night. The use of a children’s choir—at first a single voice, and by the end of the song many voices—adds a discomforting note of utter hopelessness that makes this song difficult to confront for a second listening.

  6. Serial Killers/Mass Murderers

  Movie: The Boston Strangler (1968, directed by Richard Fleischer)

  Tony Curtis delivers a stunning, multilayered performance as Albert DeSalvo who, in the 1960s, murdered 13 women in the Boston area. Told in the style of police procedural documentary, The Boston Strangler has a gritty, intense tone that reaches a fever pitch by the time DeSalvo is taken into custody. Henry Fonda plays a surprisingly dislikable police detective, who tracks down DeSalvo and then must coax a confession from him. The finale—a long, suspenseful interrogation scene between Fonda and Curtis that equals Fonda’s call to the Kremlin in the original Fail-Safe for sheer mounting tension—is a dazzling showcase for both actors, ending with a long close-up of Curtis’s face frozen in an expression of madness that you won’t soon forget.

  Novella: The Escape Route, by Rod Serling

  Serling never received enough credit for his prose fiction, and this feverish, crackling, morally vindictive novella proves it. Later adapted for the television movie Night Gallery, the novella is a tighter, more intensely focused, and blisteringly angry piece of work, following SS Gruppenfuehrer Joseph Strobe, now a war criminal, hiding out in Argentina. Strobe’s dreams are filled with nightmare images of his being caught and brought to justice for the crimes he committed against Jews in the concentration camp he oversaw. Still convinced that he’s a victim of unjustified persecution—“We were just following orders”—Strobe finds his only solace in a painting at a local museum: a fisherman out in his small boat in the middle of a still, cool lake. Strobe slowly begins to convince himself that he can will himself into the painting, and eventually, for one second, achieves the goal before the museum’s closing bell snaps him back to reality. Soon after, he is recognized by a former inmate of the camp, who Strobe kills—but not before the man has informed the newly arrived Israeli authorities where Strobe is. The Israelis chase Strobe back to the museum, where he meets an ironic and wholly appropriate form of justice. Arguably Serling’s finest achievement as a short fiction writer.

  Song: “Ticking,” by Elton John

  The last few hours in the life of a young man who, reaching the end of his psychological rope, snaps in a diner, kills a waiter, and takes the rest of the customers hostage. Melodically lovely and lyrically horrifying, “Ticking” nearly equals Chapin’s “Sniper” for its portrayal of the inner agony of a man who finally breaks and takes several people with him.

  7. Second Chances

  Movie: Seconds (1966, directed by John Frankenheimer)

  Harlan Ellison once called this film “. . . one of the greatest horror movies ever made in this dimension or any other . . .” and I couldn’t agree more. Based on David Ely’s novel of the same name, it tells the story of a middle-aged businessman (portrayed by the great John Randolph) who has grown weary and depressed about his life. He turns to a mysterious organization that promises its clients a fresh start, a new life, a new form. It begins with the company arranging his “death,” using another body with the same physical characteristics but with all fingerprints, teeth, and other identifying pieces removed—in Randolph’s case, he “dies” in a hotel fire. After signing the agreement with the company, Randolph undergoes the surgery, becoming a “Second,” and—in the form of Rock Hudson—prepares to start his new life. But doubts and nagging guilt about the way he ruined his former life persist, and Hudson is drawn back to his now-widowed wife to see if he can figure out where he went wrong. A devastating study in how “you can’t go home again,” Seconds features surreal visuals, a tight, literate script, jaw-dropping photography by James Wong Howe, and Rock Hudson, delivering the finest performance of his career. Seconds also boasts a final three minutes that remain, for me, the single most terrifying closing sequence ever put on film.

  Novella: The Ballad of the Sad Café, by Carson McCullers

  A grotesquely poetic masterpiece, McCullers’s novella tells the story of Miss Amelia and her café, and how it came to be a “dreary,” boarded-up derelict of a building where, on occasion, a face can be spotted peeking out from behind one of the curtains. Miss Amelia runs the café, and though she treats her customers well, she has no friends to speak of, and has always been a little feared by the townspeople. Then her redemption arrives, in the form of a hunchbacked dwarf—her “Cousin Lymon,” who brings Miss Amelia out of her shell and transforms her before everyone’s eyes. Then Miss Amelia’s exhusband, Marvin Macy, shows up, and Cousin Lymon—in a fashion worthy of Iago—sets about turning the two against one another. A story that almost makes Flannery O’Connor look cheerful, The Ballad of the Sad Café is arguably the first Southern Gothic horror story, an exquisite, disturbing cautionary tale about the dangers of redemption, hope, and loving another human being.

  Song: “Bartender,” by the Dave Matthews Band

  A simple, long, bitter monologue delivered by a nameless narrator to an equally nameless bartender, filled with self-loathing and despair at the unspoken but strongly implied trail of lost second chances at redemption. By the end of the song, the narrator is no longer talking to the bartender, he’s praying to him, because all he’s got left is the bar, the drinking, and the man who serves the wine. Haunting and heartbreaking.

  And that will do it for this baker’s half-dozen of triple features. So the next time you want to enjoy a night of horror, remember: expand your definition of what constitutes the genre, as well as the methods used to explore the genre, and you might find that you’ll come up with some pretty interesting triple features of your own.

  FIVE SCARY TRADITIONAL HALLOWEEN STORIES

  1. “Cruachan” (ancient Celtic legend)—On Samhain (the Celts’ Halloween), a warrior named Nera first brings a corpse to life, then follows a fairy army into the underworld; a year later, he leads a raid on the underworld to steal an ancient crown, but winds up staying there forever.

  2. “Tamlane” (traditional Scottish ballad)— Janet falls in love with Tamlane, a young man stolen by fairies; her only chance to rescue him is to pull him from his horse when he rides with the fairies on Halloween night. The malevolent fairies turn Tamlane into a snake, a toad, and a burning iron, but Janet hangs on throughout and is finally triumphant.

  3. “The Young Man in the Fairy Knoll” (Irish folktale)— On Halloween, two young men are invited to join in a fairy dance. One young man sticks a needle in the doorway of the house, and escapes, but his friend is trapped in the fairy underworld. When he’s encountered a year later, he’s pulled from the underworld, but dies instantly, having danced himself to skin and bones.

  4. “Red Mike’s Rest” (Irish folktale)— An Irish Halloween party turns sour when local bully “Red Mike” (so called because of his red hair) draws a bad lot in a fortune-telling game. Red Mike curses the partygoers, then flees into a nearby bog and is never seen again. Although a priest removes the curse, all travelers are warned to avoid “Red Mike’s Rest.”

  5.
“November Eve” (Irish folktale)— A late-night traveler stumbles on a great Halloween gathering, full of dancing and drinking. Although he recognizes some of those present as fairies, it takes a while before he realizes the rest of the revelers are the spirits of the dead. He escapes, but the next day his arms are covered with bruises from where the ghosts grabbed him, trying to pull him into their dances.

  —L.M.

  MELISSA MIA HALL’S TEN FAVORITE

  HORRIFYING ARTISTS

  Melissa Mia Hall is an author and artist. A veteran book fiend, she contributes regularly to Publishers Weekly, sci-fi.com, and other venues. Her literary essays on the ghost and the siren in pop culture are included in Icons of the Supernatural, edited by S. T. Joshi. Her short fiction has appeared in many publications and anthologies, including Front Lines, edited by Denise Little, Cross Plains Universe, edited by Scott Cupp and Joe Lansdale, and Retro Pulp Tales, edited by Joe Lansdale. She edited and contributed to the 1997 anthology Wild Women, and her short story “Psychofemmes” was reprinted in the 1998 edition of The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

  Images that terrify can sometimes be oh-so-inspiring. This informal list focuses on just a few fantastic classic artists. A few of them influenced what I perceive as the post-Picasso period that began the Modern Art movement. (I didn’t include Picasso, but must also note that some of his work was pretty horrifying, including his impressive antiwar statement Guernica [1937].) Only four entries straddle my casual time-line cut-off: the surrealists Paul Delvaux (who died in 1994), René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, and Frida Kahlo. The artists are listed in no particular order, just as they popped into my head. Most of them also excelled in expressing lighter emotions and less terrifying subjects.