Intro/Clute

Hi all,

My name is Parker Dennison and this is the first time I’ve been associated with a blog outside of reading one. My only other experience with posting on a blog was the ill-fated attempt a friend and I had a couple of years ago with starting a sports blog (we signed up and everything!). So hopefully I’ll do better this time.

I have been a fan of horror in literature and movies for a long time. I grew up reading Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham because those were the books my Dad was in to, so I think that gave me a good start in horror, sci-fi, and thrillers. Of those, King is the one that I have read/enjoyed the most and still have the most to read of because he’s written roughly 700 novels and short stories. He wasn’t kidding about that constant reader thing if you want to finish all his work. I’ll also say that the only time I have ever had a nightmare from the reading of a book was while reading “IT,” so if you want one to really freak you out that is a good one to start with. Over the last few years I’ve gotten big into H.P. Lovecraft because it seems to me that he is writing a different type of horror story. Many horror stories have a single villain/monster that is the antagonist. Not Lovecraft, one monster is just not enough for him; he needs an entire mythology with ancient evils that cause insanity just by their mere presence. I love his use of the psychological horror that sometimes may only be hinted at. This type of psychological fear is what I really like in horror movies. My favorite horror films are “The Thing” and “Alien” because they mix themes like isolation, paranoia, and fear of the unknown with great sci-fi settings. Also I’m a sucker for slasher movies like the Halloween series, artistic value be damned. I’m looking forward to seeing the films we have ahead of us in this class and hope to get plenty more good recommendations.

I’m not as versed on sci-fi/fantasy movies and books as I’d like to be but I’ve got a decent enough background. Like I said I love Crichton because of his ability to write a great sci-fi story and back it up with enough research to make you wonder if his stories are actually possible. Of course I have made my way through the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings books a few times and loved them as it seems everyone here has. One of my favorite sci-fi series was the Ender’s Game series. They were great books to read when I was younger that made me much more interested in Sci-Fi as a genre. Also the sci-fi writer that I most want to get into is Vonnegut so maybe someone here has an idea on the best place to start.

As it goes with paranormal experiences I guess I have two:

1) I grew up in Elora, TN where we have a farm. My Dad grew up on the farm and said that he and my aunt would go down to the old train track that ran though part of it to see a ghostly light that would travel down the track some nights. He said the light was supposedly the ghost of a worker on the train who would get off the train at night to move debris off the track. He carried a lantern to see what he had to move off the track. One night he fell on the track and was run over by the train and from then on you could see a ghostly light moving down the track some nights. Clichéd I know, but that’s what he told me and my brother.

2) I moved to Huntsville, AL when I was 15 and the ghost story there was about “Dead Children’s Playground.” It is a small playground behind Maple Hill Cemetery which I believe is the oldest one in Huntsville. Supposedly there was a serial killer in the 50’s(?) that killed some children and buried them under the playground. Not sure about that but I will say that the Dead Children’s Playground is very freaky at night but we didn’t hear any children crying when we went there but we didn’t stay too long. Supposedly there is a group of Satanists that hold a ritual there every Halloween night, so that’s fun too.

On to Clute( finally, I know). This is a very interesting article and I definitely agree with most of it. To me he is saying that Horror as a genre is the reaction to the fear of the unknown about our surroundings that will always exist. We can learn everything we can about the world around us, but it will never be enough and there will always be something lurking in the darkness that we just don’t understand. His four-part model is also very interesting. I thought of the way Lovecraft sets up his stories immediately upon reading it. Lovecraft hints at a great evil in the world, builds up tension with the main character, reveals the horror to the main character, and then shows the protagonist that what they have seen is how the world is and there is nothing they can do about it. I love this idea in horror that the story can end without a happy ending and the story is better for it.