haunting | Lorelei By Starlight

If there’s ever a thesis to what I do, I suspect that’s it: everything matters. Especially the stuff you don’t want to.
– Stephen Graham Jones

I have been wanting to post on Stephen Graham Jones for a while now, but have been putting it off because when it’s something that means a lot to you, well you want to make sure you get it just right. I’m still not sure that I will get it “just right”, but I did just recently re-read his short story collection, The Ones That Got Away, and so it’s fresh in my mind. And, these stories were just as good reading them the second time around as they were the first. Why? I think it’s because he totally gets it. He seems to understand where fear lives in us. Sometimes it’s back in our childhood, connected to our first group of best friends, or the things that we did back then without fully comprehending the potential ramifications. Sometimes it’s in our adult relationships, based in our weaknesses and failings. Sometimes it’s just the unknown, the monster that is out there that we never even heard about until we’re having to deal with it.

In the story “The Ones Who Got Away”, he writes:

We should have cruised the bowling alley on the way up the hill that night, though. One last time. We should have coasted past the glass doors in slow-motion, our teeth set, our hands out the open window, palms to the outsides of the van doors as if holding them shut. The girls we never married would still be talking about us. We’d be the standard they measure their husbands against now. The ones who got away.

Several of these stories echo this same feeling of the invincibility of youth, the bittersweet memory we have of how that felt before it was snatched away from us. In Jones’s stories, though, this invincibility is not taken away simply by the normal trials of adulthood, but by events, sometimes supernatural, but just as often horrific and haunting tragedies. It’s all in how a person deals with these in the aftermath (well, if they have an aftermath). In some of these stories, it haunts a person until you can’t be sure if the creepy things they are seeing in the corners of those old photographs are real, or if they are just torturing themselves for their own inadequacies, for their inability to let go and just forget. Either way, though, the fear – that’s real.

I think the story that sticks with me hardest in this collection is “Raphael”. The kids in this story are a familiar motley crew of rejects, and they find solace in each other. But, one afternoon in the woods, playing at scaring each other with stories – something so innocent that we’ve all done it a hundred times – ends up changing all of them forever. Melanie will stick with me forever, as will Gabe and his sweet, pure love for her. And, as will the image that Jones leaves us with, that one moment suspended in time that changes everything. That one moment that you can’t ever take back.

A lot of Jones’s stories have to do with self-sacrifice or the memory of things you can’t take back. In “Father, Son, Holy Rabbit”, the father makes a tough decision in order to save his son. In “The Ones Who Got Away” and “Crawlspace”, we see people who have made decisions that changed everything, and not for the better. But, some of his stories have individuals dealing more solely with the unknown. In some, like “The Sons of Billy Clay”, their very humanity is threatened. In others, like “Wolf Island” and “Lonegan’s Luck”, they have a different, shall we say more complex, relationship with the unknown. The Ones That Got Away will stick with you. It will haunt you because its familiarity shows you just how close you can be to the terrifying without even knowing it.

For more on Stephen Graham Jones, check out his website and blog, Demon Theory.

One of the directors that I am always excited to see something new from is Guillermo del Toro. His films always seem to manage to strike a deep chord with me. There is a mixture of fantasy, horror, and beauty that is undeniably addictive. I think the first film of his that I saw was Cronos, about a delightfully creepy piece of scarab jewelry that likes to latch onto people and suck out their blood. (Interestingly enough, this only increased my interest in scarabs.) In return, it provides youth, but of course there is always a price for that sort of thing. And, in this case, there is someone else who wants the cronos device. Murder and mayhem ensue.

My favorite del Toro film, though, is The Devil’s Backbone, which I don’t think many people know about. It may be because this is foreign language film, and I think that they can often be overlooked. This, however, is one of the best ghost stories that I think I’ve ever seen. The setting for this film is an orphanage in the Spanish War. Carlos is the newest boy and, guided by a ghostly presence, stumbles upon a secret. This movie is scary. The lighting and cinematography is perfect, as always in del Toro films, and the ghost boy is just really creepy looking. However, the feeling of abandonment and desolation that is communicated by the setting and the theme of the orphanage just add to the overall atmosphere.

Pan’s Labyrinth — another foreign language film, which won three Oscars — is what really made del Toro popular. I love this movie, too. It shows off del Toro’s mastery of the dark fantastic at it’s best. From the grotesquely beautiful creatures that populate the fantasy world, to the stark, bleak realism of Ofelia’s existence in the household of her fascist stepfather, this movie is dark beauty. It’s an interesting take on Shakespeare, too. In this film, though, Ofelia’s fantasy world becomes visible to the viewer. We are able to see her reality and understand her attempt to escape and her hopes for an alternative life in which she is valued and loved.

In ventures into the mainstream, del Toro was successful in directing Mimic, with that creepy bug/man monster. I’ve watched that movie at least five times just for the thrill of horror at the scene where the darkness shrouded profile of a man morphs into something less than human. Shudder. He also directed the first two Hellboy films, and has been announced as the director for a third. These movies are an unbelievably fun blend of comedy and dark fantasy. Both films showcase the same interesting and haunting monsters that have begun to define del Toro, but the second film — Hellboy II: The Golden Army — which includes interactions with the dark fey and the fantastical underworld, really showcases the beauty I associate with a del Toro film. The lighting is always perfect for the scenes, and I especially like the depictions of the underworld characters and settings.

In addition to directing great films, there have also been several “Guillermo del Toro Presents” films that have been successful. These are typically films in which he has been involved as a producer, and this label has begun to be a good advertisement for the type of film to expect, since they do a great job of representing the dark fantastical and horrific that del Toro uses in his own work. The most recent of these was Mama, which twisted the lengths to which a mother would go to “care” for her children. Before that there was Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which provided me with some very good reasons to be afraid of the dark and avoid exploring small, enclosed spaces. This is a movie that shows in detail how all of the bad fairy tales can definitely come true and that the fairy creatures might not really be so nice and beautiful as we have previously been led to believe. Additionally, it is proven (once again!) that a cheaply obtained decrepit mansion is to be avoided at all costs.

But, before either of these, was yet another foreign language film that I haven’t heard many people talk about called The Orphanage. I think this is possibly one of the most haunting films that I have ever seen in my life. I own the film and have not been encouraged to rewatch it — the memories are enough. The plot focuses on a couple and their young son who have purchased a large house (yep, creepy large house at a bargain!) near the ocean. They intend to use the house as an orphanage for disabled children. However, on opening day, a child with a strange baglike mask over its face appears, disrupting the opening celebration and terrorizing the mother. Subsequently, her young son goes missing. The way that the story plays out is unexpected to say the least. Seriously, I think this one scarred me a little! (However, I would still definitely recommend it!)

So, with my love of del Toro and del Toro Presents films, I was excited to find the trilogy of books written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The Strain takes the pandemic and vampire apocalypse tales and adds a twist. Vampires have have arrived, taken over, and begun capturing humans and creating farms to ensure that they have enough blood to feed themselves. These books focus on how this depressing state of events starts, progresses (The Fall), and then comes to an end (The Night Eternal). These books are dark, like the vampire version of The Walking Dead. Humans have been reduced to a bare minimum of survivors and are resorting to eating cat food and, gulp, rats. These vampires definitely don’t “sparkle” and they are not busy becoming rock stars, they are organized and focused on taking over the world and completely enslaving the human race. We see a rag-tag team of heroes try to take on these monsters, and there is plenty of violence, blood, and gore. I definitely liked these books, but there was none of the redeeming beauty, dark as it may be, that we see in del Toro’s films. There is a blanket of hopelessness that covers these stories, and they were not a trilogy that I could have read quickly, one right after the other. So … great horror! It looks like there are plans for a TV mini-series in the works, so we may see The Strain on the screen soon. I highly recommend checking out the books first, though.