The Others: Bet You Didn't See That One Coming

Story time: I got my taste for the supernatural from my dad. While he slowly eased me into the world of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror with super hero cartoons every Saturday, it morphed into a shared interest in the paranormal. I was in middle school when he brought home The Others, starring Nicole Kidman and directed by Alejandro Amenábar. I remember watching it late one night on my laptop without any idea what it was about. All I knew was my dad wanted to see it so it must be good. I’ve always been decent at figuring out the ends of stories, and I wasn’t half bad even then. But what stuck with me even years after first seeing The Others was the thrill of not seeing it coming. I’ve only come across two stories that have completely caught me off guard with their twist endings, one being Dennis Lehane’s novel Shutter Island and the other being The Others.

I loved how unexpected the ending was when I first saw it, so much that the next day I watched it to see what clues I had missed. Several years’ worth of alleged maturity and wisdom later when I watched it for this class, I paid attention to every detail. The only indication I found of a major twist ending was that none of the wardrobe choices quite matched the style of the 1940s, which is when the story takes place. Yet the wardrobe choices were so subtle, I’m not sure I would’ve noticed them unless I was paying attention. If anyone found any other clues, please let me know!

When thinking about the twist ending of The Others and the lack of clues I found pointing to it, I couldn’t help but wonder if the twist was a bit of a cheat. It’s been my experience that twist endings all have clues pointing to them. The truly masterful twists leave clues that are so subtle, they’re hard to find unless you go looking for them. This held true in Shutter Island, yet not so much in The Others. Unless I’m missing something (which is very likely), it’s not that the clues were well hidden, there simply weren’t any.

While I love being taken off guard by an ending, I felt a little… well, betrayed. There’s a difference between being surprised and being blindsided, and The Others has left me blindsided multiple times even though I know what’s going to happen. No matter how I look at it, I keep coming back to deus ex machina--god from the machine. 

Yet, maybe that was the point of the story—not only to take a trope and turn it on its head, but to not let the viewers know they were watching the story upside down the entire time. As you might can guess, I have internal conflict over this movie and what the story achieves. I love it, I always will, but I feel gypped by the ending. There was nothing, not even in retrospect, to get me used to the idea that (SPOILER ALERT)

Nicole Kidman and her kids have been dead the entire time.

At the end of the day, The Others will remain one of my favorite movies. The atmosphere is spot on, the characters are memorable, and it has a twist ending that has stuck with me for about ten years. While I don’t want to translate Amenábar’s technique into my writing, I can respect it for leaving me breathless and wondering. 

I'll Have My Second Sight with a Side Order of Snow: The Shining by Stephen King

Ah, Stephen King. Why did it take me so long to finally read one of your horror novels? The world may never know.

The Shining by King was the first novel so far this term that I truly enjoyed reading. I went in with the expectations from what I know of the movie: Jack Nicholson with an axe and his head stuck through broken door slats shouting, “Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!” No, wait, that was the only expectation I had going into The Shining and that scene wasn’t even in the book. Ah well.

What The Shining did for me that the other books this term haven’t so far was fill me with a sense of dread. It wasn’t constant, else I probably would have been exhausted reading the doorstop of a thing. It was sprinkled throughout so that I was never quite comfortable. A huge part was due to a child being the catalyst for all the paranormal activity.

Danny being only six years old and having the hotel go after him because he has the Shine or Second Sight put me on edge. I like Danny. If he was real, I’d want to scoop him up in a hug and tell him everything will be okay. That the hotel wants his power to stay "alive" heightens the tension more than if it wanted an adult. My sympathy would have been less if Danny was older. Not because I’d necessarily like him less, but because I’d know he had more years of taking care of himself. Yet Danny is young, still learning how to read, and even though he’s exceptional for a six year old, he’s a child. The monsters kids fear lurk that in their closets or under their beds are real for Danny. Whenever the hotel would reach out to him, show him apparitions or put him in a trace, I wanted to yell, “He’s just a kid! Leave him alone!”

I didn’t find myself caring as much for the adult characters. A part of me knew that Jack would fall back into alcoholism, and it was difficult for me to sympathize with him after learning he had hurt Danny in an alcoholic rage. Wendy I could respect for doing what she coud to protect her son, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I particularly liked her. I wonder how I would have liked this book if I didn’t care so much for Danny. While the idea was compelling, it was my attachment to Danny that carried me through all 683 pages of my copy.

One thing I’d like to touch on separate from character appreciation is snow. I will readily admit to not reading much horror before starting at Seton Hill, so I’m still relatively new to the genre, but what is with snow and horror? I understand that it’s a challenge to the characters and can easily become a monster in of itself, but I’m already getting tired of it making an appearance. While I give King credit for making me nervous when the snow drift trapped Danny in the playground tube, later in that chapter, I couldn’t help but think I’d seen this before. Yes, snow sucks—it’s no secret I’m not a fan of it. It can make life miserable and if there’s enough of it, convey a sense of being trapped. I just seem to encounter it quite a bit in fiction, recently.

Snow or not, The Shining kept me turning the page to make sure Danny would make it safely to the end. I’m curious now to read more of King’s fiction, and still a bit guilty that I hadn’t read more of it sooner.

It's a Metaphor!: Ghost Story by Peter Straub

I will shamefully admit that I hadn’t heard of Peter Straub’s acclaimed novel Ghost Story before this class. When I checked it out before reading, I was excited. It had wonderful reviews and was endorsed by horror titan Stephen King as one of the best horror novels ever.

So imagine my disappointment at finding Ghost Story to be one of the more boring books I’ve read.

I wanted to like this book. Straub pays homage to literary heavyweights Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, and hints to Edgar Allen Poe through the writing itself, which affects the overall style of the novel. It’s always been my experience that the pacing of classic novels is slower than in modern novels, and for being published in 1979, I consider Ghost Story to be a modern novel. Yet after the prologue which was filled with intrigue and tension, the pace of the story slowed to a crawl. On page fifty of my edition, Sears James tells his story about Fenny and his brother Gregory. This story grabbed my interest. Yet once it was told, it wasn’t until page 200 when Don Wanderly tells his encounter with the mysterious Alma Mobley when the story grabbed my attention again. Yet after her story was told, my interest waned until the last page. Had I prepared myself for a story told in a more classic literary style, I might’ve more readily forgiven the slow pace. Yet by the time I realized this was partially how Straub was paying homage, I couldn’t connect with the story.

The lack of character connection also contributed to my struggle of connecting to the story. Straub utilizes an ensemble cast, and while I usually don’t mind head hopping or multiple POVs, it didn’t work for me in this book. There were so many characters and so many POV shifts that I never really cared for any of the characters. The closest I came was to Don during his entry about Alma, yet the story didn’t stay with him long enough for me to truly become vested in.

Finally, my last gripe. I thought it was safe to assume that with the title of Ghost Story this would be a story about ghosts. Yet look what happens to people who assume. On the surface, this is not a ghost story despite the title. The big bad is a Manitou, or shape shifter who has taken the form of many women—Alma Mobley included—in order to seek revenge for her murder fifty years before the book takes place. Her henchmen are referred to as vampires or werewolves. Now, I have no problem with beasties as the antagonists, yet I don’t considered monsters the same as ghosts. I felt mislead that the antagonist was a beastie as opposed to a ghost, even though I liked the idea of using a Manitou as the monster. The ghost in this story is metaphorical: it is the memory of murder that haunts the four old men that is the real ghost. Call me literal, but I wasn’t expecting metaphors.

There were elements of Ghost Story I enjoyed, and maybe I’d have a different impression of it if I went back and read it with the literary homage in mind. Yet after this first read, I didn’t think it lived up to the hype.