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Sun Spots, v. 7, issue 1, whole no. 27, Spring 1946
Page 9
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Spring, 1946 SUN SPOTS Page 9 THE COMMUNICATION OF HORROR By James D. Breckenridge To an average reader of supernatural fiction, it is disappointing to find that not one in fifty of the stories he reads in this field, both new ones published in magazines and supposed "classics" reprinted in the recent host of anthologies, actually provide him with the sensation of horror which is, in the final analysis, what he is looking for in such reading. The usual instrument of horror, unique to that form of literature (as against the plot machinations really common to all adventure fiction) is a monster of some sort. It does not matter whether the monster is a physical being, or an abstraction like a philosophy of evil; the writer's problem is just how he may represent his monster to his readers so as to achieve horror without absurdity. I should like to advance, then, two general rules as guides in this connection: first, that the monster, though as menacing and frightful as possible, should never be described too closely or literally; second, that the monster must have some resemblance, however distorted, to the familiar and even commonplace. As an illustration of our first proposition we need only point to the motion pictures. The eye of the camera is too accurate to leave anything to imagination, and it is from the imagination that the sensation of horror springs. It is for this reason that motion pictures can never be really horrifying to anyone over twelve years of age. Thus leaving aside the general run of Grade B chillers, on which not enough time or effort are expended for them to be respectable examples, even the renowned early Frankenstein pictures seldom got above the stage of being laughable. Attempts at surrealism and expressionism in the cinema, as in the case of a French version of "The Fall of the House of Usher" made over twenty years ago, usually fall short of anything really frightening, becoming more curiosities than anything else. The only exception is, of course, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", a phenomenon in film-making in many a strong vein of satire with really chilling terror. Such a picture, however, comes once in a lifetime, and the nearest approach to it so far in total effect has been a few of the scenes, notably the opera, the alcoholic ward, and the mouse-and-bat scene from "The Lost Weekend." The technical difficulties facing such an institution as Hollywood are almost insuperable. On the other hand, such a writer as Arthur Machen was often criticized for the vagueness of his monsters, the lack of reality in any of the dangers threatening his heroes. This criticism is not perhaps quite so valid to anyone at all conversant with the general lines of supernatural literature, and the latent connotations of Machen's horrors. Machen's monsters were intellectual ones, it's true, but quite dreadful none the less. The implications of danger in "The Great God Pan", for example, were presented in the
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Spring, 1946 SUN SPOTS Page 9 THE COMMUNICATION OF HORROR By James D. Breckenridge To an average reader of supernatural fiction, it is disappointing to find that not one in fifty of the stories he reads in this field, both new ones published in magazines and supposed "classics" reprinted in the recent host of anthologies, actually provide him with the sensation of horror which is, in the final analysis, what he is looking for in such reading. The usual instrument of horror, unique to that form of literature (as against the plot machinations really common to all adventure fiction) is a monster of some sort. It does not matter whether the monster is a physical being, or an abstraction like a philosophy of evil; the writer's problem is just how he may represent his monster to his readers so as to achieve horror without absurdity. I should like to advance, then, two general rules as guides in this connection: first, that the monster, though as menacing and frightful as possible, should never be described too closely or literally; second, that the monster must have some resemblance, however distorted, to the familiar and even commonplace. As an illustration of our first proposition we need only point to the motion pictures. The eye of the camera is too accurate to leave anything to imagination, and it is from the imagination that the sensation of horror springs. It is for this reason that motion pictures can never be really horrifying to anyone over twelve years of age. Thus leaving aside the general run of Grade B chillers, on which not enough time or effort are expended for them to be respectable examples, even the renowned early Frankenstein pictures seldom got above the stage of being laughable. Attempts at surrealism and expressionism in the cinema, as in the case of a French version of "The Fall of the House of Usher" made over twenty years ago, usually fall short of anything really frightening, becoming more curiosities than anything else. The only exception is, of course, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", a phenomenon in film-making in many a strong vein of satire with really chilling terror. Such a picture, however, comes once in a lifetime, and the nearest approach to it so far in total effect has been a few of the scenes, notably the opera, the alcoholic ward, and the mouse-and-bat scene from "The Lost Weekend." The technical difficulties facing such an institution as Hollywood are almost insuperable. On the other hand, such a writer as Arthur Machen was often criticized for the vagueness of his monsters, the lack of reality in any of the dangers threatening his heroes. This criticism is not perhaps quite so valid to anyone at all conversant with the general lines of supernatural literature, and the latent connotations of Machen's horrors. Machen's monsters were intellectual ones, it's true, but quite dreadful none the less. The implications of danger in "The Great God Pan", for example, were presented in the
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