I just finished reading The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror by David J. Skal and was so captivated, I decided to flip back to the beginning and start plowing through it again. Anybody who knows me at least reasonably well knows these 2 things. 1. I love the Universal Monsters in particular and classic era (1921-1941) horror in general to a degree most reasonable people would deem unhealthy and 2. I have no hobby more cherished than sussing out, assigning (I suppose in some cases outright inventing) and endlessly pontificating on the social and political origins, subtext and relevance of the horror genre. Therefore, it's a no brainer that this tome should have so thoroughly enraptured me. In essence, the book lays bare the gnarled roots of the horror genre, tracing them like dessicated veins back to the polluted wellspring of the first World War. The ghastly, ghost like mutilated veterans of that conflagration served as shameful, phantasmagoric reminders while the resultant global economic collapse deepened the still fresh wound and fostered a thick atmosphere of malaise, distrust and hopelessness. These unceasing stressors needed to be addressed, sigilized and therapeutically exorcised. Thus began the first great horror cycle proper and the proletariat's love affair with transforming their unspoken nightmares into dark cinematic iconography so as to safely comprehend, then symbolically dispel them.
Most folks I interact with, be it in the flesh or through technological screen, seem to think I place too much stock in my strained, crackpot theories concerning the monumental relevance of films as dubious and disparate as Tetsuo: the iron man, The Night Flier and (heaven forbid!) Rob Zombie's Halloween 2. I suppose it's no shocking revelation to admit that I walk through life with a heavy heart. Thinking too much, seeing that which might not be there and struggling with staring into the abyss of fathomless, unknowable eternity that awaits my unavoidable expiration. People often tell me to lighten up, but that strikes me as silly considering I've always been drawn to and fascinated by darkness. My first truly potent reaction to a film was James Whale's Frankenstein on Count Dracula Presents, an earnest, low budget horror host show on a local station. My father would haul the household television into my room on Saturday nights so I could cower under the covers and drift off to sleep while Frankenstein lumbered, The Mummy shambled and Colin Clive launched into histrionics. There was no way I could possibly intuit the subtext of these depression era shockers, I simply fell in love with the look and feel of them. The wafting fog and stilted melodrama. The sparse staging and chiaroscuro cadence of their aesthetic presentation captivated me. I wanted to live in ruined castles with gargantuan fireplaces illuminating cobwebbed corridors. I even asked my father if I could sleep in a coffin, a request he gently disparaged and wisely denied.
I strongly urge anyone with even a passing interest in the genesis of horror films to give Mr. Skal's book a shot. It's beautifully and passionately written, containing surprisingly florid and poetic insights concerning this dark carnival of human experience we all gain admittance to at birth. It has rekindled my burning passion for analytical film appreciation and instilled a cultural awareness whose significance extends beyond tabloid celebrities and fleeting teen sensations. Most people (especially film critics) are ignorantly dismissive of the genre and choose to bestow windy kudos on dramas that are dry, leaden and cloying, not to mention entirely forgotten once the Oscar dust settles. It's the monsters that are forever.
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