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Filipino and American Film Team Produces New Horror Thriller 'Darkest Night'
The Story Behind The Last Year
I grew up in a conservative Republican family in the South, and we were all traditional, Bible-oriented folks. Fundamentalist Protestantism was like water and air to us, so universal and ever-present, we never questioned it or realized how much it shaped our lives.
During my college days in Nashville, in the early 1970s, I rebelled and joined the "sixties culture." Soon afterward, I married and had a son. The necessities of family life forced my wife and me to leave the counterculture, so we joined the march of so many young Baby Boomer families, back to our “roots.” For us, this meant Christian fundamentalism (my wife had the same background as I) and yes, locking myself deep inside the closet. Of course, I had known since before my junior high days that I was gay and even took some tentative "coming out" steps in the sixties. However, in those days, everybody told me I could “change,” that it was a sixties phase, and yes, I believed them for a while.
So, armed with my newfound “faith,” I attended Evangel College in Springfield, Missouri, then Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois (near Chicago), both “Christian” schools. Along the way, my marriage fell apart, and my wife and I went our separate ways. Subsequently, I began questioning everything in my life. For certain, my efforts at remaining closeted were taking their toll. During my last year at Wheaton, I had my first gay love affair, and the changes in my thinking became complete. I had stepped out of the closet for good, including the prison of fundamentalism. When I left Wheaton, I knew I was leaving more that just a place.
My first gay partner and I stayed together for many years, a time of great change in my life. Eventually, I moved to Los Angeles in 1989 and settled down. I've lived in Southern California quietly ever since. Meanwhile, after I turned my back on Wheaton and during the 1980s, my former "orthodox" religious compatriots underwent a startling change. When I was a part of the movement, we were just a bunch of isolated “evangelicals.” Before my eyes, these same folks became a political movement dubbed “The Religious Right” by the press.
I watched these developments with quiet unease. Those of us who used to live in that right-wing culture know firsthand how much those people absolutely hate gays and lesbians. They are well-meaning in their intentions, for sure, but caught up all too much in a tidal wave of collective bigotry and prejudice. Over the years, my thoughts on spirituality and who I am changed so much, I quietly buried my memories of those conservative schools and my closeted past. More than anything else, I wanted to forget the pain of trying to hide my real self and putting up with the constant, virulent homophobia of such a parochial world.
I was almost successful, until the day a couple of years ago, when I heard of an interesting event. Some people were forming an organization, the Wheaton College Gay and Lesbian Alumni (WCGALA), and I got on their mailing list. Paul Phillips, of the gay music group, Romanovsky and Phillips, had been a “Wheatie” (school slang for a Wheaton student) and the driving force behind this new group. I happened to be a fan of their music and was truly amazed to find out Paul and I shared this experience in common. WCGALA began mailing out a newsletter, so I started reading articles and letters from others who shared similar experiences to mine. Often I found myself nearly overcome with emotion. As buried experiences came back to my remembrance one by one, I realized my life in the evangelical world had shaped me more than I ever realized.
A lot of folks call Wheaton the Harvard of the Religious Right. Much of the thought and rationale of that entire movement began there. For example, Wheaton is Billy Graham's alma mater, and in many ways, it remains the intellectual "buckle" of the Bible belt. For those of us who attended Wheaton and were gay or lesbian, it was the best and worst of times. We remember the homophobia, yes, but also the friends and security we had to leave behind. In my life, the memories were even more poignant, because that world, of all places, was where I had my coming-out experience.
In early 1995, I took on the role of Southern California Coordinator for WCGALA. Our regional group of about a dozen people started getting together for times of sharing and reminiscing. These events accelerated my own personal “memory recovery” process. Then one night, I had a vivid dream. I saw a young guy, college-aged, driving a small red Volkswagen bug (like one I used to have) across an autumn, Midwestern landscape. He was alone and seemed determined. I asked myself, “Where is he going?” The answer, of course, was back to Wheaton. I woke up, knowing I had to write about his story. It was, of course, my own.
The clarity of the dream, especially the color and beauty back east during fall, made me want to see the events take place, not just put them down in words. These images had to become a film, and the idea gripped me so profoundly, I couldn't rest until it came to life as a screenplay. The guy in the Volkswagen became the main character, Paul, and the rest of his story soon came to life. Once I had finished the work, I realized that Hollywood's aversion to gay subject matter during the late 1990s would prevent me from getting it through any of the "accepted routes." So I put aside the normal pathways of sending scripts to agents and film companies. Instead, I set out on the independent road to getting this film produced. Since then, many others joined with me, including a director, Jeff London, and actors.
Finally, in 2002, London and Guardian Pictures produced the The Last Year. It opened to critical and festival success, but was quickly dragged down by needless controversy. Protests from the Religious Right limited its acceptability in theaters, and even got it banned from many "red state" video stores after its release on DVD. From the other side, scores of self-proclaimed "critics" and "auteurs" put the film down because of its perceived low-budget "rough edges" and London's in-your-face, guerilla filmmaking style. Sadly, the majority of these nay-sayers were gay themselves. What does that say about us as a "community?" Many of them proclaimed the film shouldn't have been made in the first place.
So why was there a need for this film? Essentially, it proves the lie of the Religious Right's cliché that they “hate the sin and love the sinner.” If anything, they hate us, as gay and lesbian people, even more than sin. And most of all they despise those of us “queers” who sojourn in their midst. We are (or were) deceivers, outsiders wearing and profaning the cloak of the elect. If they could, they would condemn us to the lowest levels of hell. We are the obvious and unavoidable signs that homosexuality comes from “us,” all of us, and not just “them.”
Happily, critics who wanted to bury The Last Year didn't succeed. Its main audience, those of us who actually lived this story one way or another, have seen and loved this film. Though The Last Year never received great media acclamation, largely it did serve its purpose. The film reached and moved those who share the experiences it portrays.
In many ways, The Last Year is autobiographical, but just partly. I have changed many of the names and circumstances for dramatic or protective reasons. For example, I was older than Paul while at Wheaton and Evangel. Eastmont College is not Wheaton but actually a composite of three Christian schools I attended. My romantic opposite at Wheaton was not a fellow student but instead a young townie, a part of the college crowd. I was lucky enough to keep my love a secret and graduate, though I had a close friend (the model for Hector) who was not so fortunate and almost had his life destroyed by the terrible experience. Finally, yes, the tragic suicide of a gay student did happen at Wheaton, but under different circumstances and a few years after I graduated.
Still, the main thrust of The Last Year is true and its theme universal. The human heart and nature will always rebel against tyranny because its tendency toward fascism is spiritually diseased and inhuman. This statement remains true, whether fascism masquerades as the “big lies” of despot or as the “sincere” self-righteousness of a religious movement. Does anyone remember the Spanish Inquisition? I firmly believe that runaway religious fanaticism and fundamentalism, whether Christian, Muslim, or whatever its roots, has become the greatest threat in our time, to decent civilization.
Unfortunately, a revolution against this kind of inhumanity brings out the worst, as well as the best, that is in us. However, I also believe that in the long run, freedom, compassion, personal loyalty, humanity, and above all, justice will prevail.
Neo-Medievalist Manifesto - Introduction
Neo-Medievalism at the Crossroads of the Middle Ages, Christianity, and Gothicism
Underlying the sunny optimism of modernist and postmodernist thinking in today's world lies a stark shadow. No matter how one views the future pathways and opportunities of our contemporary era, a basic, widespread, and disturbing trend of the twentieth century continues unabated into the twenty-first. Culturally, socially, and above all, spiritually the fundamental forces shaping global society, with few exceptions, are leading us into disintegration. In fact, one could easily argue that accelerating spiritual entropy is the defining characteristic of our current age.
No matter if we examine religion, morality, ethics, transcendent thought, or any of our social organizations charged with promoting these goals, we get the same result. We live in an age of spiritual decay. Why is this important to realize? Is spirituality necessary or even significant nowadays? In view of the problems, excesses, and even horrendous abuses of religion across the world and over the centuries, many proclaim we would all be better off without spirituality. They would see its disintegration, especially in our "Western" world as a triumph. "Good riddance," would be the common response. Especially in view of things like the Crusades, the Medieval Inquisitions, runaway religious fundamentalism, and even 9/11, spirituality might seem more of a hindrance to humankind, instead of a help.
The literary genre in writing and fiction, which deals most directly with spiritual disintegration, is the Gothic. It is no accident that Gothic literature was born in 1764 CE (or AD) with Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Otranto, in the midst of the Enlightenment era. This time was the so-called "Age of Reason" (roughly the 1700s), the era when human rationality supposedly triumphed over superstition and religion. The most influential thinkers of the eighteenth century declared all things supernatural to be dead and celebrated their funeral. Yet, human beings appear to have a need for the mysterious, supernatural, and even the irrational or abnormal. Gothic thought and literature became the dark twin of a heady Romantic movement emerging from the 1700s Enlightenment. Amazingly, Gothicism, in spite of its often negative viewpoint, survived into the 1800s and beyond.
The ideals or Romanticism have their polar opposites in Gothicism. Romanticism declares that human beings have freedom from the past and an unlimited future. Gothic thought says we're chained to history and maybe have no future in this world. The Romantic sees himself or herself as the main agent of action. The Gothic remains more fatalistic, finding human action influenced by powers beyond our control, agents of the supernatural, unknown, or irrationality within. Finally, the Romantic ideal posits human progress onward and upward toward finding a utopian or near-perfect world. Gothic realism accedes to the inevitability of disintegration and death. It believes that almost all human endeavors end in doom and destruction, even the worldly drive toward a better world. Continual entropy without ceasing is its melancholy motto.
This Romantic/Gothic polarity is not just a choice between optimism and pessimism. The difference between the two extremes represents a duality of human thought in the Western World. This conflict between worldviews began subtly in the mid 1700s and is still with us to an even greater degree today. Is human progress toward continuing social and personal improvement inevitable and continuing? Or, like the Roman Empire, are all societies and human efforts doomed to failure and fall?
When examining their histories, one quickly realizes the Romantic and Gothic philosophies did not emerge from out of nowhere. Centuries of European thought preceded them, going back to the ancient world. In the sixth century, with the exception of Christianity, the Greco-Roman worldviews dominant during antiquity collapsed along with the Roman Empire. Afterward, the so-called Dark Ages covered almost all of Europe. During this era, little progressive or independent thought emerged beyond assiduous work in monasteries to preserve what was left of earlier writings. As these "classical" writings gradually emerged in a more educated West after Charlemagne in France (in the tenth century), the Middle Ages era was born. Medieval thought and philosophy built on and extended the ideas of the preserved ancient writings.
This re-emergence of European civilization grew up within the strong framework of the Church and Christian theology in that era. From around 900 to 1400, a powerful, unified system of thought and worldview arose and flourished, influenced by classical writings and of course, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Early Medieval authorities and the Church helped to structure and certainly enforced this new culture. It is interesting to note that the Christianity of this era emerged as a much different religion from what was practiced in antiquity.
This new Western system of thought and worldview constituted what the theologian Arthur C. Custance has called the "Medieval synthesis." In essence, this new Church-centered system became the foundation of all human life, work, thought, and interaction. Almost every facet of European civilization found unity and stability within this system. The tenets of this "new" Christianity rested on the supremacy of the Church and upholding as authoritative whatever it said was right and wrong. During this era the Church defined, strongly believed in, and propagated what became the Medieval ideals of everything from family life and community to economics, politics, and war.
As a result, from around 1100 until the Renaissance, this strong consensus on what constituted right and wrong came to pervade the entire culture. European society's unanimity centered on the Church. The bishops and other Church leaders determined all parameters of human life and behavior in the Middle Ages. Generally, this lifestyle combined post-Roman feudal manorial economics, divinely blessed kings as autocratic political leaders, relatively (compared to ancient times) civilized, limited warfare, and church dogma as the totality of human morality, ethics, and spirituality. Like it or not, our own contemporary Western culture grew from these Medieval roots and shares much in common with those times.
Examples of essential values in our society we have inherited from the Middle Ages are:
- Belief in the importance of monogamy and the family as a primary social good
- Conviction that government's main functions are to restrain violence and promote justice
- Importance of education and learning as an antidote to the ills of ignorance and illiteracy
- Restraint of the excesses of warfare
- Building community and good community relations as the foundation of a stable society
- Promoting the ideal that the best use of wealth is for endeavors that promote social well-being
- Emphasis on perpetuating the ideals of ancient eras as found in their surviving writings, for example, scriptures, philosophy, science, and literature
- Promoting and improving the arts, craftsmanship, science, and technology, as understood by each generation
As mentioned earlier, the Christianity of the Middle Ages differed markedly from that of earlier times. In essence, the main difference in Christianity from previous eras was that increasingly, after 900, the Church and its dogma prevailed over all disagreements and alternative beliefs. The earlier church was only one of many religions in Europe and tended to follow the Bible (Hebrew scriptures plus 27 books of the first-century "New Testament") along with various and often contradictory traditions handed down from nascent Christianity. Before 900 and especially before 312 when Roman Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the empire's "official" religion, Christian practice and belief was localized and extremely diverse. So-called "pagan" religions strongly influenced individual church assemblies. Common religious values and observances varied greatly from place to place in Europe, even after Constantine.
From the time of Pope Leo III and Charlemagne (early 800s) to Pope Gregory VII and the East/West schism (1000s), this diversity was slowly crushed, especially in the Western Church. In the new era after 1100, what the bishops said was law, regardless of earlier beliefs. These bishops included the Roman Pope and Eastern Patriarch of Constantinople, after the East and West had split around 1035. Church pronouncements could change, but if the new "law" differed from the old, then so be it. Everyone, including kings and knights, lived and died under the power of the Church and its proclaimed dogma.
There were obvious drawbacks to this "new" worldview. The Church during this time was accountable to no other authority (apart from its concept of God and Christ) and often far from perfect. There were numerous instances of corruption and persecution, as well as crusades and inquisitions. Heretics and witches suffered death, while conversion to the faith often happened at sword point. However, in fairness to the Middle Ages, no era or civilization of humankind has ever been perfect, just as our own time is far from any kind of shining model.
Of course, some remnants of the old Christianity did survive into the Medieval era. For example, the church co-opted and even institutionalized many pagan practices, for example, exalting the Virgin Mary to replace pagan mother-type goddesses. Much of the earlier spirituality of the pre-fourth century church survived in the monastic movement. However, these types of remnants were either totally “laundered” for the new society of the age or marginalized into the monasteries. The main stream of European culture gradually adopted the organized church’s and aristocrats’ version of Christianity, for better and worse, a new synthesis of the faith and society.
Then, after 1400, this Medieval synthesis began to break down, as influences from eastern cultures flowed into Europe, for example, via Marco Polo (who opened Chinese trade to Europe), as well as others. Change is neither right nor wrong of course, but historically, it was inevitable. The rise of nations and nationalism, immigration to and opening the New World, the Renaissance and Reformation, and finally rationalism (the "Age of Reason") and modern science and technology all shook the foundations of the Medieval synthesis. It was replaced with a Balkanized "crazy quilt" of ideologies, philosophies, and worldviews. During the 1700 to 1900 period, many new worldview systems in the Western world were competing for adherents outside the Church.
By the mid 1800s, Romanticism and Gothicism were only two of a multitude of confusing choices between "philosophies." Since 1764 and the birth of Gothicism, many major and often conflicting systems have risen and fallen. Romanticism, as a widespread Western quasi-faith, died a tortured death on the battlefields of World War I (1914 - 1918). Even the most powerful and widespread of the ideologies to emerge from this period, Communism, finally fell during the early 1990s. Of course, various kinds of Christianity continued to flourish, albeit “modernized” to meet the changing culture. Interestingly, of all the extra-religious ideological movements that began and flourished in the Western world after 1700, Gothicism remains one of the most vibrant, relevant, and widely popular in today's times.
The Gothic mystique, as pop movement, literature, art, and even lifestyle, still influences the modern mind. What is Gothicism? As it was broadly expressed in its early literature, it is a worldview that life is the product of fatally conflicting and dark forces. Gothicism believes that human life is primarily shaped by the convergence of a dark history with a claustrophobic present, which causes a sickening descent into disintegration influenced by the supernatural, unknown, or irrational. Over time, many creative thinkers and writers have applied these literary ideas to other areas of thought and endeavor. As a result, Gothicism has morphed into almost any kind of art, philosophy, worldview, or lifestyle strongly influenced by or based on this original literary viewpoint.
Unfortunately, to most people in modern America, the Gothic sensibility often comes off like a horror movie dramatized in real life. To others, Gothicism describes the reality of modern civilization. Which concept a person believes in depends on his or her point of view. Those at the top of our social order have the luxury of denying the entropy of modernity. Money and power give one a feeling of being immune to disintegration. Those at society's bottom, or who perceive our culture’s darker underside, tend to see and experience America’s inward decay much more strongly.
Of course, the true victims of our modern order, persons who feel oppressed or left behind, react to their plight in widely different ways. They come apart emotionally or go insane, drop out of the accepted social order and defy conformism, turn to some kind of fundamentalist religion that offers a false sense of integration, or worst, become fascists, trying to regain a false feeling of control over their own lives, which was taken from them by society's cultural collapse. However, many others respond to these same forces by adopting the Gothic worldview.
Among the nonconformists who perceive America's (and the global order's) inevitable implosion, the Goth and Gothically inclined represent a major subgroup. Given the history and meaning of Gothicism, it is easy to see why. Though often not literally oppressed by society in any way and sometimes even affluent, the Goth subculture members in Western society perceive our cultural collapse for a variety of reasons. Usually, it is because they are both nonconformist and rooted in the Gothic tradition, which naturally focuses on the "dark" side of society.
Generally the Goth lifestyle associates itself with the extremes of depression and preoccupation with death. The unique Gothic sensibility often arises in individuals who, because of personal sensitivity or intuition, become acutely aware of our culture's weak, crumbling underbelly of decay. However, the present and historical strength of the Goth viewpoint has to arise from more than just a mournful yelp of protest. To offer a viable response to cultural collapse that is more than self-centered posing, the Goth worldview must move beyond nonconformity to embrace a positive acceptance of the Gothic tradition. This affirmation is at its best when founded on a belief in some kind of supernatural order.
In this view, such an affirmation leads one to a larger, more all-encompassing tradition, deriving from the highest ideals of the Middle Ages. Take this tradition and shear it of all the negativity discussed previously (narrow-mindedness, dogmatism, sexism, and so on), and the result takes one beyond the historical Medieval synthesis. Following this path, one can emerge into a modern, positive philosophy and worldview that the author refers to as "Neo-Medievalism." This Gothic system of thought transcends the old pitfalls of original Medievalism and reinterprets the best of its traditions in light of modern life and contemporary human needs. More importantly, such a "renewed" Medievalism offers a positive response to the cultural disintegration we find inherent in our decaying society. Yes, the materialistic, trivializing, jingoistic, pop-spiritual shallow, and politically and ethically corrupt nature of our culture can be intensely depressing. The Neo-Medievalist Gothic mindset moves beyond bemoaning the ills of modernity and builds a positive, coherent worldview. This philosophy responds to such despair with a new hope that is both genuinely Goth and affirming at the same time.
Of course, no one is recommending a return to a regime of autocratic bishops or power-hungry kings. Also, the Medieval synthesis never meant theocracy. Even during the Middle Ages, though there was no separation of church and state as we know it, kings and bishops retained their distinct sets of powers, and political rulers never let the Church entirely run Europe. The Church did not try to usurp the prerogatives of kings. Any form of Gothicism or Medievalism can become a reactionary movement bent on returning modern society to an idealized "golden age" that never truly existed. No society is perfect or ideal. All that any worldview or philosophy can do is try to apply the best of its ideals to the realities of current existence.
Neo-Medievalism means integrating Medieval Christianity and lifestyle with the Gothic tradition and using the Medieval synthesis, in a modern context, as a guide to overcoming cultural disintegration. Placing this concept in contemporary times means stripping out obsolete, ignorant, and destructive Medieval customs and ideas. More importantly, such a "reintegrated" lifestyle provides a positive response to the forces of death and destruction in our society, just as the early Medieval reconstruction of European society after 900 rescued its citizens from the Dark Age. Also, this constructive Gothic response offers a more attractive alternative to fatalism in our society than the standard outcries of "gloom and doom" from Goth and other similar quarters.
Taking a longer view, many serious problems hover over our modern world and cloud our future. The “new global order” may end up coming apart and instead bring on a new Dark Age, if it has not already. This is not inevitable of course, but few would argue that many in our modern world grapple with a real Dark Age of the human spirit. This failure of will may soon lead to even greater social, cultural, political, and economic disintegration in our society. What positive values does the Medieval synthesis and Neo-Medievalism have to offer our modern culture? How can this worldview provide a "light" at the end of a dark Goth-centered tunnel? Can the two viewpoints work together to offer hope to today's society in America and elsewhere? These are important questions that the author hopes to address in this blog commentary.
In future essays, these subjects and related thoughts and concepts, will be explored from a Neo-Medievalist perspective, under the following categories:
- Personal lifestyle and ethics
- Social and cultural life
- Art and the role of the artist
- Religious, theological, and spiritual implications
- Political organization
- Economics
Citations of Sources
Because of space limitations, readability, and the primitive nature of the word-processing tools in this blog, I am not including elaborate footnotes and citations with this series of commentaries. Here is a list of the authors of my bibliographic sources:
Religion, theology, and spirituality:
- Arthur C. Custance
- Robert Webber
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Karl Barth
- Gavin Baddeley
- Catherine Spooner
- Nancy Kilpatrick
- Barbara H. Rosenwein
- C.H. Lawrence
- Charles Raymond Beazley
- James Marchand
- Umberto Eco
- Cary John Lenehan
- David Ketterer
- Eddo Stern
Choose Your 'Poison': Horror or Gothic
When you start to write, direct or produce "horror" stories or any feature film fiction of this type, one of the most helpful questions you can ask yourself is "Am I really doing a horror story?" This may sound like a strange question, but actually there is much confusion nowadays between horror and Gothic storylines. The two genres are closely related but remain totally different animals. There are other similar questions you should also ask as well. If you want to do horror, is your story really Gothic with a horror disguise? Is it Gothic horror, and if so, how much is it one or the other?
Most people can easily distinguish horror stories, but don't have a clue about what constitutes the Gothic tale. Horror is scary, right? The fear element definitely predominates. Gothic may or may not be scary. If it's Gothic and scary, you have Gothic horror. The first Gothic story (actually a novel) was written by Horace Walpole in England in 1764, a ghost story of sorts titled The Castle of Otranto. Its success began a thriving literary trend, first in England and then, by the nineteenth century, all over the world.
The horror genre sprang from Gothic literature during the early 1800s, almost simultaneously in Great Britain and the U.S. By 1850, horror stories were a thriving genre all their own worldwide, along with their purely Gothic brethren. Incidentally, not only horror, but crime drama, Medieval-type fantasy (think "Middle Earth"), and even science fiction all originated from the Gothic literary stream.
Description of Gothic Vs. Horror Fiction
So what is Gothic fiction? Chris Baldick's "Introduction" to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales defines a Gothic text as being made up of "a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space, these two dimensions reinforcing one another to produce an impression of a sickening descent into disintegration." I would add that the agent producing this disintegration is of a supernatural, preternatural (mysterious/unknown), or fantasy/psychotic-related origin.
So, for a story to be Gothic, some kind of dark history has to be there. For example, an evil from the past confronts a group of people in an isolated area. The isolation equals claustrophobia. So how does this group react? If the fear element is strong, you have Gothic horror. On the other hand, such a story can be merely suspenseful, without being scary at all. Keep in mind that the claustrophobic "area" can also be within a person’s own mind, for example, someone in an extremely dreamy, deranged, drug-induced or nearly psychotic state.
An essential element of the Gothic is almost always "romance," either the erotic or literary type, or both. What is "literary" Romanticism? Well, check out the classic American horror author, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). His stories are mostly lacking in man/woman romance but are full of dark, literary Romanticism, that is, things like old castles and ruins, persons near-madness, damned souls, unspeakable desires, darkly mysterious elements, people attaining "freedom" as stark isolation and so on. Just as Baldick leaves out the supernatural, which surely "haunts" much within the Gothic territory, he omits romance and Romanticism as well.
Nowadays, if you want to write a good Gothic story, especially one that sells, "romantic" almost always means a male and female in love. To hold your audience in today's world, you need to have a strong romantic interest to animate your plot. Doomed or daunting love is the Gothic romantic theme par excellence. However, you can also have it both ways, as does Emily Brontë (English, 1818-1848) in her novel Wuthering Heights. Brontë's main storyline is about a tragic romance, but she manages to insert a romantic subplot with a happy ending. Also, her story contains both literary and man-woman romance. Volumes have been written about the relation between the Gothic and Romantic. All you really need to know about the two is that to write a successful Gothic story, in the words of the song, "You can't have one without the other."
If Emily Brontë (and her sister Charlotte, 1816-1855) typify the romantic end of the Gothic spectrum, authors like Poe and H.P. Lovecraft (also American, 1890-1937) champion the horror side. With these authors, the evil from the past confronts and overwhelms its lonely, forsaken victims, and they're usually damned forever. Whether the main characters in Gothic horror are trapped in a threatening location or within their own tormented souls, they writhe in abject fear until they meet their untimely demise, or worse, a "lifetime" of some type of living death, insanity, agony or eternal condemnation.
Gothic & Horror Stories in Film
In film, an excellent example of a "purely" Gothic tale is The Sixth Sense (1999). Called by Hollywood a "supernatural thriller," this story is actually Gothic in the best sense of the word. Without retelling the whole plot line here (the film is available on DVD if you haven't seen it), let's check out why Gothic story elements clearly predominate.
The main character feels trapped by what happened to him in his own past history and senses a disintegration and isolation in his life, all of which he cannot understand. The theme of the supernatural is established early on by the boy with strange visions of dead persons. The romantic element clearly predominates, with the focus on the main character's relationship with his wife, and in fact this entire story turns on this man's undying love for her. In the end, the tragic reason his life has "fallen apart" stunningly reveals itself. Death has indeed triumphed over love, but there's a final hope that love can be stronger than death. This is authentic Gothic stuff and could have easily been penned by a modern American version of Emily or Charlotte Brontë. The film's writer-director, M. Night Shyamalan (Indian-American, b. 1970) went on during the next decade to establish himself as one of the Gothic masters of Hollywood film.
On the other hand, stories like the Friday the 13th film series (first film directed by Sean S. Cunningham in 1980, spawning a raft of sequels and a remake!) represent total horror, for better or worse. Cunningham (American, b. 1941) and his successors didn't throw much of the Gothic or romantic into these stories, in any sense of either word (these films also available on DVD, if you don't mind the blood). The films' plots are like gory "funhouse" rides and depend entirely on shock, panic and the fear factor. In most horror stories, good conquers evil, but often the opposite can happen as well. Regardless, these stories invariably end in a feeling of devastation, a kind of breathless exhaustion like most people feel after a traumatic or terrorizing experience.
In better-done virtually "pure" horror stories, for example, The Exorcist (1973, American, directed by William Friedkin) fear compounds fear until a final suspense sequence pays off with near-unbearable fright. The conflict between the good and bad characters (or bad "monsters") becomes a near-epic struggle against jeopardy that, at every turn, could possibly end in death. On the other hand, really bad horror tales have a near-pornographic feel to them as plot and characters come off as just "filler" between the often grisly, blood-filled scare scenes. One feels sense of impatience when there's no violence or gore happening, a desire to "speed things up" so the plot can get on to the next horrific scene.
Keep in mind that horror can be gory and visual or driven by more psychological, unseen menaces. The offstage tends to be more powerful because it leaves much to the imagination. An unseen, ubiquitous menace has the uncanny ability to generate powerhouses worth of suspense. Still, shock and awe predominate in pure horror, and good authors in the genre milk human hormones, sexual, as well as adrenalin and others, for every drop of thrill they can provide.
Combining the Dark Genres
Gothic horror provides a broader story canvas because it can blend and play off both genres. Poe and Lovecraft demonstrated this ability in its most classic sense. Modern authors like Stephen King (American, b. 1947) and Anne Rice (American, b. 1941) continue writing in this tradition. Examples of Gothic horror abound, including stories about vampires, werewolves, exorcists, Frankenstein types, succubae, incubi, and undead ghosts.
Vampire stories are excellent examples of marrying the Gothic with horror. By its very nature, the vampire tale can combine themes of entrapment, evil history, disintegration, and the supernatural equally with stark, awesome terror. In nice addition, the male vampire, as an object of desire, can pump the hormones totally while inspiring romance at the same time. Lately, even female vampires have been stirring up their share of fictional and cinematic libido. What an amazing character type! Bram Stoker (Irish, 1847-1912) created the model of the modern vampire with his classic 1897 novel Dracula. These ubiquitous blood-suckers have become a main staple of Gothic horror ever since.
Anne Rice pumped "new blood" into the vampire tale by giving the world loving, sensitive vampires. Her cemetery ground-breaking novel Interview With the Vampire (1976), features a memorable denizen of the undead, the dandyish Louis le Pointe du Lac. He hates killing humans, dotes on children, romantically entices women without draining them in any sense (except maybe sexually) and even has a good PR relationship with the media. The "Twilight" novel series by Stephenie Myer (American, b. 1973, first book, 2004) has taken this trend many steps further with vampires so lovable, attractive and successful, they have become positive role models! Who wouldn't want to be a vampire like Meyer's main man, Edward Cullen? At this rate, vampires will most likely be propelling the successful marriage of the Gothic and horrific far into a fascinating and fun-filled future.
So, the main rule is don't confuse your genres. You run the risk of turning off your readers, who may not be able to define "Gothic," or even horror, but know either one when they see it. More importantly, they know when your genres have been botched. You’re certainly free to write Gothic, horror, or both. However, be aware of the specific properties of each genre and use them wisely.
Especially when you combine them, do so with the care and skill of a French chef mixing onion and garlic (vampires beware!). These seasonings are similar but distinctly different flavors in your spice cabinet, just as Gothic and horror sit side by side among your genre sources. Treat them that way, stir carefully, and serve with élan. Incidentally, you may want to include a dark red wine. Unless, of course, you never drink ... wine!
For more information: To read an excellent examination of modern trends in things Gothic, check out Contemporary Gothic by Catherine Spooner. I am indebted to her for many (but not all!) of the ideas in this article.