Horror novels

No Escape The Shining is based off a novel written by Stephen King in 1977 and later produced as a horror film by Stanley Kubrick in 1980. The summary of the film is of a family that heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future. Kubrick takes the study called phenomenology, which is the development of human consciousness and self-awareness as a…

Nothing screams classic horror novels like Frankenstein. A household name that, on its initial reveal, rocked the world. Since then there have been a multitude of adaptations recreated off of the base premise. 30+ movies inspired by Mary Shelley’s legendary novel. Most aren’t the best, but there are some diamonds in the rough. I really want to take this opportunity to compare the classic novel to an interesting adaptation called I, Frankenstein, directed by Stuart Beattie. The differences…

In Jeff May’s Zombie Geographies and the Undead City, he starts by explaining that “contemporary zombie films mark a geographical move to large urban areas, bringing the zombie masses to the city and foregroundIng urban fears while containing implicit messages about social difference and otherness”(May 286). I found this quote extremely interesting. If I could fast forward time, and somehow be placed in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, I would chose to be in a more rural or even suburban area.…

Stephan King Stephan King is a extremely well known author and has been always known for his horror stories. His most well known stories include IT, The Shining, Salem's Lot and several other books and stories. His horror writing is credited to him seeing his friend get hit by a train. He has no memory of the event but he came home scared and the next day the parents found out about the boy. He was inspired to write also when he found a HP. Lovecraft book that was his dad's. He said “I knew…

Horror fiction has been a part of pop culture since the 18th century when it presented itself as Gothic horror, but the concept of mythical creatures and monsters is no modern day invention (Mullan para. 3). In fact, stories of horror and mythical creatures date back to the earliest of civilizations, like the Utukku of 2400 BCE Syria and its vampire like tendencies, believed to walk the earth dead but unburied, or the later borrowed Hebrew tale of Lilith, believed to hate the children of Adam…

Turn off the sound while watching a horror movie. Watch the asinine teenager investigate the door, creaking open by some haunting force. Scared? Probably not. The horror movie genre feeds off of brilliantly unsettling soundtracks to terrify the audience, peeking through their hands as the creature emerges from the hollow darkness behind the girl. Even the great director Alfred Hitchcock alloted much of his movies’ successes to the clever use of the soundtrack, like the screeching violins in the…

Stephen King is a widely acclaimed author in not just American culture, but around the world. He is commended for his significant contributions to the horror novel genre and the various movies and TV shows that have resulted from his books. In his book, On Writing, King outlines some his theories about why he was able to achieve the success he has. In the essay “On Stephen King,” author Gary Hoppenstand also presents his ideas as to why King has been so successful in his writing career. However…

Aristotle once said, “All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.” Of these seven motives, two of them stand out as having been used in the short horror stories The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and The Monkey’s Paw by W.W Jacobs; compulsion in Poe’s, and desire in Jacobs’s. When further analyzed, three topics present themselves as being prominent and necessary to compare: the points of view within these stories,…

ABSTRACT The gothic novel, albeit not considered high literature, counts among the most distinctive literary genres. The literary form was at its prime in late 18th century, although its days of glory have past elements of the Gothic can be found even in contemporary literature. Over the centuries, several sub-genres of the gothic novel have developed, including Southern Ontario Gothic. This branch of the Gothic is characterized by criticism of social attitudes towards race, politics, gender and…

Connor Huneycutt Ms. Christensen English 12B 1 May 2018 Frankenstein In the 1818 novel Frankenstein, author Mary Shelley consistently demonstrates standard romantic themes, only to undercut them with gothic elements, writing, and themes. This is mostly seen in the beginning volumes of the novel where romantic elements are consistently introduced. As the novel continues, romantic elements are replaced with more gothic elements and writing. Characters are introduced with romantic themes, only…