Started to watch the Tod Browning version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi last night. I know for a lot of people, when they think of Dracula, they base it off of that movie. And I can see why. It's just creepy and weird and kind of awesome. And when it came out, it must have freaked people out. We all kind of expect to see vampires coming out of coffins, but we've all seen either that movie, or some knock off of it, or at least a variation of it on commercials around this time of year. But when that movie came out, I bet the first shot of a coffin sitting in that castle probably seemed shocking. And then to have it open and have Bela Lugosi, all decked out like a man about town in his funky Tux and cape outfit climb out of it must have been crazy. And then to have this three creepy wives, who I was never sure were real when I was little, dreamily walk up to him. It's bizarre. Like nightmare bizarre, where it gives me the creeps and I'm not sure why.
I love stuff like that. Things that are dreamlike, ethereal but somehow familiar, speaking to some part of my soul that fears what I am being presented with is an accurate representation of the world. A world full of people who sleep in coffins, of lost souls wandering abandoned castles, of madness and sorrow wrapped up in expensive clothes.
I think horror appeals to people who live in this world.
And I'm not alone. There's a great article in the NY Times about horror themed restaurants, and if you click HERE you can read it.
Horror films are by far the genre that gets produced the most. You want to get someone to listen to a pitch for a movie? Make it a thriller. Scare them. Excite them. And also give them a little bit to chew on, to reflect on as they lay in bed at three in the morning after being woken up by some car alarm, waiting to go back to sleep, seeing the shadows take shape, reflecting in various and ever changing manner the world they live in. Zombies, werewolves, ghosts. All things we see on a daily basis. I feel like a zombie as I trudge to work. I am a werewolf by night, howling at the moon with my pack. I am a ghost each time I look at a photo of someone from my life who has gone on to the next world, for in my mind they are the living and I am the one banished to this strange world where I can't be with them anymore.
Happy Tuesday, folks.
I have lots of things like that in my stories. My first play centered around a man haunted by the love of his life. My latest pilot has a small town taken over by malignant ghosts who bring out the worst in everyone. The script that is a Second Rounder at Austin Film Festival this year has the main character saved by the Ghostboy of Thunderbird Island.
I'm kind of a nut. But as Ghandi said, "I am a nutjob and a lunatic and a freak, and so are all of you".
Tomorrow, I head off to the Lone Star State. I wonder how many monsters I will see, how many ghosts? Will there be ghouls waiting at the airport to eat us up? Coffins in all the basements, where they sleep at night? What if the film festival turns out to be this secret cult of weridos? I hope so. I have to just leap, and pray that the net appears.
Here's a song I found last night on a playlist of spooky songs. It's Haunted Heart by Christina Aquilera.
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