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poliphiloHex is a jolly Brit TV show that started like it was going to be a rip-off of Buffy, but has steadily got sillier and more endearing.
A fallen angel (who looks like Ralph Fiennes, only more devastatingly handsome) is angling for the soul of a blonde ingenue. She is protected by the ghost of her lesbian school chum.
The lesbian ghost spends her time sleuthing and eating junk food.
I love the lesbian ghost.
Of course the angel isn't only after the ingenue's soul. When he isn't dogging her footsteps he's hanging out in this faintly absurd S/M club- with the leather-clad vixens and the coloured lights.
Ooh- and how wicked of him- he smokes like a chimney.
Supernatural evil=sex.
It's the Victorian equation. Sex was banished from the circle of the lamplight and the only way writers could deal with it- in popular fiction at least- was to have it erupt from the shadows disguised in a clay-spotted shroud. The classic ghost story is powered by thwarted desire and sexual guilt.
Once it became possible to write frankly about sex the ghost story withered and the sexy spook (Dracula for instance) dwindled into camp. Ghosts that are simply ghosts (and not metaphors for something else) are not really all that frightening. Were you scared of the ghastly ghouls in Pirates of the Caribbean? No, I thought not.
The modern ghost stories that work are not about sex. They are about things that scare us now. The Japanese movie the Ring is about our powerlessness in the face of modern technology. The Spanish movie The Devil's Backbone is about social dissolution and the breakdown of the family.
And something like Hex, which is still messing about with the demons of sex, can only hold our attention by cutting the supernatural with comedy.
A fallen angel (who looks like Ralph Fiennes, only more devastatingly handsome) is angling for the soul of a blonde ingenue. She is protected by the ghost of her lesbian school chum.
The lesbian ghost spends her time sleuthing and eating junk food.
I love the lesbian ghost.
Of course the angel isn't only after the ingenue's soul. When he isn't dogging her footsteps he's hanging out in this faintly absurd S/M club- with the leather-clad vixens and the coloured lights.
Ooh- and how wicked of him- he smokes like a chimney.
Supernatural evil=sex.
It's the Victorian equation. Sex was banished from the circle of the lamplight and the only way writers could deal with it- in popular fiction at least- was to have it erupt from the shadows disguised in a clay-spotted shroud. The classic ghost story is powered by thwarted desire and sexual guilt.
Once it became possible to write frankly about sex the ghost story withered and the sexy spook (Dracula for instance) dwindled into camp. Ghosts that are simply ghosts (and not metaphors for something else) are not really all that frightening. Were you scared of the ghastly ghouls in Pirates of the Caribbean? No, I thought not.
The modern ghost stories that work are not about sex. They are about things that scare us now. The Japanese movie the Ring is about our powerlessness in the face of modern technology. The Spanish movie The Devil's Backbone is about social dissolution and the breakdown of the family.
And something like Hex, which is still messing about with the demons of sex, can only hold our attention by cutting the supernatural with comedy.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 04:24 pm (UTC)The book Dracula is wonderfully scary, and far scarier than the movies: Jonathan Harker seeing Dracula scaling the wall from outside his window; the exploration of the dank empty house, searching for coffins (what if Something finds them?); the eerie fog engulfing the cursed ship; Lucy going uneasily to bed; the peasants crossing themselves when they looked up the road towards the castle...
What wonderful writing!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 04:59 pm (UTC)While we're on the subject of movies about hauntings, did you see The Others with Nicole Kidman? I though that was very effective.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 05:07 pm (UTC)I also enjoyed The Sixth Sense, but I figured it out the minute the little boy was in the church talking to the psychologist.
I was watching the movie with my sister, and I punched her.
"I figured out the surprise ending," I said.
"Well, what is it?"
"I'm not going to tell you, but I just want you to know I figured it out right here."
Too bad I did, because I would have loved being shocked at the end.
--By the way, your novel is wonderful! I'm up to page 53, and your writing style has set up a nice hum in my head.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 06:45 pm (UTC)The Others took me longer to figure out, but I was onto it before the end.
In neither case did it spoil my enjoyment.
I'm so glad (relieved) that you're still enjoying the book.....
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 07:06 pm (UTC)I'm finding it hard to set aside. I wrote another thousand words--all too easy!--I'm now over 16,000--and then rewarded myself again with some more chapters. I'm up to page 106, and the tension is mounting--I care about all these people now, and I wonder where you're taking them.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-08 07:24 pm (UTC)I never work out a story in advance. I start with the characters (heaven knows where they come from) and then watch very closely to see what they do.