World War Z

I. LOVE. THIS. BOOK. This was by far one of my favorite books ever, so easy to get into and truly spine tingling. I took the opportunity this week to read something other than the required reading because I have heard so many good things about Max Brooks and his zombie novels, and I have to admit, he delivered. This was a Q&A style book, broken up into chapters with multiple interviews in each chapter. The novel takes place in a world recovering from a near apocalypse, featuring detailed interviews with survivors of the zombie plague, survivors from all walks of life, with radically different stories to tell, from all across the world. You learn so much about the history, timeline and horror of the zombie invasion through in depth, brilliantly written interviews, personal interviews with a huge cast of characters. There is so much emotion conveyed through Brooks' writing, sending surges of fear throughout your entire body as you cling to every word this person, this completely real and detailed fictional character, has to say. The true horror of this book lies in this hyperrealistic painting it creates in your mind as you make your way through each dark and terrifying page. The book pays homage to the horror genre, only further perfecting the iconic zombie theme. This book was so unique in the way it presented the narrative, and it kept me interested the whole way through. Each interview was like a new short story, and in all honesty, they could all stand as just that, their own short stories. They were completely different from each other and shed light on a completely different aspect of the zombie war than the previous one, yet they all tied together and built up this almost invisible basis which connected every story on this deeper, almost hidden level. All that is left to do after reading this book, is to read it again.

Monster Island

Monster Island is a pretty good zombie novel, again a new take on an old and well established theme. Zombies are difficult to write about, holding an aural and visual appeal that is tough to recreate through narrative. They hold a special place in the heart of the public and the fact that zombie films have played host to a renaissance of sorts in the past few years, it appears as though there is an overall cultural understanding that plays host to exactly what a zombie is and what makes up the character of a zombie, and it is this all encompassing understanding that is worked well in this book. The image of this post apocalyptic world is rendered very well and is in many cases very realistic in depicting the nature and state of the world following the zed scourge. 

The novel takes place many months after the wave of undead began their assault on humanity, which has almost entirely been obliterated. The story is told from varied perspectives around the actions of Dekalb, a man pulling into New York City Harbor, hoping to find AIDS medicine in order to save his daughter, being held as a sort of ransom for the medicine. It is when they encounter an intelligent and free thinking zombie that the plot truly thickens and gets interesting, and it is this element that separates the book from any zombie narrative I've encountered. This novel goes beyond the image of an undead plague and delves into an alternate reality of self awareness as a zombie, and what it's like to live among the zed while maintaining complete conscience and intelligence. For me, that is the true horror of this novel, the tale of a man who must cope with a hunger he cannot truly control, trapped within a cruel and torturous existence.

Let the Right One In

This was an insanely beautiful film, from the cinematography to the sound, it was an all encompassing thriller told from a unique and interesting perspective. The story of a young boy, bullied and teased by everyone else, befriends and falls in love with the new girl next door. She is like him in so many ways, an outcast and a loner, and their relationship takes off. They are both confronted by huge problems they must face, but both begin to rely on each other for providing something they have both been missing in their lives. It is a vampire flick unlike any I have ever seen, and it is this odd take on a classic and somewhat overplayed theme that makes me love this film.

One of my favorite aspects is the humanistic qualities they portray the vampire as having. She is depicted to be very powerful and strong willed while conveying a sense of vulnerability. She is worn with age and feels remorse and pain when she must kill to eat, leaving you to feel sorry for an otherwise terrifying and disturbing creature. I loved everything about this movie, and it was written so well. There is relatively little dialogue, and each word that has been written was done so with the utmost care and caution. You can tell that a limitless amount of time went into creating the script for this piece. This was a great piece of horror film, and contributes alot to the genre.

Frankenstein

I must confess, Frankenstein is a story unlike any monster narrative I've ever read (mostly watched). Film and television has warped the image of Frankenstein into something almost entirely apart from the original character. Until this point, I have held a completely wrong opinion of what Frankenstein is about and how beautiful and original it truly is.

The layout of the story, a narrative within a narrative, is brilliant and only adds to the appeal. It is well formed and presented with such passionate and beautiful visual language that it reads better than many stories that I've read before. There is so much meat to the characters, and they are presented so clearly, that I feel true emotions for them and their situations. Their development and evolution through the story is deep and ever changing as I watched my opinions of them morph from the beginning to the end.

I feel as though this book is more of a tragedy than any sort of horror, for the truly terrifying part was how sad the life of the monster truly was. Knowledge only fueled the creatures sadness, merely providing the words for how he had already felt. The more he learned, the more he became aware of his true situation, the more he became aware of how much he longed for companionship. Emotions only fuel emotions throughout this entire piece, with humanities fear and ignorance stoking the flames of anger and violence, and the monsters sadness and confusion giving way to fear and anger. The monster only yearned for companionship, a basic human need, something humanity wasn't willing to provide. It was through their retaliation to him that they created the true monster, depriving him of what life needs drove him to madness and murder. Frankensteins monster was merely misunderstood, a reflection of his own abandonment.

Gothic Formula

- A character whose sensibilites will be sympathetically familiar and contemporary to the matter of the actual setting - is removed by circumstances from the normal to another dark realm
- This is another world, and it seeks to bring the protagonist under its sway. Supernatural manifestations, manifestations of the villians usually quite natural designs
- The protagonist becomes intrigued, or desperate enough to voluntarily travel deeper into the castles mysteries
- At the crux of the story, the awful thruth is revealed - and then the escape, through fortuitous discovery or romantic interest
- In true gothic, evil cannot be a moral cipher, or a psychological bon mot. It must take its place as an active, positive force in the narrative, for the characters as well as the reader. Torture and terror is never enought, there must also be the possibility that this is a genuine alternative with its own rules, own passions and rewards. The character must be able to see themselves as part of it-perhaps secretly desire it.

Elements of a Horror Film

- Sound is vital for the emotion of a horror film to portray  
- Minimal instruments for the buildup of the scare
- Quiet Pauses
- Expressive characters along with good acting/facial expressions
- Believability of almost all human emotion happy, terrified, surprised, sad
- A need for an explanation of the character whom to fear either before or after introduced
- Movies need to answer "Why should the audience be scared of this character?"
- The despription for the motive of the character (weapons, physique, phrases) that the audience can describe the character in few adjectives
- The character also needs to be unpredictable in dramatic events to makes him or herself interesting