From Frankenstein to Ghosts to Witches by J Vincent

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, a novel Mary Shelley started writing when she was 18. It was published anonymously in London in 1818 when she was 19. While horror stories existed in regency times, the period my characters live in, I have never been a fan of it. I refuse to see or read anything remotely related to horror because my mind has the uncanny and extremely uncomfortable tendency to replay scenes I desperately want to forget! But I digress.

Today mention of Frankenstein does not immediately bring to mind Lon Chaney but rather Mel Brooks. The only kind of “horror movies” I ever watched were made in the 1920-30’s. Lon Chaney’s Quasimodo (1923) and Boris Karloff’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935) were ones I did watch and was deeply touched by. These movies however are nothing like today’s Dracula or Chain Saw. They wanted to elicit sympathy and pity and did not overwhelmingly terrify or repulse despite the gross disfigurement of the characters who were victims of fate. To quote form Lon Chaney, “I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. Most of my roles since The Hunchback, such as The Phantom of the Opera, He Who Gets Slapped, The Unholy Three, etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories which I wish to do."

Another quote from Ray Bradbury that I found really hit the mark: "He was someone who acted out our psyches. He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen. The history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from.”

Beside ancient horror movies I like what some call comedy/horror though not of the Mel Brooks mold. My early introduction to this class of movie was the hilarious Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein released in 1948. They did several more of these involving Dracula, Wolf Man etc.

Another kind of movie I like is the ghost story—the old Casper films also from the 1930’s (not the friendly ghost but the man who can only be seen by the couple who accidentally hit him with a car) and who doesn’t love The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?

Then there are the witch movies among which one of my favorites is Bell,Book, and Candle released in 1958 starring Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, and Hermione Gingold.

An average, modern-day witch (Kim Novak), lives in a New York apartment with her Siamese familiar, Pyewacket. Oone day a handsome publisher (Jimmy Stewart) walks into her building and Gillian decides she wants him--especially as it turns out he's marrying an old poison penpal from the witch’s college days. She casts a spell over the publisher. But her powers are in danger of being exorcised by something stronger than the bell-book-and-candle routine: Love. She loses her powers but does she lose the publisher?

Hocus Pocus (1993) with Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy is another one I liked. Bedknob and Broomsticks (1971) with Angela Lansbury. Definitely lighter fare but my kind of Halloween enjoyment.

But then there is Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane . . . . almost too scary for me but then the more I thought about this topic the less simple it became!