Halloween

The Horror! The Horror!

I get the hell out of my space; in an effort to improve my mood that is just this side of being depressed. The feeling of being shut in with the dark nights doesn't help. Stop it now Ricster- this isn't about you.

I'm popping into Blackwell's for one of it's excellent talks in the basement Norrington Room. Blackwell's is a womb like sanctuary in Oxford -it's tardis like, with a frontage that belies it's size. A book shop is a great comfort – in a different way from the peace of an empty church – that's not one for Halloween.

Tonight is “Sleeping with the Lights On” by Darryl Jones from Trinty College Dublin. He has writen the book as well of course. He realises that this is just a short event before the audience go off to their satanic masses or eating people. He was funny and serious, giving an entertaining run through of horror films over the past decades – realised I had missed too many of them. We got to Slender Man, a perfect example of how myths are created, a meme that spread and developed through the internet but surly driven by the same forces that obtain around an ancient hearth.

He recommended an excellent book “ Men Woman & Chainsaws” by Carol J. Clover. I chuckled at that for some reason – maybe an image of a chain saw wielding feminist had flashed across my mind. A girl in the row in front turned and gave me a hard look – or so I thought perhaps I'm being paranoid and am feeling a bit vulnerable.

The second half he focused on the rise of Eco Horror. Films and novels inspired by the coming. Armageddon. Global warming has replaced an invasion of aliens and MAD as societies deepest fear. Of course global warming is a reality and the overall consensus is that it is man made. But it's also become highly political, since we don't really know what's going to happen... what does that remind me of. I am not using the B word today.

It had to happen; an audience member said not the B word but the T word. Professor Jones imagined a film staring a Great Orange Monster causing devastation upon the land. I wondered How many Trump Pumpkins are lighting the cosy better off houses of Oxford?

Trump the Bogeyman! The new Sandman- “Go to bed now children or The Trump will get you – he will take your eye's out and feed them to his children on the moon!”

What a delight it was to be a child scared in the safely of the family home. We don't want real horror in our lives – it's too horrific- but one clear step removed and it satisfies a deep need.