horror-archivist

[horror-archivist]

yellowjackets as the seven deadly sins but every single sin is shauna

[horror-archivist]

Roderick and Madeline Usher

The following essay is one I wrote because I once again got obsessed with a Mike Flanagan series and I could not focus on anything else. This will explore the natures of the Usher twins as well as their relationship to each other.

Spoilers for "The Fall of the House of Usher" (2023) below.

Reigning as one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most iconic works, “The Fall of the House of Usher” features the deaths of the Usher twins, Roderick and Madeline. Mike Flanagan’s Netflix show of the same name reimagines and fleshes out their story in a modern setting, showcasing their bond as one that is far more than a simple sibling attachment. They are not just brother and sister, they share a single life thread that strangles their bloodline entire.

The original story itself relies mostly on the words of Roderick Usher, a man afflicted by a horrifyingly intense sensitivity to the world around him and waiting for death. He and his “dearly loved” sister are the last scions of the noble house and are even more closely related than an average set of twins - the House is said to only have a single line of descent with no offshoots, implying potential incest. The two are less a set of people and more different expression of the same life, both representing opposite extremes. Madeline is too close to death and is mistakenly buried alive, Roderick feels far too much and dies of an excess of feeling, specifically fear.

The theme of incest appears in the 2023 Netflix series “The Fall of the House of Usher” subtly and consistently. The two first meet Verna and seal their fates in the costumes of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, two famous and tragic star-crossed lovers. Even more obviously, Roderick is the undisputed patriarch of the family and Madeline is the queen instead of either of his wives. Verna intensifies this understanding when she lovingly calls Madeline “Cleopatra”: a powerful, brilliant queen, one who was wed to her own brother.

Madeline is and always was Roderick’s primary female counterpart, even during the happy days of his marriage to Annabel Lee. When he returns from his first visit to Rufus Griswold, the first person shown in his home greeting him is not his wife, but his sister. It is his sister he listens to, his bond with her shaping his future, not the woman he married and lovingly writes poetry for. Tellingly, decades later Roderick’s granddaughter, Lenore, refers to Madeline not as “Auntie”, but as “Nana”, an affectionate shortening of Grandmother.

This pattern suggests to the audience not that they necessarily are actually incestuous either consciously or unconsciously, but that Roderick and Madeline are simply far closer than a traditional set of twins. Verna recognizes this, telling them directly that they were born together and will die together; effectively, they will share a single life. Madeline’s tragedy is that she does not understand how bound they are, Roderick’s is that he cannot grasp their differences. Madeline attempts to get out of the deal with Verna by having her brother commit suicide, completely having forgotten or denied to herself the fact that his death guarantees hers. She does not truly get that their lives are so closely bound. On the opposite side, Roderick is incapable of suspecting her of any treachery, thinking them to be of one mind always and indivisibly.

They are less two identical versions of the same being and more two sides of the same, corrupted coin. Madeline is the intuitive one, one so adept at understanding others and manipulation that she claims to be able to find the informant, simply by “seeing in their eyes” the truth. Roderick is more practical and prone to denial, the realist who only accepts the bizarre when confronted with irrefutable proof. Madeline is the proactive planner, Roderick is reactive and impulsive. Madeline is restraint, Roderick excess. Even their fascination with the past is rooted in opposing outlooks: Madeline vaunts the ancients for their beliefs on immortality (the ultimate conquest of the future) and Roderick is more nostalgic and sees the past as a goal instead of a lesson. How could Verna, a self-described “creature of symmetry” resist them?

For two esteemed and brilliant scions of business, they both fail to truly understand their pact with Verna. Madeline believes she can capitalize on a loophole, that Roderick’s death is what is needed to end Verna’s influence. By doing so, she ignores what Verna directly told her, that “you die together or no deal”. Madeline’s sacrifice within the bargain was not only to give up her potential children, but to allow herself to die alongside her twin. Similarly, Roderick considers only his own children to be his offering. To be fair, Verna did initially present the bargain as letting “the next generation foot the bill”. He remains in denial about her later words, that the cost of the bargain is the shortened lifespan of “every Usher yet to be born”. Neither can accept what they cannot change, a flaw born of just how much they were in fact able to overcome. After all that they had conquered and all that they had ruled, acknowledging the inevitability of failure became an unused and unnecessary skill.

Both siblings weep as they prepare the other to die. Madeline tells him he is a king and a legend as she convinces him to overdose. Roderick calls her a queen and a goddess as he prepares her body for burial despite the fact doing so will kill her. The two do love each other and are perhaps the only people they do truly love, excluding their mother. Roderick’s mutilation of Madeline is one that is not an act of hate or malice or even revenge, but an extremely twisted glorification. It is a reflection of his own self-destructive tendencies, of how his obsession with grandeur and magnificence leads to the utter corruption and destruction of all that is good in his life. He looks at degradation and pain and savagery and sees beauty and deification. He witnessed his corpse-strewn empire and sees power and magnificence. Given that ruin is the love language of the Usher family, he sees his sister’s tortured, wrecked body and proclaims her “a goddess”.

Sources

Flanagan, Mike (2023). “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher”

[horror-archivist]

Final Girl Support Group, Series Ideas

The Final Girls Support Group (2021) by Grady Hendrix is one of my favorite books, in large part because every time I reread I’m just so struck by how insanely good a show adaptation would be. It’s such a genuinely fun read and if the right script is made, the show will be god-tier.

Below are my thoughts and hopes for the show, if it is still coming out!

If the show does get made, my absolute biggest wish is that they do an all 80's soundtrack. It’s a show about final girls from that era, it needs some 80's hits. "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, “I’m Still Standing”, “If I Could Turn Back Time”, “Talking in Your Sleep”, god songs like these (and others of course) could make such a good vibe and really make it stick that these women still belong to the 80’s. 80's songs have such a unique, upbeat sound and energy, whenever a director can blend them with horror it always impresses me.

Lynette in general will honestly be kind of hard to handle. I personally relate a lot to Lynette as someone who has a lot of anxiety related issues, but there are moments in the novel where she is genuinely unsympathetic and that could potentially make her simply another hateable protagonist. Emphasizing her privacy being violated, maybe that her hateful thoughts being written was some way she “drew out poison” or the like, something to make her more palatable to audiences. Casting will go a long way for this and honestly my top choice for her is Samantha Sloyan. That actress just has a gift for bringing a certain vulnerability and likeability to her characters, even ones it seems a show wants you to loathe. If Lynette is just hateable and dislikeable, the show loses a ton of the appeal. If, despite seeing her do cowardly or traitor-esque actions, you still pity her or want to her to be safe, she’ll remain a very compelling MC. And Samantha Sloyan without a doubt has the ability to pull off Lynette’s constant terror and suspicion, as well as the vulnerability and compassion to pull off something as absurd as a bond with a houseplant.

Heather is another character that should be handled super carefully. The first time I read the book, her supernatural abilities seemed to kinda come out of left field in the final fight. I think it would be really fun if throughout the series, more people make mocking comments to her like “oh at least I never claimed to have superpowers” and she just routinely gets furious as a result and keeps sticking up for herself and swearing even more than she did in the book that her experience was different than the others and that she can do things no one else can. More emphasis on this being the reason her franchise fell (no one believes her, after all), more emphasis on her addiction being a result of how no truly gets just what her nightmarish story was. I’m worried the show would ignore any supernatural elements, but all slashers do have some form of it in all honesty. The killers always tend to be a little too indestructible, a little too fast or strong. Teasing a supernatural element from the start will make the Dream King reveal and Heather’s abilities more acceptable and much, much more fun to see.

Marilyn is one on my favorites in the book, not only because of the comedic relief she provides (please please please cast someone who can pull off her lines), but because the scene where she goes to a ball after surviving her first massacre is so, so iconic I could basically see it in my head. A girl, scarred and bruised, limping to the center of a dance floor, head held high, then executing a beautiful curtsy with her face set in an expression of ferocity and unapologetic pride.

This show could have such, such good casting gags. Personally I would love to see Jamie Lee Curtis as Dr. Carol. She’s got insane range anyway, but it would allow for some funny references to Halloween since she would have dialogue with a literal Laurie Strode expy.

They could do stuff like:

“You have no idea how it feels to fight a killer, who by the way may or may not be your own brother”

*cut to Jamie Lee Curtis stone-faced for a beat*. Then “No, I don’t”

This also is such a good television era for casting where a character is portrayed by two different actors for different ages. Yellowjackets especially nailed this type of casting so well, FGSG could follow the trend and get actresses to portray the girls in their 80’s horror experience, then another for them decades later.

If anyone has any other thoughts, hopes, or ideas please share!!

[horror-archivist]

thinking thinking thinking about how possession is so often considered the most horrifying fate of all time because it combines murder, theft, assault, and erasure. All at once. Throw in religious trauma and no wonder so many movies and books use it.

[horror-archivist]

The Seven Usher Sins

Below is an essay I wrote because I cannot get the Fall of the House of Usher out of my head. I actually have submitted a question about this to Mike Flanagan's tumblr about the below idea... that each of the Ushers can represent one of the cardinal sins.

The House of Usher is a dynasty built on corruption, deception, and ruin. Ruin not only of outsiders, of their enemies and rivals and customers, but also of their own lives and their own loves. It would be extremely misleading to claim that any Usher was guilty of only a single cardinal sin, that each was possessed only of pride or greed, of wrath or envy, of gluttony, lust, or sloth. Being complicated individuals all, they each contain multitudes of flaws and weaknesses. That being acknowledged, it is possible to view each downfall as one representative of one of the seven deadly sins, to see each death as one that occurs as the result of a domination by these corruptions.

It may be cheating, but this will follow the example of Verna and view the twins, Roderick and Madeline, as a single life. They share one birth and one death, they absolutely will share the same major corrupting sin. For the twins, there could be no other choice but greed. Having been raised in poverty and denied any inheritance from their biological (and extremely wealthy) father, they spent their childhoods and their youths striving towards financial stability and then success. Money became even more than just a goal, it became an obsession. They both were so fixated on the promise of riches that they jointly agreed to sacrifice the next generation, to willingly offer up the existing offspring (and any potential ones). The entire downfall of the bloodline is heralded by their pact with Verna, the deal that effectively damns the family for the promise of all the success that Roderick and Madeline could dream of.

The eldest son, Frederick, is as inept a first son and heir as could possibly be designed. He is unsympathetic to the extreme, a simpering man who desperately wishes to follow his father’s footsteps and be respected, even as his assistants mockingly refer to him as “Sweaty Freddie”. Though all the Ushers possess some level of rage (especially the bitter Camille and the rebellious Prospero), Frederick is the only one who contains no power over himself once maddened. The earliest example of his lack of anger management features him throwing his youngest brother against a wall right outside of an extremely important business meeting, even mentioning family secrets that Pym quickly reminds him to keep to himself in such a setting. Already doomed to die via his father’s deal, there was no option he could have taken to avoid his fate. However, his acts of vengeance upon his vulnerable wife were so heinous and cruel, his payback so obscenely unnecessary, Verna felt the need to make his death especially gruesome and punishing. He took the first chance he could to enact enraged brutality and twisted revenge on another and it ensured a humiliating and prolonged demise.

His sister, Tamerlane, is at her most pleased when she is watching others fulfill her life for her. Her husband is the face of her company, Goldbug, and is the person doing the majority of the footwork while her father’s wealth fuels the business. She even finds sexual satisfaction in watching her husband with other women, but it is extremely important to notice that this is not a simple cuckolding kink. She prefers to watch other women pretend to be her. Tamerlane lives her life via others entirely while she sits back and watches, an extremely unique version of the sin of sloth. What is the ultimate expression of laziness if not sloth to such an extent you willingly and eagerly let others live your life for you? Tellingly, Verna punishes her specifically by depriving her of the basic access to this sin… she is stripped of her ability to sleep and slowly goes mad. Verna even twists her by pretending to be her on the phone with her husband, taunting her with what had once been her escapist fetish. Ironically, Tammy’s husband is a fitness guru, a man seen being extremely active on his channel, as far from sloth as can be imagined. 

The eldest illegitimate child, Victorine, at first seems to be the most modest of all the children. She is not ruled by excess, she is instead involved in a program that could potentially save thousands and thousands of lives. Victorine is the child that Roderick hinges the most hopes on, the one he needs to succeed, and Victorine is driven utterly desperate and mad by that. Victorine cannot accept the failure that her trial is destined to become. She cannot accept for others to know that the device will not work. She continues lying to those around her so she can continue the increasingly slim hope that she will still somehow succeed. She even denies to herself the fate of her lover, only confronting it once her father forces her to. And then, once she is face to face with the realization that her project will not work? That she has failed her lover and her father and the company and the family itself? She immediately takes her own life, unable to accept the loss of the pride left to her. 

Napoleon, in contrast, is in fact ruled by excess. Though much more sympathetic than his siblings and the only one to express strong emotions to the other’s deaths, he is still a being of total and complete gluttony. He is able to intake drugs and alcohol to such an extent it is truly shocking to others. His vices are the methods by which he escapes the increasingly severe torments of his daily life, they are not simple entertainments. When his boyfriend brings up how intense his habit is becoming, he immediately decides to drop him rather than confront the increasingly severe issue that controls his life. After becoming convinced that he slaughtered a cat, he delves deeper and deeper into drugs, the usage pushing him into a spiral. He cannot give up that which satisfies him and Verna uses this to lead him to an early grave. 

Camille is arguably the most capable and impressive of Roderick’s brood. She is a stunning woman, sharp and intuitive, an undeniably and extremely useful member of the family. This makes it especially cruel that she is the only child that Roderick explicitly denied choice in determining her future. As she tells Leo, Roderick was the one to decide that her future would be in PR, that she would be the one to clean up the family’s messes and in turn have her own hands be eternally dirty. How could she not be burning with resentment at this? She is incredibly jealous of her siblings, but especially of Victorine. Victorine is extremely similar to her, another brilliant and illegitimate child of Roderick Usher, but Victorine is allowed to be a hero. She is funding research to save lives whereas Camille is forced into a role that will always leave her stained with controversy. It is this envy that leads her to fixate on Victorine as the informant, to drive to the Rue Morgue, and to continually deny any escape and die taking a picture of evidence that could harm her sister.

Prospero, the youngest, was only sixteen when he became an Usher. Only a teenage boy when he was given wealth beyond all dreams and any opportunity he could possibly desire. He had no need to learn satisfaction and no incentive to. Anything he wanted, any pleasure he could conceive of, it would be his. Instantly. It is fitting that such a devotee of lust would die in an orgy, that his singular focus on his own pleasure would make him miss any signal that could have saved his own life. As Roderick even tells Auggie, had Prospero paid attention to anything in the business he would have known the area was unsafe, that the tanks were acidic, that his plan was moronic in the extreme. But that was not Prospero’s way, not his life. He sought what brought him pleasure and only that, to his downfall.

Though so clearly dominated by sin, it would be wrong to assume that any Usher is controlled by it. Annabel Lee is a sweet-tempered and humble woman, one who wants only to love her husband and to keep her children safe. Lenore follows the same nature but with the fire of her grandfather and great-aunt, only this time that passion is aimed towards morality and fairness. Their exception only makes the corruption of the others all the more tragic. Each had the potential for goodness within them. Verna did not make any of them, not a single one, evil or force them into darkness. They all chose for themselves, for good or ill.

[horror-archivist]

The Three Hooks of Horror

It seems impossible that the genre of terror and gore and pain and blood and tears and screams could ever be a comfort to a single person.

And yet, it undeniably is.

Within every generation, there are countless fans who thrill and cheer and just live for the newest upcoming scary movie. There is always an avid movie watcher who finds an odd sort of comfort in the terror before her, always a thrill seeker who is able to enjoy his racing heart as he watches the screen before him. Scary movies have carved their way into our hearts and it cannot be denied the sheer amount of joy that is derived from them. Fascination and adoration with the horror genre seems to be due mostly to three factions that the field creates: community, catharsis, and comedy.

Community needs no explanation. That being said, if you have never seen a scary movie in theaters, you cannot understand. It’s impossible to make anyone get just what watching a scary movie is like via words. The feeling of watching a terrifying film in theaters surrounded by strangers is an experience that can hardly be replicated under any other circumstances. How can you possibly explain how it feels to scream in pure terror, then turn to the complete stranger in the seat next to you and you both can’t help but laugh? How do you make someone visualize the feeling of your hand being grabbed so hard you can barely feel your fingers, but you wouldn’t trade that pain for the world? How can you paint the picture of the odd camaraderie as you leave the theater in a crowd as you all exchange half-terrified, half-gleeful looks and then speed home as fast as you can? 

Scary movies don’t just scare us, after all. They make us gasp, then scream, they make our hearts race and beat so fast we think we’ll pass out. They bring us to the very brink of the most extreme of human emotion, then leave us as survivors who can smile at the experience. Sharing that rush with a friend or a date, with family or with strangers, how can that not create an undeniable bond? Not necessarily a lifelong or extremely significant one, but one that for years and decades later, you will always smile at the memory of. You’ll remember how you both jumped and shrieked together, how embarrassed you were at cringing into your chair, or how proud you were when you reacted less than those around you. Fear drives the human survival instinct, so it should be no surprise that it helps to push us towards the safest of settings - a community.

The enjoyment of horror can be entirely individual. You do not need the presence of others to be scared, of course. Being alone can even increase the sheer terror. And regardless of whoever you are near when watching a scary movie, you will experience some form of release. Adrenaline cannot run constantly through the human body, once it is gone a viewer will feel some form of calm or exhaustion. Being terrified by a scary movie is a beautiful form of catharsis, a venting of emotion or pain.

The concept of catharsis was created by the ancient Greeks. They recognized that theater created a surge of emotion in spectators, that by watching these plays, the viewers experienced intense flares of feeling that left them far more calm afterwards. Tragedies were more than just stories to cry during. They were experiences in which you could vent your sorrow or depression or just sheer exhaustion towards life, weeping at the characters and then leave the theater feeling lighter. Horror works in much the same way. A watcher screams and jumps and cries and laughs, then exits the movie (either by walking out of the theater, turning off the television, or shutting the laptop) and feels all the lighter. 

The genre of horror is more than a joy, it is a freedom. We can fight with the final girls, escape the monsters, dodge the killing blows, and run along with countless protagonists (and god, they always run, don’t they? Always, our leads want to live and isn’t that intoxicating? Our heroes fight, they sprint through old high school hallways, and deserted campgrounds, and abandoned malls, and empty streets, and haunted houses, and endless woods, but they always fight to live so passionately). Horror is less a good vs evil and more a sheer sprint for survival, because at its core a scary movie is a fight to survive. There will always be a viewer who will adore and respect that, always ensuring that any scary movie will spark at least one new fan. 

Horror and comedy are two genres that seem to have no business operating well together, but clearly do so, so well. At their core, horror and comedy are rooted in one specific subject - absurdity. Comedians and jokes and skits work because they surprise and shock people, the punchlines are unexpected and that surprise works to spark joy. On the flipside, horror accomplishes much of the same. Jump scares are the most obvious shocks, but we as viewers also do not expect the vast majority of gore and tragedy and sheer horror that appears out of nowhere and startles us as viewers. For horror or comedy to be predictable means that it fails utterly. Both categories rely on being unexpected and unpredictable and that unreliability thrills us as viewers. 

Clearly, this is known to the film industry as the horror/comedy genre never fails to make an appearance each year. Just as love and hate so often pair up to create romantic dramas and murder mysteries, horror and comedy never fails to join together to play on the need of humanity to be shocked. We voice our racing hearts through shouts of laughter or through screams of fear, but either way we willingly set ourselves up to be shocked into reaction. Fear is attractive, after all, given it is all adrenaline and thrills. As a society, it is boredom and stagnation we avoid at all costs.

Movies have become one of humanity’s most treasured and varied art forms. They are beautiful creations that rely on numerous skilled artists: writers, producers, directors, actors, makeup artists, editors, designers, and literally hundreds of other roles that go into each picture. Though unfairly viewed by critics, horror is a staple that has become a permanent fixture and only gets more impressive each decade. We always will seek to be shocked and startled and delighted.

How boring would life be otherwise?