The Attic: A Thing In The Attic

Right in the beginning of the movie, there is an extreme close up of a little girl pretending to tip tea into a cup and then it switches on to another extreme close up of the girl giving it to the doll. They are using teapots, cups and saucers. This gives the impression that the film is set in England. There is another mid-shot of the three girls turning around to see nothing. Comparatively, it suggests paranormal features such as ghosts. It further leads on to a quick shot of a creepy doll, which reveals a titular character.

Horror is a genre that is often overlooked due to a plethora of reasons. Readers tend to think of vampires or werewolves, but it is much more in depth. Horror is a genre that if dissected properly, can help the reader understand the correspondence to society. The Horror genre has been around since the 1890’s, when Georges Méliès was credited for creating the first horror film, emphasizing the idea that horror films have a cavernous meaning. In Georges Méliès famous short film, Le Manoir du Diable, the main character confronts Satan and has nowhere to run. This represents conflict within oneself, coinciding with the idea of a deeper meaning being prevalent throughout Shirley Jackson's work. In the novel, The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley

Fear is something that we all ponder about it, we are often pulled in with many authors different way of trying to explain it. In the gothic setting of “The Fall of the Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe and the magical realism of “House taken over” by Julio Cortazar lies a type of dark force within the extensive houses. In the fall of the house of usher we are introduced to the usher siblings and how they deal with the evil within their vast mansion in the middle of nowhere. In house taken over we met two siblings that live within the city and how they deal with their unstoppable force of evil. Both siblings have a different way of dealing with their house, some go mad because of it. The plot of both stories is similar but the way they explain their thoughts make the stories very different from each other. The authors try develop through the characters, setting, and plot that although both stories are different in many ways both captivate the reader with fear in different ways and create an overall different tone and atmosphere for the reader.

In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the characters' imagination overcomes reasoning when they have anxiety. When the narrator first receives the

If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered”- Stephen King. In the short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Edgar Allan Poe, and “House Taken Over”, by Julio Cortazar, haunted houses caused the characters from both stories to get tugged into fearful situations that they don't even know themselves why that is. As both stories progress, the fear of the unknown tends to grow stronger the more the characters try to ignore it. All the running and hiding leads to the character's own downfalls. Although, both stories fall into different genres they do share the same idea; the fear of the unknown. Cortazar exemplifies this with magical realism by having the sense of intruders, causing the characters to leave their house completely. Poe addresses this by using gothic literature, with the“death” of his sister and the way that he keeps the fact if Lady Madeline is alive or the walking dead.

The character on this story has a feeling of dread, as he describes it; “I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse if the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.” (Poe, The fall of the House of Usher). With these the author let the reader think that the character was indeed scare by the looks of the

After evaluating the work of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, he utilizes with imagery to build up the feeling of terror. First of all, the passage is about an ill man, Roderick Usher, who invites his old friend of his to come meet him. In this passage both him and his sister, Madeline Usher, are the last remaining of the Usher race and is diagnosed with an unnatural illness. The narrator begins to feel terror with the supernatural things going on in the house of Usher and the illness of the Ushers. Although the narrator feels the sense of terror from the moment he entered the house, through the use of imagery, Poe is able to bring emotion to the reader. Throughout the passage, the author continues to build up the sense of terror by asserting the image and setting of both the passage and the atmosphere. For instance, he starts the passage by stating “a dull, dark, and a soundless day...clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe 194). In relation to the previous quote, the quote illustrates the image of the atmosphere and the setting of the story. In particular, because Poe expresses the sense of terror by describing the atmosphere as dark, quiet, and gloomy, the reader can get an image of the surroundings and get the feeling of the darkness and horror. In addition, according to Poe, during the first glimpse of the house of Usher, the narrator describes it as gloomy and unpleasant. In particular, Poe states “the shades of the evening drew on… a sense of insufferable gloom” (Poe 194). Additionally, the description of the house adds on to the sense of terror that Poe established in the beginning of the story. Based on the past two quotes stated by the author, the reader can begin to picture a dark and dull day with a gloomy house adding on to the darkness. Lastly, in regards to Edgar Allan Poe, the house of Usher is

Parentless siblings Molly and Kip travel deep within a wooded legend told by the people of Cellar Hollow. Two desperate, homeless, hungry, and penniless children travel over a bridge that will change their lives forever. A knock on a very spooky overgrown manor, opens up to a family with many secrets. Given a job of housework and ground care, Molly and kip find a family falling apart just as the house they live in. From the evil presence that walks the halls each night, to a tree that seems to suck the life out of any living thing within its surroundings, will keep you captivated. The mysterious green door that seems to pull you into a room that you will want to come to over and over again, will prove that human spirit can be divided and conquered.

When they finally get home, mary is so drunk that she can’t make it to her room. Bigger, drunk and slightly aroused, he tries to kiss Mary. Mary’s blind mother comes in the room, and bigger gets nervous. Afraid that mary will make his presence known, he tries to quiet her with a pillow. Somehow he accidentally smothers her. This is a feeling Bigger has never known before, like he had gained some kind of power over this powerful oppression called “white people”. At first he didn’t know what he was going to do. He shoves her in her luggage trunk and carry it downstairs. He see’s the furnace and tries to hide her in there, but her shoulders wouldn’t fit. He starts hacking her head off with a hatchet, then he throws it in the furnace with the body. He starts planning and blames it all on Jan. He eats breakfast at the Daltons house and then starts to take her trunk to the train station, then he goes to see bessie. He tells her about the Dalton girl missing, then decides to write a ransom letter to the Daltons, trying to get money out of them. He bullies bessie into playing part in this scheme. She could tell there was part of the story that he wasn’t telling her. Mr. Dalton finds out that Mary never got to Detroit, and that her bag was never claimed, so he hires a private detective named Britten. Britten brings Jan to the house and starts questioning him. He knows Bigger is lying and confronts him on the street about it, but Bigger scares him off with a gun. He

Another significant element utilized by all three authors is entrapment. This gothic element is shown to exemplify the internal and external conflicts the character feels. In particular, in “The Raven”, the narrator explains the internal conflict they feel when “...just above my chamber door - Perched, and sat, and nothing more” (Poe 438). This implies the dreary emptiness they have after a losing a loved one. Next, in “Prey”, the author demonstrates the external conflict the girl is having as “She was trapped...She started pounding on the door” (Matheson 6) - because of the evil doll. Finally, in “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Irving illustrates that they are prisoners (internal and external conflict) when “The house and it’s inmates had altogether a bad name” (Irving 322). This is the outcome of conspiring with the devil. Furthermore, entrapment reflects the conflicts going on in the characters' lives.

The setting of this film takes place in two main areas the underworld and the Living world. This film Takes place in the underworld

The movie is based in New York City. This is where we see a young couple the Woodhouse’s move into a new apartment of their dreams. Weird things start happening right after they move in. The Woodhouse’s meet their neighbors the Cassavetes and they hit it off, but Rosemary is still a little skeptical of them. Rosemary miraculously becomes pregnant some short time after. During her pregnancy she dealt with weird pains and other things. At the end of the movie Rosemary has the baby but he went missing. She found her baby next door where she realizes that her neighbors, her husband and several others were in some type of cult. When she sees her baby she notices he is not human and he is the son of Satan.

Television today serves as a method to confront our societal fears in a comfortable setting, like books and oral tales did hundreds of years ago. The film The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick, although a modern medium, still draws from the original gothic novel. Compared to The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, The Shining plays on the same classic and applicable anxiety of finding terror within the nuclear family. Kubrick uses the gothic theme to address horror originating from family relationships, additionally taking the idea of “the gothic novel” to a heightened level through invoking despair in his audience rather than hope as Walpole did in his novel. Despair in The Shining is conveyed by

Undoubtedly, there is more than meets the eye, moreover, as the two brothers search for answers in the secretive neighbourhood, at the same time, the dark presence of a grim and haunting

The film starts off with Anna, a 13 year old girl, drawing a house on a sheet of paper with a boy in the window. After messing with a student she is sent to the principal’s office and suddenly faints on her way there. While passed out she wakes up in a dream, lying in a field next to the same house she drew on her paper. She proceeds to walk to the house and sees a boy with a