A Filmmaker's Guide to: Supernatural II

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we’re actually going to be learning about literature and film together. I understand that many of you are sitting in university during difficult times and finding it increasingly hard to study and I understand that many of you who are not at university or not planning on it are possibly stuck of what to do, need a break or even need to catch up on learning film before you get to the next level. This guide will be brief but will also contain: new vocabulary, concepts and theories, films to watch and we will be exploring something taboo until now in the ‘filmmaker’s guide’ - academia (abyss opens). Each article will explore a different concept of film, philosophy, literature or bibliography/filmography etc. in order to give you something new to learn each time we see each other. You can use some of the words amongst family and friends to sound clever or you can get back to me (email in bio) and tell me how you’re doing. So, strap in and prepare for the filmmaker’s guide to film studies because it is going to be one wild ride.

Supernatural II

What is it?

Previously, we have discussed that the supernatural are things that are extraordinarily out of the natural and therefore, cannot physically be possible. These include things like: ghosts and demons, resurrection or even possession/haunting.

These things have fascinated literary minds since the beginning of time. Ever since the ancient days and especially in the medieval period, people were interested in the why and how of certain things and mostly, blamed it on ghosts. In Dante's Divine Comedy, the ghost of Virgil comes to lead Dante through Hell and Purgatory and yet, cannot enter Heaven. This is not a religious lesson from Dante but rather where he sees himself standing - directly behind the ghost of Virgil. This rather explains why Dante even attempted his own epic in the same style of Virgil's Aeneid.

Other literary ages such as the Renaissance, had the ghosts of Shakespeare and then the Romanticist era had the ghosts of the Gothic Era including folks like Edgar Allan Poe, MR James and more. But I think it was the modernist era where ghost stories began to flourish into the commercial realm.

Authors such as Shirley Jackson created hauntings beyond the supernatural imagination before her and in her book "The Haunting of Hill House" the subject of the haunting is haunted by a house rather than a ghost - an evil pull that reflects the sheer darkness within. The grotesque indecency is a brilliant method to pull in the weaker mind of the four people involved.

What about in film?

In film, the supernatural is being constantly explored in different ways, throughout history there has been a great amount of supernatural stuff being involved in genres from horror to well, just horror actually. From the early days when the somnambulist created Cesare in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" to the days of Hammer Horror and passed it all the way to our own years in which we have films such as "The Conjuring" Universe and "Insidious". Plus a number of great independent horror/supernatural films and films on monsters etc., we have honestly come a long way from just hauntings especially just in the 1920s alone. However, if we want to explore more honest supernatural films, we have to delve deep into the movies about tarot cards, ghosts and monsters beyond anything we have seen - films such as everything from Dracula and Hammer Horror all the way to "Interview with the Vampire" and beyond. These will do best at explaining why monsters became the popular option when ghosts were worn out slightly from the 19th century short story.

Further Reading:

• Cox, M (2003). The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories . UK: Oxford University Press.
• Hogle, J.E (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction (Cambridge Companions to Literature). UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Hughes, W (2018). Key Concepts in the Gothic (Key Concepts in Literature). UK: Edinburgh University Press.
• Luckhurst, R (2009). Late Victorian Gothic Tales. UK: Oxford World's Classics.