CAN YOU SCARE US?

THE GOTHIC NOVEL

The gothic novel was invented almost single-handedly by Horace Walpole. Walpole's novel was imitated not only in the eighteenth century and not only in the novel form, but it has influenced the novel, the short story, poetry, and even film making up to the present day. The first Gothic Novel was The Castle of Otranto, that contains essentially all the elements that constitute the genre. It was first published on 1764.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR STORY

The Tell-Tale Heart is about an unnamed narrator who lives with an old man with a diseased eye. Finally he decides to kill him.  The crime is carefully checked and the corpse is dismembered and hidden under the floorboards of the house. The police arrived to the house and the murderer rates himself, imagining the old man's heart has been put to throb under the floorboards.

Edgar Allan Poe was an orphan with a troubled childhood who became America’s first great lyric poet, the inventor of the modern detective story, a pioneer of science fiction, and the master of the macabre. Poe became the first internationally influential American writer. In 1841, before the word “detective” had entered the English language, Poe published the first modern detective story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”  In this tale, Poe established the prototype future mystery writers would follow. He wrote romantic poems, tales of terror and science fiction.

SUSPENSE

Alfred Hitchcock is the master of the suspense. His characters were blonde girls and masked murderers. He used the subjective camera to reveal a character’s vision.

COMIC RELIEF

Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic episode interposed in the midst of serious or tragic elements in a drama. I remember an example of comic relief in The Exorcist when the girl throws up over the priest.