| Author | Message | ||
     Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
Here's a thought. Horror stories that end well...I don't mean a good ending, I mean in that they end 'happily ever after'. Doesn't tend to happen much in horror stories, certainly the Landlords' recent ones don't.. (or maybe...Some tend to be ambiguous, where things have changed perhaps for the better, but it has involved losing what you were). So horror writers..Is a happy ending taboo in your field by definition, or are there loads out there I've forgotten? gcw | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
Stephen King...He does 'em. gcw | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.228.52 |
I'd only just recently read two of the Landlord's novels, and both had "happily ever after" endings - one for all the characters, one for most of the characters - the second was rather Wildean (the good end happily, the bad, unhappily), but for one innocent who gets the shaft - don't want to name these, in case anyone's reading them right now.... I've always said, horror novels tend to end happily, while horror short-stories tend to end unhappily. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
Yes, true, more short stories are happy ever after. gcw | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.169.218.130 |
All horror stories have happy endings if you're a misanthrope. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.155.105.158 |
Oh, don't talk about them! gcw | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.233.167 |
But what constitutes a 'happy ending'? In Hodgson's "The Derelict" the sailors escape one of the most dreadful monsters imaginable, yet the feeling is not one of relief, but of enduring horror that "such things can be" | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 99.227.90.149 |
I think a good deal of horror stories, especially novels, end "happily". Often, the external threat arrives, does its damage, then the heroes unite and defeat it. Everybody's happy. Off the top of my head is Straub's Floating Dragon, but the same happens with a lot of fiction. Then of course there's the fiction of writers like Russell Kirk, whose primary message is one of happiness through religion. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>All horror stories have happy endings if you're a misanthrope.<< .. or a sadist!  I read more short stories than novels, so I guess I'm more used to horror tales which end unhappily. So I find it tends to grate on me a little if I read one which ends happily! But maybe that's because I'm a sadist .. or a misanthrope ..  | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Jack Finney's unbearably tense CONTENTS OF A DEAD MAN'S POCKET has a surprisngly upbeat ending. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
What about all those grand guignol revenge fantasies the Pan Horror series was famous for e.g. 'An Eye For An Eye' by Charles Birkin, 'Putz Dies' by Septimus Dale, 'An Opportunity In Local Government' by Norman P. Kaufman, 'Where No Wind Blows' by Alan Temperley, etc... Can the exacting of poetically just retribution on rapists, Nazis, child abusers and factory farmers be called happy endings?! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.172.89 |
More like the sticky endings of porn films, I think: 'happy' if that's what you want to see. I'm very suspicious of the brand of sadism that justifies itself by saying 'Only the bad guys are being flayed alive, so it's moral'. So-called poetic justice is neither. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.219.111 |
Having said that, I've always been the kind of reader and viewer who hopes (usually in vain) that the vampires, werewolves etc will prevail and the tiresome staus quo will not be restored. But that's not because I relish the violent death of everyone. That's just an unfortunate side-effect of the ideal outcome: the triumph of the weird over the normal. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.219.111 |
Which means, of course, that my idea of a happy ending is roughly the polar opposite of most people's. I'm always on the side of the weird. Not of moral 'evil' but of mystery and change and the unknown.  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.170.90 |
I agree, generally. But I hate upsetting endings and find them hard to write. There have been times when it's felt like someone should have died but I've just not had the heart to do it. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Has anyone here read 'The Owl Service' by Alan Garner? I can't get that ending out of my head and still can't decide whether it was happy or tragic... in many ways it could be seen as both. Which brings me to the point that ambiguous endings that haunt the mind and demand debate without any clear cut resolution are always best when it comes to weird fiction. As for those ghastly retribution stories... they may leave a nasty taste in the mouth but there is something undeniably satisfying about them when in that mood. Yes, just like porn! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 193.109.254.19 |
Has anyone here read 'The Owl Service' by Alan Garner? Oh yes - back in the 'sixties when I was a lad - I found it very powerful then just as I did when I re-read it around ten years back. Have you seen the tv series? It's not perfect but it's very good indeed. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I always used to think that ghastly retribution stories were the ones that finally did for the Pan Horror series, but that may be an oversimplification. It could just be that publishers' tastes were changing, paperback anthologies were disappearing from the mainstream lists, etc. Either way, I too used to get a certain guilty pleasure from some of that series's ingeniously ghoulish offerings. The man who tied his wife and her lover to a railway line so that their limbs were severed, then allowed railway tunnel rats to feast on their stumps, springs to mind. Then there was the jealous politician who invited his successful friend to bathe in a swimming pool - after he'd had it filled with sulphuric acid. I think some of the later ones, however, really were gruesome just for the sake of being gruesome, and didn't offer much in the way of literary merit - so it's pretty difficult to justify them. That said, I guess it's what you want from your horror story. I suppose we're back to that old elusive quality that defines 'horror'. What actually is it? Is it possible to provide an answer that everyone would agree on? For your horror, do you want something atmospheric and spooky, do you want something violent and action-packed, do you want something that will keep you awake at night, do you want something intellectually challenging, or do you just want something that simply causes you to shudder - whether it be ghostly, monstrous or downright, in-yer-face gory? Each reader has his or her own taste, and I don't suppose any of us will ever be in a position to say which of them is actually the correct one. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.228.37 |
That said, I guess it's what you want from your horror story. It's all a matter of taste - or lack of it. Compare stories like "To Fatima" and "Needle and Thread" to "The Man called James". The latter is almost poetic in its subtlety, although its outcome is just as gruesome. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"Has anyone here read 'The Owl Service' by Alan Garner?" Several times, and I think it's a superb novel by a master of - well, actually, dark fantasy is a term that might have been created to cover it. Indeed, I admire all his fantasy novels, even the early ones for younger children. Good Lord, I've only just remembered that it was the late Eddie Jones who put me on to them. As to what we want from horror fiction - awe for preference in my case, but disquiet is fine too. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.170.90 |
I loved Red Shift (at least till - well, I'll not talk about endings any more right here). But Owl Service I've started a few times and never got through. Thing is, I like Garner, but for some reason that one seems to slip through my fingers when I try to grasp it. Funny because in theory it's exactly my kind of thing. I used to love gore as a kid, but then sort of got bored with it, and yes, felt dirty after. Then I realised it was spookiness I was after above anything. BTW - bought this two volume set of short stories, an Oxford collection of classic shorts. About 60% or more of them are supernaturally tinged. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.153.165.191 |
I picked up Alan Garner's 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' and it's sequel 'The Moon of Gomrath' on Stephen's recommendation. Over the past few nights I've been reading 'Weirdstone' to my 7 year old daughter who has been totally enthralled for those 10-15 mins before lights out. I'm enjoying this experience immensely! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.178.116 |
"Weirdstone..." is amongst my all time favourite books. I recall it being on the radio in the 'sixties as part of Children's Hour, and it scared the daylights out of me, which I loved. There was another radio version back in the 'eighties, done, I think, as the Radio 4 play on a saturday night. 'Twas ok, but not so good. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I find it difficult to believe that everyone of my generation didn't discover Garner in their early teens...he's a long-time favourite of mine. ELIDOR is the single book that altered my literary tastes for life. But we've discussed this many times before, haven't we? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Come to think of it 'The Owl Service' has three endings: triumphantly happy, weirdly ambiguous and resoundingly tragic... a major feat of the imagination as the blurb (for once) rightly states. I wasn't aware there was a TV version. I envy you that experience, Sean. I read the 'Weirdstone' at a very young age and it haunted me until well into adulthood. It and the sequel should be made compulsory reading for kids imo. 'Elidor' is amazing too! I have yet to read 'Red Shift'... must seek out a copy. |