| Author | Message | ||
     Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Working on a short story (novella?) right now that employs, in one sense or another, the horror trope of the doppelganger. However, I'm sort of having a hard time getting my head around the popular conception of doppelgangers. (That is, I'd like to steer around some cliches, but I'm not sure what the cliches are.) Seems to me that the term doppelganger will mean different things to different people. But maybe I'm nuts. I have three questions, then, for any RCMBer who wants a go at them: What's the term doppelganger mean to you? In what sense are doppelgangers frightening? In your opinion, what's the best work of doppelganger-related fiction? (Or maybe cinema?) Thanks in advance to all who participate. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
To me, doppelganger simply means a double - whether that double is evil or not is open to interpretation. It's one of my favourite horror tropes. They're frightening because they look and act exactly like you - imagine walking past a bloke in the street. You accidentally brush shoulders. You look up. Into your own eyes, your own face. Your own mouth opens to speak to you. Terrifying. Human Remains by Clive Barker was always a favourite of mine, but I can't think of any other really great examples right now (my brain's not in gear). In film there's always Roger Moore in The Man Who Haunted Himself. Have you seen Nacho Cerda's The Abandoned? That's a great recent doppelganger film - and it's very, very creepy. | ||
| Darren O. Godfrey (Darren_o_godfrey) Username: Darren_o_godfrey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 207.200.116.133 |
I quite liked Peter Straub's MISTER X. Great doppelganger tale. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Just a quick response (my brain isn't in gear either - have you and I been drinking the same water, Zed?). Re "The Man Who Haunted Himself", the best aspect of that for me was the creeping fear of Moore's character, the way things just got weirder and more scary for him as the film went along and he realised what was happening to himself. I think that's the aspect which would most terrify me - that gradual realisation about the situation you were in when faced with your own doppelganger, whom you had no control over whatsoever. Good luck with the story, Chris! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Hmmm, just had a thought based on what Zed said about the doppelganger doesn't have to be evil. Wouldn't that be an interesting premise - where the protagonist him/herself is the "baddie" and the doppelganger is the good character? Just a thought anyway. Oh, and would Thomas Tryon's "The Other" class as a doppelganger of sorts? Of course, the punchline is that "the other" isn't actually the boy's evil twin but his own split personality - but that's perhaps another "take" on the doppelganger idea? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.174.38.16 |
You've also got Gerry Anderson's film DOPPELGANGER, in which the earth and all its inhabitants have doubles. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.226.42 |
No one's mentioned Ramsey's "The Scar" yet? The single best doppelganger story around, imho. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.62.126 |
The Dark Half. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
One of the key things about the 'doppelganger' idea is that it can be a harbinger of your own death. If you see it, it could be a sign that your number's in the near future. I remember that freaked me out when I read about it as a boy. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Zed/Simon: Yes, those are the competing versions of the doppelganger theme I seem to most encounter. THere are others, however -- the one in Henry James's "The Jolly Corner" comes to mind, as well as certain "twin in the mirror" stories. I'm getting the sense that this is a rather malleable trope. I'm with Zed -- I like it. Caroline: Your suggestion -- the doppelganger in reverse -- is actually the one I've undertaken, FWIW. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Mick: Never seen the Anderson film. I'll be sure to look it up. Craig: Good point. Love that one. Gary F/Darren: Both great books. Thanks for the tips, all. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
I saw a doppelganger of myself at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham at the weekend. Same build, pattern of baldness etc. On the couple of times it's happened my first thought has been, What am I doing over there? | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
Hammer House of Horror's "The Two Faces of Evil" is the scariest doppelgänger story I've seen, though the white-eyed Laura Palmer double in the final episode of "Twin Peaks" gave me nightmares. There's also Stephen Volk's Vardøger. And according to Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley had encountered his own doppelgänger. The thought of meeting one's double is very disturbing. For me it would certainly mean death or total loss of identity. Something taking over your life, assuming your place. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.178.107.122 |
Although not a doppelganger tale, the one tale which really captures the horror of objectification which must be involved in seeing ourselves in the flesh from the outside-in is Ramsey's 'Stages'. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.195.220 |
Er, maybe their classic status is inhibiting people from mentioning Poe's 'William Wilson' and Dostoevsky's 'The Double'. I saw my own double at Fantasycon a couple of years ago. Except it was me a decade younger. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.227.215 |
Ah, Kate's reminded me (speaking of "giving me nightamres"), of that classic movie I've mentioned a lot... POSSESSION, 1981, starring Sam Neill. Definitely a nightmarish doppelganger flick.... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.195.220 |
P.S. that's not some obscure joke, it's true. And yes, it disturbed me. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.195.220 |
'Shatterday' by Harlan Ellison. The midlife crisis story to end them all. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Weird, I was just talking about this on the Ultimate Movies thread yesterday!!  Or was it my double... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Check out James Lovegrove's How The Other Half Live as another take on the doppelganger. I wrote a kind of Doppelganger story which is on Frank's website for all to read... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
http://coaction.wordpress.com/fiction-2/ | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>I saw my own double at Fantasycon a couple of years ago. Except it was me a decade younger.<< Funny you should say that as I had a similar experience a few years ago. I was walking a familiar route which took me past a park. Sitting on wall outside the park gates was a girl - maybe 13 or 14 - who could have been me when I was that age. She was even wearing the same kind of clothes I used to wear as it was at that time that wide flared jeans were back in fashion (I was 13/14 in the early 70s). It really freaked me out. I regularly walked past that park at that time (not now, as we've moved since then), and I never saw her again - neither had I seen her before that day. Scary.  Ooo, by the way, I have a "twin in the mirror" type story on Johnny Mains' site.  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
At several points in my life, I've been approached by people thinking I was someone else, someone they knew very well. These encounters have all involved lengthy conversations, where I've just played along out of bemusement. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Try having an identical twin... gets bloody annoying. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
Ten years ago I was living in Manhattan and one day a man came out of a church and followed me for a couple of blocks. It was morning and there were people around, so I wasn't really worried. Still, it creeped me out and I finally turned around to confront him. He looked upset. "Kitty?" he said. I blinked in surprise. Kitty was a childhood nickname but no one had called me that in years. "No," I said, wondering how he could possibly know me. He persisted. "Kitty Genovese?" I said no, he'd definitely got the wrong person. He apologised and said I looked just like her before wandering back the way he'd come. When I got back to my apartment I looked up the name and felt like someone had walked over my grave. She's the woman who was murdered while her neighbours watched, unwilling to get involved. I don't look anything like her, but that weird encounter has always haunted me. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Shudder. I'm familiar with the Kitty Genovese case (read about it as research for an aborted novel, and Harlan Ellison's extraordinary The Whimper of Whipped Dogs was inspired by it). Your anecdote gave me the chills. Googling her photo, you do have similarities in facial shape...I can just about see why someone might possibly see a likeness at a distance. But maybe the guy was simply insane. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Or maybe him saying "Kitty Genovese?" was an invitation of some kind... Shudder (again). | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
Oh thanks Zed - that's me up all night now! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Sorry.  He'll come a-knock-knock-knocking on your window, grinning a lopsided smile. One eye drooping lower than the other. Wet lips. Razor-rash skin on his throat. "Kitty," he'll say. "It's me again, Kitty. You are Kitty, aren't you?" He'll knock again, three times: a charm. "Well, you are now..." The sound of breaking glass. A single drawn-out scream. "Here, Kitty, Kitty?" | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
What's that he's carrying in his briefcase? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
His sandwiches? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
That scream will be from him when he sees what actually goes on inside Probert Towers  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
 Can't wait to see you both this weekend, btw. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
Same here, Zed! And check your email. My apologies to Chris - I didn't mean to hijack your thread. Let me bring it back on topic by saying that I find the literal meaning of "doppelgänger" spooky too. "Double-walker". That conjures creepy Jamesian imagery for me. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Just checked, Kitty - oooh, thanks. I have no headphones here, so will listen when I get home. Am I going to regret this? | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
I hope so. Put on your headphones and wander around your house in the dark. You'll recognise it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.238.145 |
Okay, file this under "trivial" Stevensian (after Stevie) Coincidence: Just last night I'm watching the bizarre and indescribable pitch-black comedy LITTLE MURDERS (1971) for the first time, and the chilling opening scene - where actress Marcia Rodd wakes up in her apartment, to hear Eliot Gould being attacked and tormented outside - clearly brought the Kitty Genovese case in mind, but twisted around. Then I go online, and someone there explicitly compared that scene too, to the Kitty Genovese murder.... ... all just to say, Kitty Genovese was already in the back of my mind, as I started reading this thread.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've never heard of this case, Craig, but now you have me intrigued... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just read the facts on Wiki. A nightmarish set of circumstances all conspired to give that poor woman such a brutal death - with her hidden from view the neighbours simply couldn't have known how horrific a crime was being committed - but as for that Moseley bloke, fuck, words fail me... | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
Craig, that's really creepy! And Stevie, yeah, I just read the Wikipedia article too. Apparently the "38 people watched her die" was a bit exaggerated but I still love the Harlan Ellison story. Powerful stuff. What Moseley said in his "defence" at a later parole hearing made me ill. I hope he never gets out. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Yes, it was all exaggerated...but it's still horrific. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.68 |
I don't have anything as scary as Lady P's tale, but last year I got a letter telling me I was in jail in Glasgow. I double checked and I wasn't, as it turned out. But a guy who was born in the same hospital as me, on the same month, year, and day as me was. He'd the exact same name as me, and somehow our national insurance numbers had got muddled in the system - which was the only way I found this out. Weird, huh? Rather annoyingly, however, the only way for me to find out if I've a criminal conviction is to pay to have a check done on me. Just to make sure someone else's mistake hasn't stayed on my record. As for fictional dopplegangers, I think it's been done too often now to be scary for me, both in horror fiction and in crime fiction (oh no, it's another scary twin story). But good luck with the tale all the same! | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 139.168.48.84 |
The film 'Lake Mungo' has a brilliant doppleganger scene in it. 'Broken' is another recent film featuring dopplegangers. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
A new horror film about dopplegangers is The Broken. A British horror film by the director of Cashback. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Frank...look at Lincoln's post directly above yours. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I'll get my coat. (I'm not going to even try and explain) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
A new horror film about dopplegangers is The Broken. A British horror film by the director of Cashback. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Like I said, humour is case of taste  | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.97.61 |
For me the spookiness of a doppelganger is its purpose. I always liked the idea that it portended death to the person who saw it, but there's still the why? Why would some otherworldly force bother to send a replica of the person about to die. Is there some grim deed it needs doing that the real person can't or won't do? As to the best doppleganger fiction, I have to agree Craig, Ramsey's "The Scar" is my favorite. I just reread it last night to include in my Halloween Article. (This year I'm posting my personal top ten favorite Ramsey Campbell short stories. "The Scar" clocks in at my #8.) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.246.169 |
(Hey Matt - #s 1, 2, and 3 for me, fwiw, are: "The Tugging," "Through the Walls," and "The Companion" - again, just my own personal top 3) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.246.169 |
Oh, yeah, and there's this new British horror film about dopplegangers called THE BROKEN. It's by the director of CASHBACK. (this swiftly-tiring joke is actually apt here in this thread, innit?) | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
I keep getting this strange feeling of deja vu!  | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.4 |
I watched a very strange film last night called Double Take, directed by Johan Grimonprez. It's quite a difficult piece to describe, although I found it weirdly compelling. So much so that I'm looking to buy it on DVD. The details are here - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386926/ Part of the 'story' is that Alfred Hichcock encounters his own doppleganger on the set of one of his films (The Birds), and that character tells him that "if you meet your own double, you should kill him, or he will kill you." The doppleganger is his own self from 1980. The documentary is based on a short story by Tom McCarthy, which in itself is inspired by August 25th, 1983 by Borges. There are more elements to the narrative than that (it takes in the Cold War, television v cinema, and communism v capitalism) but it's quite an interesting piece, if you're that way inclined. I hadn't read the Borges essay, but I'm curious as to the story behind it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.170.240 |
Any boobies in it? | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.4 |
Sadly, none. But some (The) birds and a (Hitch)cock. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.170.240 |
That's stretching the definition of a jazz movie just a little, mate. | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.97.61 |
(Hey Matt - #s 1, 2, and 3 for me, fwiw, are: "The Tugging," "Through the Walls," and "The Companion" - again, just my own personal top 3) That's a good list, Craig. I haven't read "Through the Walls" as I don't have it in any of my collections or anthologies. Even just from the title it sounds like an awesome story though. My top three (I'll post a link to the article here once I get it posted) are 1. "Down There, 2. Worse Than Bones, and 3. "Just Waiting" | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.241.37 |
Matt, you can find the story in Ramsey's 1998 collection Ghosts and Grisly Things. Do read it, it's one of his best. (And, to anyone, for a superb companion horror short-story to this one: Gene Wolfe's "Game In The Pope's Head." To those who've read both, they share a common element.... ) Great picks Matt - though it's pretty hard to separate would picks would be better than others, really. | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.97.61 |
I'll have to track Ghosts and Grisly Things down for certain. It's true that it's hard to pick one over another, as I basically love them all. They're in that order right now but in a day or two I might decide to switch them around. I do like top 10 lists though, even if they do stay in flux. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
The Twilight Zone story/episode, 'Mirror Image' is a great story about doppelgangers. The ending is classic TZ. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.180.124.231 |
Have you seen Nacho Cerda's The Abandoned? That's a great recent doppelganger film - and it's very, very creepy. Zed - watched that tonight - most effective, I thought, with great use of sound. PS I'll sort your DVD out in a day or so - not forgotten! |