Ghostbusters

The last piece we were asked to look at for my RIG Horror class is Ghostbusters. I am no stranger to this film. I saw it first when I was a little kid. In fact I grew up watching the Ghostbusters TV cartoon every Saturday morning. And yes that was a thing, and yes I loved it even though they turned Slimer into a weird ghostly side kick instead of a poltergeist. I was a kid. that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Like with the last reading I'm not quite sure that I would consider this horror. For me it's too silly and more of a comedy than a horror. I saw it on the list and I was like "What..." (Hear this in minion voice). I guess it could fall under haunting, for obvious reasons. Sure there are ghosts, and such but there are no real horror elements. For me placing this film in with horror is like saying Shaun of the Dead in horror. Both are more comedy than horror in my opinion.

I do genuinely enjoy that in the film they employed science to find, trap, and contain ghosts. I think it's really the only movie with haunting of any kind that attempts to contain the entities. The others all attempt to drive them off, damn them to hell, or is some form cast them out. Not Ghostbusters. They think hmm, lets catch all these ghosts and keep them in a tank in the office like ectoplasm filled goldfish or something. Now tell me that's not a comedy. In case you needed further proof that this film is a comedy the final big bad is a giant marshmallow man. That's a right  a giant marshmallow. How on earth is a giant marshmallow scary.

To prove marshmallows are not scary I give you Marshmallow Murder. For no other reason than Marshmallows are funny and not scary. 

Steve!!! See not scary. Not even a little bit.

So I love the movie. I will always love the movie. It's funny and reminds me of my childhood in so many ways. As a closer for the semester I think it fits me perfectly though. I enjoy comedic ghosts, and I love Bill Murray. But at the end of the class I am and always will feel the same about ghosts, and ghost stories. "I ain't afraid of no ghost," (Reitman).

Works Cited

Ghostbusters. Dir. Ivan Reitman. Perf. Dan Aykroyd, & Bill Murray. 1984. DVD.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

This week we got to read a great Victorian era story by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. I was actually really excited to re read this story because I haven't read this since I was little. My mom used to read this to me very Christmas, a few pages at a time before bed every night. I think the first time she read this to me I was 6 or seven years old. And I loved it. Which probably explains a lot about me and my love of Gothic and Victorian fiction.

I'm not going to do this post the way I normally do. Generally I talk about what I like and don't like about this, but today I am just going to talk about it a little bit because it's such a wonderfully layered story for being so short.

The first thing I want to talk about is the first line of the story. "Marley was dead to begin with," (Dickens, 16). That may be the single best first line in ever. I freaking love it. You know right off the bat what this story is about. Dead folks, lots and lots of dead folks. Well played Dickens well played.

A lot of the reasons I love this time period of fiction is because of the love of language and words that is present. To put it bluntly, no one writes like that anymore. And I'm pretty sure I know the reason. The period is characterized by repetition or the same or similar words, the tangents, and the references to Shakespeare, that characterized the genre and time period. They are all things that have fallen out of favor or a frowned upon in current writing practice. I know because I have been dinged on several of these areas in my own work. But when this era is my influence and style I think I may be existing in the wrong genre perhaps. The most obvious repetition in the book is in the very first chapter. We get "There is no doubt that Marley was dead," (Dickens, 16) or some variation of that over and over through out the first chapter. I find it funny that this book is held up as great literature but this sort of repetition or word echoes are so chastised in current writing. It doesn't seem fair to me as in my opinion I feel it is beautiful writing regardless of time period. And I feel like it sets the mood.

The flip side of this story being a shining example of it's time period is that it comes off a morality tale...a heavily Christian morality tale. If you're a Christian you may not even notice. But if you were to remove that element of the story there would be nothing except an angry old rich guy who never changes. I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just noting it because for me it became painfully obvious that's what this was. It's less (if at all) about haunting and more about telling a morality tale about not being a jack-A. Label it accurately people.

I'm still not quiet sure why I had to read this story for a genre in horror class...it's not horror...it just isn't. Victorian, yes. Gothic, you betcha (fog much?). Morality tale, absolutely. But horror...not by a long shot. I mean consider that this story has been adapted for children a hundred times. By Disney and Jim Hansen. My personal favorite being The Muppets Christmas Carol. I hardly think that it would have been adapted for children if it were horror.  Sure he's haunted by ghost but in no way is it horror. If anything it's a ghostly shaming.

I'm not even sorry. Enjoy this song from The Muppets Christmas Carol.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. The Christmas Carol. London: Simon & Schuster, 2013. E-Book.