Why Modern Monsters Have Become Alien to Us :: Papers

Why Modern Monsters Have Become Alien to Us Late autumn has arrived and with it comes the dark put-on of Halloween--and, of course, themurky thrill of daemons. Yet our appetite for a good monster knows no season. Ever since ancienttimes we have been fascinated with all sorts of tales slightly monsters and intrigued by myths andlegends about those wild half-human beasts who haunt the edges of our forests and lurk in therecesses of our oceans. The sphinxes, minotaurs, and sirens of early mythology gave way to BeowulfsGrendel and Saint Georges dragon, then to the mermaids, trolls, and one-eyed giants of our fairy andfolk tales, and finally to those 19th-century mediaeval classics. Nor are these stories on the wane, for themonster tales that made Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi stars of the silver screencontinue to draw megacrowds six and seven decades later. In 1994 Kenneth Branagh and Robert DeNiro brought us the latest reincarnation of Shelleys report card of Frankensteins tortured creature, and Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt starred in Interview with aVampire, the first installment of Ann Rices homage to StokersDracula. Meanwhile, Andrew LloydWebers musical production of Gaston Lerouxs Phantom of the opera continues to pack inaudiences from London to L.A. Much of the initial appeal of monster stories comes from the fact that they, like their twistedsiblings, creature features and slashers, both terrify and fascinate us with their ghoulish brand ofhorror. Its the rattling-the-tigers-cage kind of thrill that Scout and Jim Finch got from sneaking ontoBoo Radleys porch under a pale moon. Reading or watching great monster stories, we get toaccompany the frightened heroes or heroines as they descend into the dragons lair crane our necksover the tops of books or movie seats and peek into the dank recesses of the giant cyclops cavestretch out our trembling hands and actually touch the monsters reptilian scales, hairy paws, or clovenhoofs a nd then run screeching like a banshee the instant it wakes from its slumber. What a rush As frightening as these creatures are, in monster stories it is always the beast that ends up fetchingthe fall, which means that this is a place where we not only get to tangle with evils most daunting anddangerous minions but to vanquish them with regularity. Pretty heady stuff.