Welcoming Halloween

'No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.'

- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Welcome to Halloween at The Jessica Journals, where we anticipate the creepy season, discussing our favourite haunted houses, vampires and ghosts!

Animated Horror

Monster House (2006) is perhaps one of the most impressive feats of animated cinema I have personally seen. Not only is the animation style wonderful, so is the plot, and, of course, the house itself. Unlike many other animations, this one tows the line between child- and adult-friendly content through its refusal to shy away from dark themes such as alcoholism, bullying and trauma.

One scene that has always stood out to me is when the babysitter's boyfriend makes out with and destroys the protagonist's teddy. When I was a child, I found this disturbing and shocking and very uncomfortable, a harsh rejection of innocence even before the main events kick off. But that is the thing with Monster House. It weighs heavy with a kind of realness often unseen in films made for families. Each of the characters are vulnerable in their own ways, ensuring that the audience are rooting for them by the end.

The film does an excellent job of subverting initial expectations, and the plot twist, which I won't give away, is just brilliant. It helps to provide an extra, very important layer to the story, and critiques humans' tendency to make assumptions about others. In other words, it teaches us that we should lead not with judgement, but instead with compassion.

My favourite aspect of the film, however, has to be the monster house. Its architecture imitates the features of a person's body: the windows are eyes, the door a mouth, and the furnace in the basement is its heart. There is even a uvula! The creativity of the house makes for a fascinating visual experience - at one point, the rug in the entrance, or the house's tongue, reaches out to snatch people who approach on the lawn. It is a complete joy to rewatch this every October and an absolute must-watch for your spooky season!

Satirical Horror

The Menu (2022) is an entirely unique horror movie. It lacks the scare-factor that accompanies many others - you don't watch half-behind a pillow with the constant suspicion that someone is sneaking up behind you. Instead, it is the kind of film that unsettles you throughout, more and more as the reality of the dark plot is revealed.

Anya-Taylor Joy proves herself a fabulous actress yet again, this time as the unenthusiastic protagonist who has been dragged along by her art-obsessed date to an extravagant culinary experience taking place on a remote island. Nicholas Hoult also delivers an excellent performance, not only as a pathetic, obsessed fanboy but also a complete and utter bellend. And we all know Ralph Fiennes has mastered the art of playing a villain.

The film's blend of dark humour with artistic acts of violence serves to satirise problematic class dynamics that take place in the real world. While the characters and their flaws are ridiculous in places, adding to the absurdism of the movie, they are used to provide a wider commentary on the nature of obsession and greed, which I think was done effectively.

The ending is simultaneously shocking and satisfying, in my opinion creating the perfect crescendo to a very well-paced narrative. I particularly enjoy the many plot twists, Anya Taylor-Joy's portrayal of female rage, and the innovation of the art, food and violence. The culinary art exhibition really is breath-taking, and I can guarantee it'll really make you want to devour a cheeseburger.

Slasher Horror

The Scream franchise has come to be some of my favourite ever movies. They do a spectacular job of subverting conventions of the horror genre whilst maintaining fans' favourite aspects, like tension, multiple un-trustworthy suspects, and gore. And I'm usually not too impressed by metafiction, but in this case I absolutely love it. As someone who has previously steered away from horror altogether, I found Scream, with its meta commentary and at times goofy protagonist, the perfect introduction.

Slashers have a predictable formula, at least in terms of their basic structure. One person gets stabbed to death, then there is a brief period of rest, then tension builds again, and then another person is killed. For me, this makes it less scary because at least I know roughly what to expect. I also appreciate that we don't linger too much on the violence (comparatively speaking) and we get plenty of great characters to spend time with in between the kills. Although Gail is a bit of a devil, she does possess a certain charm that makes you like her anyway, and her real saving grace is her sweet relationship with the puppy-dog-eyed Deputy Dewey. And then of course there is Sidney, who is the perfect final girl.

Sidney challenges stereotypes set up in other horror movies, particularly ones which follow 'dumb blondes with big boobs'. The first Scream film pokes fun at the objectification of victims in other horror movies and the franchise instead seeks to stay clear of those regressive conventions. Sidney is portrayed as a self-aware, intelligent teenage girl with a traumatic past, and she adds a depth to the narrative that wouldn't exist without her. It's impossible not to root for Sid and her survival.

The films progressively get more intense, the sixth introducing a less clumsy, more lethal, more threatening villain and a new setting which increases Ghostface's anonymity. This film and the first are my personal favourites, yet the entire series is enthralling and terrifying, with plot-twist after plot-twist making it very difficult to guess who Ghostface is. But the real question is: what's your favourite scary movie?

Rude (Interlude)

How rude of me not to wear them. My fingernails grew dark. The hole expanded. My knuckles were scarlet against those pale fingers. I knew she must be there, waiting. I saw an ear leaping out of the dirt as a tired worm coiled around me. I shook it off with diligence. Indeed, it must be her. My Nana knew how to punish me, and I did not dare retrieve my little friend until she was gone. She would scold me for digging without my gloves.

Haunting Heroines: Feminine Gothic

The feminine Gothic has long been the shadowy mirror of traditional horror, where the monsters lurk within the home, the threats wear ermine, and ghosts are just as likely to whisper romantic confessions as chilling warnings. In stories where the domestic becomes dangerous and the body itself a haunted house, femininity is not fragile. It is monstrous, unknowable, and often beautiful in its decay. Let’s explore how Crimson Peak, Carmilla, and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber collection, especially The Erl-King, rework the Gothic to centre feminine desire, leaving behind a trail of broken tea cups. We will also mention The Haunting of Hill House as it would be rude not to.

Homes of Horror

Across these texts, the traditional Gothic fear of the outsider is turned on its head. The threat does not come from without but from within. As Fred Botting argues in Gothic (1996), Gothic fiction reveals societal anxieties, often using horror and terror as a way to examine psychological and cultural disquiet. The ghosts and houses are not just frightening. They are metaphors for emotional inheritance.

In Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, the crumbling Allerdale Hall is not simply a haunted house. It is a bleeding, maternal space soaked in red clay and generational unrest. Lucille Sharpe does not haunt the house but rather becomes it. Her crimson gown pools like blood on the floor and her trauma is etched into the decaying walls. She is not dead, but she is not entirely alive either. Even against the warm, golden scenes of Buffalo, New York, Lucille appears as a walking manifestation of the misery of her home. As protagonist Edith Cushing observes at the film’s end, some ghosts remain because of ‘loss, revenge, or love.’ Lucille is all three as we see her ghost play the piano beneath her mother’s watchful eye.

This idea of the domestic space as the site of horror is echoed in The Haunting of Hill House, a clear influence on Crimson Peak. Eleanor, like Edith, is drawn not away from home but deeper into its fatal embrace. She romanticises every house she passes on her way to Hill House, imagining the lives she could have lived. Her attachment to the strange, sentient house mirrors her longing for identity and freedom.

Marilyn Butler notes in Romantic Gothic: An Oxford Guide that the haunted house represents the return of repressed emotion. It is not only a symbol of fear, but of memory. Eleanor’s defiant act of taking the car against her sister’s wishes becomes a symbolic rejection of the domestic role she has been trapped in. Hill House becomes both sanctuary and tomb. The real horror is not the ghosts but the possibility that Eleanor never really left home at all.

Feminine Haunting and Desire

Ghosts in the feminine Gothic are rarely simple villains. They are mournful, intimate, and emotionally charged. In Crimson Peak, the red ghosts of the murdered wives are not trying to harm Edith. They are trying to warn her. Like the narrator in Carter’s “The Erl-King,” Edith is one more caged bird.

“There are some eyes that can eat you.” – The Erl-King, Angela Carter

In Carter’s tale, the narrator walks into the forest as if into a dream and finds herself ensnared. The Erl-King collects women and transforms them into birds. His touch is tender but deadly. The story pulses with anticipation and dread, a perfect example of Botting’s concept of terror as psychological fear. Therefore, the terror really is in the anticipation within this tale. We experience true horror the moment she realises what he is.This is echoed in Crimson Peak as Lucille collects her victims like the Erl-King collects birds. She cuts their hair and poisons their carefully presented tea. Keeping trophies allows Lucille to exercise complete control.

Carmilla 

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is another key example of the feminine Gothic. The vampire Carmilla is not monstrous in the traditional sense. She is alluring, maternal, even romantic. Her intimacy is invasive. Laura, the narrator, is drawn to her and repulsed by her. A concept that is explored in Nosferatu (2024) in relation to protagonist Ellen’s magnetism to Nosferatu.

Le Fanu’s Carmilla is a key work of feminine Gothic, presenting a chilling exploration of identity, desire, and belonging through the figure of Laura, a young woman who becomes the object of the mysterious vampire Carmilla’s obsessive attentions. Scholars like Julian Moynahan interpret Carmilla as a colonial allegory, where Laura’s experience reflects the anxieties of an Irish Protestant land-owning class, to which Le Fanu belonged, facing decline and displacement in a rapidly changing world. Laura, an outsider in the Styrian countryside, represents the Gothic theme of alienation but also symbolises deeper cultural fears of invasion and loss of power connected to colonial collapse. In this way, Carmilla not only challenges Victorian norms of sexuality and gender but also dramatises the uncertainty of identity amid imperial and social upheaval. The feminine Gothic here serves as a space where repressed desires, social dislocations, and the threat of the Other come together, reflecting broader historical fears about belonging and the fractures within colonial and patriarchal systems.

Of course, the character of Carmilla is a construction of her own making, with her genuine name being Mircalla. This underlying deception along with her constant languid state creates an air of mystery. The story has strong sapphic tones and Carmilla openly uses her allure to secure her next ‘fix’. This representation of an ex-aristocratic woman turned supernatural reveals intriguing anxieties surrounding female sexual liberation and the dissolving romantic ideals.

The Price of Flesh

“He is the tender butcher who showed me how the price of flesh is love.” – The Erl-King

In the feminine Gothic, knowledge comes at a cost. Edith pays for her understanding of the Sharpes with physical and emotional suffering. The Erl-King’s narrator dreams of killing her lover to escape his grip. In both cases, violence becomes a form of liberation.

Lucille’s possessiveness over Thomas is framed as love, but it is actually control. She insists on keeping him close, wearing her mother’s old clothes and continuing the cycle of abuse. The ballroom scene, where Edith and Thomas dance in candlelight, is overshadowed by Lucille in the background, crimson-clad and watching, always.

Botting’s distinction between terror and horror is clearly at play. Lucille terrifies with her presence, but horrifies in her actions. Similarly, across all of the discussed examples of feminine gothic, there is an emphasis on the terror or not knowing or losing control.

Spooky Film and TV Recs - Keep an eye out for any future posts on the titles below!

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

• The Secret of Moonacre (2008)

• Signs (2002)

• The Sixth Sense (1999)

• The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)

• Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (2016)

• ET (1982)

• The Twilight Saga (2008-2012)

• Alice in Wonderland (2010)

• Beautiful Creatures (2013)

• The House at the End of the Street (2012)

• Coraline (2009)

• The Goonies (1985)

• Hotel Transylvania (2012)

• The Shallows (2016)

• Get Out (2017)

• Corpse Bride (2005)

• Nosferatu (2024)

• Pearl (2022)

• The Love Witch (2016)

• Great Expectations (2012)

  
  

Spooky Reading Recs

• Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg

• The Taking of Annie Thorne by C. J. Tudor

• The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

• Dracula by Bram Stoker

• White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

• Fred Botting, Gothic (1996)

• Marilyn Butler, Romantic Gothic: An Oxford Guide (2001): On haunted homes and repressed emotions.

• The Bloody Chamber (1979) by Angela Carter

• Nancy Holder Frost’s Novelisation of Crimson Peak (2015).

Until We Meet Again...

We hope our explorations of spooky stories have led you to something sinister and frightening. As you read or watch, grab a lantern to keep you company in the dark, and may chills forever run down your spine...