Author: DC (Page 340 of 1094)

* (Halloween countdown post #12)

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The Dent Schoolhouse
5963 Harrison Ave., Cincinnati OH 45248
Info: https://dentschoolhouse.com

The Dent Schoolhouse takes place in a schoolhouse that was built back in 1896 and contains a gruesome legend… The Janitor of the school, Charlie McFree is said to have killed a large number of the student body over a period of 10-20 years. Hiding their bodies within the basement, the smell became to much and alerted the town of Dent… discovery of the hellish scene has made a permanent residence in the basement. The building is said to be haunted by both the lost children… and The Janitor! The Dent Haunted Schoolhouse is consistently selected as one of the best haunts in America.

 

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THE DAM HAUNTED WOODS presents HILLBILLY HELL
3460 TN 75, Kingsport, TN, United States, Tennessee
Info: https://www.facebook.com/the.damhauntedwoods/

This year, you are invited to MEET THE DAM FAMILY in what we locals are calling … HILLBILLY HELL

Experience over a quarter-mile long trail of TOUCHABLE TERROR with our contact attraction where WE CAN TOUCH YOU!

Your senses allow you to experience full body horror as you make your way through the condemned property with tales of hillside killers and cannibal mountain men filling your mind.

 

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Bennett’s Curse
7875 Eastpoint Mall, Baltimore, MD 21224
Info: https://bennettscurse.com

If you have a heart condition, Bennett’s Curse’s jump scares will “cure” you – permanently!

 

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Psycho Path: The Dark Ride
1517 E 106th St N Sperry, OK 74073
Info: https://psychopathhaunt.com

The Dark Ride is a combination of elements of a theme park ride where you ride from scene to scene with the high-intensity scares of the more traditional haunted houses brought together to created a totally new outdoor haunted experience. Being outside gives us the advantage of real fog, real sounds, real smells, real moonlight, and real creatures lurking just out of range of the lights. We regularly hear coyotes and owls howling just over the fence. Knowing those sounds are real only enhances the experience and besides, who isn’t afraid of being in the woods at night? Those brave enough to venture into the Dark Ride will climb into their own Scareage, a custom vehicle, Owner, Victor Marquez designed specifically for Psycho Path. While most outdoor haunts rely on noisy tractors to pull a wagon, the Psycho Path Scareages are so quiet riders will hear leaves rustling or twigs snapping in the darkness. Some of the sounds are man-made, and some are not, but they all combine to enhance the 20 minute journey through the heavily-wooded land. Along the way, you will pass through scenes filled with custom props, buildings, and oh yeah, creatures that spring out when you least suspect it. We offer this final warning: “Once you climb aboard, there’s no turning back”. Riders are not permitted to leave the vehicle after the ride starts, so you’ve got to be up to the challenge of the Psycho Path. We like to say “it may be your only way home.”

 

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The Haunted Road + Human Slaughterhouse
15239 Lake Pickett Road Orlando, FL 32820
Info: https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntedRd/

The Haunted Road – Human Slaughterhouse Edition immersive drive-thru experience is more frightening than ever with the addition of a walk-thru haunted slaughterhouse house at the end of the road. Start with the haunted drive along Lake Pickett Road in Orlando where flesh-craving ghosts are seeking revenge upon foolish mortals. Those who make it to the end of the line can park their car and test their nerves against the walk-thru Human Slaughterhouse.

 

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Crawford School of Terror
125 N 7th Street, Connellsville, PA 15425
Info: https://www.facebook.com/Crawfordschoolofterror/?ref=page_internal

School is in session! For some, that is scary enough. On the surface, Crawford School of Terror reaches back into our subconscious and brings out our adolescent fears from our childhood. Teachers, homework, classmates, failure, rejection, and maturity are all common fears of school and our youth. Aside from those fears that Crawford will dissect, there is deeper lore to this school. Drawing parallels from the movie The Crush, Margarete was a lovesick sixth grader with a dark past that was head over heels for her teacher. She would stop at nothing to have him, including murder. After a series of horrific events, she has been permanently trapped in these halls for eternity, each year bringing more unfortunate souls with her.

 

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The Wicker Manor presents Haunted Mine
9222 E 53rd Avenue, Denver, CO 80238
Info: http://www.wickermanor.com

Now that summer has passed and fall is upon us – what better way to celebrate than with a local home haunt inside a Central Park family’s garage? They have been building extremely detailed haunted houses in their garage for years now in order to raise money for various charities. The haunted house is called Wicker Manor and it’s located in Wicker Park. This season the Wicker Manor has built an entirely new haunted house for kids and adults to experience – it’s a haunted gold mine! Once you enter the mineshaft you will take an elevator down into the mine. From there – we have no idea what happens. But I’m sure your family will be brave enough to find out!

 

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Bane Haunted House
618 W 46th St, New York, NY 10036
Info: https://banehauntedhouse.com

After years of frightening the residents of New Jersey, Bulletproof Production’s Bane opens its doors in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Bane is a thirty-minute walk-through haunted house that innovates beyond tradition by separating guests at multiple points during the experience. Further, guests will be asked to crawl, slide, spin, and explore to find their way through the attraction. While actors can touch audience members, it’s not an extreme haunt in the traditional sense. But regardless of form, it’s an incredibly frightening experience for fans of all intensity levels.

Bane does not utilize a single theme within its walls, but rather uses a shotgun approach in which all phobias are touched on at some point. Whether it’s clowns, nuns, zombies, or hillbillies, you’ll face them all. Further, everything from coffins or morgue lockers to wells are used to separate groups. These are used to perfection, too – as guests are not immediately reunited with the party right after. Instead, guests will continue down different paths of different lengths, ensuring that parties are permanently separated for the remainder of their tenure at Bane. This is the most fear-inducing part, raising the number of safeties beyond any normal haunted house.

 

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USS Nightmare
101 Riverboat row, Newport, KY 41071
Info: https://ussnightmare.com

After being unable to set sail last season, the USS Nightmare’s vessel is back with a vengeance! Not only will you be on an actually-floating haunted house, but you’ll also navigate the cargo holds, engine rooms, machine shops, crew’s quarters, the pilothouse, and the experimental medical chambers as you watch these ornery operators try to build the ultimate super-crew member! You can expect adult situations and language, more extreme special effects, cast & crew can touch you, separation from your group, more darkness and intense horror, and the potential to get wet and dirty (so please dress accordingly).

 

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Terror in the Corn at Anderson Farms
6728 County Road 3 1/4, Erie, CO 80516
Info: https://terrorinthecorn.com

COLORADO’S ULTIMATE HAUNTED HOUSE EXPERIENCE. Terror in the Corn is open each Halloween season between September through October 31st. Stay updated by liking our social media via Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for information, special discounts, dates, pricing, auditions, etc.… TERROR IN THE CORN is 10 acres of fear offering an immersive experience into a world of the unknown. You and your friends will wind your way through a massive corn field filled with your darkest fears… leading to the town of Raven’s Gulch where you will make your way through its abandoned buildings and darkened streets to face the nightmares that greet you at every turn.

 

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A Haunting in Hollis
211-17 Hollis Avenue, Queens Village, NY 11429
Info: https://ahauntinginhollis.com

A Haunting in Hollis is a 5-STORY, REAL in-home-haunt. The walk through consists of our two-car bloody garage, the “dungeon,” 13 rooms filled with horror, over 20 live actors, PLUS Two 40ft pitch black outdoor mazes with dead ends (you will get lost)! The only way to exit the house is through Satan’s Slope, a steep slide with a 20 ft drop! (Alternative Handicap (or scaredy-cat) Accessibility Available).

 

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Atrox Factory
8404 Parkway Dr, Leeds, AL 35094
Info: https://www.atroxfactory.com

Atrox Factory is a 50,000 square foot Alabama entertainment complex located near Birmingham. The theme is based on altering your mind’s experience from what you expect. Fear and fright are abnormal so the facility only admits children above the age of 12. Dr. Slain, your host, leads you through dark passages into rooms with bloody autopsies. You will feel the blood splatter and moisture. Expect to encounter monsters and chainsaw carrying creatures along your minds dark journey. Here you might be grabbed, touched, or pushed by the actors. The 30 minute experience leads you to run for your life. After 10 years of terror, Atrox Factory provides an indoor waiting area complete with a movie, concession stand, restrooms, free parking, wheelchair accessibility and great FX imaging. They use mirrors, sound, motion, fog, lights to create cool scenes throughout the building. The only drawback is the long waiting lines because of the popularity of Atrox Factory. Wait times can be hours.

 

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Terror in the Trees
444 Jacobs Cemetery Rd, Lucasville, OH 45648
Info: https://www.facebook.com/TerrorInTheTrees/?ref=page_internal

You will experience intense audio, lighting, extreme low visibility, strobe lights, fog, damp or wet conditions, special effects, sudden actions, and an overall physically demanding environment. You should NEVER ENTER a haunted house if you suffer from asthma, heart conditions, prone to seizures, physical ailments, respiratory or any type of medical problem, or are pregnant or suffer any form of mental disease including claustrophobia. DO NOT ENTER the attraction if you are intoxicated, wearing any form of cast, medical brace, using crutches, or have any type of physical limitations. Do not enter the attraction if you are taking medication or using drugs of any type. DO NOT ENTER IF YOU SUFFER FROM ASTHMA, HEART CONDITIONS, SEIZURES, OR ANY TYPE OF MENTAL, PHYSICAL, RESPIRATORY, AND OR MEDICAL PROBLEMS. DO NOT SMOKE, RUN, EAT, or DRINK inside the attraction.

 

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Scare House
2012 Butler Logan Rd, Tarentum, PA 15084
Info: https://www.scarehouse.com

Scarehouse is a extreme haunted attraction for the most daring of patrons. From high voltage effects to security screenings before you enter, this place is definitely not for the faint of heart. “You will be touched, restrained, and hooded. You will be tormented, challenged, and scared out of your mind.”

 

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Haunted Plantation
94-695 Waipahu St, Waipahu, HI
Info: https://www.facebook.com/HauntedPlantation

The Haunted Plantation has been recognized not only as Hawaii’s scariest Halloween attraction but one of the best haunts in America. Why, do you ask? Because the plantation village is haunted… not just at night, or during the month of October. Legitimately haunted. Of the village’s 25 plantation houses, approximately half of them are legitimately haunted. The village is so haunted, it has been featured on Syfy, The Travel Channel, and Buzzfeed. According to the Hawaii Plantation Village staff, more than a dozen actors at the haunted attraction have quit throughout the twelve years the attraction has been open — and now, actors are not allowed to work in the houses by themselves due to supernatural activity.

 

 

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Haunted Overload
20 Orchard Way, Lee, NH 03861
Info: https://hauntedoverload.com

Haunted Overload is simply one of the most creative and unique haunted attractions in New England. Now located on the DeMeritt Hill Farm on Route 155 in Lee NH. The show has twice been voted one of the top 13 haunted attractions in the country. In 2014 Haunted Overload won ABC’s Great Halloween Fright Fight.

Focusing on quality, we are committed to giving the customer the ultimate Halloween experience at an affordable price. Nowhere else can you see huge monsters looming over the crowd, some as tall as 34 feet. The authentic farm location provides the perfect backdrop for the hundreds of lighted pumpkins and movie quality sets. Most of the one of a kind props are designed and created by founder Eric Lowther.

The haunt is changed and expanded each year to give the patron something new and exciting to experience. The night time haunt, while artistically done is extremely scary and parental discretion is advised for younger or sensitive children.

 

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The Haunted Hilltop
8235 Hwy 58, Harrison, TN 37341
Info: http://www.thehauntedhilltop.com

Your night begins two miles outside of the Chattanooga city limits. You pull up at the bottom of a dark steep hill. You then begin your slow ascent to the top. All you can see up on top of the hill is a house and flashing lights. When you arrive you see a house, barn, a big bonfire, cemetery and a cornfield. You follow along a fence and a trail of tape, passing a large screen TV playing a horror movie. When you arrive at the door, you knock. The door swings open and the house looks empty. Your palms begin to sweat and your knees begin to shake. You can tell this isn’t a normal house. Are you up for the horror within?

The Haunted Hilltop returns, voted as Chattanooga’s Best and Largest Haunted attraction for the third year in a row. This attraction includes a huge haunted house, a dark maze, long terrifying haunted hayride through the woods and cornfield, and over 50 professional live actors nightly. You will also get to experience the longest vortex tunnel in the south.

 

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Haunted Hoochie
13861 Broad St SW, Pataskala, OH 43062
Info: http://www.deadacres.com

Haunted Hoochie has a reputation. It’s the bad boy in the neighborhood moms don’t want their sons hanging around and dads pray their daughters don’t date. Every year the Hoochie crawls out of its primordial swamp to terrorize, scandalize, and shock.

Often labeled ‘extreme,’ its all-out assault on good taste, common sense, and basic decency is not for everyone. If you don’t like it, be assured the Hoochie doesn’t care and will be content to mock you and flick its boogers at you. By its own admission, the Hoochie is ‘not recommended for anyone!’

Consider: the first scene features a shotgun suicide, and from there it’s a nonstop, breathtaking attack that throws a little bit of everything at you and the wall you’re flattened against. Flaming pentagrams, a lady that goes full Lorena Bobbitt on a captive dude, another unfortunate soul getting sawed in half, and a belligerent cast that takes visitors way out of their comfort zone.

We think the Haunted Hoochie is a helluva lot of fun and an amazing experience. Our visit was a refreshing blast of foul air that acted as a caustic corrective to some of this miserable year’s more unfortunate complications.

 

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RISE
10342 Hwy 442, Tickfaw LA
Info: https://risehauntedhouse.com

In an experiment that went terribly wrong, or amazingly right, depending on your point of view, the dead have been awakened. Mindless zombies thirsty for blood…Awakened souls seeking revenge for their interrupted slumber…Evil infested bodies eager for human flesh…No one is safe from the hordes of hungry undead when they catch the scent of human flesh. Bring a Friend…Expect to leave ALONE…

 

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Hellwig Hollow
7480 Harris Rd, Canyon, MN
Info: https://www.facebook.com/hellwighollow

Hellwig Hollow is a terrifying half-mile walk through the woods on a haunted trail about 20 miles northwest of Duluth, in the unincorporated community of Canyon. The trail is open from 7 to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights in October and 7 p.m. to midnight on Halloween night. Admission is $15. Participants should wear closed-toed shoes and dress for the weather. Ages 13 and older are permitted; parents must accompany those age 13-16. No smoking, drugs or alcohol on site.

 

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Haunted Hunt Club Farm
2388 London Bridge Road, Virgina Beach, VA 23456
Info: https://hauntedhuntclubfarm.com

There were 4 of us ages 40 to 74. My dad kept saying it was going to be so corny and he was only going because it was something to do on our vacation. It ended up being the most terrifying experience of all of our lives! They put so much work into it, so much thought and detail! Highly recommend. You can even have a quick bite while you are there.

 

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HorseAbility Haunted Hay Barn
Apple Rd N, Glen Head, NY 11545
Info: https://www.lihauntedhouses.com/halloween/horseability-haunted-hay-barn-ny.html

 

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The Shallow Grave
701 42nd St NW, Winter Haven, FL 33881
Info: http://shallowgravefl.com

Thaddeus Van Buren didn’t feel like he had a choice. His family was starving and the undertaker didn’t make enough money to feed them. What was he to do? Let them die? No. That’s how The Shallow Grave, a haunted house attraction in Winter Haven, begins.

Joe Phillips, who works as a truck broker, always wanted to be a writer and comic book artist but when those plans fell through, he decided to go all-in on his haunted house idea. “I made some money, had some savings and I decided to stop asking ‘What if’ and decided to take a shot and see if I can make a pro attraction and see if I can compete with these so-called big boys,” Phillips said.

It takes more than 80 crew members to put on the production and a budget of $125,000. Phillips said crews have gone far past that number but is not surprised because he went 125 percent over budget last year.

 

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Castle of Chaos
7980 S, State St, Midvale, UT 84047
Info: https://castleofchaos.com

Castle of Chaos is the “home of hands on horror”. This is an extreme haunt. Some of our actors have been trained to give you a “special” level of Hands On treatment. Not only can the actors touch you, but they can move you as well. This can include picking you up, dragging you off, getting you wet, placing things or our pets on you, restraining you, mock torture, putting you in things, and anything else that is legal and safe.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Yep, agreed on all fronts. Hey, it’s been a long time since you’ve done a new FaBlog post. I miss it. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Ah, but competence is the most overrated virtue in my book. The lionising of competence is what has made the majority of prominent books and music and films so dire. That said, I haven’t seen Mr. Styles act yet, so I don’t know nothing. Yeah, I’m waiting for some trusted opinions on the Chalamet cannibal flick before I hit the cinema. I like the premise, though, duh. There’s plenty of drive and challenging and daring, etc. stuff going on out there right now. Dare I say this blog’s ongoing content is proof? I’ve never gotten the fart as funny thing for some reason. Although I do get the whoopee cushion chuckles thing. May our respective weekends win a boogaloo dance contest. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I haven’t seen the movie, but I will bet the novel is hugely better. LA will be fun and busy, for sure, and hopefully the latter part will get us somewhere very advanced on the film. I’ll tell you all about it. Comedy of errors: Zac and I misjudged the set time for Destroyer’s gig and arrived there just as he was starting his last song! Luckily he did a four song encore, but still. And he was really great even bitesized. And, no other sighting of him. Thanks to your love for sparing my fingers. And yours too! Love magically transporting all of those haunted houses up there to Budapest’s central square, assuming you have one, tonight and giving you a golden ticket, G. ** Jack Skelley, Jelley! Nice binge, of course. Dude, that Mexican place was fucking good. I shit you not. I hope Lawndale are planning to dress up like GWAR for the occasion. If not, you still have some hours. Wait, tonight? After our Zoom Club, I guess? See you once your portion of the sun rises. ** _Black_Acrylic, Another SJ binger. What were the odds? Oh, that’s sad about the class cancellation, but, yeah understandable, and so you and your shorties will go ballistic on the Flash crowd, no doubt. Best weekend possible! ** l@rst, Hey! Busy, me too, thankfully, given the alternative. Great about the Poets Studio! It does sound ultra-cool! Envy making even. Fuck the imaginary reader with a theoretical truncheon! Ooh, flip book! I love flip books, and outta your head especially! I’ll be so there once I’m outta here. Everyone, The mighty, mighty l@rst is making a new zine, which is big news in and of itself, but, on top of that, he has a devised a related flip book that you can flip through, and obviously I really think you should and will be chuffed that you did. Don’t wait, click this. ** Jamie, Fist bump, Jamie. Thanks about the post, pal. As I told Dominick, Zac and I sadly fucked up and only arrived as he was starting his last song. But he did a generous encore at least. But he was great, really great. Sorry about your Celtic. Or Celtics. I used to care about the Dodgers baseball team and know that pain of disappointment well. Doesn’t last long, though. This weekend? Today I’m having a coffee with the very ‘T’ from this here blog. Tonight I have my biweekly ‘Zoom Book Club’ with some American writer pals where we read a text and watch a film and talk about them plus just shoot the shit. For tonight we’re doing Godard’s ‘Vivre sa vie’ and a play by Caryl Churchill called ‘Here We Go’. Otherwise Zooming with our film’s casting person and maybe see a movie and who knows what else exactly. What did you get up to exactly? Electrical banana love, Dennis ** Jeff J, Hey, Jeff! Good to see you, bud! I’m really happy to hear your retreat was so productive and that you’re still on literary fire. Best feeling ever, no? Nearly complete draft, whoa! Hm, no, I can’t think another novel that used that devise. I think ‘Rules of Attraction’ begins mid-sentence and ends mid-sentence? Excited to hear the new Julien Calendar. I saw big props re: it on Facebook this morning. Everyone, Masterful novelist Jeff Jackson’s musical project/band …and here he steps in … ‘Julian Calendar just released a new 3-song EP. It’s a left turn for us and big step forward. Created using samples, keyboards, MIDI recording. Pandemic forced us to throw out all the old tools + start fresh. Here’s the link‘. Yum! Film prep is in a good phase. Zac and I are traveling to LA a week from this coming Monday to spend three and a half weeks hiring crew and finding locations and auditioning actors, and we’re excited to finally get to work. There are still funding issues, but we feel confident we’ll get the money we need one way or another. I’m working on short fiction when I can, mostly a longish thing that, if I can get it to a satisfactory place, will determine whether I’ll potentially have enough work for a collection. Thanks for asking, man. Biggest weekend ever! ** Prince S, G! Wonderfulness to see you! Awesome about the post’s resonance, thanks. I’m good, moving forward on the film finally. I hope my cameo in your dream was of the positivity-adding sort. How are you? What’s happening? ** Brian, Hi, buddy! Sore eyes instantly quelled! Thanks, I’m good. The film is finally proceeding, and that’s mostly what I’ve been waiting for. Ah, great, about the post’s novel being zeitgeist-y in you. Thank you so much about ‘Ugly Man’, especially that you liked ‘The Ash Gray Proclamation’. I think that’s one of the best things I’ve ever written actually. So, yay! Anyway, yeah, thank you in general, that means a ton, man. And the Evenson and the Meijer too! I haven’t talked to Maryse in ages. I need to. She’s great, as a person too. Where are you living in the city? What’s the best or else worst aspects of your current classes. Lucky you about the NYFF. Zac and I go o LA for three+ weeks on the 17th to work on the film, so that’s exciting. Otherwise, things seem to be generally of a positive bent, I would say. Seeing and reading and listening with pleasure. Great to see you! Don’t be any more of a stranger than you absolutely need to. xo. ** Okay. Here’s the national edition of my haunted attraction roundup for 2022, and, with luck, one of those amazing joints up there is even near you so you can check it out and tell me how amazing (or not) it was. See you on Monday.

* (restored/Halloween countdown post #11)
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‘I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work and consolidate a situation where I was afraid and take it whole and work from there…I delight in what I fear.’ — Shirley Jackson

‘North Bennington is a tiny village less than a mile from the otherwise isolated Bennington campus in Vermont. Shirley Jackson was married to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic who taught at the college. And she spent her life in the town, raising four children, presiding over a chaotic household that was host to Ralph Ellison, Bernard Malamud and Howard Nemerov, and at times going quietly crazy — and writing, always, with the rigor of one who has found her born task. Six novels, two bestselling volumes of deceptively sunny family memoirs and countless stories before her death at 48, in 1965.

‘Jackson was in many senses already two people when she arrived in Vermont. One was a turgid, fearful ugly-duckling, permanently cowed by the severity of her upbringing by a suburban mother obsessed with appearances. This half of Jackson was a character she brought brilliantly to life in her stories and novels from the beginning: the shy girl, whose identity slips all too easily from its foundations. The other half of Jackson was the expulsive iconoclast, brought out of her shell by marriage to Hyman — himself a garrulous egoist very much in the tradition of Jewish ’50’s New York intellectuals — and by the visceral shock of mothering a quartet of noisy, demanding babies. This second Shirley Jackson dedicated herself to rejecting her mother’s sense of propriety, drank and smoked and fed to buttery excess — directly to blame for her and her husband’s early deaths — dabbled in magic and voodoo, and interfered loudly when she thought the provincial Vermont schools were doing an injustice to her talented children. This was the Shirley Jackson that the town feared, resented and, depending on whose version you believe, occasionally persecuted.

‘The hostility of the villagers further shaped her psyche, and her art; the process eventually redoubled so the latter fed the former. After the enormous success of “The Lottery,” a legend arose in town, almost certainly false, that Jackson had been pelted with stones by schoolchildren one day, then gone home and written the story. The real crisis came near the end of her life, resulting in a period of agoraphobia and psychosis; she wrote her way through it in We Have Always Lived in the Castle. In that novel, Jackson brilliantly isolates the two aspects in her psyche into two odd, damaged sisters: one hypersensitive and afraid, unable to leave the house, the other a sort of squalid demon prankster who may or may not have murdered the rest of her family for her fragile sister’s sake.

‘Shirley Jackson wrote about the mundane evils hidden in everyday life and about the warring and subsuming of selves in a family, a community and sometimes even in a single mind. She wrote about prejudice, neurosis and identity. An unfortunate impression persists (one Jackson encouraged, for complicated reasons) that her work is full of ghosts and witches. In truth, few of her greatest stories and just one of her novels, The Haunting of Hill House, contain a suggestion of genuinely supernatural events. Jackson’s forté was psychology and society, people in other words — people disturbed, dispossessed, misunderstanding or thwarting one another compulsively, people colluding absently in monstrous acts. She had a jeweler’s eye for the microscopic degrees by which a personality creeps into madness or a relationship turns from dependence to exploitation. Judy Oppenheimer’s fine 1988 biography of Jackson is called Private Demons, but it could have been called Little Murders.‘ — Jonathan Lethem, Salon

 

 

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Further

Shirley Jackson: The Full Wiki
A modest Shirley Jackson resource page
‘Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House: An Introduction’
‘Shirley Jackson: House and Guardians’
‘SHIRLEY JACKSON: Delight in What I Fear’
‘The Witchcraft of Shirley Jackson’
‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson: The Paperback Covers’
Shirley Jackson @ Goodreads
Buy Shirley Jackson’s books

 

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The Sketches

‘Shirley Jackson’s great-great-grandfather, Samuel Bugbee, designed beautiful Nob Hill mansions, and her grandfather was a prominent San Francisco architect as well. Jackson was sufficiently imbued with an architect’s brain to draw rough schematics for the houses in her fiction, unbuildable but detailed enough to guide her thinking about which rooms Eleanor would run through to reach the tower in The Haunting of Hill House’s penultimate scene. These drawings, found in Jackson’s papers at The Library of Congress, inspire a particular form of creative thinking and planning. Rather than creating a structure for a world of words, Jackson envisions structures that she will then use words to describe.’ — Susan Scarf Merrell, Writers’ Houses

 

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Remembrance

 

‘Forgotten now as a writer, Stanley Edgar Hyman — a brash, blunt, myopic polymath, blimpish in form and bearded, we thought, at birth — was once a boy-wonder: a New Yorker staffer at 24 and a literary critic whose forte was the exploration of figurative language. Stanley Hyman was also the most popular teacher in a school which prided itself (shades of Miss Jean Brodie) on being in the prime of life: a dramatic experiment in female education in full bloom. Even the 300 acre country campus –- hay fields and spiky marsh grasses, cow and carriage barns, apple orchards, and a brooding greystone mansion — radiated the sense of privilege that came with being the right place at the right time …

‘Stanley’s wife -– and that’s how we thought of her -– was the writer Shirley Jackson. The first thing you heard about Shirley Jackson was that she was a witch. Shirley tacitly encouraged this rumor, although the evidence supporting it would have been admissible only in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Shirley had written a book about witchcraft; she was known to “read” Tarot cards; she inserted into her exquisitely written fictions quotations from her large collection of grimoires and magic books; and she gave to some of her many cats -– eleven cats! they must be her familiars! — the names of the dukes and demons of Hell.

‘Shirley was a wide pale woman with a face like a baleful moon. Her fine skin glowed with a pallor that looked unhealthy even in a climate cold enough for “winter white” to be a seasonal description of a woman’s complexion. Her hair was sandy, lank, and raked back in a bun from which wisps and hanks always escaped. Her eyes were alive (as Stanley’s were not) and protected by large unfashionable glasses, but they were like windows whose shades had been pulled down. Light shone behind them, but not for us. Shirley gave the impression of never wanting to mix with her husband’s students. She had her reasons.

‘Shirley was even bulkier than Stanley, and so, naturally, the Hyman family car was the smallest possible Volkswagen bug. Shirley was the chauffeur -– Stanley never did anything practical if he could help it -– and on-campus sightings of the two of them struggling to enter and exit their tiny vehicle were highly prized. One night, I watched Shirley and Stanley try to walk through a wide-open auditorium doorway side by side. They wedged together in the doorjamb for an awful moment; then Stanley, decisive as ever, burst free.’ — Joan Schenkar, Wall Street Journal

 

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SJ at the Movies

The 1963 movie based on ‘THoHH’

The 1999 movie based on ‘THoHH’ – Trailer

Excerpt from a film based on ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’

A 1969 short film based on Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’

 

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Interview

 

I still remember the day we were assigned to do a research paper on a piece of literature we had read in my English 198 class. The story I chose to write my paper on was “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, it was one of my favorites. Luckily for me Mrs. Jackson lived in my neighborhood and my parents were friends with her and her husband. So I knew it would not be difficult to set up an interview with her for my research paper. One day after getting home from school, I met my mother in the living room so I told her that I was doing a research paper on Mrs. Jackson and asked if she could set up an interview for me. The following day I was thrilled to hear that my mom had successfully arranged for me to have my interview.

On the day of the interview I walked to Mrs. Jackson’s home, it was only about five minutes away from my home. I remember feeling a bit nervous as I pressed the door bell, within a couple of seconds Mrs. Jackson opened the door and welcomed me with a beautiful smile. As we walked towards the parlor she asked how my parents were doing, I told her they were doing fine. After that she asked me if I was thirsty, I kindly said I was not. She paused for a few seconds than told me to begin.

Interviewer: Mrs. Jackson, thank you for agreeing to do this interview. I have a couple of questions to ask.

Mrs. Jackson: You’re welcome, so what would you like to know?
Interviewer: To start off, where were you born? And did you grow up there?

Mrs. Jackson: I was born in San Francisco. No, I actually grew up in California.

Interviewer: were you interested in writing as a child? Or was it something you developed later in life?

Mrs. Jackson: I became interested in writing at an early age. I actually won my first poetry prize when I was twelve. Later on in high school I kept a diary to record my writing progress.

Interviewer: That’s very interesting. Have you ever used a place you have lived in as a setting for any of your works?

Mrs. Jackson: Yes, in my first novel the setting was based on Burlingame, a suburb I lived in, in San Francisco.

After my first set of questions Mrs. Jackson asked if we could take a break, she than walked into the kitchen. While I was by myself in the parlor, I noticed some family pictures on the wall and next to them were some of the awards she had won for her works. When she returned from the kitchen, she brought some sandwiches and drinks. I took a sip of orange juice then continued with the interview.

Interviewer: In “The Lottery” what point were you trying to make by having the villagers stone one of their members.

Mrs. Jackson: I wanted to dramatize graphically the pointless violence in people’s lives, to reveal the general inhumanity of man.

Interviewer: I see. As I read the story in school, I realized that the lottery was a means of finding a sacrifice for the season’s harvest. Is that the only thing the lottery is supposed to represent?

Mrs. Jackson: That’s the main thing it represents. However, it also illustrates how societies tend to hold onto traditions, even meaningless ones, revealing our need for ritual and belonging.

Interviewer: Finally Mrs. Jackson, what message are you trying to get across to the public with this story?

Mrs. Jackson: I want people to learn that, “custom and law, when sanctioned by a selfish, unthinking populace, can bring an otherwise democratic and seemingly just society to the brink of paganism”.

Interviewer: That’s very interesting. Well Mrs. Jackson, I think I have enough information. Thank you for allowing me to interview you.

When we finished the interview Mrs. Jackson walked me to the door, I thanked her again for her time, than I started to head back home. When I got home and began to write my paper, I was just amazed at how fortunate I was, to have the author of one of the stories I read in school as a neighbor. The next week of school I got my graded paper and I was not surprised by my grade. I smiled as I read all the positive remarks my teacher had written down about my paper.

 

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Book

Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House

Penguin

‘Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has unnerved readers since its original publication in 1959. A tale of subtle, psychological terror, it has earned its place as one of the significant haunted house stories of the ages.

Eleanor Vance has always been a loner–shy, vulnerable, and bitterly resentful of the 11 years she lost while nursing her dying mother. “She had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words.” Eleanor has always sensed that one day something big would happen, and one day it does. She receives an unusual invitation from Dr. John Montague, a man fascinated by “supernatural manifestations.” He organizes a ghost watch, inviting people who have been touched by otherworldly events. A paranormal incident from Eleanor’s childhood qualifies her to be a part of Montague’s bizarre study–along with headstrong Theodora, his assistant, and Luke, a well-to-do aristocrat. They meet at Hill House — a notorious estate in New England.

‘Hill House is a foreboding structure of towers, buttresses, Gothic spires, gargoyles, strange angles, and rooms within rooms — a place “without kindness, never meant to be lived in ….” Although Eleanor’s initial reaction is to flee, the house has a mesmerizing effect, and she begins to feel a strange kind of bliss that entices her to stay. Eleanor is a magnet for the supernatural — she hears deathly wails, feels terrible chills, and sees ghostly apparitions. Once again she feels isolated and alone — neither Theo nor Luke attract so much eerie company. But the physical horror of Hill House is always subtle; more disturbing is the emotional torment Eleanor endures. Intense, literary, and harrowing, The Haunting of Hill House belongs in the same dark league as Henry James’s classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw.’ — Naomi Gesinger

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Excerpts

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.

Dr. John Montague was a doctor of philosophy; he had taken his degree in anthropology, feeling obscurely that in this field he might come closest to his true vocation, the analysis of supernatural manifestations. He was scrupulous about the use of his title because, his investigations being so utterly unscientific, he hoped to borrow an air of respectability, even scholarly authority, from his education. It had cost him a good deal, in money and pride, since he was not a begging man, to rent Hill House for three months, but he expected absolutely to be compensated for his pains by the sensation following upon the publication of his definitive work on the causes and effects of psychic disturbances in a house commonly known as “haunted.” He had been looking for an honestly haunted house all his life. When he heard of Hill House he had been at first doubtful, then hopeful, then indefatigable; he was not the man to let go of Hill House once he had found it.

*

Eleanor Vance was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill House. The only person in the world she genuinely hated, now that her mother was dead, was her sister. She disliked her brother-in-law and her five year old niece, and she had no friends.

*

It started again, as though it had been listening, waiting to hear their voices and what they said, to identify them, to know how well prepared they were against it, waiting to hear if they were afraid. So suddenly that Eleanor leaped back against the bed and Theodora gasped and cried out, the iron crash came against their door, and both of them lifted their eyes in horror, because the hammering was against the upper edge of the door, higher than either of the them could reach, higher than Luke or the doctor could reach, and the sickening, degrading cold came in waves from whatever was outside the door.

Eleanor stood perfectly still and looked at the door. She did not quite know what to do, although she believed that she was thinking coherently and was not unusually frightened, not more frightened, certainly, than she had believed in her worst dreams she could be. The cold troubled her even more than the sounds; even Theodora’s warm robe was useless against the icy little curls of fingers on her back. The intelligent thing to do, perhaps, was to walk over and open the door; that, perhaps, would belong with the doctor’s views of pure scientific inquiry. Eleanor knew that, even if her feet would take her as far as the door, her hand would not lift to the doorknob; impartially, remotely, she told herself that no one’s hand would touch that knob; it’s not the work hands were made for, she told herself. She had been rocking a little, each crash against the door pushing her a little backward, and now she was still because the noise was fading. “I’m going to complain to the janitor about the radiators,” Theodora said from behind her. “Is it stopping?”

“No,” Eleanor said, sick. “No.”

It had found them. Since Eleanor would not open the door, it was going to make its way in. Eleanor said aloud, “Now I know why people scream, because I think I’m going to,” and Theodora said, “I will if you will.”and laughed so that Eleanor turned quickly back to the bed and they held each other, listening in silence. Little pattings came from around the doorframe, small seeking sounds, feeling the edges of the door, trying to sneak a way in. The doorknob was fondled, and Eleanor, whispering, said, “Is it locked?” and Theodora nodded and then, wide-eyed, turned to stare at the connecting bathroom door. “Mine’s locked too,” Eleanor said against her ear, and Theodora closed her eyes in relief. The little sticky sounds moved on around the doorframe and then, as though a fury caught whatever was outside, the crashing came again, and Eleanor and Theodora saw the wood of the door tremble and shake, and the door move against its hinges.

“You can’t get in,” Eleanor said wildly, and again there was silence, as though the house listened with attention to her words, understanding, cynically agreeing, content to wait. A thin little giggle came, in a breath of air through the room, a little mad rising laugh, the smallest whisper of a laugh, and Eleanor heard it all up and down her back, a little gloating laugh moving past them around the house, and then she heard the doctor and Luke calling from the stairs and, mercifully, it was over.

—-

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Your link didn’t work, but, based on the prompt, I’m strongly guessing it had something to do with Sondheim? ** Dominik, Hi!!! My favorites? Oh, wow, uh … I like Sean Landers’ trees, the Martian language thing is interesting, the Jesse Howard things, and I love Frances Stark always, so maybe them? LA plans: lots of interviewing prospective crew and collaborators, finding the house location (top priority), auditioning actors, figuring out the exact amount of money we need, deciding precisely when we’ll shoot the film, and tons and tons of haunted house attractions!!!! I kind of worship Mexican food, or my tongue does, and Zac just found this new Mexican food place in the 11th arr, and we ate there last night, and it’s the best Mexican food in Paris by a million miles, so now I have a place to sate my cravings in-between US trips! I would say love has excellent taste in both tattoos and their placement. Love making Destroyer wander around in the audience of his gig that I’m attending tonight so I can thank him in person for letting Zac and me use his song for free in ‘Permanent Green Light’, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s true, right? I didn’t know there was a film about Wain. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch? Urgh. ** Sypha, I thought Louis Wain might lure you into the blog’s VIP room. Awesome! Everyone, the mighty writer James Champagne, best known around here by his local moniker Sypha, wrote a piece about one of yesterday’s ‘Words’ stars Louis Wain for the late, great Yuck ‘n’ Yum zine years ago that I can guarantee is a killer read, so do think about being killed in the good way by it by clicking this. Me neither about that martian language person. So interesting, no? Use it! I think she’s very dead and won’t mind. ** Steve Erickson, Oh, poor, poor you for having had your mind picture said speculative film, although, okay, it does have camp classic pre-written all over it. There really is a lot of posthumous Mark Fisher popping up, isn’t there? Nice in the obvious way, but yeah. ‘Jack Bauer’s Tulpa’! What a title. A lot to live up there, bud. ** Robert, Thanks a bunch. I’m assuming the is-it-or-is-it-not-sentimental effect is intentional, or I was hoping so. Yeah, man, I get in those states. I think it’s like the necessary rough patches that make writers tough enough to forge ahead with their difficult life decision or something? I read Emily Dickinson in high school, like I guess all teens do, and I was like, blah, old stuff, I don’t care, but then I tried reading her years later, and it was, like, holy shit, she’s completely radical and amazing. Yeah, she was quite something style-wise, externally and inside. How’s Friday? ** Okay. I decided to bring some rare class to the Halloween countdown and restore this old, formerly dead post about Shirley Jackson’s great and spooky novel. See you tomorrow.