The Real Story Behind the Blair Witch Project

I’ve already written about the movie The Blair Witch project, one of my favorite horror movies based on the legend of a witch and three student filmmakers that wants to find out how much of the story is real and film a documentary in mystic woods in Maryland in 1994. (If you’ve not read it yet, here is the link to the article).

The Blair Witch Project

But, what’s the real story behind the film? Let’s find out.

The Blair Witch Project was filmed in 1999 in Burkittsville, a little city with only 75 houses, a church and a post office. There were actually local legends around there, in the little mystic cemetery; it is said that Civil War Soldier Ghosts wander around there, and apparently there is also a legend about a mythical dragon that laid an egg in the hills.

 But, what about legends of witches? There is a very creepy place there called Spook Hill, in the woods you can find an old house, where it is said the real Blair Witch lived. Many that camped nearby says they have witnessed several paranormal activities, such as strange glowing lights and, absurd but true, if you happen to be on a road trip there, on the road of Spook Hill into the woods, your car will roll backwards up the hill! We don’t know if it’s an illusion or there is a scientific explanation to this, but something is really happening, and for sure it’s strange.

After the great success of The Blair Witch Project the major of Burkittsville spoke out saying that it was crazy there, and people with cameras were everywhere.

Anyway, a spooky fact of the movie was that they finished shooting it at Halloween Night, and the actor Michael C. Williams said that there was an incredible surreal atmosphere that night in the woods.

 

Halloween Must-See: The Addams Family

This is a brilliant show that can be considered a real classic Gothic Horror TV series. If you have not seen it yet, you just have to, and this is the perfect period; The Addams Family is an iconic TV show, and its enduring popularity had led to numerous references in popular culture, and has inspired artwork, music, films, games and musicals.

 

Charles Addams (1912 – 1988), has become one of the most popular American cartoonists after creating the first sketches of The Addams Family in 1938, that was published for the first time in the American magazine of reportage and satire The New Yorker. His idea was that of creating a satirical inversion of the classical American family, but with darkly humorous and macabre characters. The family lives near a graveyard in a Victorian mansion, sharing macabre interests. But, they are not depicted as an evil family, on the opposite, they are very kind with each other, and friendly with their visitors; the only thing is that they are very strange. And that’s the feature that makes this TV show so hilarious.

There have been several TV series productions during the years; the first of them was all shot in black and white and was produced in 1964 by the ABC TV network. The New Addams Family was filmed in 1998 in Canada. The original story was proposed, but with more modern elements and jokes.

 There have also been several film productions, as Halloween with The Addams Family, in 1977, where the family celebrates Halloween together.

The music is also a very important part of the show, and a CD compilation of The Addams Family TV series was released in 1981; there have been several musicals, and there will be more: in 2017 a brand new musical of the Addams Family will be played in the UK.

In 2010 it was announced that a film of The Addams Family would have been produced by the brilliant Tim Burton, a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams’s original drawings, but unfortunately, it has been cancelled. Let’s hope they will get again on this idea in the future because it would be awesome if Tim Burton directed a movie like this.

 

 

 

 

 

Runes and Spells

There are two equinoxes every year, one in March and one right now, in September. When the sun shines directly on the Equator, the length of day and night is nearly equal. Ever since the birth of man, this period of transformation was celebrated with bonfires, rituals and particular pagan spells.

 

Before the conversion to Christianity, and consequently the adoption of Latin letters, both Germanic and Scandinavian populations used runic alphabets, a very controversial and mystic form of writing, in fact we don’t know the process of transmission of this script. What we know is that there are runic inscriptions and rune stones that are analyzed by linguists nowadays to find out more about them; Runology is a specialized branch of Germanic Linguistics. Runes were made on wood, stones and bone.

The fascinating mystery of the runes is that the first runes found were probably not used as a writing form for communication at the beginning; specialists claims they were mostly used as magical signs and for divination, in shamanic initial rituals in which the initiate underwent a physical trial in order to receive mystic wisdom. Strangely, the word “rune” means “something hidden”.

 

Also, many runes that have been deciphered by linguists contain solemn inscriptions of glorious people who died.

A long time ago, during this period of time, and during traditional harvest pagan festivals and feasts, runes have been fundamental to make spells preparing for winter.

Halloween Traditions: Scotland

Although Halloween is celebrated at his peak in the United States, it’s a very ancient celebration and there are several traditions related to this night wherever you go.

With its beautiful and mystic landscapes, dark castles, legends, and significant history, it’s not difficult to imagine that Scotland has several connections with Halloween.

In Edinburgh there is a spectacular festival that takes place every year at Halloween, the Samhuinn Fire Festival, organized by the Beltane Fire Society. A beautiful form of street theatre and performances, with music and dance, costumes and fire. The Celtic Festival mostly want to celebrate the changing of the seasons, the end of summer and the beginning of winter, with a very atmospheric event.

Obviously, another Halloween tradition also present in Scotland as well as all over the world, is pumpkin carving, and the creation of lanterns; following the tradition, this should send away negativity and demonic spirits.

 

Castle Haunted Tours are also celebrated during this period, and the guides often tells mystic stories and secrets of the fortress visited.

Scotland has a very ancient history, and a dark period that is often remembered in October is the Witch Trials in Early Modern Scotland.

In fact, in 1563, the Witchcraft Act made for the first time the use of witchcraft a real crime, and women supposed to be witches was persecuted and killed. It was a very dark and sad period of Scottish history and many innocent lives were sacrificed.

The King of Scotland James VI had an important role during this period; Agnes Sampson, a midwife considered to have healing powers, was convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James’s ship. The king became obsessed with persecution of witches and insisted on torture for the suspects. He even wrote a book about how important it was to exterminate all the witches, the Daemonologie. Not everyone knows that this book was the background material of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth.

Friday the 13th

For the Halloween night/period, a classic movie to watch is Friday the 13^th; actually, there are several movies you can choose to watch. This is a huge horror movie saga composed of 12 film (nine sequels, one spin-off and one remake). However, the first movie was made in 1980 by the American producer Sean Sexton Cunningham.

Jason Voorhees, the main character of all the movies, is now considered a classical character in horror history and he is known also by people who have not seen Friday the 13^th. In fact, this character has been represented during the years in several novels, video games, comic books; and he has also been the protagonist of a film with another iconic horror character: Freddy Krueger. Jason is one of the leading cultural icons of American popular culture.

The main place of the movie is a lake called the Crystal Lake, surrounded by woods, where Jason lives as a hermit. In one of the films, five American teenagers have the idea to set up a camp there, and they will be killed by the mysterious Jason. What also surprise the audience is that the man is completely silent throughout most of the movies. There is an explanation of how Jason became such a monster, and what he had to go through. You have to watch it to understand why this saga is considered a classical horror story, sad, cold, and scary. Also, great makeup artists and stuntmen made his character very realistic.

 

 

 

 

Halloween and Poetry: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I think almost everyone with a passion with fantasy and horror related stuff is now looking forward to Halloween. I love Halloween and everything related to this day, so from now on I’ve planned a lot of articles Halloween related I want to share with you and talk about. Expect to read about Halloween traditions around the world, horror movie reviews and recommendations for this period, my favorite Halloween and dark related books, as well as decorations and recipes for a perfect Halloween night alone or with friends.

 

I’ll began by writing about something that is not so usual to analyze, but in my opinion it’s a very interesting field:  the correlation between Halloween and poetry.

There are so many amazing dark writers and so many beautiful works that I just had to pick one of my favorites. Every week I’ll write a different dark poem that in my opinion is a perfect reading for this period. Feel free to tell me about your favorite poem (and writer) in the comment section.

 

The first author I want to talk to you about is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), one of the most known New England poets. He was politically very active and a public supporter of abolitionism of slavery, as well as a professor and translator (he was the first man who translated the Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri in American). He wrote several poems, but one of his most beautiful ones is “Haunted Houses”. Here it is.

“All houses wherein men have lived and died

Are haunted houses. Through the open doors

The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,

With feet that make no sound upon the floor.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,

Along the passages they come and go,

Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts,

Invited; the illuminated hall

Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,

As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;

He but perceives what is; while unto me

All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;

Owners and occupants of earlier dates

From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,

And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit world around this world of sense

Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere

Wafts through these earthly mists and vaporous dense

A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires;

The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,

And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,

Come from the influence of an unseen star

An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud

Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,

Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd

Into the realm of mystery and night;

 So from the world of spirits there descends

A bridge of light, connecting it with this,

O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,

Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.”

 

 

How beautiful is this poem? He talks about ghosts, but he also talks about the correlation between life and death and he wonders on man’s life on the earth, and how he feels on being alive.

 

What’s your interpretation of the poem?

 

The History of Fantasy: when the genre arose

Fantasy is a very ancient art, and it has developed throughout the centuries in various subjects: cultural studies, history, literature, music, art, plays, music, cinema… and I could go on and on. But what are the elements that make a fantasy work? The predominant characteristics of Fantasy are tales or stories in which we have myths, imagination, supernatural, symbolism and surreal elements; but we can also have dark elements, magic castles and creatures, and most of the times, a really close correlation with nature. Fantasy has many subcategories.

 

We have the first written forms of the Fantasy genre in ancient Classic Latin, Egyptian and Greek mythology, but also in the Celtic and Scandinavian tradition.

The Medieval period played a very important role in the distribution of written Fantasy fairytales and stories; in fact, scribes used to spend years writing down several copies of ancient literature, so they would be transmitted to the future generations and their work is very precious today (despite many works was destroyed and burned by repressive censorship, if it was believed that the work was against the religion of the moment).

 

A fundamental role was played, as I already said, by J. J. R. Tolkien, from 1954 and until now. He is considered the “father” of Fantasy because he managed to take this genre at its peak and make it one of the most important and followed today, by young generations and old ones.

Some names of talented fantasy authors today are J. K. Rowling (how can we not mention her?), Stephen King, George Martin, and Christopher Paolini; these are some of the names that have greatly contributed to make the Fantasy genre successful today.

 

We also can’t forget that from the seventies the first Fantasy role plays was created, as Dungeons & Dragons. Nowadays there are fantastic role plays that you can physically play with, but with technology the development of computer and Play Station video games are real (as Final Fantasy or The Lord of the Rings).

Fantasy is wonder, imagination. You get to know new worlds and fantastic stories.

What’s your favorite Fantasy work?

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Angelology is a fantasy-adventure-thriller novel and being the first published work of the author Danielle Trussardi it’s really well made.

The book follows the story of a nun, Evangeline, in New York (not an ordinary nun, she’s really young) that initially lives a quite normal life, following her passion for religion. One day she begins to understand that something really strange is happening, and she will find out amazing thing that will change her view on religion and human life forever. She begins doubting her religion and want to find out more about her parents, mysteriously passed away when she was just a little girl.

You understand by the meticulous descriptions and the stories told that Trussardi has a great knowledge of ancient Latin and Greek mythology, and she manages to mix her knowledge with gothic aspects, creating a really original work. There are beautiful descriptions of the cloister, with all the mystic rooms and libraries, but also descriptions of New York. She also describes ancient historical events really happened into the past, with fantasy elements, so the fantasy elements in this book looks real. I noticed that the author has for some aspects the same style of Dan Brown.

The history of the family Rockfeller, one of the most influential families in the world, is extensively described and is very fascinating.

This book has been nominated as one of the 100 most successful books of 2010 by the New York Times.

 

Edward Scissorhands

This 1990 American dark fantasy film is one of the most amazing works written and produced by Tim Burton, and one of his most successful movies, receiving numerous nominations at the Academy, and winning many awards.

 

The beautiful story is about a grandmother who tells a goodnight fairytale to her granddaughter on a winter night on where snow comes from. Everything began with a man created with scissors instead of hands (played by Johnny Depp), and now living in a gothic mansion on a hill, isolated by other human beings. Despite his aspect that could instill fear, he has a good soul and he has the capability of making wonderful ice sculptures with the help of his scissor hands.

 

Burton claims in an interview that Edward’s story comes from his childhood memories, and in particular how lonely he felt and isolated from other children; and he also tells that Shelley’s Frankenstein and other classic books had also an influence on this story.

The score is also beautiful, and it’s created by Danny Elfman.

 

Something that not everyone knows is that Edward’s makeup and hairstyle are inspired by Robert Smith, leader of the famous band The Cure; and another curiosity is that in Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland, you can clearly see Edward’s sculptures represented into the garden of the Queen.

If you watch this movie, you can truly understand why Tim Burton is nowadays seen as one of the most talented producers of the world, he really is. This film is pure magic.