I was also terrified by The Ring when I saw it in high school, never saw The Grudge. I hadn't thought about the differences between "J-Horror" and the Western Gothic type of horror, but I can definitely see why it contributes to the scariness of the movie--the ghost was everywhere, not only where it was supposed to remain confined! It does seem like horror stories are one of the only settings in modernity where the immaterial can be encountered. Looking forward to your future explorations of other ways to engage with and incorporate the immaterial!
On a note unrelated to this post, I recently read The Firekeeper's Daughter, a page-turner YA novel about a young Ojibwe woman living in northern Michigan. While not a major part of the plot, her tribe uses tobacco in ceremonial practices, which made me think of your piece on the orenda of tobacco. It's a great read, if you have the time.
nice! i'll have to check that out. did they portray the tobacco as a purely symbolic substance? or did they get into its uses as a hallucinogen? we learned in school that tobacco ceremonies were always about the symbolism, and while that may have been true after a certain point in their cultural evolution, it's also true that some species of tobacco used in these ceremonies (like tobacco rustica) are intentionally chosen to knock you out of your head. the reason we have the trope of puffing the pipe and then passing it around the circle is because one hit of rustica is all most people can handle. participants would need the time it took for the pipe to travel around the circle in order to recover from the first puff, and by the second or third pass, everybody in the circle would be in a profoundly altered state. super interesting.
glad you're enjoying the post series! i wandered pretty far afield with this one, hopefully i can tie it all up in Part 3.
The tobacco specifically was purely symbolic but the book does talk about medicinal plants and their uses for communing with the spirit world (i.e. as hallucinogens) and contrasts that with illegal drugs and the ravaging effects they have on Native communities. It’s also a mystery novel with some romantic suspense thrown in. It can be heavy thematically but doesn’t ever get depressing.
In my younger days I could barely smoke half a regular cigarette without feeling too buzzed from the nicotine, so rustica sounds pretty intense. Interesting stuff!
Did you see the sequel to The Shinning? Doctor Sleep. I thought it was pretty successful but it depicts children being tortured to death for their "steam." Which for me is a little too close to the adrenochrome business that is a horrifying reality.
I was also terrified by The Ring when I saw it in high school, never saw The Grudge. I hadn't thought about the differences between "J-Horror" and the Western Gothic type of horror, but I can definitely see why it contributes to the scariness of the movie--the ghost was everywhere, not only where it was supposed to remain confined! It does seem like horror stories are one of the only settings in modernity where the immaterial can be encountered. Looking forward to your future explorations of other ways to engage with and incorporate the immaterial!
On a note unrelated to this post, I recently read The Firekeeper's Daughter, a page-turner YA novel about a young Ojibwe woman living in northern Michigan. While not a major part of the plot, her tribe uses tobacco in ceremonial practices, which made me think of your piece on the orenda of tobacco. It's a great read, if you have the time.
nice! i'll have to check that out. did they portray the tobacco as a purely symbolic substance? or did they get into its uses as a hallucinogen? we learned in school that tobacco ceremonies were always about the symbolism, and while that may have been true after a certain point in their cultural evolution, it's also true that some species of tobacco used in these ceremonies (like tobacco rustica) are intentionally chosen to knock you out of your head. the reason we have the trope of puffing the pipe and then passing it around the circle is because one hit of rustica is all most people can handle. participants would need the time it took for the pipe to travel around the circle in order to recover from the first puff, and by the second or third pass, everybody in the circle would be in a profoundly altered state. super interesting.
glad you're enjoying the post series! i wandered pretty far afield with this one, hopefully i can tie it all up in Part 3.
The tobacco specifically was purely symbolic but the book does talk about medicinal plants and their uses for communing with the spirit world (i.e. as hallucinogens) and contrasts that with illegal drugs and the ravaging effects they have on Native communities. It’s also a mystery novel with some romantic suspense thrown in. It can be heavy thematically but doesn’t ever get depressing.
In my younger days I could barely smoke half a regular cigarette without feeling too buzzed from the nicotine, so rustica sounds pretty intense. Interesting stuff!
Nice essay. I think that horror reveals truth. https://theveilapoem.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-horror-of-romance.html
Did you see the sequel to The Shinning? Doctor Sleep. I thought it was pretty successful but it depicts children being tortured to death for their "steam." Which for me is a little too close to the adrenochrome business that is a horrifying reality.
hmm... haven't seen Doctor Sleep, and the only thing i know about adrenochrome is from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.