Tag: horror

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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I had always heard that Frankenstein was boring for a horror novel and that it wasn’t really what most people expected. Though I am a huge horror fan, I haven’t read a lot of horror fiction and this was never really on my list of books I wanted to read.

One night recently I was looking for a movie to watch and decided to start the 2017 movie Mary Shelley staring Elle Fanning because the trailer looked pretty good. First of all, I thought the movie was great and I was kind of shocked to learn that most of what happened in the movie was true to Mary Shelley’s life. The reviews online aren’t great, but I really enjoyed it.

So after watching the movie I decided to finally read Frankenstein. I have to say, it wasn’t at all what I expected.

Maybe I wasn’t reading closely enough, or maybe it was intentional, but I felt like the creation of the creature went by really quickly and I wasn’t even sure that it had actually been done when Frankenstein says that it opened its yellow eyes. With him rushing out and leaving the creature behind, I wasn’t sure if it was something that he had imagined doing or not, especially when it was missing once he finally came back.

For a while I questioned the existence of the creature. When his brother was murdered and Justine was found guilty and executed for the murder I still thought that maybe Frankenstein was just mad and paranoid.

Honestly it wasn’t until he actually had the conversation with the creature that I believed it even existed. The creature’s story was really sad. He just wanted someone to accept him for what he was and not run away because of his appearance. You can kind of understand how he would end up so angry with Frankenstein after trying over and over to prove that he wasn’t some monster.

Just want to say here that it doesn’t make any sense for the creature to have learned to speak so well. That was the only thing that bothered me about the whole story. Curious if anyone else thought this as well when reading.

I understand that Frankenstein didn’t want to create another monster to put out in to the world, but also understood why the creature would be so upset to learn that his creator refused him some sort of happiness.

Frankenstein ends up losing everyone he loves to the vengeance of the creature and then spends the rest of his life hunting him down. There is a nice moment at the end when Frankenstein dies and the creature feels sad and regretful that he took away Frankenstein’s happiness and ultimately made him waste his life. It was pretty interesting that they both sort of felt this regret that they had caused each other so much pain.

I didn’t think the story was boring at all, and I actually found myself wanting to keep reading after finishing a chapter. It wasn’t very scary, but it was definitely interesting and well written. I can’t believe Mary Shelley was 18 when she started writing this. Kind of incredible honestly.

The Shining by Stephen King

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I have never read anything written by Stephen King before. It’s pretty crazy actually because I’m such a huge fan of horror movies. I’ve always heard that he wasn’t happy with the Stanley Kubrick film, so I was interested in seeing how it was different.

I really, really enjoyed the character development. You could really see that there were hidden issues inside of each of the characters and that the hotel really fed off of their problems. I absolutely loved Wendy and really found myself rooting for her the entire time.

Danny was such an intelligent little boy. I really loved his character as well and the insight into his thoughts while he was trying to understand the adult’s problems and thoughts.

In the movie, I feel like I never really but together that Danny’s “talent” was called shining. I vaguely remember Hallorann calling it the shine, but for some reason that just didn’t stand out to me, which I thought was interesting. I also never really felt like the hotel was after Danny in the movie, it just seemed like Jack was sort of stir crazy and needed a drink.

There were so many things in the movie that weren’t in the book and really surprised me. The creepy twins, the blood gushing from the elevator. I feel like both of these are very iconic and always what people think about when they think of The Shining, so it was interesting that they weren’t even part of the book.

The story was more creepy than scary, just gave me sort of an eerie feeling.

The ending was much better than in the movie, in my opinion. Instead of Jack freezing to death the hotel blew up and burned down completely. It’s more believable, I guess.

I also liked that it showed what happened to Danny, Wendy, and Hallorann at the end. I was glad that they all survived and sort of stayed a part of each other’s lives. I’m kind of interested in reading the sequel, but I don’t know if I’ll do that any time soon.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

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I remember being little and watching The Haunting when it first came out in 1999. I’ve seen the movie about a million times since then and honestly can’t believe that I never knew it was a book.

It wasn’t until Netflix adapted it into a series that I realized it was based on the novel of the same name and absolutely decided that I had to read it. (Side note: Netflix is becoming a bit of a theme here isn’t it?)

The movie is definitely a closer adaptation of the book than the show was, but I feel like all three were done really well and told the story of Hill House.

I actually don’t think I’ve ever read a “horror” novel before, so this was a first. It was really creepy and I really liked the little scenes here and there that showed the house was haunted.

All of the characters had very strange, very different personalities. It was interesting to see how their personalities meshed together. It was obvious from the beginning that Nell was being affected by the house the most. I honestly was absolutely positive she was going to jump off that tower (probably because of Nell’s fate in the series).

The crash at the end happened pretty quickly, so I wasn’t sure that Nell had actually died. I hoped that she didn’t, or that if she did there would be a little bit about her ghost.

It’s super creepy how the house seems to consume the people in it. The series did a really good job showing that too.

I’m interested in seeing what the next season will be about since they’ve stated that it’ll be an entirely different storyline. It’s kind of sad honestly because I really fell in love with those characters, but it did have a good ending.

I did really like how there were subtle nods to things in the book in the series like the cup of stars, throwing rocks at the glass greenhouse, and the poem that the flapper woman recites.

Highly recommend the book if you’re a fan of the show. It was definitely worth the read.