Gothic Horror.
A topic close to the hearts of many horror fans--yet more importantly, the original seed
of why we’re fans of this genre in the first place.
You see, it is often the case with any creative medium where it’s important to pay our dues
to the founding works of the form.
After all, you need to understand the rules before you can break them.
Perhaps, in some alternate timeline--there were other motifs and conventions that laid
down the foundation for horror--but the point remains the same.
Fear came to the forefront of fiction--and Gothic Horror of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries
were the bricks that paved the way.
So, let’s take a look.
Hello horror fans, what’s going on--and once again welcome back to the scariest channel
on YouTube--Top 5 Scary Videos.
As per usual, I’ll be your horror host Jack Finch--as today, we curiously take a look
at the Top 5 Scariest Gothic Horror Stories.
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you--of course, that scene was from Francis Ford Coppolas’ 1992
adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula--one of many cinematic depictions of the legendary
work of gothic horror--and yes, certainly, you would expect that particular tale to find
its way onto that list--but today it is resigned as our most honorable of honorable mentions.
Talking of honorable mentions--we also have to pay homage to the 1764 novel by Horace
Walpole, The Castle of Otranto--widely considered to be the first ever gothic novel, laying
down the foundations for haunted castles in the mountains and evil counts.
But, let’s take a little closer look.
Kicking off at Number 5 -- House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
And you may well be thinking--what the EFF Jack?!
House of Leaves?!
I’m expecting some 200 year old novels at the least--I want some tophat and cane style
gothic horror, or at least a mad monk of sorts.
Hey--listen, Gothic Horror is a tried and test medium.
But like I said at the start of this video--you need to know the rules in order to break them,
and Mark Danielewski’s phenomenal novel is as mind-boggling and intriguing as it is
terrifying.
I don’t say this lightly, but House of Leaves is a work of art--it really is--and whilst
on the surface, and then some, this is certainly a horror novel--it is also far, far more than
that.
Written by Mark Z. Danielewski, and released back in the year 2000 as his debut novel--House
of Leaves is a story unlike any that you’ve ever read before.
It is told by a frame within a frame… within a frame, kind of.
It is told initially through the eyes of Johnny Truant--a tattoo artist and professed unreliable
narrator.
As he is searching for a new apartment, he stumbles upon the home of the recently deceased
Zampano, a blind and elderly man who lived alone.
There--he finds Zampano’s old belongings--one of them being a manuscript of a documentary
film called The Navidson Record.
And here is where we hit the Gothic of Gothic Horror.
The film is, in fact--the documentation of a young family, the Navidsons--who after returning
home from a trip--notice something strange about their house.
It’s gotten bigger.
And not just in the feng shui type of deal--but it’s bigger on the inside than it is on
the outside--and then, it can’t stop growing.
Now, I’ll say no more--because reading House of Leaves is akin to *being* a detective--getting
absorbed by these strange, terrifying layers of information--told through the eyes of characters
who are as perplexed as we are.
And this is where the Gothic Horror is subverted by this novel--it takes that trope, the Haunted
House--and it delivers it in a completely alien and… impossibly foreign way.
It irks on cosmic horror--but never quite goes there, allowing us to get as lost in
the same maze as it’s many narrators.
Reading this novel is a task in itself--it is ergodic in it’s execution--but that’s
part of it’s appeal.
It’s claustrophobic at best--and paranoid at it’s worse.
You wanna dissect gothic horror in the 21st century?
Read this book.
Swinging in at Number 4 -- The Woman In Black, Susan Hill
And of course--this novel has to appear on our list--and truth be told, I thought long
and hard about the best in class of the traditional haunted house ghost story.
Of course, this same novel could stand amongst Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House,
The Mysteries of Udolpho, or even Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey--but, I think it terms of
pure execution, as well as a genuinely terrifying example of gothic horror--Susan Hill’s 1983
novel, The Woman In Black, stands above the rest.
And again, you might be thinking--come on Jack, I want some 18th century stuff--stop
playing games.
But I’d say--hey!
Gothic Horror is alive and well, and 1983 was a pretty terrifying year.
Written by Susan Hill, the remarkable author who has released several brilliant works of
horror--The Woman In Black tells the tale of a man named Arthur Kipps--a retired solicitor,
who one night--is telling ghost stories with his Wife and four stepchildren.
But when he’s asked for his scariest story--he snaps back to a time in his younger days and
turns white as a sheet.
You see, many years earlier--Kipps is summoned to a small market town on the North East coast
of England--to attend the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow--an elderly and reclusive widow
who lived alone in the desolate and secluded Eel Marsh House for many years.
Which, obviously if you’ve seen the 2012 Movie starring Daniel Radcliffe, or perhaps
the long running stage adaptation--you’ll certainly be familiar with.
But the truth of the matter is--the spirit of this novel captures something truly Gothic
in its approach, something that is otherwise difficult to do on screen.
As we peel through the pages of Hill’s novel, we are just as curious and confused as Arthur
Kipps himself--willing him to leave town but at the same time, unable to stop turning the
page.
With The Woman In Black--Hill held a mirror to many of the traumas found in Gothic Literature--and
applied them to an otherwise completely modern retelling.
It’s almost as if Hill took all of the tropes laid out by her predecessors--and then decided
to turn the fear factor up a notch.
Next up at Number 3--The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
And I was umming and ahhing about our 3rd spot on this list--and so let it be known
that this was a close toss up between this entry, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale
Heart--a posthumous collection of his many brilliant short stories--but, I think it’s
probably best that we include full novels here.
Just a little side note--but know that Poe is well and truly recognised.
Anyway--talking of a gothic portrait of a man’s life in literature--let’s talk about
The Picture of Dorian Gray--which, horror aside, is just a remarkable novel by all accounts--as
well as being a deeply philosophical musing on the nature of the individual.
Who would know it then, that at the time of its publication in 1890--The Picture of Dorian
Gray was pretty much trashed by critics.
Really, it was well and truly torn to shreds--as well as being massively censored by Wilde’s
editor without his knowledge.
But, come on guys--of course it was gonna take a few decades for people to realise the
importance of a horrifying portrait and a well kept secret.
The tale--which many of you will be familiar with, is an observation on hedonism in the
pursuit of pleasure--and yet the eternal price that we all pay for a life of decadence.
And also, well, you know--selling your soul to the Devil for the price of immortality--but
that kind of goes without saying.
Obviously, we’re talking about the metaphorical Devil--because this is Gothic Horror--and
Heaven and Hell don’t serve too much of a purpose on the mortal plane.
The novel details the young aristocrat, Dorian Gray, whose portrait is painted by the artist
Basil Hallward which through supernatural means, ages the painting instead of himself.
His body retains perfect youth and vigor--whilst the portrait grows into a hideous record of
evil that he must keep hidden away from the rest of the world.
Now, listen--this tale is sprawling in it’s approach, and takes perhaps a little bit more
work than some of the rest of the novels on this list--but there’s no other way about
it--the very essence of The Picture of Dorian Gray *is* Gothic Horror.
Coming in at Number 2--The Monk, Matthew Lewis
Alright guys--I’m pretty sure that some of you jumped into this video with the intention
of discovering something truly messed up.
And yeah--this is that novel.
And for a story written in 1796--yes, 1796--this story could give most modern horror movies
a run for their money.
Written by Matthew Gregory Lewis when he was just 20 years old--The Monk, in many ways,
exemplifies how and why Gothic Horror first came about.
In the oversaturation of Romanticism and literature of the time--in the many tales of love, loss
and sweeping--domineering landscapes--many writers and readers were bored.
They were just straight up bored man.
Well, I mean--the aristocracy were bored, because come on guys, we plebs were too busy
working the fields and fighting wars to read.
And particularly, in regard to the birth of the male Gothic--this audience wanted some
scandal.
Now, it probably goes without saying--but The Monk was absolutely savaged by critics
at the time, mainly for it’s obscenity--incest, murder, eroticism.
Yeah, you get the picture.
It tells the tale of a man named Ambrosio, an incredibly devout monk--who as a small
child, was left on the doorstep of a monastery and was perceived as a gift from the Virgin
Mary by the monks that lived there.
In other words--this man is piety incarnate.
And guess what?!
He succumbs to the temptations of a young girl--who enters the monastery disguised as
a young boy--and then leads him down a path of sorcery, murder and torture--generally
tearing down all pillars of purity and goodness with every turn.
Obviously, The Monk is very much a tale of its time--and from an analytical perspective,
it offers an incredibly narrow worldview--but this novel pretty much defined many motifs
of Gothic Horror--as well as the perception of the Church later down the line in horror
fiction as a whole.
I mean, the reason behind the success of this novel was down to the scandal that it caused--and
the sensationalism that it later garnered--but in the actual bones of this tale, The Monk,
in many ways, is a masterpiece of gothic fiction.
It’s approach is widely psychological--and it’s execution is the very tactile fear
of the physical.
And finally--coming in at our Number 1 spot--Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
And this is a rare moment where I hold up the obvious choice at the very tip-top of
the pile.
There is no other way to say it.
Frankenstein is the finest gothic horror novel ever written--still, to this day.
And as I briefly mentioned at the opening of this video--this spot should certainly
be reserved for the greats, Bram Stoker’s Dracula included--but even when compared to
that particular novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is in a league of its own.
Let me put it this way.
Whilst Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto certainly was the first depiction of Gothic Horror in
literature--and whilst Matthew Lewis’ The Monk fleshed out those very same themes--it
was this novel that truly defined them.
And how did all of that start?
In a lakehouse in Geneva, surrounded by renowned writers, Lord Byron--her future husband Percy
B. Shelley, John Polidori and several others--they decided to see who could create the scariest
horror story.
And Mary Shelley, who had never written a novel before--blew them all out of the water.
Frankenstein.
And I don’t need to tell you about this tale--because without a doubt, you’ll all
be familiar with it--but really, if you haven’t actually sat down and read this novel--I implore
you to do so.
You see, not only did this novel give life--literally, to the ongoing pursuit of Gothic Horror--it
also gave rise to science fiction in horror--as well as sci-fi as a whole.
Frankenstein was the start of many things.
Mary Shelley took the themes of the Gothic--the sweeping landscapes, the base exploration
of the forbidden, and the breaking of cultural and societal taboos--and she said, we can
go one further.
We don’t have to be resigned to the fact that horror is simply a pursuit--or a simulation
of the things that we should or shouldn’t do--it isn’t *just* about surface morality.
Gothic Horror is much more important than that.
It asked--what does it mean to be human?
How far can civilization go in tampering with nature?
What is the ultimate price of creating a monster in pursuit of pretending to be a god?
Whilst it may not seem it, through her novel’s immortality--Mary Shelley continues to challenge
us by asking these questions--and now, in many ways--this story is more relevant than
ever before.
Well, there we have it horror fans--our list for the Top 5 Scariest Gothic Horror Stories.
What do you guys think?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Have any more to add to this list?
Then let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any choice
picks that you may have of your own.
Before we depart from today's video--let’s first take a quick look at some of your more
creative comments from over the past few days.
First up, Horror Movie Mom says--
I live by one rule for Horror movies--don’t listen to the critics, listen to Jack and
Lucy!
---Awww.
You know what?
Thank you Horror Movie Mom, that means a lot.
But wait, does that make us critics?
Hm.
And finally, Kamil Bogdanski says--
If you get a shout out here, does that make you kind of famous?
--- And yeah--sure, why not.
Look at you Kamil, you’re famous bud!
Well, on that note--unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in today's video--cheers
for sticking around all the way until the end.
If you were a fan of this video, or just Top 5 Scary Videos in general, then please--be
a dear and hit that thumbs up button, as well as that subscribe bell, and I’ll be seeing
you in the next one.
As per usual, I’ve been your horror host Jack Finch--you’ve been watching Top 5 Scary
Videos--and until next time, you take it easy.