Formerly SpringBlog

Monday, February 21, 2011

The Creep Factor

While skimming electronic literature, I must admit I was dumbfounded. As a literature major, I'm accustomed to reading the straightforward 'left to right, bottom to top' grid that has dominated most literature styles. Throwing electronic literature, with its twists, mysteries, and unconventional style, was exhausting to my already pre-conceived version of literature.

But, amongst all the visually mind-numbing tales, I found that Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw, stuck out to me most. Much like many of my classmates, I was transfixed by the mysterious, occult story at the center of this work. Clicking on individual characters in the little village brought me to priests, strange creatures, and deeper into the story of Christian's possession. After the completion of much of the story, a Text file appears that breaks down the true story of what was thought to be a demonic possession of Christian Shaw. From this text, the viewer now has a sense of what they just watched, and also how it connected to the supposedly true story of Christian's possession.

Deviant is probably the most memorable of these stories to me, quite possibly for the 'creep factor'. As a lover of horror movies and all things scary, I enjoy indulging in anything that might give me the thrill of a good scare. Of course, Deviant didn't have me on the edge of my seat in terror, but it managed to creep me out just a little bit. Sometimes, I have found that the most obscure, harder to process horror films are the scariest, purely for the fact that I fail to understand them completely. For example, I often found The Blair Witch Project to be a creepy film simply because having only three working cameras in the film made it feel more like a home video. But because my experience in the film was limited by the less-than-polished camera work, I felt more uneasy when watching it. Similarly, many horror movies reveal their monsters in the final climax. Would Jaws have been as frightening if the shark was shown at the beginning?

Thus, I feel Deviant follows a similar path. There were no jump-out-of-your-seat scare moments, nor were there any climactic terrorizing moments where a monster was unveiled. Rather, we have a low-key story of girl who is (possibly) possessed by a demon. The audience is not in for the ride, but rather given a set of clues to distinguish the story for themselves. Because there are no Hollywood horror moments, I felt the understated creepiness of the story itself delivered enough of a scare. Sometimes, the things that scare us the most are the ones that are quiet and sneaky, rather than loud and in your face. Even now, I still have difficulty understanding the story (did the every petal have to fall off every tree for a purpose?), but perhaps that's why it remained in my memory.

Lindsey V.

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