 |
| Ghost Photo credit: Pétur Gauti |
A look at character archetypes of the horror subgenre. This is a personal thing, really. Once, I found a website that classified all the prototype into only three classes: The Vampire; the Ghost and the Monster. I discovered doing it this way kind of leaves room for a little improvisation (for me, at least), I can focus on the individual character archetypes and talk about each one at a time instead of lumping them together in one bogus family tree.
The Vampire
The vampire is one of the shape shifters of the horror genre. And probably, the most famous of the undeads. Somebody once commented on how swiftly the character has evolved through time and even faster than the flu.
Modern films and books keep inventing new forms of the vampire story finally creating vampires who can co-exist with humans in a near-cordial relationship.
The Werewolf
Another shape-shifting character and for the most part sworn enemies of the vampire. This character is considered a lycanthrope or a wolfman whose transformation takes place at the appearance of the full moon. It wields a form of power stronger than a man's and a wolf's combined.
Extraterrestrials
Aliens or ETs are intelligent life forms from space. Although, in some fictional works, some of these extraterrestrial species are a positively productive bunch, many of their type like the ones featured in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher for example. Another good example are the set of ETs on the X-Files.
Psychos
I decided I'd detach these set of villains from the monsters for a special reason; most psychos are super-intelligent beings. (Their level of intelligence is probably too advanced for them and they eventually, self-destruct.) Thomas Harris' famous anti-hero, Hannibal Lecter falls under this category and probably, the prototype mad scientist, Frankenstein.
Monsters
The characters called monsters besides anacondas, devilish sewer rats, usually possess a low IQ yet, their blood boils with the essence of evil.
Zombies
These characters are classified as undead along with the vampires, the werewolves, and the ghouls. The zombie is a specie of mindless, reanimated corpses who feed on human flesh. George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is considered a progenitor of the fictional zombie in modern fiction.
Ghouls
These characters are also shape-shifters as well as the undead. I have placed the Ghosts and the daemons or spirits in this category. Ghouls are desert-dwelling, shape-shifting, evil daemons. But since I also refer to the ghost, ghouls are also spirits of dead people and include the supernatural beings like evil spirits and the likes.
If, perhaps, you have a better method of classifying these horror archetypes, I'd like to see what you got to give.
Keep your pen bleeding.
Akpan
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feedbacks welcome and appreciated.