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HEART OF A HAUNTED HOUSE Post Mortem
In case you missed it, the finished haunted house piece is up on itchio for free dollars and no cents! https://friction-press.itch.io/hhh
It's fun to think about my trajectory as a horror enthusiast. When I was a tiny child, I walked into the living room while my dad and brother were watching Dawn of the Dead and I saw a man's face bitten in half and from that point, I think I refused to watch anything "scary" for at least ten years. It wasn't really until college that I started to dig back into it, largely in part because I went to college during the absolute manic height of everyone playing Amnesia the Dark Descent on youtube.
If Amnesia opened the door for it, I think Hannibal and Silent Hill cemented my appreciation for the genre. My roommate at the time KMO (who makes their own rad horror art btw) was much more of a pro and it was entirely their fault I started going to haunted house attractions in the flesh. We went to a bunch of them over the north east of the US.
Shout out to Eastern State Penitentiary in particular, which converts into a haunt every year in order to fund the museum they run out of the now defunct prison. They're a non profit dedicated entirely to raising awareness of the impact of mass incarceration and criminal justice reform in America. You can go to their huge haunt inside the former prison and also learn about the history of the American carceral system and how it primarily affects poor and disenfranchised citizens through unfair changes in law! If you're in the Philly area, give them your money so you can look at their rad set pieces using actual broken down prison cells AND reflect on America having the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world! :)
https://www.easternstate.org/halloween/
My fictional haunted house is not set in a prison, just a house. A house with many rooms. Maybe someone lives in it. Maybe he just works there. Who knows? The temptation to unmask monsters and people is so deep and real, but characters who get to remain concealed for their entire stories are so special to me. I think a lot of the urge for clarity and realism in stories is rooted in the same desire, but that is the opposite of what I want in horror (and often especially in porn). Leaving darkened rooms in the dark is what lights my brain up more than anything. I love to have only exactly enough information to understand the shape of things. The Stranger will always be The Stranger. I have no intention of revealing his face. In the same vein, I don't really see the point in elucidating exactly what Logan looks like. Whoever you pictured in your head is fine. Or if you just want to insert a favorite character in there instead, that's fine too. This piece was written to titillate and intrigue. It doesn't need exact measurements.
The Stranger's mask, though, I can almost shed some light on. It turns out the exact mask I was picturing doesn't really exist, which shouldn't surprise me. I have a knack for accidentally inventing impossible articles of clothing. Essentially, it's a combination of this (freakishly realistic) devil mask and Lock's mask from Nightmare Before Christmas. All the smooth, featureless inhumanity of Lock's mask, combined with the colors and lines of the devil mask. And of course, the mesh over the eyes so you can't see anything beneath.
Thanks for enjoying my haunt! Please come again.
It's fun to think about my trajectory as a horror enthusiast. When I was a tiny child, I walked into the living room while my dad and brother were watching Dawn of the Dead and I saw a man's face bitten in half and from that point, I think I refused to watch anything "scary" for at least ten years. It wasn't really until college that I started to dig back into it, largely in part because I went to college during the absolute manic height of everyone playing Amnesia the Dark Descent on youtube.
If Amnesia opened the door for it, I think Hannibal and Silent Hill cemented my appreciation for the genre. My roommate at the time KMO (who makes their own rad horror art btw) was much more of a pro and it was entirely their fault I started going to haunted house attractions in the flesh. We went to a bunch of them over the north east of the US.
Shout out to Eastern State Penitentiary in particular, which converts into a haunt every year in order to fund the museum they run out of the now defunct prison. They're a non profit dedicated entirely to raising awareness of the impact of mass incarceration and criminal justice reform in America. You can go to their huge haunt inside the former prison and also learn about the history of the American carceral system and how it primarily affects poor and disenfranchised citizens through unfair changes in law! If you're in the Philly area, give them your money so you can look at their rad set pieces using actual broken down prison cells AND reflect on America having the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world! :)
https://www.easternstate.org/halloween/
My fictional haunted house is not set in a prison, just a house. A house with many rooms. Maybe someone lives in it. Maybe he just works there. Who knows? The temptation to unmask monsters and people is so deep and real, but characters who get to remain concealed for their entire stories are so special to me. I think a lot of the urge for clarity and realism in stories is rooted in the same desire, but that is the opposite of what I want in horror (and often especially in porn). Leaving darkened rooms in the dark is what lights my brain up more than anything. I love to have only exactly enough information to understand the shape of things. The Stranger will always be The Stranger. I have no intention of revealing his face. In the same vein, I don't really see the point in elucidating exactly what Logan looks like. Whoever you pictured in your head is fine. Or if you just want to insert a favorite character in there instead, that's fine too. This piece was written to titillate and intrigue. It doesn't need exact measurements.
The Stranger's mask, though, I can almost shed some light on. It turns out the exact mask I was picturing doesn't really exist, which shouldn't surprise me. I have a knack for accidentally inventing impossible articles of clothing. Essentially, it's a combination of this (freakishly realistic) devil mask and Lock's mask from Nightmare Before Christmas. All the smooth, featureless inhumanity of Lock's mask, combined with the colors and lines of the devil mask. And of course, the mesh over the eyes so you can't see anything beneath.
Thanks for enjoying my haunt! Please come again.
This is such a good post-mortem, I ALSO deeply appreciated the upheld mystery of [everything] in this short story 😩🙏🔥 and I'm having a bonus chuckle at the devil mask explanation... I was picturing something really close to the fusion of those two exact masks and I'm TICKLED that I accidentally joined in the shared delusion of thinking a more stylized version of the grinning devil mask existed in real life. SURELY IT MUST...
It HAS to be out there somewhere!! I have no clue where, but I’m sure the mask exists haha thanks for joining along for this journey and also for the much needed encouragement when I hit that wall at the beginning of the month 🙌