Welcome to this, the inaugural posting on the House of Dracula blog.
I have been thinking much about the aesthetics of the
Gothic as Halloween approaches. As I coast
into my 54th year, I continue to be amazed at how adults have
successfully co-opted the holiday. When
I was a boy, Halloween was primarily a children’s holiday, and when most adults
thought about it (if they did at all), it was as a nuisance.
All of that has changed.
For 2016, the National Retail Foundation (NRF) predicts that 69.1 percent
of Americans will celebrate the Halloween holiday this year. To do so, they will spend $8.4 billion
(billion!) – with 44.4 percent of them starting their Halloween observance in
the first two weeks of October.
This figure has been steadily increasing; for 2007, for
instance, Halloween spending was “only” $5.1 billion. This year, we will spend more than $350
million on costumes … for our pets.
People of my generation remember that Halloween was quite
a big deal to us as children, but we were mostly on our own. Halloween costumes from the Ben Cooper company arrived in October,
along with some plastic pumpkin satchels and some cardboard window decorations –
and that was it. Today, each and every
retail store (from card shops to food stores) has some kind of Halloween
selection. The broad array of choice and
quality in Halloween products is remarkable.
These include candelabrum, snow globes, coffin-shaped jewelry boxes, plaster
gargoyles and gnomes, monster bookends, dining and bedroom sundries, let alone
more perishable items, like black plastic curtains and crepe paper wall
coverings. If anyone were seriously
interested in spooky décor, one could furnish their home during the Halloween
season and be set for the year.
Obviously we love Halloween here in the House of Dracula, and eat all of this
up. But seekers after Halloween kitsch will
be disappointed in upcoming posts. We have
a connoisseur’s interest in the Gothic, and you will find more about Varney the Vampire or Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) here than
you will the latest splatter film. For
us, the Gothic is a mood and sensibility; and we’ll be tracing the aesthetics of
the Gothic that is more in line with Poe’s Roderick
Usher than someone like Rob Zombie.
The “Goth” subculture will also get little coverage, as
we think this a vulgarization of Gothic sensibilities.
We will touch upon the literature and the graphic arts,
and cover film as well -- though most of the Gothic Cinema we will examine
starts around 1920 and ends with the lesser Hammer Films of the early 1970s,
with obvious outliers.
So, Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and
leave something of the happiness you bring.
After all … the Master is waiting.
Go to Your Local Big Lots! Store to Find the True Meaning of Halloween!
