Some years ago, English professor Garrett Sullivan taught a class on Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic adaptations of plays, novels, and short stories. When he got to “The Birds,” Hitchcock’s seminal horror-thriller based on a short story by English novelist and playwright Daphne du Maurier, “I realized the extent to which students are really interested in horror,” he says. “I thought it would be a lot of fun to teach a class that was about horror fiction and film.”
ENG 401: Supernatural Horror in Film and Fiction focuses, as its title suggests, on a horror subgenre in which characters and events defy scientific explanation. “There’s a lot of great writing and film about supernatural horror,” Sullivan says, “and the students find it particularly appealing.” But, he says, there’s a lot more to supernatural horror than just ghosts, demons, and paranormal activities. “Part of what I want the class to do is to show that supernatural horror actually offers a really potent way of grappling with things that are culturally central,” Sullivan says. “I want the students to know that these stories are not frivolous simply because they’re engaging with issues of the supernatural.”
He cites cult movie “Rosemary’s Baby” as an example. Based on a novel by American writer Ira Levin, the film is widely regarded, including by many female directors, as a feminist masterpiece for the way in which it addresses male domination and coercive control, reproductive coercion in particular. Similarly, “The Exorcist” portrays an extremely chilling side of our medical system and the dehumanizing effects of the curative methods it deploys. “These films, under the more frivolous guise of horror, get to the heart of certain kinds of cultural concerns and issues,” Sullivan says.
His reading and film list includes a wide range of supernatural horror ranging from Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” to Stephen King’s “Carrie.” Next semester, Sullivan plans to add Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which has lent itself to numerous cinematic adaptations.
