One of the most disturbing parts of the original “Frankenstein,” that creaky thriller from 1931, is a moment its creators probably never gave much thought to.
About eight minutes into the movie, medical students exit a lecture hall after the instructor points out differences between normal and abnormal brains. (“Abby normal” would be enshrined in comedy history a few decades later with “Young Frankenstein.”)
Within seconds of film time, the hall empties — not before some wit jostles the model skeleton, making it bounce up and down — and Frankenstein’s creepy assistant, Fritz, who has been lurking outside, forces open a window and drops into the now-darkened chamber.
It is this tiny gap in time, when the lecture hall goes from brightly lit, populated by affable, interested students, to dark and vacant, that disquiets me.
I have the same reaction to the last scene in the original “Halloween,” when the film flashes back to earlier sets, now devoid of characters. The filmmakers want me to be scared because Michael Myers, the boogeyman, is still out there in the dark, waiting with a knife. Yet I’m more affected by the emptiness.
Similar shots in a host of movies, horror and otherwise, inspire in me the same feelings: empty parks, closed carnivals, ghost towns, a baseball stadium with the field covered in snow.
And it’s not just the movies. I am similarly affected when real-life locations go from lively to quiet, when public spaces are missing the very people necessary to qualify them as public.
It’s not fear exactly, but more like melancholy. It strikes sometimes at the end of a school day, when my classroom quickly goes from 24 energetic students, discussing and researching, laughing and interacting, to only me.
As a kid, I felt the same way coming back inside the house after walking friends to their parents’ cars, marveling how different the atmosphere felt without them. Or when cleaning up after a party, remembering how just a few minutes before the room had filled with people, talking, eating and laughing.
“Kenophobia,” a fear of empty spaces, pops up quickly via an online search. Perhaps too quickly, since I’ve already indicated I’m not afraid, and since the mood doesn’t affect me with open spaces that are empty as a matter of course or design. Hence, I have no problem with fields or woods. Yet kenophobia is as close as I can come to putting a name to the situation.
Calling my reaction a “condition” is too grandiose. I don’t feel this way often, but when I do, it hits hard and surprises me every time, like an enemy ambush. It doesn’t rise to the level of a panic attack or anxiety; it’s simply unnerving.
The odd part is that I don’t particularly like people, especially when gathered in large numbers, so why I am affected by places where people should be or where they recently were is a mystery. Since I’m an ambivert, one of an unusual breed energized both by being alone and being among others, it is possible that a newly vacated space operates in some weird Twilight Zone between the two extremes, a vacuum neither completely empty nor filled. The end result is discomfort.
It is also possible that I need to crawl out of my own skull more often and not overthink every situation. Better to enjoy the mix-up of normal and abby normal brains in “Frankenstein” this Halloween and put my own over-analyzing noggin in neutral.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment