Walpole at the Movies: Exploring the Influence of The Castle of Otranto in Horror Film.

Will Standish

Dr. Breashears

3/19/14

It is, perhaps, not unfair to say that Horace Walpoles The Castle of Otranto has lost

some of its ability to inspire genuine fear in most modern readers in the 250 years that have

passed since it was first published. Its somewhat flat characters and insistence on the awe-

inspiring horror of colossal pieces of armor perhaps does not hold the terrifying gravitas that

they had when the book was originally released. While its scariness and plotting may be up for

debate, The Castle of Otranto has undeniably shaped the way we interpret the horror genre

and continues to be an important touchstone for horror cinema to this day. While its general

plot outline may seem more fitted to melodrama, the base elements of the story are prevalent

in almost every notable horror film in the past several decades. The horror genre can boast a

wider multitude than just about any other genre of film, and the presence of The Castle Otranto

can be found across most, if not all of them. Otherwise disparate subgenres such as the slasher

film, the giant monster sci-fi film, the broadly defined haunted house film, and the recent

phenomena of the found footage film each owe a debt to The Castle of Otranto for many of

the stylistic and thematic elements that inform them. While it may not always be noticeable on

the surface, The Castle of Otranto haunts modern horror cinema quite thoroughly.

At a quick glance, it might be easy to dismiss the slasher film--movies about teens

meeting their gory end at the hands of (occasionally supernatural) serial killers-- as a cheap and

un-nuanced subgenre of horror with little to do with the Romantic-bred Gothic horror of
Walpole. A closer analysis, however, reveals that the genre shares very similar thematic

elements to the Castle of Otranto and its portrayal of the relationship between children and

their parents. In the Castle of Otranto, much of the horror and dread that the reader feels

stems from the fact that the parents in the novel are unable to prevent their children from

danger. Despite her noble intentions, Hippolita repeatedly fails both Matilda and Isabella, the

latter serving Hippolitas intended daughter-in-law. Hippolita does not interfere with Manfeds

schemes, and fails both of the girls through her inaction. Frederic, the father and assumed

protector of Isabella, also fails his duty as a parent, agreeing to Manfreds proposed daughter

swap, once again putting his daughter directly in harms way (Walpole 61). Though the threats

are different, the theme of parental absence is present in almost every slasher film. Notably, a

survey of films such as Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween reveals that the

targets of the killers in these films are exclusively teenagers and young adults, and that in each

case, parents are either completely absent or are unavailable when their children face danger.

Critic Pat Gill explains that Parents in these films are generally absent, either physically or

emotionally. They have demanding jobs, working late in the evening. They go on business trips

or on vacations without the kids (19). For one reason or another, parents in slasher films are

unable to offer assistance. In Otranto, Hippolita is unable to help her children because the

purity of [her] own heart prevents [her] seeing the depravity of others (89). Just as in the

slasher, Hippolita cannot help the heroines of the story because she cannot see the dangers

they face. The reoccurring theme is that of parents too occupied to recognize the danger that

their children face, even when those parents occupy positions of authority. In Halloween, the

father of one of the girls killed by Michael Meyers is an active police officer investigating the
escaped killer but always just one step behind him. In this regard, he serves a similar role to

Frederic, as both are figures of authority sworn to protection who are still ineffective in

protecting their children. In both the Castle of Otranto and the slasher genre, we are presented

a world of youth on the cusp of adulthood being endangered by the preceding generation. In

Otranto and Halloween, for example, it falls to a young woman or group of young women to

face down dangers that stalk them. Otranto creates a theme of imperiled youth that the slasher

genre would later be built around.

A common thread throughout the Gothic novel is the concept of taboo, particularly

within the family. In Otranto, this manifests itself in the somewhat incestuous desire that

Manfred feels for Isabella, who lived in his home as a daughter leading up to her marriage to

Conrad. While it takes a slightly different form, family taboo is a core component of the

Halloween film franchise, specifically through the theme of fratricide. Both the original

Halloween and its 2007 remake open with six-year-old Michael Meyers murdering his older

sister on Halloween night. The tone of the film is set not just by an image of murder, but by the

breaking of familial boundaries and committing taboo. Later installments of the Halloween

series will reveal that Laurie Strode, the heroine of the first film, is actually Meyers younger

sister, making his return to his hometown purely driven by his desire to commit fratricide once

again. With its themes of incestuous desire and the murder of ones own children, Otranto

establishes the breaking of family codes as an integral part of the Gothic novel and the horror

genre at large. While Freudian analysis may lend itself to interesting analysis of Michael

Meyers choice of wielding a large knife in his attempts on his sisters lives, the core dread of

the series lies in its breaking of family boundaries, and the endangering of young women by
their relatives. It is clear that Halloween is working within a framework established by Otranto

and the novels which it inspired.

By its very nature, the haunted house film is steeped in the imagery of the Gothic

tradition which found its roots in Walpoles writing. While horror critics such as Jack Morgan

make the assertion that the elements that we associate the Gothic genre existed well before

The Castle of Otranto (41), it nonetheless remains a key component of the genre and serves as

the beginning of the Gothic novel tradition, particularly in its use of setting and description of

place. The elements that we associate with the haunted house film such as winding corridors,

dark and moldering rooms and passages, and homes housing family tragedy can be drawn back

to the eponymous castle. In classic horror cinema, the Gothic aesthetic of Otranto is perhaps

best reflected in Robert Wises 1963 film The Haunting, based on Shirley Jacksons The

Haunting of Hill House, widely considered to be classic of the modern Gothic mode (Bunnell

87). Though it is based on a novel, the film evokes the Gothic in a unique manner through its

Gothic shooting locale and its use of cinematography. Robert Wise constructs incredibly

evocative shots, casting long, angular shadows across the walls of the mansion, often setting

the camera at peculiar angles so as to make the viewer uneasy. Even during the day, shadows

fill every corner, hinting of the unknown, primitive darkness of the house (Bunnell 89). In the

Gothic tradition established by Walpole, the building itself becomes a menacing character in

the text, both reflecting and amplifying the terror felt by the characters. In both Otranto and

The Haunting, the physical space expresses the emotions of the characters. The massive,

sublime space of the castle is a reflection of Manfreds sublime, outsized presence in the novel.

The winding, labyrinthine hallways of the castle are a manifestation of Isabellas inability to
escape from Manfreds plot. This concept is used to great effect by Wise in The Haunting. The

mental anguish of the heroines of this film is captured in physical space. Isabellas frantic,

twisting escape through the vaults, dungeons, and catacombs of Otranto are incredibly similar

to the Haunting, specifically in Eleanors doomed ascent of a winding spiral staircase in the

library (Bunnell 89). As an heir to the modern Gothic tradition, its clear that both Wise and

Shirley Jackson in her novel owe a great debt to Otrantos evocation of the Gothic locale and its

portrayal of the sublime.

It is impossible to discuss the Gothic novel without discussing the role of the sublime in

the construction of Gothic landscape. The Gothic strives to evoke the massive and

unfathomable in both its villains and its settings. In the Castle of Otranto, the sublime is present

not just in its characterization of Manfred, but in its exotic, distant setting. The size of the castle

and the surrounding countryside overwhelm both the characters and the reader in ways that

good filmmakers achieve through cinematography. Few directors capture Otrantos sublime

scale quite as well as Stanley Kubrick does in his opening to his 1981 film adaptation of The

Shining. In the films opening sequence, the viewer follows the Torrance familys car as it makes

its way through winding mountain roads on their way to the Overlook hotel. Instead of the

tight, claustrophobic cinematography of the Haunting, Kubrick engulfs the viewer in the

expansive, sublime setting of the Rocky Mountains through wide, sweeping shots. Throughout

the opening, the Torrances car is dwarfed by the mountain ranges they drive through, making

them only a small part of an incalculably large landscape. Kubrick evokes a sense of unease and

establishes the tone of the proceeding film in the same way that writers such as Walpole and

his contemporaries did through their descriptions of location and setting.

 While filmmakers like Robert Wise and Stanley Kubrick capture Walpoles aesthetic

through the use of heavily constructed shots, recently the trend has turned towards capturing

realism in horror film. One of the most popular subgenres of horror in recent years has been

the found footage subgenre, a mode which produces much of its ability to scare from the

conceit that the events of the film actually occurred. At its release in 1999, The Blair Witch

Project, the first massively popular found footage film became the most financially success

independent release, partially due to a multi-media campaign which presented the film as a

real document of the disappearance of a group of filmmakers investigating the legend of an 18 th

century witch (Harris 77). Since then, found footage films such as the Paranormal Activity series

have become some of the most financially successful horror films of the decade using a similar

conceit, the first film in the series grossing $107,918,810 in its theatrical run. While a film being

purportedly based on a true story is an old concept, actively presenting the film as a found

document can be traced back to the original preface to The Castle of Otranto. In his first preface

to the novel, Walpole presents the novel to the reader under the pseudonym William Marshall

as a medieval document found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the North of

England (5). Walpole presents the story as an Italian manuscript dating back to between 1095

and 1243 and presents the events as ones that people of the time believed to be true (6).

Though Walpole would later reveal that the story was not a historical document, it is telling

that he only chose to do so after the novel proved to be a financial success. It is not unlikely

that its presentation as fact or as some valid historical text counts in part for some of the novels

early success and was perhaps a large part of the draw for readers. It is this same conceit that
has made the found footage subgenre so potent. Like Otranto, the appeal lies not in whether or

not the events presented actually occurred, but in the nature of its presentation.

Though it may seem to have the least to do with what modern audiences consider scary,

even the infamous giant helmet that sets of the events of the Castle of Otranto has its modern

antecedents. Though few significant academic examinations have been published on the

subject, the giant monster film can be viewed as an ancestor to the horror that Walpole meant

to convey in his oversized armor. In Otranto, the armor which plagues the castle appears due to

the sinister actions of Manfreds line. The helmet crushing the sickly and presumably innocent

Conrad can be viewed as the exacting of what Walpole refers to as the sins of the father being

exacted on their children to the third and fourth generation (7). The giant armor stalks the

halls of Otranto in punishment for Manfreds family betraying Alfonso and usurping the crown.

This theme of the giant entity appearing to serve as a punishment for the commitment of

atrocities is carried over into the giant monster movie tradition starting in the fifties with films

such as Godzilla. Central to the plot of the Godzilla is the concept of the monster as an

analogue for nuclear weaponry. Godzilla is created by nuclear testing and punishes mankind for

the creation of the bomb through his destruction. Similar themes can be found in American

science fiction films such as 1954s Them. Once again, nuclear testing leads to the creation of

gigantic creaturesin this case, irradiated antswhich return to the society that created them

to wreak havoc. Like in Otranto, giants serve as a physical reminder of wrongs committed. The

horror of the helmet as well as in Godzilla, lie partially in their massive size, but also in the

notion that past wrongs are inescapable and will eventually catch up with those committed

them, at the cost of the innocent around them.

 As author Jack Morgan demonstrates, The Castle of Otrantos significance does not lie in

the fact that it created the elements that we associate with the Gothic novel (41). Rather, what

makes The Castle of Otranto a significant work is the way that the various themes and concepts

that inform the book are assembled and presented to the reader. It is not the originator of the

central ideas of Gothic horror, but of how we interpret those ideas. Otranto has the language of

horror cinema in the same way. While its likely that the creators of films like Halloween, The

Shining, and The Blair Witch Project did not specifically have Otranto in mind while creating

their films, they are nonetheless indebted to Walpole for the ways that he brought the Gothic

landscape, familial themes, and the found document conceit into the language of

contemporary horror. Walpoles novel is, ultimately, significant because it synthesized a

language for the horror genre that has echoed throughout centuries and subgenres and has left

its mark on otherwise radically different visions of horror. It is not an exaggeration to say that

without the influence of The Castle of Otranto, the horror film as we know it today would

perhaps look quite different.

 Works Cited

The Blair Witch Project. Dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez. Perf. Heather Donohue, Michael
C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard. Haxan Films, 1999. Film.

Box office/ business for Paranormal Activity. Internet Movie Database. Internet Movie
Database, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Bunnell, Charlene. The Gothic: A Literary Genres Transition to Film. Planks of Reason: Essays
on the Horror Film. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press Inc, 1984. 79-
100. Print.

Gill, Pat. The Monstrous Years: Teens, Slasher Films, and the Family. Journal of Film & Video.
54.4 (2002): 16-30. Web.

Godzilla. Dir. Ishiro Honda. Perf. Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, and Akihiko Hirata. Toho,
1954. Film.

Halloween. Dir. John Carpenter. Perf. Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Tony Morgan. Warner
Brothers, 1978. DVD.

The Haunting. Dir. Robert Wise. Perf. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ
Tamblyn. MGM, 1963. Film.

Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. New York: Penguin, 1959. Print.

Martin, Harris. The Witchcraft of Media Manipulation: Pamela and The Blair Witch Project.
Journal of Popular Culture. 34.4 (2001): 75-108. Web.

Morgan, Jack. The Biology of Horror: Gothic Literature and Film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
UP, 2002. Print.

Paranormal Activity. Dir. Oren Peli. Perf. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Paramount
Pictures, 2007. Film.

The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Scatman
Crothers. Warner Bros, 1981. Film.

Them! Dir. Gordon Douglas. Perf. James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, and James
Arness. Warner Bros, 1954. Film.

Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.