Monster Island

Monster Island by David Wellington is an interesting take at the classic zombie survival formula and has made it his own. In this online blog novel, David Wellington has created a traditional story that not only follows through with preconceptions of the zombie that all the fans love, but has also brought in some elements of wizardry and sci-fi science to make it fresh. The story, at a good pace and never to slow or fast, did a good job of guiding the reader through twists and turns of an original story. Wellington however, did not clearly explain as to how the sickness or disease came to be and how it affected New York. This was something that would have been great to be explored and would have added a more complete picture to this world that he has created.

The use of magic in a zombie novel is not unheard of in most fantasy novels, but is refreshing when used in a novel grounded on the roots of zombie survival. The ability of Gary and the Scott to use magic and communicate with other zombies to create an army of slow moving zombies was interesting because it was something many readers have not read and thus, we could not predict what has going to happen. This gave us a sense of curiosity and interest, often used in horrors, to keep us going and wanting to uncover the secret of Gary’s power.

Gary himself was one of the most interesting zombies that have ever graced the zombie genre. Gary, who used to be a doctor or training at least was training to be, keeps his humanity by keeping himself on a respiratory machine. This created a being that was a zombie my nature, but had the brain of a regular human being. This allowed Wellington to explore the psyche of a zombie through the eyes of that zombie, his thoughts, his feelings about the need to feed, and we have here the first account of a zombie told through his eyes.

The main character of this novel, Dekalb, in more ways then one is the generic hero of the story, where through his experience with dealing with the zombie scourge, grows as a person and becomes the savior of everyone in the group. What Wellington however that was very out of the ordinary, was to make Dekalb a full character. Not only does Dekalb have his mission to bring back medicine, he has his own selfish tendency’s that guide him throughout the novel. The most notable, is in the very end of the novel where the typical hero would die, succumb to the zombie disease to save everyone else. In this case however, Dekalb decides to, just like Gary, to put himself on a reparatory device and keeps Gary’s head around to eventually find its secrets. This is interesting because this is the first zombie horror that I have read wear the main character succumbs to the very thing he was fighting against throughout the book!

Frankenstein

Frankenstein is an interesting novel that really followed the gothic style of horror. One of the most interesting elements of the book was that it was told through the account of Frankenstein himself, also being partially narrated by Robert Walton. Through his letters, we are able to place in the perspective of the readers in the role of his sister and are able to view his story objectively through her eyes. This allows the reader to view the tale of Victor Frankenstein objectively, which means that there are no preconceptions of the characters in the story.

The tone of this novel was also very interesting, because throughout the novel Shelley has foreshadowed events using the dread and melancholy nature of Frankenstein. Frankenstein often goes into a monologue throughout the novel that hint that an event will likely occur (not a very good one usually) and the amount of sadness he says it with often tells of the severity of the future misfortune. Not only does this create a great sense of mood throughout the novel, it creates a little suspense and curiosity upon the reader to really want to know what’s going to happen to Frankenstein in coming chapters.

            Shelley throughout this novel, points out many motifs told throughout the story of Frankenstein. Probably the most persistent of them all is the idea of knowledge being dangerous. Both Frankenstein and Walton have had a thirst for knowledge where Frankenstein created a monster and Walton having the aspiration of being the first man to reach the North Pole. The story actually blatantly is trying to tell the reader that the certain seeking of knowledge can lead to the destruction of ones life as in Frankenstein’s case. His whole story to Walton was an actual plea to Walton that the thirst of the North Pole may actually end up destroying his life. One other motif that was quite strong in this novel is the idea of the monster.

This motif is by far the most interesting part of the novel because it plays with our preconceptions of what a monster truly is. When Frankenstein’s monster was created, he wasn’t a true monster in the sense of his nature. He was created almost like a newborn child, and spent much of the months when he first was created to understand the world around him and experience the splendor of human and environmental nature. As time roles by he see him being corrupted by the hearts of humans (especially that of Victor and the French family) and in turn takes on the role of the “monster”. In Frankenstein, Shelley has revealed to the readers that a monster may not just be a bump in the night being, but a product of human corruption. In a way, we also can argue that the true bump in the night monster in Frankenstein is Victor himself that tries to play god and alienates him from society.

Elements of a Horror

Horror movies have a sense of dread and foreboding in the genre. It also has a lot of suspense because that is what makes a movie really frightening. This usually involves pop-up scenes that usually come after a long period of silence which is common in horrors. The movie is often made very eery with a mixture of sense of visuals and sounds. The visuals are often very dark, often making it very mysterious and invoking our curiosity. Movies are often very gritty and make us feel out of our element, often putting us into situations that we often are not familiar with, such as a graveyard, or a dark forest. Most horrors also have a sense of using fantastic visuals whether done in a movie or a book, to make us really understand what is going on and scaring us from the use of great detail in the explanation. Dynamic shot's are often used where we can't see the whole picture and the music is often very eery and creates a great mood for a scare. The horror genre also sees a lot of the main characters have a powerlessness to fight with the opposing enemy and that is what often scares us because we a sense of powerlessness. This scares us because we have sense that we don't have a way to defend ourselves against the "bad guy".