Without the slightest blush of apology, I am very fond of  ghosts. As with most horror genre items, the vast majority of the stories do fall a bit short, but I will roll the dice each and every time because when they land, there is nothing better than a fantastic ghost story. I was the only kid in 4th grade whose favorite show was the Ghost and Mrs Muir from 1968 with Hope Lang, and should have been now that I think about it. Shortly after, I stayed up way too late one night to watch 1963’s THE INNOCENTS and well… that was it. The noir shadow and light play of these stories, the notional apparitions that were everywhere and nowhere, the inherent mystery to unravel as to what they are and want… I was hooked early.

Ghosts are our oldest fright, as old as we are as a species, and our most intimate and personal. You don’t need to go to a haunted house to find one, they come to you in your homes, into your bedrooms late at night.


They hide in your closest under your bed, stand over you while you sleep. They are nowhere and everywhere by nature. Though how we view them has changed even they themselves have not. Most of how we imagine them today aren’t based on literature or experience but appropriately enough for our media hungry culture… we can blame movies for it. The whole notion of faded see through gossamer spirits walking around is a result of old spirit photgraphy and early film and slideshows from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Before film, it was always believed that they walk among us, along side us and people the crowded streets we stroll through every day.

It gets more deeply existential when you start to imagine for yourself what your every day encounters with each other really entail… how often do we even touch the people we wave to, talk to the stranger that was giving you a weird look… imagine living in a pre-filmic idea of a ghost world and tell me that’s not on a whole other level.

Over a hundred billion people have lived and died on this planet, by far outstretching the current number living. Every single person alive right now won’t be in a hundred years. It is what we as a species have been most successful at over any other accomplishments: making a graveyard of our planet. Every culture has them, every society tells tales of them. Ghosts are everywhere and always will be when werewolves, vampires, and zombies fade into memory

 

And Ghosts vary and reflect the cultures they inhabit whether cursed, lingering by their own agency, self tormenting, or vengeances, ghosts people more of our collective world literature than anything else that has ever spooked us. They can be with you in the daytime beside you in bed at night, skulking in the hallway closet or chasing you up the stairs when you get that cold chill in a dark house.

 

From Adzes, Kishis, Obambos, Mogwais,Yaguais, Onryos, Mononokes, Obakes, and Wangliangs to Naagins, Vetalas, Asuras, Kinchkandis, Bhoots, Jukkhos, Ifrits, White ladies, La Lornas, Poltergeists,Dhampirs, Selkies, Duppers and Hedless Priests… there is no other monster in human lore that holds so many names and variances. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years researching for a new ghost story I’m working on and have found it almost utterly exhausting how deep the well gets when it comes to the possibilities of the lore.

 

Ghosts aren’t just alien monsters or creatures from some forgotten forest… they’re us, we know them, and even if we don’t, they want to know us whether we like it or not. They are the remnants of lives echoing around our houses. They can’t physically attack you but they’re somehow more frightening for it. They can be everywhere and always somehow are. Ghost stories are always emotional, they utilize a genre to disguise a story about grief or loss or recovery. They are memory given form, and don’t engage us like any other threat or visiting creature in horror does. Ghosts are about communication, connecting and the interaction of them. We battle them by understanding them and victory is a liberation, not a defeat, or some bloody slasher mindless violence. If you overcome them, you set yourself free from them and they from us. Interactions with ghosts are partnerships and about sharing. They require meeting your fears so that you can understand them, they challenge and the only actual danger tends to be how you respond to them, whether you surrender to the terror of them or meet it and use it as a means to escape.

 

It’s a vastly under explored area and while I don’t believe we require Halloween to indulge in spooky stories, I delight like crazy at this time of the year for all the obvious reasons. You can take your zombies, witches vampires and werewolves, just be sure to leave me any spare ghost you happen upon.

So Happy Halloween out there! Have a great holiday and be sure to check those closets before bed.