Tyler Abrams - Lit. of Horror, Fantasy, & Sci-Fi

       This week I watched Cabin in the Woods instead of reading a novel. I've been wanting to watch this movie for sometime now and I used this as an excuse to finally get to it. I was blown away by this movie. I absolutely loved it. The ending was one of the most fun and exciting endings in any horror movie I've ever watched. This movie played on all the tropes of horror movie and becomes a great homage to all horror movies. It is inventive and a fun ride. The idea that horror movies are just this company that puts out on after another is where this movie's heart is. The have a whole prison of monsters/creatures to unleash on people for our entertainment. It results in all these monsters/creatures being unleashed on the corporate men in black behind the camera. I love this movie and plan on watching it again very soon.

      For this week I read of the stories from Kwaidan Stories and Studies of Strange Things. I read the Dream of Akinosuke. It is a crazy story about this man who has a fanatical dream while asleep under a tree. This could be a stereotypical story because his dream involves finding an island, falling in love, and becoming royalty but the twist is how it ends. The woman he fell in love with died and then they build a statue if her in her memory. Soon after that is when he wakes up and thinks it was all a dream, but he discovers all these insects under the tree and there is something that resembles the statue of his beloved and under it is a dead queen ant. This ending makes this story something completely original. I really like that twist and the idea he lived in this insect world in his dream. 

       After learning that Interview with the Vampire was inspired and written in the wake of the author losing her own child this novel makes a lot more sense. This background knowledge is why I like writing these blogs after our class discussions because I learn things. There are a lot these happening to children like being killed in this novel. Even one of our main character (Claudia) became a vampire as a child so therefore she will be a child forever. That theme you could write a whole response all on it's own. While Ann Rice would have liked her child to stay a child forever in the book, Claudia hates that she has been forced to be stuck in a child's body forever. I think selfishness is big theme in this novel as the other two male character, Lestat and Louis can very selfish at times. The whole vampire idea is selfish because you turn people into vampires against their will, especially in this novel. Lestat is the most selfish of all. He turned most of our character

        As a kid I always loved Frankenstein's monster. He was my favorite halloween character and I dressed up as him multiple times, so I loved the opportunity to finally read the book. Little did I know it isn't so much the story I had in my head. The story even has this other main character named Captain Walton. The story is really about this monster that wants to know the meaning of life and why he was created. He kills multiple people, but he doesn't know better and his creator tried to get rid of him. Then the story shifts as these two travel around the globe hunting each other in this revenge story. I think there isn't really a "hero" in this story. Both Dr. Frankenstein and the monster do terrible things to one another and others. Dr. Frankenstein creates the monster a bride/companion only to kill it in front of the monster. The thing I like most about this novel is this theme of companionship. Every human being wants companionship one way or an