THE IMAGINATION OF FEAR
Almost a decade ago now, I was working on the development of a genre television series with a cable network in Canada. The premise was a cross between The Exorcist and The Boys From Brazil. A bit niche for the time. A few years later, and we would have been picked up. But, anyway… things had come to a point where the team behind the show was waiting for the green light or not. It was early autumn during this period, and I was off for a long weekend at a cottage about five hours north of Toronto. Middle of nowhere, edge of a lake. The mist would roll in over the warm water during the cool nights, creating an Arthurian atmosphere to the place. Plenty of bear, timber wolves, moose pooping about the area. Not much in the way of humans.
I was working on a side project at the time. A horror movie script set in the woods… college kids barricaded in a cabin, hoping to survive the monster that lurked outside the door. Very original, huh? I performed a little experiment. When the sun went down, I kept the doors to the cabin’s deck open. I sat down to write, where a few feet away from me was total darkness. I gave myself the goal of committing several scenes to virtual paper, with the promise to not close the doors until completed. I wrote frantically. My heart jumped at every wolf call and snap of a twig. I came to believe I was one of those students in the cabin, and the creature was definitely outside watching me. The exercise most certainly helped me raise the stakes of the story.
Last December, I witnessed how early in our lives fear can inspire storytelling. My wife and I took our daughter to Grouse Mountain, which overlooks the city of Vancouver, for a Breakfast with Santa event. After the breakfast, we went tobogganing. A short run had been set up on the side of the mountain with a snow barrier at the bottom to stop the plastic sleds before they careened off the mountainside.
I positioned the sled at the top of the hill, digging my heels into the ground to hold it in place, and then lifted my daughter into my lap. Off we went. The snow was compacted, so more like an ice run. We went from 0 to Fast as Hell in a couple of seconds. My daughter was not impressed. She was even less impressed when we hit the barrier at the bottom, and snow sprayed her face. She did not wish to go again. Upon her return to L.A., a six-second slide became an encounter with Bigfoot. All day, Sasquatch had been watching her, waiting for just the right moment when he could throw snow at her face. My daughter speaks fondly now of returning one day to the woods of Canada, where Bigfoot, Santa and Rudolf are neighbours. Remarkable.
It is easy to imagine early man grunting about the things beyond the light of the fire that could eat them…and worrying about keeping their children on guard for danger. They knew there are such things as monsters.