Haunted Houses

Whenever I watched those creepy old movies,
I’d always ignore the psychos and ghouls,
And focus in on the architecture –
So wonderf’ly Gothic, so atmospheric !
Why were the characters in these old movies
Such philistines and such fools ?
Ignoring all of this architecture
And long to return to safely generic ?

I never found them creepy –
The shadows and arches were part of their charm –
Those Second Empire carpenter’s mansards,
That echo the castles of Prussia or Serbia.
And always the films were so sneaky,
Suggesting flamboyance is doing us harm –
For florid is evil – don’t stray from the standard
By daring to question the rules of suburbia.

For all that Conservatives moan about Horror,
It’s always been an ally of theirs –
Punishing drinking and sex in full
While the Final Girl is a goody-two-virgin.
And concrete has a Protestant aura,
A purity in its workaday airs –
Don’t be too flashy, too individual,
And squash down any expression emerging.

But all that Brutalism delivered
Was paranoia in ev’rything else –
Satanic panics were preached from the pulpits
Of low-ceiling’ed prefabs and walls of glass.
The decadent styles of the past sent shivers
That must be exorcised from our house –
And always rebellious goths were the culprits
Within the fantasies of their class.

Yet Horror wasn’t so saintly or pure –
With teenager heroes against their parents,
Yet parrotting cultural norms unwittingly,
Not quite thinking them through –
Which brings us back to the architecture
Mirroring this clash in appearance –
Dormers and towers are outcrops that fittingly
Symbolise warts on the face of the New.

But the poor jocks and nerds were always too busy
With running and screaming, to ever behold –
But I did.  And I wept if they set one alight,
To pay the ultimate cost.
Capitalism has left them so dizzy –
To buy all this new stuff, and knock down the old.
You think they’re haunted ?  They’re haunted alright,
By all of the beauty we’ve lost.

I must spotlight a recent video essay by Kendra Gaylord.  I cannot concur with her admirtation of Edward Hopper, but I certainly can agree in her love for the Mansard Roof.  And although the groteque capitalism of both the French Second Empire and the American Gilded Age are most-assuredly horror-worthy, I have always found the inhuman sterility of Brutalism far more suited for existential dread.