Shadows of an Evil Past...and Cats...

An ancient past filled with darkness, evil and strange midnight revelries...a strange town filled with strange people...the feeling of always being watched like a mouse in a corner...

And I wonder where all my strange dreams are coming from??

Ancient Sorceries was definitely the most disturbing story I've read so far this semester. The first shiver that danced up and down my spine was when Vezin first heard the strange music, and they only got worse as the story developed. What I cannot figure out is why this story frightened me more than The Sea Raiders for example or The Most Dangerous Game. My theory is the format in which Blackwood wrote it in. He has a certain...vague yet descriptive manner of spinning a tale. He creates this dream-like feel to the narration. The story sucks you in and before you realize it, you are under the same spell Vezin found himself cursed by. You find yourself there on the wall at midnight, the sounds of the frenzy all around you. The screams, the dancing, the urge to join in the frenzy...it was all so vivid.

For me, this story really displayed the importance of vocabulary and good storytelling. If you think about it, Blackwood didn't really have a monster, nor a truly horrifying story. None of the cat people, if they even existed, were threatening Vezin. The true horror lays in the idea that these people truly transformed into cats and if Vezin was somehow one of them in a past life.

I'm firmly convinced that when armed with a socially taboo idea (like being a Satanic cat-person in a former life), a good vocabulary, and good storytelling abilities, anyone can write a truly horrifying story.