A Belated Halloween History - Monsters Edition

uriah923 writes "Nick Dilmore has published the second edition in his Snarky Halloween History series, featured on Slashdot last year. This time around, he concentrates on movie monsters: vampires, werewolves and zombies. From the article: '[D]id you know the movie monsters we've all to come to know and love (in a platonic way, of course) have colorful histories stretching back to the earliest civilizations? What, you didn't think some Hollywood hack actually had enough imagination to invent vampires, werewolves, and zombies, did you? Silly, silly non-monster-trivia knowing person.'"

news for nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

how exactly is this news? or stuff that matters?

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"how exactly is this news? or stuff that matters?"

No no no, it's Slashdot's uptime is our downtime.

Wow!

[trickyrickb]

I always though slashdot invented trolls!

Re:

[0232793]

Yes, there is a society of them: http://www.anti-slash.org/ [anti-slash.org]

Re:

[geezer nerd]

Our ancestors probably didn't have the governments terrorizing them!

What? You don't watch Robin Hood on TV? Just look what that evil sheriff does to his people!

Yes, we know

[the_womble]

did you know the movie monsters we've all to come to know and love (in a platonic way, of course) have colorful histories stretching back to the earliest civilizations?

I suppose a completely ignorant illiterate might not realise that these monsters are based on folklore.

Someone who did some basic research, rather than just reproducing what Wikipedia says, might could even have written an intersting article about the subject.

This article deserves to be eaten by the Snark [literature.org] - one monster that is not based on folklore!

Re:Yes, we know

[orangesquid]

Folklore, definitely. But, folklore as most people think of it is a pretty simplistic notion. There's a lot more to the culture and beliefs of our ancestors. paganlibrary.com [google.com] has some interesting things on Halloween and, also to some extent, our modern monsters (primarily: see Witch's Thoughts, All Hallow's Eve, Origins Of Halloween; also useful: Death of Llew, Derivation of the Word "Witch", Wiccan Sabbats, the (mildly humorous) Public Service Announcement, and perhaps /phpBB2/viewtopic.php?=&p=52511 -- they all show up within the first 30 hits.)

(defining) Halloween: [0catch.com] A pagan holiday perpetuated by the American Dental Assoc.

{insert obligatory HAIL ERIS ALL HAIL DISCORDIA ... obligatory for me, at least!}

recommended reading

[hey!]

Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires [amazon.com] by Michael Bell, Rhode Island's state folklorist.

He makes a pretty good argument for the origin of the vampire legend being in the spread of tuberculosis in isolated farming households. The first victims die, then one by one other family members begin to waste away, often resulting in the extinction of the entire family. However, don't let this scientific explanation turn you off, the stories are creepy enough, only it's the living, not the dead, w

Re:

[grumling]

I always thought it interesting that we use fairy tails as stories to help children sleep. The big, bad wolf used to keep children from approaching strange animals, The witch in the candy house luring Hansel and Gretel to their death (don't talk to strangers 'lest you be put to work in the mines), and the others. Seems a little quaint these days, but yet we still tell them.

And then there's the whole TV news myths of inner city violence to keep people in the suburbs.

And welcome to SlashFark

[Anonymous Coward]

Where we post stories that have nothing to do with either Science or Technology.

for those too lazy to read the entry

[0232793]

"Nick Dilmore has published the second edition in his Snarky Halloween History series, featured on Slashdot last year. This time around, he concentrates on movie monsters: vampires, werewolves and zombies. From the article: '[D]id you know the movie monsters we've all to come to know and love (in a platonic way, of course) have colorful histories stretching back to the earliest civilizations? What, you didn't think some Hollywood hack actually had enough imagination to invent vampires, werewolves, and zombi

Meh ... belated

[Ralconte]

If belated doesn't disappoint you, Retrocrush updated their top 100 scary movie scenes -- http://retrocrush.buzznet.com/scary/ [buzznet.com]

Lame and uninformative...

[denzacar]

I'd say more, but I am aiming at a homage to the TFA here.

Do the editors think we are morons?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

did you know the movie monsters we've all to come to know and love (in a platonic way, of course) have colorful histories stretching back to the earliest civilizations? What, you didn't think some Hollywood hack actually had enough imagination to invent vampires, werewolves, and zombies, did you?

Do the editors think we are morons? Or was this article just posted so anyone with an IQ > 60 could rip this loser a new one?

I think the fact that I'm about comment #13 on a seven-hour topic says it all...

But wait....

[porpnorber]

The thing I find amazing is quite the contrary: the incredible number of people who seem to think that vampires are in some sense 'real.' Now, I don't mean that they seriously think that the most likely thing to have happen to them in a back alley after midnight is that they get their throats bitten, but in the sense that they will have arguments about whether vampires 'really' have reflections or are 'really' stopped by running water—as if there were at least a cultural tradition to refer to and disc

know and love

[MECC]

the movie monsters we've all to come to know and love (in a platonic way, of course)

Speak for your self...