One of my favorite phrases to hear aloud is this: “It’s like he was literally scared to death.” Other phrases also rank high on that list, such as “I love you” and compliments of any kind, but those are less suited to a Halloween- and horror-themed column, which is exactly what you’ve stumbled upon.
For my purposes, the “scared to death” line can’t be delivered by a gum-chewing Valley girl using “literally” as a hyperbolic intensifier. It needs to be spoken with deadly seriousness — literally, used literally.
A recent example comes from an episode of the TV show Dark Winds, in which a detective relates the medical examiner’s assessment of a possible murder, saying, “She was literally scared to death.” I laughed out loud when I heard it and wondered how such a well-worn trope could make it into a modern drama that, in general, takes itself pretty seriously. “Scared to death” seems like the kind of thing a medical examiner might write on an autopsy report when trying to finish up and get an early start on a holiday weekend. Or maybe it’s just the kind of thing a screenwriter plops in the script when trying to finish up and get an early start on a holiday weekend.
Of course, one can die a more prosaically described death by suffering a heart attack or stress-induced cardiomyopathy as the result of an adrenaline surge due to a sudden shock or scare. But science can’t explain how a victim’s hair might turn white in the process, another common fiction trope that also accompanies being “scared to death” in the above-referenced Dark Winds example.
I associate the phrase with cheesy Vincent Price movies, and it’s sometimes used with a knowing wink and a nod to its long history. Characters are “scared to death” in classics like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1839). But it’s still played straight pretty often, and the earnest uncertainty with which the line is delivered, the careful qualifiers attempting to convey a realistic skepticism (“It’s almost as if he/she were scared to death” is a common variant), only make the cliché more delectable.
Some reactions to terror are less severe, however, resulting in mere temporary unconsciousness. In Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), the story’s heroine, Emily St. Aubert, faints from horror almost a dozen times. In pre-1960 horror stories and films, women faint an awful lot, a tendency that has since been attributed to various causes, from “delicate sensibilities” to tight corsets. When presented with a horrific sight, men, by contrast, tend to just “go mad.” If they’re really lucky, their hair turns white, too, a phenomenon seen in the work of Edgar Allan Poe and David Lynch, among others.
Fainting can be dangerous — especially if a fainting couch or swooning bed is unavailable and the victim instead collapses onto a hard stone floor. But fictional characters are rarely injured in such scenes, and even if fainting results in a concussion, it’s still preferable to dying. It might also be preferable to another terror reaction that doesn’t cause unconsciousness but does make running from a madman or fighting off a supernatural horror a little more icky and uncomfortable.
I’m referring to what some media scholars call “dramatic incontinence,” seen in the movie Friday the 13th Part 2, when the film’s heroine wets herself out of fear. Less common, but still extant, are examples of fear causing sudden bowel evacuation. Combine the fainting, the urinating on oneself and the pooping, and you’ve got what might be called “the possum defense,” matching that animal’s natural response to predators. It works pretty well for possums, but to my knowledge it hasn’t been completely tested against human or supernatural predators in fiction. In the modern age, when horror film survivors must be plucky and smart — not passive — fainting and peeing on oneself isn’t likely to be rewarded. And as aesthetics go, it’s a total dud.
While it’s fun to identify these fictional clichés, there’s a reason they’ve hung around so long — they make for effective, memorable storytelling. We’re drawn to extremes, and let’s face it, when describing your Halloween outing at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia or Fright Fest at Six Flags, the phrase “I was figuratively scared to death!” doesn’t have quite the same impact. Sneezing or laughing are documented human responses to sudden scares, but they’re not terribly useful in setting a horrific tone.
Luckily, reality is less extreme than fiction, which means we can enjoy our Halloween scares without risk of premature death or premature graying, sans concerns about sudden unexpected unconsciousness or soiled underwear. Still, some of those costumes at the local Trunk or Treat can be unsettling. In the trunk, along with the treats, maybe pack an extra set of briefs, just in case.
Peter Dabbene’s website is peterdabbene.com, and his previous Hamilton Post columns can be read at communitynews.org. His poetry/photo book, “The Lotus Eater (and Other Poems),” is available through Amazon.com for $20 in print or $10 as an e-book.
