‘Tis the Season: the Horror Adjacent

There are films that are often lumped under the “horror” label that, from my perspective, aren’t necessarily “horror”. A big one is Silence of the Lambs. Yes, yes, Hannibal Lecter is a bogeyman, of sorts, but if we’re honest, the film is more than that, if only because Lecter is a fully fleshed-out (too on the nose description?) character and because we are much more invested in Clarice’s journey and development. The Grand Guignol aspects are the least interesting elements and let’s be sure that the suspense Jonathan Demme bakes into the film is genuine and amplifies the stakes accordingly (and exponentially). But is it a horror movie?

Similarly, other titles that come to mind are Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, two of Fincher’s (Zodiac and Se7en), Psycho, and for good measure, Les Yeux sans Visage/Eyes Without a Face. All of these present us with horrible events and people, but I cannot call them “horror movies” without some qualification. Or equivocating. 

The main qualifying characteristic of what I associate with the horror genre is the presence of the supernatural to some degree. In all of these examples, I’m hard-pressed to say that any of the antagonists are supernatural. They are extreme in their actions, but from Hannibal to Henry, they are human. 

That said, I do understand the argument that the framing of these figures presents them as so disturbing and out of the ordinary that they might as well be preternatural or supernatural. And yes, they are monsters in the very human sense of the word, but they are not immortal and while Norman Bates and Lecter show up again in other works, neither is going to revive like Leatherface, Freddy, or Michael Myers.

Am I being unduly thick, though? Let’s talk about the framing. Each of these films mentioned, to varying degrees, present themselves with a kind of pervasive dread or apprehension. Or in the case of Franju’s film, a dire longing on behalf of a character for whom horrible acts are carried out (and the object of our apprehension shifts to the victims); the motivation might be — I don’t think “well-intended” quite works, but I’ll say it — well-intended, but the results are futile and disastrous for all concerned. Of all these, the film is as tragic as it is horrifying. 

But let’s say that we do invoke the supernatural. Are all films that use a causa supernaturalisautomatically horror films? Could Lynch’s Twin Peaks (the series and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me) be considered a horror work because of that element (and BOB, and the other elemental creatures throughout)? Or Pan’s Labyrinth? I don’t see why not. Certainly with Del Toro, the Horror Movie cognomen would be worn with pride; with Lynch, I wonder. Is Lost Highway a horror movie because of the extraordinary shifts in identity, time and place? Is Robert Loggia any less horrific than Robert Blake (easily one of the most unnerving cameos in cinema)? 

Here we wind up dealing with works that transcend the genre or subsume/subvert it. Del Toro’s work happily embraces the various tropes while still dealing with weighty themes while Lynch invites us into a dream space where situations may not be what they seem on the surface and lead us to more unsettling areas of the psyche.

I am far more comfortable with calling Del Toro a Master of Horror than David Lynch because of Del Toro’s embrace of the genre and because Lynch’s work is not so easily classifiable. This assessment is related to my opening salvo on movies that are called “horror films” but not persuasive (to me) for the same reason. 

Demme, Hitchcock, Fincher, McNaughton, and Franju are after bigger fish. They eschew a supernatural deus ex machina for more human scale ugliness, but while I understand the idea that these might wind up classified as “horror flicks”, I find them more “horror adjacent.”

The reason I bring this up is because in celebration of the season, I have taken my annual shot of the macabre and out of the dozen or so films I’ve enjoyed, four of them are what I think of as “horror adjacent.” See if you agree with me.

Faust (1926)

The one that could most likely claim the title as a horror movie would be Murnau’s Faust, which at a hundred years old this year, is in direct conversation with a lot of these younger pups. Supernatural forces? You don’t get much more so than Mephistopheles and magical attainment of what your heart desires (that lead to ruin, of course). 

Most are familiar with the Faust story; a disenchanted, disappointed scholar meets the emptiness of his existence and out of a sense of powerlessness or sometimes out of a desire for power, invokes demonic powers to command. What he does not count on and what begins the first lesson, is how quickly that switch is flipped. He bargains with the devil and exchanges his soul for earthly pleasures for the rest of his remaining days. Depending on the version, Faust is destroyed or finds absolution in his regret and a final act of love/selflessness. 

Murnau drew on the early legend of Faust and the mystery plays that grew up around it, as well as Goethe’s play. In his film, Murnau and his screenwriter Hans Kyser, frame the main narrative with a wager between an archangel that he can corrupt a man’s soul and destroy a divine creation and if he wins, Mephisto rules the earth. We meet Faust as an old man who regrets his failures and sees his life as nothing but. Any knowledge he’s gained has been useless and during the plague, his “cures” were mostly just guesswork that likely sped the victims’ deaths. 

Now nearing the final curtain, he calls upon the Devil and he shows up in the form of Mephisto. Played with relish by Emil Jennings, Mephisto is, like so many iterations of other bad boys, more interesting than our hero. Not so very different from Dracula in later versions, Mephisto knows the dice are loaded and Faust is going to lose the crap shoot. 

Nevertheless, as time wears on and the pleasures of restored youth and the flesh begin to pall, Faust falls for Gretchen, a pure soul whose heart he eventually wins (at the cost of all she holds dear, down to her very virtue and life). Gösta Ekman plays both versions of Faust with aplomb, but his restored younger self is a sop. Indeed, he barely throws himself into the cesspool o’ fun/earthly delights.

While fitting, since he is after all, an old man and a philosopher, at that, in a young man’s body, it renders him less sympathetic than he might otherwise be. There are, in the meantime, some fun character turns throughout, and somehow knowing that Gretchen’s brother is played by William Dieterle — who would later become a respected director in Hollywood — only adds to the fun.

Of course, Faust brings ruination to himself and Gretchen. Mind you, in the lead-up to this, Faust has been given a kingdom, bedded an Italian duchess, and seals his fate to continue his lovemaking. Then comes the weariness and his pursuit of Gretchen and Mephisto’s murder of her brother for which Faust is blamed (by Mephisto) and who with his last breath decries his sister as a harlot who should be pilloried. Gretchen is cast out, with her child by Faust, into the snow. When the child dies by exposure, Gretchen is sentenced to be burned alive for murder. Not to put too fine a point on it, but things really turned to shit in the back half of the movie. 

The film itself loses punch, as well, when Faust, now returned as an aged man, throws himself on the fire to die with Gretchen who sees him as the young man he loved. Mephisto loses his bet with the angel because — I don’t like this any more than anyone else — Love conquers all. 

Aside from the Archangel resorting to a bad faith argument — that Love wins was not part of the bargain bugs me — the film is remarkable in so many ways. It remains visually stunning a century later and Jannnings is clearly having fun while few others are. When he woos Gretchen’s aunt, both actors have a field day. 

The horror sets in, of course, in visions of flying demons, hellfire, and Mephisto’s murderous manipulation of Faust’s destiny. (Karl Freund was originally supposed do the cinematography honors, but Carl Hoffmann was perfectly fine. There are some stunning compositions and the special effects hold up, given the passage of time.) By the time we get to Gretchen’s demise, hell has come a-knocking in no uncertain terms. 

It is worth noting that as we will see with The Devils and Wicker, the real horror is in humanity itself, as well as redemption (more in the latter than the former). 

Chronovisor (2026)

Chronovisor, which is simply one of this year’s best films, feels like Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco had a cinematic child. That said, while the engine generating the film is not strictly supernatural and where there is no bogeyman, so to speak, there is a sense of cosmic horror that hovers over the proceedings as the film raises questions about our very existence in history and the verifiability of history itself in a way that is both demanding and as it circles back on our heroine, yes, horrifying. 

To be sure, if Chronovisor fits into a genre, it is science fiction. The MacGuffin here is the titular device, said to have actually existed and by which one was able to view historic (or we may also presume just any number of previous) events.

A Benedictine father, Pelegríno Ernetti, claimed that he, along with others, devised an apparatus which enabled him to see and photograph the Crucifixion of Christ, as well as viewing other ancient scenes from the Roman Empire, including a performance of a lost play. 

The team behind the development of the machine is alleged to have included Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun. The device is said to have used a means of locating and reconstituting subatomic traces left behind by various events. The idea is that there are temporal fingerprints left behind by human beings (and, I would guess, other carbon-based life forms?) that are both visual and aural. 

At issue is that no event could ever remain hidden, there would be no privacy, and nations’ security would be constantly at risk (as well as all other institutions). Consequently, it is said that the Chronovisor was disassembled and stored away in the Vatican’s archives.

How this all factors into our film is that Beatrice, an academic researcher comes across references to the Ernetti and the device and she begins to track down what she can about him and about the Chronovisor. Never in my life have I found a film of someone doing research and tracking something down so compelling. There is a sustained curiosity that borders on tension as Beatrice attempts to contact various individuals like any of Ernetti’s family or the lawyer who was executor of his will, and the spy craft she uses to get information. (In one scene she says that her organization wants to grant Ernetti a posthumous Madame Blavatsky Award for his contributions to the study of the paranormal.)

That Beatrice is played by a non-actor, but a real academic (Anne Laure Sellier, the Cartier-Chaired Professor of Behavioral Sciences at HEC Paris) grounds her actions in something approaching documentary verité.  We follow her into the New York Public Library, classrooms, restaurants where she chats with colleagues, and we see how deeply she grows consumed by her search. Not in any melodramatic way or with any flourish or tell, the pursuit grows with the temporality of the film itself. 

At a certain a point, she receives a box of Ernetti’s belongings which include a busted VHS tape labeled with the name of a village in Portugal whose name escapes me. This proves integral as Beatrice painstakingly respools the tape into a new cassette (I remember these days well) and watches a video with a voiceover of a man who says that the Chronovisor was never dismantled and hidden in the Vatican. Indeed, it is housed in this village by the man who confiscated it. 

The voice continues by saying that at issue is that using the machine is not the same as watching something on the TV. That the viewer experiences the past and that for some, they lose all sense of self.

Throughout the film, as Beatrice continues her researches, words float off pages highlighting passages relating to Ernetti and the device including one that will return when she arrives at the village and encounters the Chronovisor. 

There is more going on in this film than I can do justice to, but there is text and metatext, there is this machine that may have existed are may not have. The care with which the whole coheres is remarkable and the use of Holst for the soundtrack is surprisingly effective. Leo Zhang’s cinematography is rich and grainy; the denouement, when we see what Beatrice sees in the viewer, is far and away one of the finest uses of 16mm film in a release I have seen (and it is trippy but not in a way you would expect). 

There is a richness, too, in the utter realness of the film. Even if the physics of the device are improbable and that its very existence is suspect, this only underscores the tactile nature of the film. 

I also am not convinced that Beatrice suffered a descent into madness (not a spoiler because this is an assumption/conclusion on other people’s parts); she simply found herself (and lost herself?) in a loop foretold.

Jack Austen and Kevin Walker have birthed a remarkable work here, one that I suspect will make its way through various and sundry audiences drawn by a variety of reasons.

Is it a horror film, though? No, I don’t think so. Not any more so than any other science fiction film that deals with a subtly recursive narrative. I think I found myself as driven by curiosity as Beatrice and when the end came closer, I was not surprised, but I did want to watch the film again almost immediately.

The Devils (1970)

Ken Russell’s The Devils is enjoying its nice new restoration and it is a visually gorgeous movie, but the devils here are the human, all too human, vices of hypocrisy, mendacity, and religious oppression. The movie is a maximalist mess of a masterpiece, but/and there are moments that were no doubt shocking in their day (or titillating, I would certainly have been in that latter camp had I seen it when it came out - had it ever seen release in its unexpurgated form, that is) but there is no metaphysical motivator here. The hysteria that drives the film to its conclusion lands squarely on the manipulation of narratives of visions and subterfuge to bring the village of Loudon to brook under the command of Cardinal Richelieu.

I have to start by saying that if you like Ken Russell, you will love this film. If you like a maximalist approach to cinema, you will love this film. If you dislike religious hypocrisy and any attendant ignorance, bigotry, and oppression, you will probably love this film. On the flip side, if you do not care for being bludgeoned by a film in which every point, satirical though it might be, is hammered in, eh. You might find it tedious.

I fall between both camps. It is a visual feast with sets by Derek Jarman (which made me wistful and want to watch his complete works all over again) and a batshit crazy performance by Vanessa Redgrave and a more grounded one by Oliver Reed (actually, both were great in this; they met Russell’s excess with their own, as needed). 

The story is based on the play by John Whiting and Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudon about the alleged possession of a convent by the Devil. While the basis of the material is found in the consolidation of villages and towns in France by Richelieu to solidify his power over the country and stamp down the Protestants.

The story at the heart of the narrative is how the priest Father Urbain  Grandier was driven by preserving Loudon’s autonomy behind its fortress walls and along the way his sexual conquests, culminating with his self-arranged marriage to Madeleine la Brou. 

Framed against this is the Sister Jeanne does Anges’ obsession with Grandier and her fantasy that he is her confessor, as well as a sexual object. 

Then there’s Baron Jena de Laubardemont who begins tearing down the walls on Richelieu’s orders over and against King Louis XIII’s (Graham Armitage is delightfully ridiculous) promise to Loudon that their em battlements would stand. While Grandier is off to talk to Louis, Sister Jeanne is informed by Father-Canon Jean Mignon that he is her new confessor. It is here things spiral out of control.

Jeanne informs Mignon about Grandier’s marriage and dalliances/affairs and this expands into her accusing him of witchcraft and possession. Mignon tells Laubardemont that Grandier has made deals with Satan and possessed the convent. They enlist Father Pierre Barre, a professional witch-hunter whose processes involve torture, debauchery, and, uh, forced enemas. A public exorcism of the convent erupts into a full-blown orgy, or “religious frenzy”, if you prefer. 

Grandier returns and denies the charges and condemns Jeanne, whose obsession is based on pure fantasy as Grandier and she never met. In short order, Grandier is arrested and tried in a show trial. After being tortured, he is sentenced to death. He refuses to confess to the charges and is ordered to be burned alive. As he burns, Laubardemont destroys the city’s fortifications and the townspeople flee.

In the aftermath, Barre leaves to continue his “exorcisms”, the Baron tells Jeanne that Mignon has been institutionalized for saying Grandier was innocent, and he gives her Grandier’s thighbone which she kisses and masturbates with. We last see Madeleine stumbling over the rubble and out of Loudon into the world.

Does this sound like a lot? You bet! But the description hardly does justice to the experience of watching. And audiences could be forgiven for missing the point; the sex is often overemphasized to the detriment of the themes of power, corruption, and the hypocrisy needed to ensure that that power grows and exercises further influence on the people under it.

The sex is not, by the way, beside the point, nor do I mean to minimize its significance. Sex is seen as something both animalistic and primal and at least where Grandier is concerned, something noble and by which the divine in humanity can be approached. It is also seen as twisted, and used as a distraction from political manipulations and power plays. Sister Jeanne’s erotic fantasies about Grandier early on are presented directly so that one is unsure if they are actually happening, but once we understand that they are in her head, we are privy to another way that sex is distorted both by religious taboo and by the resultant neurotic obsession that obtains from repression. That Sister Jeanne’s body is hunchbacked/deformed seems to express her distorted interior reality.

To be sure, the performances are as stylized as the sets, but these are top-notch actors who somehow render their characters hyper-real. Redgrave as Sister Jeanne and Reed as Grandier are remarkable, and they serve Russell’s script and direction well. David Watkin’s cinematography is spot-on and a bit different from his works with Richard Lester, Tony Richardson, Sidney Lumet, and Franco Zeffirelli. But then again, there aren’t many works quite like this. 

One that came to mind was Jodorworsky’s Santa Sangre, less thematically than visually. Much comes down to Jarman’s sets providing an environment just off-kilter enough and timeless enough to show that what Russell was getting at is, sadly, always with us.

Once again, is it a horror movie? Lord knows, there are horrors here and moments that are terrifying in oh-so-many ways, but I’m doubtful that I could  call it a horror movie.

Wicker (2026)

And last, there is Wicker. It is a fable. It is, at best, tangentially a horror film. Alexander Skarsgård’s Wicker Husband is not a monster, or if he is, only in the sense that he is perceived as such by those threatened by the way he challenges the villagers to face their pettiness and ignorance. 

Olivia Colman is the Fisherwoman who is mocked by the villagers for her stench, standing, and demeanor. She could not care less and gives as good as she gets. Aside from her excursions to the village, hers is a solitary existence and she is fine with that, for the most part. This will change after a wedding in the village in which she randomly picks up a “wedding egg” that explodes blue powdery smoke to the lucky(?) woman who shakes it. 

The wedding celebrated is between the Bottlewasher (a bar back at the village inn) and his finance, now “the Bottlewasher’s Wife”. Upon the reveal that the Fisherwoman has been chosen by fate, the Tailor’s Wife (a superb Elizabeth Debicki) engages her in quasi-polite conversation about marriage and perhaps Fisherwoman will get lucky. Fisherwoman scoffs and moves on but seems taken with the idea of staving off loneliness or is it that she senses there might be more to existence than solitude awaiting the finality of Finalities?

She consults with the Basketweaver (Peter Dinklage, in a performance of utter, poetic bemusement) to commission him to create for her a husband. He tells her to wait one month and meet her betrothed at the chapel. 

I should add that as her husband is ushered into this world, the Fisherwoman grows increasingly onanistic. Indeed, this is one of the earthiest and lustiest films to come down the pike. No one shies away from bodily functions, but connubial relations are the most under discussion and this will prove pivotal in ways beyond the merely prurient.

Once created, we see — or rather hear — the Wicker Husband go from place to place to ask for a suit, shoes, and lodging before his wedding. And oh, what a wedding. It is a small affair; the priest, the Fisherwoman, and her Wicker Husband. But Lordy, Wicker Husband is already putting flesh and blood men to shame; his solicitousness of Fisherwoman is deep, tender, and genuine.

Upon returning to her cottage, they celebrate with some serious “furious jumping” (to borrow from another film). They break the bed, which wickerhubby will repair the next day. After another round, when water dripped from the ceiling onto Fisherwoman’s raised foot, he repaired the roof. In other words, he is quite handy in more than one way.

It is, of course, only a matter of time before the villagers recognize a change in Fisherwoman and at the same time, they are not unwelcoming to her husband. Indeed, at another wedding (for the Butcher, if I recall rightly), they arrive and once they start dancing, the entire assembled village is swept up by a wave of ardor. 

It is pretty sexy in a way that seems unlikely, given all remain clothed, but the acting is what sells it. And we also see something else; the fissures between husbands and wives grow apparent as well, as husbands are measured wordlessly against the affection showed by the Wicker Husband to his wife.

Of course (again, but each progression is so narratively right), there has to be a shoe that drops and then another. When the Wicker Husband sits down to the bar for a refreshment, he is met with both jealousy and perhaps, grudging admiration, by the men in the pub. The Bottlewasher is concerned about his recent marriage and how disengaged his wife seems to be, to which the Wicker Husband asks if he tries to see to her needs and perhaps tend to domestic issues more attentively.

The Baker, sitting next to him, gives him an earful about the endless nagging of his, the Baker’s, wife. He argues that she would welcome a rogering by the Wicker Husband as it becomes apparent, the women in the village are more than a little enticed by the Fisherwoman’s other half. The Baker cries that he wants the Wicker Husband to fuck his wife (his words). All the Wicker Husband responds with is, “do you love your wife?”

It is a simple question but the substance of which none of the men seem to have considered very deeply and, for a moment, there is a vulnerability in their voices and carriage. The innkeeper bids the Wicker Husband depart for stirring up the clientele that is now pummeling one another and just plain crazed. Later, we see that they revert to their more comfortable coarseness.

There are other types of coarseness, though, among which is gossip, which the Tailor’s Wife is adept at sowing and she approaches Fisherwoman with what is not a well-intended sharing of gossip that the Wicker Husband has had relations with the wives in the village. The corrosiveness spreads into Fisherwoman’s chat with her husband. 

As much as she was visibly loath to listen to the Tailor’s Wife’s ugliness, it took hold and while she does her best to hide it, the jealousy and apprehension is present in her questions to her lovely Wicker Husband. Of course, he is innocent of such philandering and guileless, but you see in Colman’s face the internal struggle of knowing he has not been unfaithful against the iota of doubt sowed. 

Along the way, we see the Bottlewasher attempting to repair his roof, fall through it and suffer medical malpractice at the hands of the village doctor (please, more Richard E. Grant cameos!) and we discover several things. The Tailor faints at the sight of blood, the Bottlewasher’s Wife truly loves him, and the Tailor’s Wife is also the Doctor’s daughter (actually, we learned this earlier, but you get a glimpse of her upbringing here). 

Soon enough, the Bottlewasher dies and is laid to rest and his widow makes her way to the Basketmaker to request he make for her a baby. No doubt, you can see where this goes and it does.

The Bottlewasher’s wife is also the Tailor’s Wife’s sister, who comes upon her cradling the Wicker Babe. That evening they make their way to the Fisherwoman’s home and the inevitable ensues with disastrous results. The Fisherwoman, enraged by the to-her-and-all-with-eyes-to-see infidelity, hurls an oil lamp at her spouse (and immediately regrets it, as she howls into the night). 

Subsequently, the town returns to its stolid and dull grayness, the Fisherwoman retreats into herself and remains more in exile than before. Upon a visit into town, the Basketweaver encounters the Bottlwasher’s widow and asks after the babe, about which she avers, it has died. This is perplexing to the Basketweaver and later, he comes upon what remains of the Wicker Husband. He still stands, but his arms are gone and much of his jaw. 

This is followed, of course, by a visit to the Fisherwoman. The reunion is sweet but confounding (for her, in a way). The Basketweaver chides the Fisherwoman for not understanding that the man is made of wicker and incapable of procreating. He is also surprised, though he should not be, that the Fisherwoman took in the babe that the Bottlewasher’s widow abandoned.

The Baseketweaver makes it plain that her Wicker Husband loves her and when she asks how he learned to love, the Basketweaver replies, “from you.” 

I need to pause for a minute and ensure that I have missed giving much in the way of an idea about the wit and humor this movie is rife with. There are laugh out loud moments and very often, it’s Colman who delivers the ripostes. But the focus on the narrative is to give some idea about how it mirrors another tale.

The denouement comes when the Basketweaver returns to the village, assembles everyone and says he is retiring and he will deliver a Wicker Wife to the highest bidder. He offers this because he says the people of the village have opened his eyes to so much.

A month later and the Basketweaver returns with a woman in a wedding dress, veiled and sitting stilly in his wagon. Each person brings a wealth of farewell gifts (or possible bribes?) to him and we see the Baker and his wife discuss how helpful another hand would be, we see the Tailor’s Wife tell the Tailor that she is moving on after buying him the Wicker Wife, but it comes to a head when it turns out to be the butcher who pays the most for the bride. 

What a bride. Made of more durable material than willow of which the Wicker Husband was comprised. She is made of blackthorn, a veritable razor wire of a construction and she throws herself into the embrace with the Butcher who begins screaming in pain and agony. The villagers, turn away, ignoring his pleas.

We catch a glimpse of the Tailor closing the door and that chapter of his life on his wife and her betrayal.

The coda is the Basketweaver leaving the town with the Fisherwoman, the Wicker Husband, and the Wicker Babe for a better place. 

A fable, a fairy tale, even. But a horror film? Nope. Unless of course, yet again, we see the horror of tiny lives, and miserly, stunted views of the world. The word “love” suffers from rot in the mouths of the characters and you have to assume the meaning rarely, if ever, enters their heads.

But is Wicker really “horror adjacent”? I think so, because it does mirror James Whale’s Frankenstein. Not Shelley’s, Whale’s. The difference being that it isn’t the villagers who turn on “the monster” (who is not a monster), but the wretchedness of a woman turned by lies to to turn on her spouse. There, my friends, is horror enough. 

The Wicker Husband, is the benign version of the Creature that is genuinely captivated by the world. He is grateful to the Fisherwoman for bringing him into existence. This, of course, is a sentiment not shared by the Creature in The Bride of Frankenstein, but then, I have to this day, felt like he was done dirty and deserved a second chance and a better life.

Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson have written (from Ursula Willis’s short story “The Wicker Husband”…which I now really want to read) and directed a small masterpiece. Lol Crawley’s muted palette is still more colorful than his work on The Brutalist, but he is one of the most diverse cinematographers working (see also The Secret Garden and Vox Lux).

Anna Meredith’s score may be my favorite of hers thus far (though I really like what she did on The End We Start From), and frankly, any film that ends with a John Cale song over the credits is already a keeper in my books.

So here we are. Four films that are getting labeled as “horror” and that I would argue aren’t necessarily unseasonable. All four convey the change of seasons and each turn is integral to the story, but as creepy or disturbing as parts of each film might be, these qualities stem not so much from a horror foisted on the protagonists from without by some supernatural force (Mephisto aside? But he was invited!) but from more purely human, and perhaps far more dangerous for that, ignorance and greed for power or from the smallness of a parochial view of life and the concomitant smallness — or absence — of an inner life.