Hi there, Earthlings! Like everyone else I’m stuck at home in an
attempt to avoid the Coronavirus. It’s like a science fiction horror film with
abandoned streets and people hiding away from the “monster”.
One of my favorite books has to be Grimm’s
Fairy Tales, and I especially like the darker stuff. A
certain type borders on being true horror. The story is usually about a farmer
or a shepherd who fashions a musical instrument from bone that sings a tune
which identifies a murder victim and/or murderer.
In one version, simply known as “The Singing Bone,” the king
of a
mythical kingdom offers up his daughter’s hand to anyone who can kill a wild
boar that is terrorizing the land. Two brothers set out to kill the boar, knowing
that whoever gets to it first wins the princess’ hand. When one of the brothers
kills the raging boar, the other becomes so jealous that he murders his
sibling. He takes the carcass of the boar to the king and gains the hand of the
daughter. Years later a young shepherd is trying to catch a lamb and wanders
into the forest. He trips on a bone sticking out of a shallow grave. He takes
the bone and fashions it into a flute, which, when played, sings about the
young man’s murder. The shepherd takes the flute to the king, thus revealing his
son-in-law as the killer, who is then executed, and the hand of the princess
given to the shepherd as a reward.
Another version is the familiar tale of “The Juniper Tree.”
This
definitely is a fairy tale that is a horror story as well. In this case it involves
the remains of a murdered child buried under a juniper tree. A small bird rises
up out of the grave to sing of the murderer’s guilt. This gets back to the king,
who has the murderer executed for his crime. Another variation is a jealous
sister who murders her sibling, only to be revealed as guilty by the Singing
Bone.
As a big fan of Tim Burton I would love to see him direct a version
of “Something Wicked this Way Comes.” Now I realize that Disney did a version
with Johnathan Pryce in the original. But consider a stop-motion version with
Johnny Depp doing the voice of the carnival barker (who may also be the very
the devil himself), filmed in expressionistic black and white, splashed with red-orange.
Think of the imaginative visuals that Tim Burton could come up with...
Ah, summertime on Mars—happy, joyous revelry!
