no lane so vile

[inmyriadbits]

We went to a Hitchcock serial killer double feature tonight (Frenzy and Psycho). I found myself thinking of this Sherlock Holmes quote a lot during Psycho. Also, weirdly enough, during the old trailer for Alien they played, because the "In space, no one can hear you scream" tagline is rather bizarrely appropriate:

By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.

"Are they not fresh and beautiful?" I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.

But Holmes shook his head gravely.

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."

"Good heavens!" I cried. "Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?"

"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

"You horrify me!"

"But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger."

— The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Doyle could really bring the creepy when he wanted, huh? I remember it quite caught my attention. It's such an interesting inversion of the usual way people view crime in cities vs. suburban/rural areas – basically, that cities are wretched hives of scum and villainy, and the countryside is peaceful and quaint and polite. I prefer Holmes' view; human nature is human nature, good and bad, wherever you are, which means human crime doesn't go away when you add more trees. All that location changes is the circumstances, and true isolation seems to do little good to most souls. Granted, he neglects to discuss the effect of jadedness/willful ignorance that especially crops up in big cities like London (or New York, where my personal experience comes from) – but then again, willful ignorance isn't peculiar to cities either, is it? And it's easier to keep secrets in isolation.

The point is particularly relevant to the horror genre, I think. Which is ironic; you'd think, because of the source, that it would crop up more in crime procedurals, but no. You'll notice, crime shows are almost inevitably set in cities. The crime genre-horror genre connection is explicit in one of Holmes' lines, though: "They always fill me with a certain horror." Horror is inextricably tied to the unknown, and the country more readily provides it. These tend not to be the stories with monsters, either, but the ones with the human villains. Remember that SPN episode, "The Benders"? ...Yeah. Also, crime shows are about finding things out, not being haunted or hunted by things or for reasons that can't be explained. I do think this aspect of hidden things shows up somewhat in crime shows/films that are aiming more at the painful side of crime than a comfortable orderly conclusion (contrast Criminal Minds or Homicide with CSI or NCIS, for example).

One of my favorite professors taught the horror films class, and expressed the idea well. It was during a discussion of the American Gothic horror (sub)genre which is in short: every creepy movie you've seen where Bad Stuff Happens in a small town and gets tucked away in the closet as a festering skeleton, leading to More Bad Stuff, usually with extra creepy sauce and some supernatural/religious themes going on; we viewed Frailty for the class, but it also includes things like that Cate Blanchett movie The Gift, or Night of the Hunter, Blood Simple (ish), Monster's Ball, etc. Literature precedent-wise, Hawthorne and Washington Irving (Sleepy Hollow, hello) have similar sensibilities.

Anyway, he said "All you need is space, history, blood, and secrets." Which about fucking says it all, doesn't it?

Even in a film like Se7en – ostensibly an urban law enforcement story, but which I'm not sure anyone would hesitate to describe as horror – the more horrible parts come from the spaces you do find in the city, like half-empty disintegrating apartment buildings and abandoned basements. I'm thinking particularly of the Gluttony victim. *shudder*

I think at one point I had a Big Concluding And Unifying Thought to end with, but it's been totally lost in my utter exhaustion. *goes to bed*

Comments and debate welcome! It's so boring to be completely agreed with, don't you think? ;)