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BPAL Review: Gothic Horror
Jul. 21st, 2012 11:27 amGothic Horror
The blueblood of the horror genre. Gothic horror borrows heavily from Victorian Romanticism: a dark, passionate sojourn into emotionally-driven aesthetic experience – reaching through gloom towards a vision of the sublime. Using sprawling, decay-riddled visuals, and lyrical narrative rife with suspense, awe, and dread, these films tell tales of tortured souls, long-buried secrets, rapid descents into depravity and madness, and grasping supernatural beings.
Examples: Vampyr, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera
Morbidly romantic, thick with murky melodrama, untouched by the centuries, and dust-rimed: Byzantine incense, benzoin, myrrh, bitter clove, spikenard, oud, and ancient balsam.
In the bottle: The moment I sniffed this I was pretty sure it would be the beginning of a wonderful friendship. In the bottle it's incense-laden and spicy. It's hard to distinguish any single scent, but the mix is very mystical, somehow... special.
Wet: The scent is a lot less heavy. Benzoin, myrrh and probably the spinkenard which is a component I've never had before. and makes the scent a lot more floral than I was expecting from sniffing the bottle.
On drydown: The clove comes out quite strongly, it mingles with the floral and there's the hint of resiny sweetness and the warmth of balsam. I imagine and old building, a ruin. Flowers and greenery are growing between the cracks in stone that is so old it hasn't quite managed to keep its mustiness, letting the fresh air from outside sweep through the ruins.
Quite simply, I love it.
The blueblood of the horror genre. Gothic horror borrows heavily from Victorian Romanticism: a dark, passionate sojourn into emotionally-driven aesthetic experience – reaching through gloom towards a vision of the sublime. Using sprawling, decay-riddled visuals, and lyrical narrative rife with suspense, awe, and dread, these films tell tales of tortured souls, long-buried secrets, rapid descents into depravity and madness, and grasping supernatural beings.
Examples: Vampyr, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera
Morbidly romantic, thick with murky melodrama, untouched by the centuries, and dust-rimed: Byzantine incense, benzoin, myrrh, bitter clove, spikenard, oud, and ancient balsam.
In the bottle: The moment I sniffed this I was pretty sure it would be the beginning of a wonderful friendship. In the bottle it's incense-laden and spicy. It's hard to distinguish any single scent, but the mix is very mystical, somehow... special.
Wet: The scent is a lot less heavy. Benzoin, myrrh and probably the spinkenard which is a component I've never had before. and makes the scent a lot more floral than I was expecting from sniffing the bottle.
On drydown: The clove comes out quite strongly, it mingles with the floral and there's the hint of resiny sweetness and the warmth of balsam. I imagine and old building, a ruin. Flowers and greenery are growing between the cracks in stone that is so old it hasn't quite managed to keep its mustiness, letting the fresh air from outside sweep through the ruins.
Quite simply, I love it.
