Horror Annotation: The Elementals

Author: Michael McDowell

Title: The Elementals

Genre: Horror

Publication Date: 1981

Number of Pages: 292

Geographical Setting: Southern Alabama, Mobile, and Beldame

Time Period: Modern

Plot Summary:

3 houses are located in a place called Beldame off the gulf coast in Alabama. 2 houses are still being lived in during the summer, while the 3^rd house is slowly being eaten by a sand dune. The houses are surrounded on one side by the gulf on the other by Elmo’s Lagoon, and at high tide, Beldame becomes an island. The Savages and McCray’s own the 2 livable house. The matriarch of the Savages, Marian, just passed away and the funeral brings Luker and his daughter India McCray down from New York to support Leigh and Dauphin Savages. Leigh and Luker mother Big Barbara was best friends with Marian which is why Luker and India were invited to Marian funeral. After the funeral, it is decided that they will all go and stay the summer at Beldame. When they arrive India is very taken by the 3^rd house and want to use her father camera to take pictures of it. Luker doesn’t feel this is a good idea but lets her do it anyway. The family has always been scared of the 3^rd house because weird things seem to happen around the house. When India get the pictures back of the houses she finds out why everyone is scared. The house is full of what Odessa calls Elementals or spirits but not ghost. Weird things start to happen when they get back to Beldame after spending 4^th of July in Mobile and no one knows if they are going to make it out.

Subject Headings:

·         Gulf Coast (Ala.) -- Fiction 

·         Haunted houses -- Fiction 

·         Haunted houses

·         Alabama -- Gulf Coast.

Appeal:

Tone: menacing

Pace: erratic

Character: character driven

Elements of Horror:

Nightmare mood: This book is full of times when the character especial India are in a nightmare situation because of her interested in the third house.

The monster in this is the third house and the elementals that are showing themselves throughout the book as different people or thing that the character know.  

Protagonists haunted: This is the case with all of the character throughout the book. When dealing with India it wasn’t until after the pictures but the rest of the character had always be scared of the third house from the first time seeing it.

This book has several unexpected appearances that keep the reader on their toes.

Read-alikes:

Non-Fiction Works and Authors:

“Weird Haunting: True Tales of Ghostly Places” compiled by Joanne Austin; Illustrated by Ryan Doan: Story about haunted houses

“The Demon of Brownsville Road: a Pittsburgh Family’s Battle with Evil in Their Home” by Bob Cranmer: Story about evil within a house

“The Haunted House Diaries: The True Story of a Quiet Connecticut Town in the Center of a Paranormal Mystery” by William Hall: Story about evil within a house

Fiction Works and Authors:

“The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson: share some of the same appears like character driven and menacing. Also, a story about the evil within a house.

“Hell House” by Richard Matheson: Shares appeal factor of menacing. Story about evil within a house

“The Widow’s House” by Carol Goodman: Story about the evil within the house and talks about seeing thing from the past.