By C. Rommial Butler
======
Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone. The Cryptkeeper on Tales from the Crypt. Indy’s own Sammy Terry from Nightmare Theater. These are just a few examples of the horror host. The horror host is a convention that goes back to the days of radio. It then appears in comic books, television, and film before eventually reaching cyberspace.
Sammy Terry is just one example of a local horror host, but you can find similar themes in many major cities around the U.S. I’m sure every culture has its own version.
I grew up watching Sammy Terry. I don’t recall much about the terrible movies he routinely introduced—though there were some classics thrown in there—but I’ll never forget Sammy. He was a childhood friend, even if sometimes a prankish tormentor.
His real name was Bob Carter. He’s a long beloved figure in Indianapolis, and his son still does a fantastic job carrying on the moniker! You can find all the latest on Sammy Terry (a play on the word cemetery) here.
(Incidentally, my own perusal of the site turned up this fun fact: “Sammy Terry’s Creator, Bob Carter, coined the phrase “Finger Lickin’ Good” for Colonel Sanders”. I DID NOT KNOW THIS.)
Now that my local legend fanboy nerd-out is, shall we say, exorcised, I’d like to delve deeper into the appeal of the horror host.
In my many years practicing various arts, I have at every turn wrestled with the question of what separates art from entertainment. The modern horror host is a definite example of entertainment; but when I behold the amount of love and genuine effort that goes into a character like Sammy Terry, and the amount of support they get for their silly antics from the communities in which they operate, I must acknowledge that this has become, through the medium of culture and distilled into the form of this single character, art.
Ozzy Ozbourne, for instance. He’s a real person, but isn’t he also a character? Is this persona he created through his music also art? Elvis Presley had many impersonators. The man, even after his death, became the costume. Of course, Ozzy and Elvis are not horror hosts, but I offer them for the sake of analogy. You can likely think of many celebrities that fit the description.
So what is the distinction between art and entertainment?
Please forgive the groping attempt at an answer that follows. I am in the dark, thinking out loud while I feel along cold stone walls. I know this leads somewhere, but I figure I’m probably going to die on the way and you—yes, you, dear reader!—will have to step over my body and proceed to the end of the labyrinth. But here goes:
Art doesn’t care if you are comfortable.
It may, in fact, seek to increase your discomfort. It may directly challenge you. Yet the highest art, though it may sometimes present itself in the lowest forms, will do so in such a way that you transform through the process. The horror host then, is our guide into those works which challenge us to confront evil. The evil in our environment and in ourselves.
We might even venture so far as to say that the historical precedent reaches as far back as gods like Anubis, guides into the realms of darkness and death. In another form, Charon, the boatman on the river Styx. Again, I leave it to you to work out other examples. There are many, and we may console ourselves that despite the differences in language, and other details, there is some universal touchstone of archetypes, ideas, and ideals from which to draw.
Consoling, yes… Except those times when we reach into that Pandora’s Box only to withdraw a bloodied, bitten hand…
But never mind that! The important thing to remember is that art doesn’t care if you are comfortable. It’s not warming you over and buttering you up for the sake of getting you to come back for more. That’s entertainment.
Art is like Oscar the Grouch: man, if you don’t like it, scram!
But sometimes entertainment becomes art. Sometimes art becomes entertainment. The horror host represents a unique example in modern culture of an entertainment that transformed itself into the artistic expression of an archetype. The guide to the underworld, the secret place where we must face the darkest part of ourselves.
Now I want to close this brief discussion of the horror host by drawing out an historical possibility which has yet to be considered. The first modern horror host may have been Maldoror from the Comte de Lautreamont’s Songs of Maldoror, a cacophonous collection of cantos, an epic poem to evil.
Lautreamont was a pen name for Isidore Ducasse, a young man from Uruguay who lived and worked from 1846-1870. A meager twenty-four years of life, but he produced an iconic and controversial work. Songs of Maldoror contains such vile imagery, that he was compelled to hide his identity upon publication, for fear of arrest.
The title character, Maldoror, actively participates in many of the events described in the cantos; but he also narrates events, little stories within his story that demonstrate the brutality of nature and the viciousness of man. In this way he is our guide into the darkest parts of ourselves, for we are that very animal in that very natural environment which Maldoror observes and of which he all-too-liberally partakes.
Songs of Maldoror was not a big hit when it came out. It languished in obscurity for many years before being rediscovered by the surrealists around the turn of the century. But its effect on artists, philosophers, and political activists in the coming century can’t be understated. You’ve probably never heard of Maldoror but you’ve definitely been influenced by works which were influenced by Maldoror.
For this reason, I find it hard to believe that Maldoror wasn’t to some extent an influence that insinuated itself into the modern horror host, like a worm into a juicy, rotting apple; but this is just lazy speculation on my part. I work a full-time job and don’t have time to write a thesis!
But wait! We might also remark that Dante was the original horror host! He did, after all, guide us through Hell...
…see? I told you my body would hit the floor. Well, I’m okay down here. You go ahead. I’ve been waiting a long time… to finally rest my weary—OW! DON’T STEP ON ME! AH!
Okay. Fine.
Go then, there are other worlds than these.
======
C. Rommial Butler is a writer, musician and philosopher from Indianapolis, IN. His works can be found online through multiple streaming services and booksellers. More original articles can be found HERE.
