Spyglass Magazine Halloween 2022

by William Brooks editor: Amber Turner-Brightman

This Halloween season, while you dust off your horn-shaped wicker baskets and
gather up your ornate assortment of mutant squashes, what better way to get into
the spirit of things than with a tranquil dip into the septic tank of streaming horror?
With all the major platforms practically tripping over one another in their efforts to
secure as much horror content as possible this month, it’s fair to say that more than

a few fossilised turds have been dredged up with the occasional nugget of gold.
Like some sort of palaeontologist Gillian McKeith, Spyglass are on the case. Let us

bask in the warm embrace of glorious horror schlock together.



A HISTORY OF
HALLOWEEN

Edited by Amber Turner-Brightman and Caleb Rogers



Nothing is more frightening than being shown horrific films on screen that reflect on someone’s
reality or a possibility in the world we live in. Jane Arden’s The Other Side of the Underneath is a
bizarre and mystical answer to feminine madness and raising the nearly impossible question
Arden steps forward to ask us: “should we be trying our best not to jump off the bandwagon of
madness or should we actually be trying our best to balance and stay on it?

Behind this film was Welsh playwright,
director and actor, Jane Arden; an
individual who was known for being a
radical feminist an artist . She adapted
her play, A New Communion for Freaks,
Prophets, and Witches, featuring the
original all-female theatre group,
“Holocaust” to create an experimental,
surreal and challenging two hour epic
of a film exploring schizophrenia and madness of a group of institutionalized, night-gown
wearing women in a therapy session run by a therapist played by Arden herself.

Throughout the film, we are exposed to the ‘psychotic women’s’ hallucinations-
abstract worlds; the sounds that taunt them; the violence provoking them and hearing
their jumbled, yet meaningful, sermons. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, our
unnamed, mute protagonist exposes us to her eerie hallucinations that look over the bed
she’s been tied down to. A goat sits on the other side of the bed as she laughs at the
demons that have led her to this nightmare reality. A cellist in the corridor plays an
unnerving tune that preserves the insanity that we are witnessing and pulls us in, almost
as if we too won’t be allowed to leave. Despite a thin and almost non-existent narrative,
it is impossible to take our eyes off what we are witnessing. Even when the film is at its
most gruesome and bizarre, much like when you’re dreaming, all you can do is observe.
Arden’s vision is meant to trap and reimagine an alternative perception of reality.

The Other Side of the Underneath’s astonishing level of complexity is made possible by a film set
fueled by the cast being high on LSD for a vast majority of production and Arden directing the
film while massively drunk. Having been produced through the lens of an intoxicated ensemble
experiencing their own personal nightmares and heights of enlightenment, the film was able to
capture its dreamlike qualities very differently to conventional filming practices. It is method
acting at its most unorthodox and filmmaking at its most extreme.

I have many positive words and
thoughts for The Other Side of the
Underneath. I am astounded by Jane
Arden’s artistry, her methods and
desire to be honest and authentic.
Whilst there has been no obvious
common theory that conveys what the
film is about, some say the film is a
portrayal of the world through the
mind of someone with schizophrenia.
The common synopsis of the film

details the reality of our protagonist being diagnosed with schizophrenia, but actually being a
victim of “tortured sexual guilt created by the taboos of society”. Overall it argues that being a
woman in 1970s Britain was painful enough to be driven to madness.

The theory is one that some have not only disagreed with, but has been linked to Arden’s
anti-psychiatry beliefs. Arden has openly condemned harmful psychiatric treatments such as
lobotomies and ECT (electroshock therapy) in her works and considered the concept of
psychiatry to be overall oppressive and often acted as a tool towards keeping women quiet. In
protest with these ideas and mind, Arden made a film that shows the liberation in madness.

This idea is something that hasn’t sat well with many viewers. With the idea that the illness being
portrayed in the film is schizophrenia, or what the madness the women experience is misdiagnosed
as, the illness and the experience of psychosis is one that is horrific and disabling. It is an illness
that for those living with it struggle with it every single day in different ways and to a specific
degree. Schizophrenia has robbed a number of sufferers of the lives they want to live and became a
massive obstacle to those who have fought to have a life whilst suffering from the illness. Arden’s
idea of madness being liberating can be seen as insulting to those who have experienced mental
illness and have suffered emotional turmoil as a result of it.

The Other Side of the Underneath is no doubt a brilliant display of filmmaking. It brings us into a
horrific world that combines the forces of bizarre delusions and washed-up dreams with reality
and makes us question whether the two were as separate as they seemed. Despite Arden’s
controversial drive towards the film, the film is still an important milestone in portraying mental
health on screen. The film also has a unique factor to it: this being that it is the only film that was
directed by a woman in the UK for the entire of the 1970s. It is a film I love and admire, that I’m
inspired by, even if I disagree with some of Arden’s choices.

Jane Arden battled mental illness herself and struggled against depression in her later years. She
eventually took her own life in 1982, at the age of 55.

edited by Amber-Turner Brightman

To say I love Halloween would be an understatement. I find myself
impatiently waiting for the day to come pretty much all year round- a
lot of the time as soon as it hits January. I spend months planning and
gathering my costume, which often involves countless hours of
handcrafting accessories, browsing charity shops, and altering
garments. This has been a regular occurrence for me for as long as I
can remember and I can’t help but wonder: why?

Halloween has never been part of my culture, at least not originally. I
grew up in coastal Bulgaria, just a couple of years shy of the fall of the
Eastern Bloc. With newfound access to the Internet and ever-growing
Western influence, it was an opportunity for my parents to introduce
me and my brother to holidays that they never got to experience
growing up, most notably Christmas and Halloween.

It should be noted that to this day, Halloween is still considered a bit of
a taboo among the Bulgarian public, especially older people who are
still mourning the former People’s Republic. “We have our own
Halloween,” my grandfather would say, referring to the traditional
Surva festival. Like Halloween, it involves dressing up as scary
monsters called kukeri and going around people’s homes before
sunrise to lure away evil spirits. The threat of Western imperialism and
the further erasure of our pagan traditions is a sentiment that I too
share, but Halloween offered a major sense of comfort that I couldn’t
gain from any other holiday.

Growing up in a fairly conservative environment as a young trans and
queer person, Halloween liberated me from the strict gender norms
which I conformed to in order to survive. For one day of the year I
could be whoever I wanted, without feeling shame or judgement. My
first ever experience with drag was possible because, only on this
particular day of the year, I could confidently walk outside in a little
black dress and a blue glitter moustache, and no one had the power
over me to prevent me from doing so.

Had I been born just two decades earlier, Halloween would have
never garnered such significance in my life as it does now. Older
generation sceptics like my grandfather would call it “the holiday of
the freaks”. To that I say, so be it, especially if it makes said “freaks”
happy at least one day of the year.

I am sure this is not an exclusive experience for queer people as well.
Many people in alternative communities, such as goths, also enjoy
the opportunity Halloween gives to fully commit to themselves. I’ve
often heard people refer to it as “their Christmas” - after all, what is
Halloween to its core if not an evening where you gather with your
close ones and celebrate each other’s happiness?

I used to go down to the beach every night for a walk.
It was a place to clear my head – not still or quiet by any
means – but the chill of the wind and the smell of salt
battered my senses, numbing them from the constant
bombardment of city life.
This was my ritual for a few months. Some nights would
be more eventful than others. A passer-by might
drunkenly ask me a question one night, a fox might cross
my path the next. These little interruptions would take
me away from the solitude of my thoughts, but I would
quickly drift back off into the cold otherworld of my
mind.
All this withstanding, the fact I was unfazed when I
heard splashing from the shoreline one night should
come as no surprise. No doubt it was other students
going for a late-night swim. I continued until I heard it
again: louder this time, more lively. Nevertheless, I
walked on. A few more steps and then another splash –
followed by more; rapid; the noise turning into a loud
crashing and whooshing as someone thrashed about at
the water’s edge. So, in a move I regret to this day, I
turned around.
At first my eyes saw nothing. The sea was an inky black
void, mimicking the night sky above, the distant lights of
the Isle of Wight acting much as stars do. I trained my
gaze to where the noise originated and cast my vision at
an angle so the moonlight would silhouette anyone
against the darkness of the water. There, illuminated in
the silvery reflections of the moon, was a couple, their
shadowy forms locked in a tight embrace.

I must have heard them enjoying themselves in the
water. And so as not to intrude, I went to turn away and
continue down the mist-laden path. This is when the
shadows suddenly shifted, the larger one now lifting the
smaller one up. A loud squelch followed – like the sound
of biting into ripe fruit. Then the small silhouette was
cast down, separating into two more as it struck the
surface of the water and began to bob on the waves.
What had I just witnessed? Someone falling and their
clothing coming away from them? Perhaps they had
been holding something I could not see? Even a
prosthetic limb?
My mind could not fathom what my eyes had just borne
witness to. One of the silhouettes had torn the other
open. Eviscerated them and hurled them into the water,
as if they were casting chum.
I was startled – but as my conscience had been cleared
on these nightly walks, I soon found logic and reason
winning me over, urging me to respond with a calm
measure. So, I held up my phone and turned on the
torch.
At first I saw nothing but water. But as I turned my light
to the left the mottled browns and green began to be
flecked with crimson, before giving way to a red scar on
the ocean’s surface. I wanted with almost every fibre of
my being to turn back – but those in my hand stayed
their course and brought the light to bear on the
shadows.
There, amidst the crashing surf, stood a creature – not
fish, not man – but something in between. Its scales
were an uncomfortable pallid and wet texture, with the
moisture glistening in the torchlight. Its eyes bulged
from their sockets, almost as if they desired to escape
the fleshy, mucilaginous face which held them captive.
Where ears should be there were finlets, with a great

sail-like crest rounding the dome of the creature’s
misshapen skull.
It was a person in a costume – no doubt this was
someone’s idea of a viral prank. The blood would
coagulate into a gloopy mess of corn syrup, the
mannequin bobbing lifelessly in the water would be
dragged to shore, and the fish-man would
unceremoniously announce I had been caught out before
showing me the hidden camera.
And then I saw the gills on its neck move. A wretched,
shuddering palpitation. So visceral was the motion and
the sound that I felt like clasping at my own neck to
ensure it did not bear the same grotesque features.
The piscine monstrosity then picked up the bloody mess
which lay floating beside it; a mass of gore and viscera
that trailed off from the stomach of some unfortunate
skinny dipper. It took a bite, that same noise of ripe fruit
this time giving way to a wetter, viler sound. Then the
mermaid discarded the leftovers into the water.
Unable to contain my disgust, I bent over and began to
vomit profusely. I was mentally shattered, hoping that
this was a nightmare I had fallen into after nodding off
on a bench in the cold sea air. Alas, the sounds of wading
coming from the shoreline made it all too real. It was
coming for another meal.
I turned and ran – still sputtering and struggling to keep
myself from retching more – until I reached the far side
of the road. My back against the wind-battered wall of a
seafront townhouse, I felt safe enough to catch my
breath. I looked back at where I had just come from. The
orange glow of the seafront street lamps was dim, but I
would surely see if that thing had followed me up here.
Yet there was nothing. The spot was empty, not even a
silhouette against the amber incandescence. The only

noise was the somewhat distant hum of cars and the
continuous crashing of waves onto the beach. Perhaps I
just seen something normal and my imagination decided
to warp it into a more frightful vision? No, surely not.
That thing moved with a wretched, writhing liveness
unlike anything else I had ever seen.
I came at last to a foolish conclusion – but one that at
the time seemed like the only way to stop my thoughts
descending into raving madness. I would take a photo. A
quick flash, a step back, and then I could see if I was
sane.
So, composing myself, I crept once more to the edge of
the beach. I held my phone aloft and tapped the
panoramic view symbol on the camera. Click. It was
done.
Not wanting to look upon that frightful creature with my
own eyes ever again, I turned and walked back towards
my home. Making sure to take the route through the city,
along dry land.
When I got home, I took a warm shower, then made
myself a drink and sat at my desk. I pulled out my phone
and opened the gallery.
Staring back at me was not just the thing I had seen –
no. Instead, there were dozens of them. That poor
person really had died, and they really had been used as
chum. The slimy, bloated horrors had their grey-green
skin marked with fresh blood. Their bulbous eyes stared
directly at the camera, with every single one of their
gaping mouths locked in a single expression – hunger.