How to be haunted
Culture Companion Vol. 6
Welcome to the Culture Companion Vol. 6. The Culture Companion is a monthly-ish curation building bridges between the ideas we encounter in film, literature, and the arts. Subscribe to get new posts straight to your inbox.
‘Tis the season of the ghosts and ghouls amongst us, which means the air is heaving with eeriness.
It seems strange to want to revel in fictional worlds that are scarier than our own, but perhaps there’s comfort in seeking hauntings that exist beyond our realities. In stories, our fears are contained to the pages or screens they inhabit, which we can close our eyes to if they ever get to be too much.
But even if you are, like me, averse to nightmare-inducing horror, there’s no excuse to miss out on embracing this spooky time of year.
Agatha All Along
If you’ve been anywhere near the pop culture side of the internet this month, you’ll know there’s one TV show possessing everyone’s minds.
Agatha All Along, the sequel to Marvel’s WandaVision on Disney+, follows Agatha Harkness who sets on a quest to regain her power alongside an unlikely coven of fellow witches. I mean it literally when I say this show has it all: witchcraft, escape room mysteries, hilarious one-liners, musical numbers, queer romance, and outstanding acting.
Unlike the usual fashion in which streaming platforms have been releasing their series, Agatha All Along is being released through weekly episodes. It’s brought back the giddy anticipation of waiting a whole week (!) for a new episode of “your show” and then spending the following seven days speculating about what will happen next.
Even for the Marvel layperson like myself, Agatha All Along is a genuine delight that may even open the floodgates to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe for many of us.
The Mousetrap
Speaking of Agathas, Agatha Christie’s whodunnits are always the perfect spooky season companions.
Known as the theatre world’s best-kept secret, The Mousetrap is the longest-running play globally. The story is a classic Christie set-up: a group of strangers are trapped in a secluded place and discover there’s a murderer in their midst. And, like any Christie mystery, The Mousetrap will have you gleefully maddened that you fell for all the red herrings along the way.
The Mousetrap also has a fascinating history that allows only one production other than the West End production to be performed annually in the UK. And, despite its film rights being sold in 1956, an adaptation is unlikely to see the light of day any time soon because adaptation is prohibited unless the West End production has closed for at least six months.
Well, it’s been seventy years so far. The Mousetrap has never closed and shows no signs of stopping.
Under Heaven Over Hell
And finally, is there any greater artist to evoke the spirit of the season than Florence + the Machine?
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If you missed the previous volumes of the Culture Companion, you can read them here:
Kristen Harding
Kristen Harding
