Past, Present, Future - IWSG October 2024

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to October co-hosts, Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre. To read posts from other contributors, click here.

October optional question: Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

My favorite ghost story isn’t a Halloween story, but it’s a classic. I’m not much of a scary story kind of girl, so it’s probably good that my first experience with A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was a version featuring Mr. Magoo, the bumbling, vision impaired cartoon character from the 1960’s. How frightening could a story be with him as the star? By the time I was assigned to read the actual tale for high school English it was like returning to an old friend.

But it was the 1984 movie starring George C. Scott that put A Christmas Carol at the top of my favorite scale. We first watched it back in the VCR days, and my husband and I liked that adaptation so much we taped it, rewinding and playing it again every Christmas. There is still a DVD of it stored in a box labeled “Christmas Movies” at the top of my family room closet.

Scott is chillingly believable as the miserly Scrooge denying Bob Cratchit his piece of coal and returning to his own frigid house for a bowl of broth on Christmas Eve. He assumes it's his imagination when he hears the rattling of chains from the ghost of his late partner, some kind of dream triggered by a digestive complaint. Once he accepts the visitations are real however, he becomes incrementally more sympathetic as the ghosts of past, present and future show him what his worship of money has cost him and what more he stands to lose. Scott is marvelous as a newly reformed Scrooge, jumping up and down on his bed the next morning as he realizes all the good he can do.

So, yes, it’s my favorite take on my favorite ghost story because the acting is so superb it feels real. Even now, the sound of the screeching whine that accompanies the beckoning finger of the Ghost of Christmas Past gives me the willies. For those of you not of a certain age, picture a dementor from the Harry Potter movies. When the apparition first arrives, it scares the Dickens out of Scrooge (lol), and no matter how many times I watch it, it does the same to me.

What is your favorite ghost story? Is there a particular scene that sticks with you?