Esperanto Blog

Since Halloween approaches, a friend of mine asked me to write a critical essay of the horror genre. It’s still in the works, but I’ve done a bit, including something on the film Inkubo. Here’s an adapted snippet of it that’s pretty relevant to our continued discussion of Esperanto.

You might remember a post some months ago where we discussed Inkubo as an example of Esperanto cinema. For those of you who missed it, Inkubo is a black-and-white horror film starring, of all people, William Shatner. The entire movie is spoken in Esperanto. While the use of Esperanto makes the film far more interesting for Esperantists, I’ve been thinking recently that using the language could be useful for the horror genre as a whole. Allow me to explain.

Two goals were met in Inkubo by using Esperanto. For one, since many audiences would neither have heard nor spoken Esperanto, the presence of the language creates an uncomfortable, even otherworldly, feeling. The language is left a mystery to these audiences, and as such, the film becomes much more terrifying for lack of understanding. Secondly, the general incomprehensibility for these audiences would help establish the point that, in a true horror tale, language and dialogue are merely ancillary to the horror at hand. The spectacle of terror that film presents is the important aspect.

If we subscribe to either of the two aforementioned goals, I can foresee plenty of uses for Esperanto in horror fiction. Once the language catches on, the incomprehensibility idea will dissipate. However, using Esperanto would be thematically effective. If a horror film in Esperanto is presented to an Esperanto-speaking (or at least understanding) audience, the horrors therein can be said to be as universal as the language. True horror, I imagine, would be a terror that transcends all linguistic and cultural barriers – much like Esperanto. As such, a film with Esperanto at the helm could result in a greatly enhanced horror effect.