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Popular Culture Review
schizophrenia. Mike Enslin’s conflicted state of mind has been caused by the
unprocessed loss of his daughter.
By combining and developing the folkloristic understanding of ghosts, their
depiction in literature throughout the centuries, the psychological understanding
of mourning and melancholy, as well as the use of numerology, Hafstrom goes
beyond Wilkie Collins’ description of Isaac Scatchard’s nightmare in “The
Dream Woman” (1855), Sheridan Le Fanu’s representation of the alien inner
world in “Green Tea” (1869), Guy de Maupassant’s illustration of insanity in
“Le Horla” (1887), or of delirium and obsession in “Qui sait?” (1890). He goes
beyond Henry James’ interpretation of ghosts as evil intruders representing the
character’s misdirected passion in “The Turn of the Screw” (1898). The
spectator of Hafstrom’s film has to realize that the spectral entities haunting the
hotel room are not apparitions seeking retribution or an appropriate burial. They
are not harmless apparitions trying to disturb playfully Enslin’s nightly rest.
Hafstrom’s ghosts are mirror images of Enslin’s past life and unconscious
memory—traces that he has tried to repress. As such, they are reflections of
Enslin’s emotional trauma that get projected onto the outside. Every single one
of the 5 apparitions personifies Enslin’s psyche to some extent and proves that
for Mike Enslin the past has become “more important than the present” (King,
Danse 255). Hafstrom leads the viewer to this conclusion by replacing Enslin’s
observation of and interaction with the dead with him staring into the bathroom
mirror, observing his broken reflection (scene 12, 0:53:34). Whereas first he
seemed convinced of the presence of spectres, he now has to recognize that the
only face looking out of the mirror “is also the face looking in” (King, Danse
259). He has to come to terms with the fact that he actually is alone and that
there are no ghosts around him.
By framing Enslin’s face, Hafstrom recalls Enslin’s enclosure and also
evokes the idea of him being an integral part of the room in form of a picture. As
such, Enslin’s self becomes one wi th the room and with “the power of whatever
inhabits [it]” (King, Room 479). The room with all its ghostly manifestations,
then, becomes a symbolic representation of Mike’s psychotic mind to which the
viewer now is restricted as well. It becomes a representation for Enslin’s inner
struggle, self-imposed thread, and resulting warning: If he does not balance out
the “opposing forces” (Cirlot 223) and does not process his so far unresolved
trauma, the past will pull him down while being kept in the isolated room of 1 4
0 8.
CONCLUSION
We can conclude that unlike King’s original text, Hafstrom’s film does not
rely on the gruesome and gory alone, but focuses on the illustration of the
familiar unknown returning in an unfamiliar disguise. Hafstrom gives King’s
“phobic pressure points” a visual image and, by doing so, combines horror with
folklore, superstition, and psychoanalysis. He lets the ghosts become
manifestations of Mike Enslin’s self and other. The director leaves no doubt that
Mike Enslin’s ghosts are part of his memory, at the same time that they are a