Southern Gothic
Late June in the New Jersey suburbs sees all sorts of weather. Some days are as muggy and humid as a "good" day on Cape Cod, others are bright and clear as a California spring. Sometimes the temperature dips low enough to seem like a windy, cool summer in the Finger Lakes.
What I favor most are the days and nights that turn grey-green and electric. Those achingly humid days when the tension builds and thunderstorms ensue. It happens so suddenly. You'll be driving down the highway, and suddenly a shadow like the hand of God casts itself over the entire road. Your eyes readjust, you feel the temperature waver, and then a sudden and violent flash of lightening. Usually the raindrops don't even fall in more than a scatter. These storms are all about the electricity. When we were kids swimming outdoors and one of these flash summer storms would come on we'd scamper out of the pool and stand huddled on someone's deck, watching with goosebumps and wide eyes, goggles still tangled in our hair.
I'm convinced that these storms blow right up from the Deep South, carried by winds from the Gulf Coast. Now I know that's not actually how weather works, but that eerie tension that comes with summer storms mimics the feel of Southern Gothic.
Something about Southern Gothic mystifies me to no end. The history of the Deep South is so openly preserved and simultaneously veiled. That's why the best (and worst) American horror stories take place down south. Think about it, they've got voodoo, vampires, witch doctors, hauntings, and constant devil invocations. They also have some of the greatest horror writers of all time. Anne Rice (Interview With A Vampire), James Dickey (Deliverance), Cormac McCarthy (Child of God), and a million and one others. These three novels also happened to be made into some equally as horrifying movies. I can even remember seeing the cover of Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil on a bookshelf in my house and feeling a deep and lingering chill down my spine. Creepy.
Southern Gothic is a culture that seems to fascinate us as a population. American Horror Story: Coven takes place in New Orleans, True Blood near Shreveport, True Detective (season 1) in the bayous of Louisiana. Are these my three favorite shows? Umm, yes. But I only just connected those dots. Something about this charged summer weather leaves me with a craving to immerse myself.
Musically, Jack White's newer work, and his stint with The Dead Weather, do it for me. So does Johnny Cash, sometimes The Black Keys always Tom Waits, and anything with an angry, screeching fiddle. Jeff Buckley sneaks his way in there more often than not, and Nick Cave is constantly crooning from my speakers.
All voodoo aside, I'd be remiss to overlook the classic and the less dark of the Southern Gothic culture. The author Harper Lee, the band Alabama Shakes, the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild, all belong to this category. Upon second glance, though, I may need to revoke my "less dark" description. Each of these possess a darkness in its own right. An air of the occult.
The dark magic, the feeling that you're in the presence of evil, the hairs standing up on your arms, it's all a part of that humid summer feeling. When the storms break in New Jersey, they break fast and hard. The rain shoots down in torrents for a few minutes, then quiet. The temperature reaches a homeostasis and the clouds dissipate. In the real South, the darkness lingers.
P.S. - Straw Dogs.
P.P.S. - East of Eden. I'm going to argue that this one counts. It's not deep south evil, but it's western evil and bouts with the devil, plus something about the place is so unforgivingly hot and dusty. It's American Gothic as in the painting, not as in the graveyard seance.