Editorials
The Horror of Opeth: 10 Examples of Nightmarish Lyrics
The recent news this week that Swedish progressive rock/metal band Opeth had signed to Nuclear Blast Records and would be releasing their new album Sorceress this fall took the metal community by surprise as we hadn’t heard anything from the band in a while. I know that I personally felt myself swell with excitement as Opeth is one of my favorite bands.
Because of this news, I found myself revisiting their older material and marveling in their brilliant songwriting and sometimes horrifying lyrics. It’s that latter part that inspired me to write this piece, which highlights several songs and their lyrics as they sound like something right out of a horror novel that would rival Poe, Lovecraft, Stoker, Shelley, King, Barker, etc…
Venture forth to marvel in this band and the glorious music they put forth, as well as the nightmare-inducing words that erupt from vocalist Mikael Akerfeldt.
“In The Mist She Was Standing”
Coming from the band’s first album Orchid, there’s a section in these lyrics that makes me wonder if James Wan and Leigh Whannell didn’t use it as inspiration for the Bride in Black. Just read these lyrics and tell me you don’t get a little bit of that feel:
I saw her shadow (standing) in the darkness
Awaiting me like the night
Awaits the day
Standing silent smiling at my presence
A black candle holds the only lightDarkness encloses
And the candle seem to expire
In her cold, cold hand
And as a forlorn soul
It will fade awayTouching her flesh in this night
My blood froze forever
Embraced before the dawn
A kiss brought total eclipseAnd she spoke
Once and forever
I am so cold
In mist enrobed the twilight
She was standing…
“Eternal Soul Torture”
This 1992 demo was featured on the 2000 reissue of the band’s second album Morningrise. Essentially a lyrical representation of zombies rising from their graves in search of their next meal, it’s pure horror incarnate.
The descriptions given here remind me of both Ken Foree’s comment, “When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth,” and the zombies seen in Zombi. These aren’t clean looking creatures with a pale pallor. These are decomposed monstrosities roaming the land, their bodies falling more and more apart with every shuffling step they take.
The deceased awake from beyond their sleep.
Search for blood and mortal meat.
Maggots crawl out from their eyes.
Feel their pain, it’s mournful cries.
Pull your veins, tear out your heart.
Consume the blood, feast on flesh.
Torn apart, intestines scattered.
Alimentary canal ripped and shattered.
Pieces of your body eaten.
Painful death as time stands still.
Where your mind bursts in torture.
Feel your soul be torn apart.
Demons crawling through your system.
Hell has risen, the gods of pain.
Rip your skin, burn your bones.
Internal organs torn and drained.
Smell of flesh burnt to ashes.
Cries of death from hell.
Pain is all you revolve around.
Where the souls of Satan’s grounds.
Rooms of eternal torture, reveal endurance of endless pain.
Disintegrating mortals, bodies burn.
There you feel the hellish torture.
Hellish torment, brutal butchering.
Demonic creatures revolve in torment…
“Demon of the Fall”
My Arms, Your Hearse, the band’s third album, is a concept album about a man who dies yet whose spirit remains because he is desperate to stay with the woman he loved. However, he begins to harbor suspicions that she never truly loved him, her grieving not enough to convince him of her devotion. Because of his presence, she herself is unable to move on, and so creates the cyclical nature of the album, which ends at the beginning and begins at the end, forever stuck in a loop.
It wouldn’t shock me at all if Crimson Peak was inspired by this album. Both are romance stories at heart but are heavily saturated with death, fear, and horror.
Silent dance with death.
Everything is lost.
Torn by the arrival of Autumn.
The blink of an eye, you know it’s me
You keep the dagger close at hand.And you saw nothing.
False love turned to pure hate.
The wind cried a lamentation
before merging with the grey.Demon of the fall.
Gasping for another breath.
She rose, screaming at closed doors.
Seductive faint mist forging
through the cracks in the wall.I shant resist.
In tears for all of eternity.
She turned around and faced me for the first time.Run away, run away.
Just one second, and I was left with nothing.
Her fragrance still pulsating through damp air.
That day came to an end.
“The Moor”
I have to admit that one of the biggest reasons I’m including this song, which appears on Still Life, is the cacophony of demonic howls that erupt forth at 3:27. That is what I imagine Hell sounds like on a regular basis. Still, the following lyrics are haunting as they show a person who is outcast and reviled with no chance at redemption. Everyone turns their back on him, revolted at his very presence.
I was foul and tainted, devoid of faith
Wearing my death-mask at birth
The hands of God, decrepit and thin
Cold caress and then nothing
I was taken away from my plight
A treason bestowed to the crowd
Branded a Jonah with fevered blood
Ungodly freak, defilerPale touch, writhing in the embers
Damp mud burning in my eyes
All the faces turned away
And all would sneer at my demise
“Serenity Painted Death”
Another track from Still Life, this song and these lyrics are as eldritch as they come.
White faced, haggard grin
This serenity painted death
With a halo of bitter disease
Black paragon in lingering breathSaw here fading, blank stare into me
Clenched fist from the beautiful painDarkness reared its head
Tearing within the reeling haze
Took control, claiming my flesh
Piercing rage, perfect tantrum
Each and every one would die at my hand
Choking in warm ponds of blood
At last, weak and torn, I went down
Drained from strength, flickering breathCame with the moon
The wayward in conscious state
Flanked and barred in destiny’s end
Underneath with hope in latches
Swathed in filth, any would betoken
Starlit shadows on the wall
Finally there to collect me
From the bowels of sin
“The Leper Affinity”
Ah, time for Blackwater Park, perhaps the band’s most acclaimed album and definitely one of my favorites of theirs.
When an album opens up with a track as fierce as this, it’s hard not to take notice. The opening swell is a terrifying siren that explodes into their iconic Swedish prog metal ferocity and Akerfeldt’s demonic growls nearly vomit forth the following terrors:
We entered Winter once again
Naked, freezing from my breath
Neath the lid all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now and onwardsYour body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tearsI am beyond death
Midst a dreaming affinity
Saving strength now, faint whispers
Come erotic communion in its splendourFever mirrored ghosts
Night time consolation, cross the line
Draw murder into art
Sleep inside through daysIn the wake of this relief
Shivering, longing for more
Insanity at it’s peak
Love me to my death
“Blackwater Park”
The title track of their fifth album, this song takes the look of the album’s artwork and paints the picture with words. (Yes, I know it’s done the other way around where the artwork comes after the album is completed about 99.999% of the time.)
A dying forest, the shadows of people lurking underneath, a sense of disease running throughout, the utter lack of life and color… Absolutely beautiful and descriptive lyrics that call to mind, at least for me, the Hammer Films of yore.
Confessor
Of the tragedies in man
Lurking in the core of us all
The last dying call for the ever lost
Brief encounters, bleeding painLepers coiled neath the trees
Dying men in bewildered soliloquies
Perversions bloom round the bend
Seekers, lost in their quest
Ghosts of friends frolic under the waning moonIt is the year of death
Wielding his instruments
Stealth sovereign reaper
Touching us with easeInfecting the roots in an instant
Burning crop of disease
I am just a spectator
An advocate documenting the loss
Fluttering with conceit
This doesn’t concern me yet
Still far from the knell
Taunting their bereavementMob round the dead
Point fingers at the details
Probing vomits for more
Caught in unbridled suspenseWe have all lost it now
Catching the flakes of dismay
Born the travesty of man
Regular pulse midst pandemonium
You’re plucked to the mass
Parched with thirst for the wickedSick liaisons raised this monumental mark
The sun sets forever over Blackwater Park
“Death Whispered a Lullaby”
Something about this song, which hails from their gorgeous album Damnation, gives me the creeps. There is a very Lovecraft-ian feel to this particular passage, which portends of things hiding in the darkness of a fog. It’s deeply unsettling the more one thinks about it.
Under the fog there are shadows moving
Don’t be afraid, hold my hand
Into the dark there are eyelids closing
Buried alive in the shifting sandsSleep my child
“The Baying of the Hounds”
Hailing from Ghost Reveries, the second track is an absolutely terrifying description of what I can only imagine is Satan himself. But not only does it describe him and his filth, it describes the devastation that he brings upon everything around that he touches.
I hear the baying of the hounds
In the distance, I hear them devouring
Pest ridden jackals of the earth
Diabolical beasts and roaming the forests
In wait and constant protectors
Calling you to sit by his side
Your self loathing image in his flesh
A revelation upon which you lingerHis words are flies
Swarming towards the true insects
Feasting on buried dreams
And spreading decay upon your skin
His eyes spew forth a darkness
That cut through and paralyze
Casts light upon your secrets
Forced to confront your enemiesHis mouth is a vortex
Sucking you into it’s pandemonium
Fools you with a helping hand of ashes
Reached out in false dismay
His body is a country
The cities lay dead and beyond despair
Friends turned enemies unable to come clean
In a rising fog of reeking death
“The Grand Conjuration”
Another from Ghost Reveries, this track falls into the loose concept that runs through the majority of the album, where a man is wrestling with himself, both emotionally and psychologically, after murdering his own mother. Many believe that act was the result of him being the Antichrist and this track symbolizes his acceptance of his evil fate, as evidenced by asking Majesty, aka Satan, to pour himself into the main character.
If The Omen fills you with fear, this track should haunt your nightmares.
Majesty
Faithful me
Pour yourself
Into meWield your power
Martyr’s price
Stare me down
To the groundThe eyes of the devil
Fixed on his sinnersSlake my thirst
Eternal wealth
Heathen key
Round my neckThis poetry
Our blasphemy
Know the sounds
Of infamy
It took nearly five decades for it to happen, but the tide has turned for Jaws 2. Not everyone has budged on this divisive sequel, but general opinion is certainly kinder, if not more merciful. Excusing a rehashed plot — critic Gene Siskel said the film had “the same story as the original, the same island, the same stupid mayor, the same police chief, the same script…” — Jaws 2 is rather fun when met on its own simple terms. However, less simple is the novelization; the film and its companion read are like oil and water. While both versions reach the same destination in the end, the novelization’s story makes far more waves before getting on with its man-versus-shark climax.
Jaws 2 is not labeled as much of a troubled production as its predecessor, but there were problems behind the scenes. Firing the director mid-stream surely counts as a big one; John D. Hancock was replaced with French filmmaker Jeannot Szwarc. Also, Jaws co-writer Carl Gottlieb returned to rewrite Howard Sackler’s script for the sequel, which had already been revised by Hancock’s wife, Dororthy Tristan. What the creative couple originally had in store for Jaws 2 was darker, much to the chagrin of Universal. Hence Hancock and Tristan’s departures. Hank Searls’ novelization states it is “based on a screenplay by Howard Sackler and Dorothy Tristan,” whereas in his book The Jaws Log, Gottlieb claims the “earlier Sackler material was the basis” for the tie-in. What’s more interesting is the “inspired by Peter Benchley’s Jaws” line on the novelization’s cover. This aspect is evident when Searls brings up Ellen’s affair with Hooper as well as Mayor Larry Vaughan’s connection to the mob. Both plot points are unique to Benchley’s novel.
The novelization gives a fair idea of what could have been Jaws 2 had Hancock stayed on as director. The book’s story does not come across as dark as fans have been led to believe, but it is more serious in tone — not to mention sinuous — than Szwarc’s film. A great difference early on is how Amity looks and feels a few years after the original shark attack (euphemized by locals as “The Troubles”). In the film, it seems as if everything, from the townsfolk to the economy, is unaffected by the tragedies of ‘75. Searls, on the other hand, paints Amity as a ghost town in progress. Tourism is down and money is hard to come by. The residents are visibly unhappy, with some more than others. Those who couldn’t sell off their properties and vacate during The Troubles are now left to deal with the aftermath.
Image: As Martin Brody, Roy Scheider opens fire on the beach in Jaws 2.
It is said that Roy Scheider only came back to fulfill a three-picture deal with Universal (with Jaws 2 counting as two films) and to avoid having his character recast. Apparently, he was also not too pleased (or pleasant) after Szwarc signed on. Nevertheless, Scheider turned in an outstanding performance as the returning and now quietly anguished Martin Brody. Even in the film’s current form, there are still significant remnants of the chief’s psychological torment and pathos. Brody opening fire on what he thought to be the shark, as shocked beachgoers flee for their lives nearby, is an equally horrifying and sad moment in the film.
In a candid interview coupled with Marvel’s illustrated adaptation of Jaws 2, Szwarc said he had posted the message “subtlety is the picture’s worst enemy” above the editor’s bench. So that particular beach scene and others are, indeed, not at all subtle, but neither are the actions of Brody’s literary counterpart. Such as, his pinning the recent deaths on Jepps, a vacationing cop from Flushing. The trigger-happy drunk’s actual crimes are breaking gun laws and killing noisy seals. Regardless, it’s easier for Brody to blame this annoying out-of-towner than conceive there being another great white in Amity. Those seals, by the way, would normally stay off the shore unless there was something driving them out of the ocean…
Brody’s suspicions about there being another shark surface early on in the film. For too long he is the only one who will even give the theory any serious thought, in fact. The gaslighting of Brody, be it intentional or otherwise, is frustrating, especially when considering the character is suffering from PTSD. It was the ‘70s though, so there was no intelligible name for what Brody was going through. Not yet, at least. Instead, the film delivers a compelling (and, yes, unsubtle) depiction of a person who, essentially, returned from war and watched a fellow soldier die before his very eyes. None of that trauma registers on the Martin Brody first shown in Jaws 2. Which, of course, was the result of studio interference. Even after all that effort to make an entertaining and not depressing sequel, the finished product still has its somber parts.
Image: A page from Marvel’s illustrated adaptation of Jaws 2.
How Brody handles his internal turmoil in the novelization is different, largely because he is always thinking about the shark. Even before there is either an inkling or confirmation of the new one. It doesn’t help that his oldest son, Mike, hasn’t been the same since The Troubles. The boy has inherited his father’s fear of the ocean as well as developed his own. Being kept in the dark about the second shark is also detrimental to Brody’s psyche; the local druggist and photo developer could have alleviated that self-doubt had he told Brody what he found on the dead scuba diver’s undeveloped roll of film. Instead, Nate Starbuck kept this visual proof of the shark to himself. His reasons for doing so are connected to the other pressing subplot in the novelization.
While the film makes a relatively straight line for its ending, Searls takes various and lengthy detours along the way. The greatest would be the development of a casino to help stimulate the local economy and bring back tourists. Brody incriminating Jepps inadvertently lands him smack dab in the middle of the shady casino deal, which is being funded with mafia money. A notorious mob boss from Queens, Moscotti, puts a target on Brody’s head (and his family) so long as the chief refuses to drop the charges against Jepps. In the meantime, the navy gets mixed up in the Amity horror after one of their helicopters crashes in the bay and its pilots go missing. A lesser subplot is the baby seal, named Sammy by Brody’s other son Sean, who the Brodys take in after he was wounded by Jepps. Eventually, and as expected, all roads lead back to the shark.
In either telling of Jaws 2, the shark is a near unstoppable killing machine, although less of a mindless one in the novelization. The film suggests this shark is looking for payback — Searls’ adaptation of Jaws: The Revenge clarifies this with a supernatural explanation — yet in the book, the shark is acting on her maternal instinct. Pregnant with multiple pups, the voracious mother-to-be was, in fact, impregnated by the previous maneater of Amity. Her desire to now find her offspring a safe home includes a body count. And perhaps as a reflection of the times, the author turns the shark and other animals’ scenes into miniature wildlife studies; readers are treated to small bits of infotainment as the story switches to the perspective of not only the killer shark, but also the seals and a navy-trained dolphin. The novelization doesn’t hold back on the scientific details, however weird as it may sound at times. One line sure to grab everyone’s attention: “There, passive and supine, she had received both of his yard-long, salami-shaped claspers into her twin vents.”
Image: Roy Scheider’s character, Martin Brody, measures the bitemark on the orca in Jaws 2.
Up until the third act, the novelization is hard to put down. That’s saying a lot, considering the overall shark action borders on underwhelming. There is, after all, more to the story here than a fish’s killing spree. Ultimately though, Szwarc’s Jaws 2 has the more satisfying finale. Steven Spielberg’s film benefitted from delaying the shark’s appearance, whereas the sequel’s director saw no need for mystery. The original film’s reveal was lightning in a bottle. So toward the end, Jaws 2 transforms into a cinematic theme park ride where imagination isn’t required. The slasher-at-sea scenario is at full throttle as the villain — wearing her facial burn like a killer would wear their mask — picks off teen chum and even a pesky helicopter. And that’s before a wiry, go-for-broke Brody fries up some great white in the sequel’s cathartic conclusion. That sort of over-the-top finisher is better seen than read.
It would be a shame to let this other version of Jaws 2 float out to sea and never be heard from again. On top of capturing the quotidian parts of Amity life and learning what makes Brody tick, Hank Searls drew up persuasive plot threads that make this novelization unlike anything in the film franchise. If the Jaws brand is ever resurrected for the screen, small or big, it wouldn’t hurt to revisit this shark tale for inspiration.
Image: The cover of Hank Searls’ novelization for Jaws 2.
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