On Thursday, the boogeyman came out of hiding and taught students at an area school.
Students learned literary terms while watching scary movies created by students at St. Stephens High School.
Hollis Whalen's honors English 3 class were split into groups and created literary horror films based on short stories by Edgar Allan Poe or Stephen King. The films had to contain literary elements the students discussed in class and would likely see on end-of-course exams, like irony, imagery, allusion, figurative language and model of equilibrium.
One group retold Stephen King's "Boogeyman," which tells the story of a man in a psychiatrist's office, who is recounting the deaths of his three children, who were all mysteriously killed by someone. There is only one similarity in all the deaths. As the man leaves the psychiatrist's office and goes to pay his bill, the waiting room is deserted. He goes back to see the psychiatrist again, and doesn't see him, but sees a bloody mark on a paper on the floor. The man looks up and sees the boogeyman in the mirror in the office, and realizes the doctor is the boogeyman.
"We shot the whole thing in four days," said Aaron Bitten, one of the five people in the group who worked on the project.
Faith Miller said the group initially selected "Autopsy Room Four," by Stephen King, but decided to go with "Boogeyman," instead.
"We wanted a different story that had more suspense and gore," she said.
Liz Sawyer said it was hard to stay on task sometimes when filming. They did the bulk of the filming on a teacher workday, when students were out of school for the day.
"I had to cut the film from its original length, so I wasn't sure if everyone would fully understand the story, since not everyone had read it," Bitten said.
Miller said filming the story was a lot of work, but the end product was worth the effort.
Whalen said the students did an excellent job.
"You really built the suspense," she said. "That's quite a feat."
After each film was showed, the students viewing them were quizzed by the filmmakers on the literary devices, and were awarded with candy for their efforts.
Classmate Kelsey Pruitt was one of the ones watching and said the two films shown Thursday, "Boogeyman" and "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," did a good job of showing the devices.
"I think it will help other students when they take (the EOCs)," she said. "It's a more creative way to remember them."
Pruitt said the only difficult portion of the films was when it was when the scenes were a little dark. For the most part, she said they were very good.
This is the first year Whalen has required students to create their own films. Usually, she has them create a literary haunted house. She said the technology made this project easier for them to do.
Whalen just ensured that each group had someone with camera equipment.
"I think the films were excellent, especially for a first run," she said. "Both groups did the themes well, and condensed the stories well."
The movies being shown today are both based on Poe short stories.
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