Let’s start with “goosebumps” in the art of storytelling. You might be thinking of your middle-school camp counselor’s tales around a campfire. But horror and thriller stories have been popular for centuries. Writers including Stoker, Poe, Shelley, King, and Blatty have created settings, plots, and characters that continue to inhabit our nightmares. 

Movie studios jumped into the horror genre within the first years of film art. We lined up around the block for modern horror movies like Jaws, Exorcist, The Omen and, of course, the “Nightmare” and “Scream” franchises. 

But goosebumps can be raised on gallery walls and the concert stage as well. Van Gogh’s smoking skeleton, Bosch’s Hell panel, Goya’s Black Paintings. In music, we have Berlioz’s “Fantastique” chimes, Saint-Saëns’s “Macabre” violin squeal, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle and the mysterious “Dies Irae” chant. Sometimes, as with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor or Orff’s “Oh Fortuna,” the music has evolved into soundtracks for the spooky and scary.

Enjoy getting in the mood for Halloween with this puzzle. Let the goosebumps begin!

And for some Halloween music and fun in Portland, check out Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s PipeScreams Halloween Spectacular on Saturday, October 26.

Goosebumps in the Arts – Click here for an interactive puzzle you can fill out in your web browser

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