SAD, SICK, AND SENSATIONAL STORIES: A REFLECTION ON THE ROLE OF HORROR MUSEUMS

Museum Mysteries | Jefimija Vujcic

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What do haunted places, clowns, microbes, breakups, cursed objects, and supernatural creatures all have in common? Besides the obvious creepy factor, they have also all had exhibits or entire museums dedicated to them at one time or another. Horror museums are a phenomenon widely discussed in movies, television, YouTube videos, news articles, and tourist websites. While they are perhaps little understood, beyond the sensational aspect, they do help us grasp the reflective role of museums in our societies.

A model of the bloodsucking creature Yara-ma-yha-who (originating among indigenous Australians). / Bloodsuckers: Legends to Leeches (ROM feature exhibit, November 2019–March 2020). / Photo courtesy of the editor.  

The idea for this blog post actually came about a few months ago, when I was watching an episode of The Good Place. In order to stay spoiler free, let’s just say some characters end up on the run in hell (yes, literally!). In disguise, they find themselves stuck in a hall of the “Museum of Human Misery” where animated human dioramas depicting low-level torture form the vast majority of exhibits. Their charade is up when one brand new diorama is unveiled — featuring our heroes torturing one another. Although certainly strange without context, this scene highlights a trait of many museums — the ability to confront the best and worst of ourselves (usually referring to the loftily imagined ‘humankind,’ rather than the very literal direction the show takes!). 

The museum in “Black Museum” (the finale of the fourth season of Black Mirror) similarly serves as a mirror for the worst parts of a society set in the horrifyingly not-so-far-off future. Without giving too much away, many objects in this museum don’t just represent human stories — but actual elements of human consciousness. As the enthusiastic curator/docent says, there is a “sad, sick story behind almost everything” in the museum. A show like this, much like horror museums or other controversial sites of dark tourism, can “tell us a lot about what it is to be human.” Further, also according to a professor researching the phenomenon, tourists of these places have the opportunity to “reflect on and try to better understand the evil that we’re capable of.”

A framed explanation of the linguistic origin of the word "vampire." / Bloodsuckers: Legends to Leeches (ROM feature exhibit, November 2019–March 2020). / Photo courtesy of the editor.  

If you search for horror museums, you’d find tourist-oriented top-10 or top-20 lists with museums right around the world. One in particular, the Warren Occult Museum formerly located in Monroe, Connecticut (but recently closed due to zoning violations) is closely linked to well-known horror films. Reportedly filled with cursed objects that formed the basis of movies such as Annabelle (a doll that is perhaps the most famous of the collection) or the Conjuring series, it was a popular destination for various YouTubers as well (with about 3 million views on a segment of Buzzfeed Unsolved).

Further, according to such lists, museums focusing on one particular scary or gross object are quite popular. Themes include ventriloquism (Fort Mitchell, Kentucky), disgusting food (Malmo, Sweden) and clowns (Leipzig, Germany). One noteworthy variant of these object-themed horror museums focuses on the medical sciences. These gore-filled exhibits include those located on the sites of hospitals (a former operating theatre, in London, England) and those dedicated to dentists (also located in London, England), pharmacies (New Orleans, Louisiana), microbes (Amsterdam, Netherlands), locks of hair (Cappadocia, Turkey), parasites (Tokyo, Japan), brains (Bengaluru, India), devastating breakups (Zagreb, Croatia and LA, California), and death (as one medical museum is known colloquially, located in Bangkok, Thailand). This idea of body-based horror also conjures images of wax museums, which reportedly “would not be complete” without a chamber of horrors. Perhaps the most horrific type of all are the ones linked to historically grim places or practices. These include museums dedicated to medieval crime (Rothenburg, Germany), magic and witchcraft (Cornwall, England), and torture (Amsterdam, Netherlands), among others. 

A movie poster of Dracula from the early 1930s. The ROM exhibit It's Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection (July 2019–January 2020) did a good job discussing the xenophobia and racism inherent in many classic early horror films. / Photo courtesy of the editor. 

Finally, museums or exhibits dedicated to the dead can also be quite commonly found – from Sicilian catacombs to shrunken heads in Oxford, England. Notably, the Pitt Rivers Museum actually very recently (in September 2020) permanently closed their gallery of shrunken heads, as part of their efforts to decolonize their institution. Due to this connection to colonization and to othering, this deserves an entirely separate conversation – one which I will explore in an upcoming blog. What is worth noting at the present is how, by looking at the sordid histories of some of these earliest collecting practices, it is clear that horror has always had a place in the museum. 

THE REMBRANDT RULE AND REPRESENTATION IN MUSEUMS

Breaking the Glass Case | Alexandra Forand

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“Treat every object as if it were a Rembrandt.” This good intentioned notion has become appropriately dubbed the Rembrandt Rule. This simple idea has been internalized in the psyche of museum professionals for decades and caused a lot of tension and heartache. This rule isn’t inherently bad, in fact it is what museums have built themselves around, because we want to keep objects for future generations to enjoy. This is the very reason we have departments like collection management and conservation.

An Actual Rembrandt painting of Rembrandt. Source.

Recently, this idea has come under fire, with some scholars (and insurance agents) pointing out not every artifact IS a Rembrandt. There are certain objects a collections manager is going to try and grab in a fire before evacuating the building. Even the most stringent conservator would agree that there is an unofficial object hierarchy in the museum, yet nobody talks about it.

Not only is the Rembrandt Rule unfeasible for many different reasons, I argue it dangerous and destructive for Indigenous objects, the communities and people those objects originally came from, and the future of how we remember their stories.

Should these Moccasins also be treated like a Rembrandt Painting? Source.

You see Indigenous objects left the places they originated under many different circumstances and for many different reasons. These objects are taken out of context and physically put behind glass, effectively removing them from history. Freezing them in time, if you will. This physical barrier is erected between object and the people it came from, but another wall is created, and this is not made out of plexiglass. Instead the second obstruction is the Rembrandt Rule. All of sudden that jingle dress that has been in your family for generations or those moccasins that look just like the ones your sister made for you become a museum object. When the object becomes a museum object, the people, heritage, and knowledge it represents can be overlooked in favor of making sure that object survives for future generations. It no longer matters that this rattle was supposed to be heated by the hands of a musician on certain feast days or that blanket was meant to keep children warm on chilly September nights. These museum objects are left there for people to look at, but never to touch, impossible to connect with, and easy to forget.

Jingle dress being danced at a celebration in PEI. Source.

A Jingle dress in the Glenbow Museum. Source. 

I do not mean to be so doom and gloom In this article. In fact, there are many institutions, armed with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, that are breaking the Rembrandt Rule. For example, in 2010, five historic Blackfoot hide shirts from the Pitt Rivers Museum came to Alberta. For a brief time, people from Blackfoot communities were able to learn about, visit with, and even try on these pieces of their history.


According to Laura Phillips, “Museums play a critical role in sharing history and providing context and meaning to this history,” but when the object, and by association the history, is frozen in time, what exactly is being shared? Are we not just looking after the physical element of the object and thereby removing it further from the community it whence came? Or, is the Rembrandt Rule just another sacrifice museum professionals have to make to keep their collection healthy, safe, and available for the public? What are your thoughts? I really want to know! Leave a comment, send me an email (allyforand@gmail.com), or if Twitter and Instagram are more your speed my handle on both is @Ally_but_online.