If I didn’t hate stickers so much, I would want to constantly wear a nametag that says HI MY NAME IS B AND I LIKE HORROR.
And I do like horror! I love it a lot. But I’m also a massive baby and scare easily in several common horror directions (so that’s why coming posts are going to be about trigger warnings, content warnings, their differences, and the glory of Does The Dog Die).
There have been many, many amazing essays and posts about the power of horror. Viewing the self and others through the lens of a monster, power fantasies, metaphors of everything imaginable, monster design, and more. I adore the essay There’s Nothing Scarier Than A Hungry Woman. There are so many more amazing write-ups that I’ve lost track of through the years.
But for me? Me, personally, jumper of scares, nightmare haver, constant fighter of intrusive thoughts, and one already prone to sleeplessness? There’s a few reasons, actually, because like anyone here, I am a multifaceted individual who is here for the horror genre in a way that’s more than “hehe monster hot”.
But that’s a big one. Thank you, Guillermo del Toro, for all the work you’ve done for us.
Horror, like tragedy, can be cathartic. You see monster/killer/evil, you experience the fear, and you survive. It doesn’t always matter if the character does. You experience that jolt of adrenaline, the activation of fight or flight, and you come out the other side unharmed. There are a lot of studies about how this experience is not only cathartic but can help you grow, but I am not one to do that much research for a hobby blog post.
But I don’t think catharsis is it for me. At least not on the conscious level.
I adore horror with a psychological slant. I adore monsters. Found footage is only okay (unless it’s Savageland), serial killers will strain to keep my attention usually through a movie (unless it’s Silence of the Lambs), and to be completely honest, I had a nightmare after seeing the trailer of Possum so I noped right on out, despite the other boxes it checks for me.
The video game series Silent Hill is my jam (and my fingers are perpetually crossed for Silent Hills to somehow come back) and I eat up indie horror games like candy. OFF is one of my favorite games of all time, hands down, despite the fact that it’s a five-hour pixel-based RPG. Limbo and Inside did amazing things for side-scrolling horror. And Phasmophobia changed the game with its proximity chat function in multiplayer, because communication is key and having it be attacked just like a health bar is worthy of a chef’s kiss.
The best horror makes you think. Not necessarily at the time, trying to puzzle out clues or metaphors, though that is valid too. But it stays with you, makes you think afterward, whether that’s in your shower or trying to fall asleep in bed or even driving to work. (Showering after watching It Follows was a nightmare for months. I imagine it was very similar after Psycho came out decades ago.)
I dreamt up an entire sequel to The Babadook after I saw it. I eat up theories about the symbolism of Silent Hill’s bosses—shoving Pyramidhead to the side, because no matter how cool his design is, he’s overused and far more blatant compared to some of the fun treats in the series. Get Out made me really think about my role as a white woman and the horrors of being trapped by society as well as literally inside your own mind. Midsommar stayed with me, because I questioned why I felt so glad at the end, despite the fact that the very sympathetic main character is successfully pulled into a murderous cult.
What would I do in a similar situation? At what point does a human mind snap, and what takes over in its stead? What repressed thoughts would manifest, and in what way? (I would not call Persona 4 a horror game, but that it delves so deeply into those questions is a big reason why it’s one of my fave games.)
And, of course, one of the best questions ever regardless of genre: What makes a monster?
The short story The Quiet Boy (I’m hoping the movie (renamed Antlers) is good, though my hope is waning, because it is not about spooky mysterious Native American legends, it is about poverty and desperation and class isolation and the goodness versus the badness in people) touches on this in a way a lot of short projects can’t (at least not with as much grace).
Of course, Frankenstein is the ultimate example of this. (I actually only read it for the first time last year! Like many others, I’d absorbed it largely from cultural osmosis, and I was very pleased with what I did not know about the story. Also, please read Junji Ito’s adaptation of it.) Everyone ought to know that the monster is not Frankenstein; the doctor is Frankenstein. And he is the monster for trying to play god/create life/his pride/etc. He is the monster for managing to create something, then not caring about it afterward. The monster is the heartlessness, I’d argue, not the initial hubris.
Also, on the note of Frankenstein and what makes a monster, I heartily recommend the movie Mary Shelley.
Monsters always capture the imagination in that fearful, can’t-look-away-from-a-trainwreck kind of way. Moder in The Ritual got much acclaim despite barely appearing in full view. A big draw of Pacific Rim was that you could see the monsters (thank you again, Guillermo del Toro), since that was relatively rare. Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village has gained much notoriety for the way she blends attractive feminine humanity with uncanny valley monster.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent changed the game when it came to horror video games and their monsters; it was an actual game mechanic that you couldn’t look directly at the monsters without severe penalties (and visual interference), so it meant that you always got glimpses, out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye peeks, and shadows on the wall. I remember how big of a deal it was when people finally ripped the monster’s model from the game’s code and we could finally see what it actually looked like!
(True, imagination will always be scarier than anything concretely created by a movie, game, or book team, but that’s because imagination is always tailored to the individual.)
Some monsters are grotesque and otherworldly. The Cthulhu mythos relies on the fact that you literally cannot comprehend the beings without it destroying your sanity. And many monsterfuckers out there are happy with the claws, the extra limbs, the empty eyes, the long teeth, and who knows how much blood and guts. Does this reflect the viewer? Does this satisfy a need, does it represent something about themselves, or something they see in the world around them? Or, well, sometimes it’s just a neat monster design.
But many others force the viewer to look in the mirror. The cultists in Midsommar are all smiling, welcoming people constantly wearing white and flower crowns. The player character James in Silent Hill 2 creates most of the monsters haunting him due to his own guilt; The Babadook takes a similar approach with the grief and pain of the mother warping itself into a monster they must ultimately live with.
This is a longer blog post and may read largely like a rec list, but I’m alright with that. (My blog, my rules.) Horror is captivating for as many reasons as there are fans of it. I may be picky about what I like, but it draws me in all the same, and I’m always eagerly on the lookout for more.
