What is Horror?
According to Websters, Horror is painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay or an intense aversion or repugnance. It is also described as repulsive, horrible, or a dismal quality or character. It is also described, lovingly as something that inspires horror and lastly as being a state of extreme depression or apprehension. (See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Horror).
With the above said, Horror can simply be defined as a serious fear, or conjuring of fear, and from the sound of the word repugnance we can come to terms with the place Gore and disgusting subjects hold within those dark realms. But we want more than a bland and dull dictionary term, don’t we? The truth is, we go to horror for a raw and perhaps even animal like excitement of the most primal nature.
Horror has often throughout its history been shunned, looked down upon and distanced from. But why? The definition gives us a clue, but the constant attraction and appeal gives fire to its mystery. Horror is both what we hate and what we seek. It is that fight our gut tells us to take on, especially in the modern age where most of life’s basic necessities are given to us on a silver platter. (I write this with understanding, first hand no less, that even in America and the West children do still starve and I don’t condescend to that in the least. I am rather making a generic observation of the whole).
Horror, if you will, is a conduit to life. It is the essence of all we fear, and in those fears we find we are still alive. That the monster, bogeyman and so on has not yet gotten us. We go to Horror to see a glimpse, to test our nerves and consider how we might take that thing on. The truth is, Horror reveals to us much more than a two hour thrill ride at the movies. It shows us a deeper conscious we all share, like it or not.
Why horror?
I can not presume to answer this question for all people. But for myself, Horror is not really a choice. I am wired in such a way that I write about night terrors and bogeymen. Is it a calling? I don’t know, won’t even guess. I do have my own private conclusion. But why, other than simple wiring, do I write it?
Horror does for the writer the same as it does for the reader. Only deeper. For the writer of Horror (if they’re like me) digging into the mindset of a monster, a killer, a bogeyman, or any other night terror is to dig into the essence of our own fears. I don’t think we consciously write to make a statement, though some have, but are often guilty of letting loose the monster for fun and in rereading what we’ve written discovered something deeper. Horror always starts there, fun, excitement, a quick rush. But Horror never ends there, not if it’s good.
Good Horror is exploratory. It goes where other fiction wont, and possibly can’t. It takes us to the Devil’s hiding place and shows us his horns and cloven feet. It shows us that thing that makes us want to puke, it gives us the gorey details and reveals to us the potential of our dark imagination and sometimes the absurdity of our common fears. Good Horror reveals the fears of a generation, an individual, and perhaps even a little of the Author’s fears themselves.
Which brings me to my last point.
The Goals of Horror. What are they? As I said, Good Horror, Horror that hits the nail on the head, does something more than merely excite you. It should woo you in, show you a world you can relate to, then slowly and steadily begin to raise the heat. Think of the frog placed in a pot of room temperature water, and slowly you increase the temperature. The frog never notices and is actually boiled soon. A rather gruesome analogy I will give you, but I can think of no better than that.
The job of the Horror writer is to convince you to climb in the lukewarm pot of water and slowly raise the temperature on you. Some writers are convincing enough from the get go to lure you into a pot of boiling water. But not many. More often than not writers try this and fail to their own shame. Lesson’s learned as I call them when I am guilty of such mistakes. But the over all consensus is this, Horror writers must woo, charm, and enchant. And then when your guard is down, crank up the heat and play with your mind.
This is where the goals of the literature world and the movie world—though the same—are done differently. Obviously so. If it is literature, I think the best description of the goal is to haunt you, and leave you worried and well, horrified. But for a movie, they have a wider scope. With sounds and forcing images into your brain, the places they can go is nearly limitless. I think the question of their comparing quality is tested in time, which holds your imagination for longer? Which haunts you in the witching hours and leaves you looking under the bed? Both? I’d agree, but it is this author’s pick to suggest the book has a lasting value, it is much more intimate and invasive as we often are found alone with it. Also, the power of the reader’s imagination—if the descriptive abilities of the writer are done well—is not merely limitless, it IS limitless.
I hope this has been a healthy look into a general overview of what Horror is as a whole. Starting Next week, I will be digging into the specifics of different kinds of Horror, their goals, and definitions as well as a few of this author’s own oppinions tossed in for good measure. I hope to see you then.
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