Anyone else who during their youth had a major aversion to horror, now as an adult, can’t seem to get enough of it?
I’m talking walking down the aisles of Spirit Halloween, or for us Cincinnatians, Cappel’s, and avoiding the scary one. You know, the one with the masks and the bloodied weapons. I forced my mom to either avoid it like the plague, or if we had to pass through it to get to something we needed, hold my hand and guide me like a service animal. Sweet Cindy always did it without question. She was always slaying my demons for me if she could.
Now, here I am at twenty-five (almost twenty-six), and while I still have hard lines drawn in the sand as to what horror I cannot and will not consume (I’m looking at you, paranormal activity-style content, possessions, and numerous jumpscares), the majority of the rest is shockingly fair game. Hell, I recently wrote an op-ed for my job on the creativity of the Saw movies.
Eight year old me is quaking in the gogo boots that came with her little hippie costume.
By complete accident, for the past couple years, I’ve chosen an iconic horror franchise and doven head first into it’s traumatizing waters. Two years ago it was Final Destination, last year it was Saw, and this year, the goal is the Halloween franchise. In the meantime, I’ve been watching some iconic horror films, the ones that took part in shaping the genre; I’m talking the 1978 Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis, the 1980 Friday the 13th (baby Kevin Bacon was a pleasant surprise), Rosemary’s Baby, and The Blair Witch Project. Movies that aren’t truly scary (with the exception of Guy’s character and his spousal rape in Rosemary’s Baby—men are terrifying), but they perfectly exemplify how with modern special effects and cinematic evolution, their concepts were the start of something new. Slashers, found footage, and so on and so on.
Also, I never knew there were so many boobs shown in horror? News to me.
Creativity is at it’s finest in horror, and I will live and die on that hill. The warped and macabre minds of both writers and directors keep us on our toes with their ever evolving concepts. I’m of the mind that while it’s rather scandalous in nature, It Follows would’ve definitely intrigued Alfred Hitchcock. The book Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson would bring Stephen King immense joy. Perhaps it’s just my parasocial wishes to believe the icons of horror would all support one another, but so long as they’re all accomplishing making people pee their pants a little bit, I can’t imagine they aren’t.
Bear with me, as I’m catching up on the genre to make up for the many years I was undermedicated and couldn’t handle so much as a ghost story without heart palpitations. Now that I’m a big girl with big girl Lexapro and Wellbutrin dosages, I’m able to boast about my tolerance for the ghastly and ghoulish.
Or is it that I’ve seen the darkest corners of myself whilst clinically depressed, and some deeply horrific aspects of mankind through publicized genocides and white-supremacist presidents, that it takes much more to scare me than it used to?
Is it the adrenaline? Is it the dopamine? Is it the societal commentary it sparks? Think about movies such as Get Out or shows like Lovecraft Country. The creatives that birthed these stories, Jordan Peele and Misha Green respectively, found innovative ways to confront people with the horror that is racism, and and it’s very real-world implications, in not-so real-world scenarios. The Purge takes a shocking look at society’s potential (and hunger) for violence, American Psycho a satire of materialism and excess, and so on and so on.
So why do some of us weirdos love to consume scary media? Because I sure as hell hate to be scared in real life. If you sneak up on me, I’ll become Bambi in the headlights. I’m deeply conflict averse and shut down if and when I’m yelled at. So… make it make sense?
Coincidentally enough, whilst I’m writing this, there’s a girl going viral on TikTok for shitting on (and I say this with malice, because she did not mince words) the horror genre. I have no words, mostly because she proves a major point that I will discuss below. Fans of horror are intensely misunderstood, and therefore, often made to feel ‘other-ed’ or less than.
First things first, a disclaimer; there is nothing wrong with you if you enjoy horror. Now if you enact true horror in real life upon other people—go to a therapist, or perhaps turn yourself into the authorities.
On to the purpose of this piece. One of the most common arguments for why people love horror movies is somewhat obvious: you are safe on the other side of the screen. The same goes for novels; the horror is merely made up of words on a page. You and the evil are on different planes.
Boring. Reductive. Give me a better reason, please.
My thoughts, my questions, are these: do I like to watch and read twisted material because they expand on the already consistent state of fear I live in? Is it really the creativity I watch for, the wild ways death comes in movies like Final Destination? Do they merely distract from the existential dread that permeates through our modern society—providing a different kind of horror?
For example, in the texts below, my homegirl Jeannette and I are discussing the horror movie she’s about to watch with her friend, Martyrs. I told her I looked up the plot and was both horrified and nauseated (it takes quite a lot to do this), and told her, “you’re so strong”.
Does she just have a super set of iron balls on her? Or as she says, is it trauma that has desensitized? It was a total coincidence she said this, but boy has it been food for thought.
One thing I can say for certain is that horror keeps me present like no other genre—and thank you to r/horror rabbit hole I spent nearly an hour in—I learned that unsurprisingly this is very common amongst neurodivergent people. Refer to THIS thread alone, the countless comments of people relating to one another on how horror is one of the only things that truly captivates them and holds their attention.
Another source, funnily enough a blog post on litreactor1, speculates that horror sits differently with the neurodivergent community due to the industry’s dichotomous nature. The author, Lor, worded their hypotheses beautifully.
It [The horror industry] regularly breaks box office records, bringing in billions of dollars, yet some still see it as lesser, with critics suggesting anyone who enjoys films full of gore are “freaks.” Many wear this as a badge of honour. The desire to separate horror fans from the "normal" populace strikes a chord with me. I've struggled with self-doubt when people I know have voiced their discomfort with horror, worried that it makes me a bad person for liking it. As time goes by I've realized how silly this is. We are a diverse community, all connecting through an often misunderstood genre. I think this gives an inherent layer of compassion and introspectiveness, one that adds to the comfort and ease of interacting with others within the horror world and makes me proud to be a part of this space.
As someone who is ~speculatively~ neurodivergent and most definitely a highly sensitive person, the common threads here grow more and more fascinating. One would think excessive gore and consuming anxiety inducing media would overstimulate me to the brink—and while on occasion this is true, more often than not it isn’t. Just… don’t turn the volume too loud. I’ll become incredibly irritable.
And what about books? Because I can read nearly anything, even that which I cannot watch. Is the lack of visualization somehow helpful, even when my overactive imagination provides more than I could ever wish for? The gore I’ve read in some novels could make a nun swear, and cause my poor mother to faint.
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite is one of the most horrific novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. I do not recommend it to just anyone, only a select few people I know can handle what comes within those pages, and even then I’m tentative. Does it make me a freak because I find how grotesque it is to be done beautifully, even poetically? Brite is an amazing writer; any who consume her work would agree with this. It’s more what she chooses to write about that would… let’s say, concern the plebians. This specific piece of work is loosely inspired by the one and only Jeffrey Dahmer when he was at his peak of criminal activity, yet woven in with the AIDs epidemic and a genuine love story. I’ve never been so horrified, and all at once entranced.
With that, I wonder if it’s the psychological aspect that intrigues some of us the most. The adrenaline rush, the chemical cocktail that floods our brain, the chills down our spine.
Are we junkies for the grotesque, simply because it makes us feel something? When I turn on the TV or search for my latest read, am I merely looking for a fix?
As is the common conclusion with my pieces, I don’t have the answer. Always a thought daughter, and one that can’t help but yap about it heedlessly on the internet. From here, all I can and will do is curl up beneath my blanket with my Trader Joe’s Harvest Blend tea and watch Halloween H20 like I promised my friend I would.