Why Horror?

When the impulse to write a Young Adult novel first hit me (an impulse that would later sprout into The Haunting of Jessica Kane), I was not surprised that it was an impulse to write a horror story. I’ve long had a fascination with such stories, even as far back as early childhood where the world of Hansel and Gretel, with its forbidding forests, evil witch, and Gingerbread House—the perfect combination of tempting and terrifying—represented a world I wanted to visit again and again. The stories I found myself gravitating to throughout my youth were those that had an edge of the frightening to them, stories like Where the Wild Things Are, where the wild things share knowing glances with each other that seem to say, “That Max sure looks tasty.” As I grew older, my interests evolved and I poured myself into the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King.

And yet, despite this fascination with horror, I am also frequently repulsed by horror. I have no patience for gore, for the celebration of evil, or for stories that shock you simply for the sake of shocking you. I’ve seen this same tension in my students, one of whom once declared, “I hate horror and I love horror.” I’ve seen it in my children, particularly my oldest daughter who appears to embrace contradiction as a rule (she claims to hate chocolate and yet eats an awful lot of it). She regularly declares that she does not like horror; yet, ever since begging me at the age of three to tell her “a scary story,” she has been drawn to stories that frighten her.

For many people there is just some part of them that wants to be scared. I encourage my students to think through the reasons why they like the things they do. As for why people like horror, that is a question that scholars have struggled with for a long time, with suggestions ranging from the cathartic purging of negative emotions to the function of horror as social commentary to the “snuggle theory” (teenage boys enjoy watching horror when sitting next to a teenage girl who, at any moment, might require comforting).

If I turn the mirror on myself, I would highlight two reasons for my attraction to horror. The first is perhaps rather obvious: it’s the adrenaline rush. Horror is exciting and being scared makes the blood pump faster, the muscles in your body tense, and your brain start firing on all cylinders. The scariest book I’ve ever read was It by Stephen King. My best friend and I both read this book during summer break from college one year. For months afterward, neither one of us would set foot near a storm drain nor make eye contact with a clown. Why put ourselves through such torture? Because it’s just flat-out fun.

A deeper reason, though, for my attraction to horror is that it reminds us that the world is a mysterious place and that there is more to “reality” than what we can see with our eyes or touch with our hands. There are some things in life that are best glimpsed from the shadows. I believe horror does us a service when it reminds us that, despite all of our scientific advances and explorations of the world, there are things that remain outside our grasp. Sometimes we all need a little mystery in our lives.

#horror #JessicaKane