If you’ve been reading these newsletters (or met me in person), it’s probably pretty clear that I watch a lot of horror movies. I also read a fair amount of horror. I have since I was about 13 or so. In general, if people ask me what I’m into, I default to “general nerd.” I love sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, all of that. But probably the single most consistent genre in my life is horror. And that never stops being wild to me.
Because I was a scaredy-cat kid. I was terrified of the dark. Like screaming for help in the middle of the night terrified. I still am. I always make sure my closet door is tightly shut before I go to bed. I do not sit on my bed with my feet on the ground for very long because who knows what’s going to grab me and pull me under. Maybe there’s nothing under my bed. But maybe not. I’m not going to take that chance.
I have this vivid memory of being about 11 and, for some absolutely bonkers reason, allowed to go to the local video store (Video Junction in Leonia, NJ. RIP.) and rent some movies. My dad and stepmom had some adult affair to attend and I wasn’t going, so they let me go find some entertainment.
I went to the store and rented a pile of movies, way more than I could watch in the three or four hours that I was going to be home alone. One of those was the original 1931 Dracula, which I’d never seen at that point. I started it and was unable to finish it because, about five minutes in, before anything scary had actually happened, I was literally shaking with fear. I turned on every light in the house. Not just in the room I was in. Every single light in the house was blazing when my parents came home. Needless to say, they weren’t happy.
But then…something happened. I honestly can not say fully what it was. Horror movies had already been a regular part of my life. My dad’s philosophy on going to the movies was he was paying for it, so we were going to see whatever he wanted to see. I saw Blacula, The Omen II, Escape from New York on TV and in theatres.
I was scared of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, but I also started reading Stephen King books around the same time. Though, to be fair, reading Stephen King was more about his many, highly detailed sex scenes than the blood and guts. King is adept at combining the twin obsessions of young men: violence and sex.
By the time I hit about thirteen, I was a Fangoria kid. I think I can trace that back to seeing Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn in a crumbling movie palace in Ridgewood, Queens. The Evil Dead franchise remains my all-time favorite horror franchise. That Sam Raimi signature blend of gross-out practical effects and Looney Tunes humor opened up something inside of me.
In my life, I generally avoid pain and fear. I don’t do rollercoasters, I’m not big on Type 2 fun. I’m a creature of comfort. A couple of years back, I went to Universal Studios, just down the road from my apartment in North Hollywood. As I said, I’m not a big rollercoaster person, so I’m not a big theme park person. But it seemed like a fun place to go. When I was there, I rode The Simpsons ride. If you haven’t been to Universal, here’s something to know: they don’t have many “real” rollercoasters. They have digital ones. So, in The Simpsons Ride, you’re on a Krustyland rollercoaster…except the car doesn’t leave the ground. It just moves around in front of a big screen that shows a rollercoaster. I had the very best time. Because it had all the fun stuff of a rollercoaster, that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you hit a drop, the feeling of being out of control and flying through the air, bumping up and down…except I knew I was on the ground and perfectly safe.
That is, of course, the perfect metaphor for horror. Sure, when I’m watching Jason or Freddy or Michael Myers stalking their prey, I’m scared. I love a good jump scare. But then the movie ends and I’m just at home or walking out of the theatre and everything is just fine. All of the fear, none of the actual danger. (Yes, I know most rollercoasters are perfectly safe, but tell that to my lizard brain when I’m physically dropping 100 feet in a rickety machine. Maybe that last ride on the Cyclone at Coney Island scarred me more than I realized.)
There’s another thing that brings me back to horror again and again and it’s the thing that’s been fueling the recent horror revival: horror is the most malleable, most adaptable genre out there. Because it’s all metaphor. Yes, I live in Los Angeles, I’m an agnostic, I read my horoscope, I am open to the idea that there is more beyond our understanding of this world. But that doesn’t counteract the hard knowledge that most of our monsters are just human people doing things for human people reasons.
But a horror story gets to take a concept, an idea, a feeling and give it a physical form, teeth, claws and horns. It always a writer to be bolder, more insistent about their message without being too preachy (most of the time). Used well, a horror metaphor communicates how a thing feels, puts us in the point of view of the victim (or sometimes the monster) and lets us experience what they experience.
There’s a reason that movies like Sinners and Get Out struck such nerves. They made the experience of racism in this country physical and clear. It’s always been like that, but the recent years, the A24 horror years have really escalated it in, I think a good way. Horror has become a way to explore trauma, class, sex, race in interesting ways. And to connect the emotional lives of people.
This last year, I’ve really leaned into horror. Not just in my viewing habits, but in my writing. It has such power. Fear, discomfort, anxiety, those are such primal emotions. In the world we’re living in, they’re also very close to the surface for a lot of folks. The metaphorical architecture of horror makes it easier to access them and then to turn them into the most powerful emotional tool: empathy. If I can get you to feel what it feels to live in a country that is always threatening you, maybe you can understand the people who feel threatened a little better. Our cynical, anti-cringe times have inoculated people against compassion, but horror can be a way around that.
Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I do think I can scare the world into being a better place. I’m at least willing to try. The horrors persist…but so do I.