Tag: horror

newbie not newbie: my history with horror

I never thought of myself as a horror fan.

I grew up with “horror” meaning either 1) gore, like the projectile vomit in “The Exorcist” or bleeding walls in “The Amityville Horror, or 2) something so terrifying it kept me awake. I particularly remember one sleepless week after finishing Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” (I know, but I was fourteen and lived with a big black cat at the time, after reading that book he was terrifying!)

Then I read through NPR’s 100 best horror stories and realized not only have I read and enjoyed about half the list but that my definition of horror was incredibly narrow.

I’ve read du Maurier’s “Rebecca” and Jackson’s “Haunting of Hill House” multiple times to savor the wrongness creeping in. I didn’t know “psychological horror” was a genre and now I find myself writing it.

Dracula, Carmilla, Lestat and Louis… well, I never found vampires scary. Quite the contrary. Being “the things that others fear” sounded like a good deal to my insecure teenage self. Many years post-goth and I still love vampires.

Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer giving the 2 finger salute
Except for the sparkly kind. Via.

The inclusion of Strieber’s “Communion” tickles me because while as non-fiction it’s controversial to say the least, it’s compulsive reading if you take it as fiction, with an “extraordinary intruding on ordinary” vibe that still gives me the chills.

So I’m going through this list with my library card (tangential: I forgot how much I loved the library! Online renewal and automatic download of e-books makes them even better!) because it turns out I am something of a horror fan.

An 11 year old Kirsten Dunst as child vampire Claudia in Interview with the Vampire: I want more

What’s a genre you never thought you would (or did) enjoy, until you did?

just the right amount of fear

I have an uneasy history with horror.

On the one hand it’s unbearable. I hate jumping at every damn thing just because of words on a page. At the same time elegantly creeping horror is impossible for me to put down.

I admire Stephen King – I know it’s cliché but he really is a master of subtle terror. Having said that, I’ve only ever read “Pet Sematary”. Even though it stole two weeks of sleep during my teenage years (with the help of the family cat), I remember renewing my library checkout for it anyway.

Whitley Strieber’s “Communion”, however, casts the longest shadow. Before the first page you’re treated to this:

Painting of gray alien with huge wrap-around eyes an an enigmatic smile from the cover art of
Makes me flinch but I can’t look away. Courtesy Tumblr.

Then the story starts, and though Strieber’s claim that it’s contentious to say the least it’s damn near perfect horror. I started to imagine I’d see one of these every time I turned around, and that they could and would get at me no matter how much security I had or how many friends I surrounded myself with.

That ability to compel someone to keep reading despite their fear is power, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that power for myself. While I don’t necessarily want my readers to lose sleep I’d love it if I can make the hair on the back of their necks stand up when Edward Kelley first hears voices, or look over their shoulders the first time one of his “spirits” materializes.

I’m just afraid it’s over my pay grade, so to speak. And I’m too terrified to do the necessary homework (i.e. read King’s entire back catalog and brave “Communion” again) to learn by observation.

What about you? What books or genres do you find utterly impossible to put down though they make your skin crawl (in fear, disgust, or something else)?