It’s been two weeks since ReaderCon ended. The day job has been a bit relentless, and I struggle to retain the dopamine rush of geeking out on weird books with other folks. Many of the panels had me thinking about my relationship with reading and writing horror. Especially with how I judge ‘success’ when writing horror.
A while back, during the height of the pandemic, I was getting into video blogging and recording. Stretching my old film school roots. And I did a series of blogs I called “The Horror Project.” With goofy music and visuals. It was all about how I struggled to write what I thought was ‘real horror.’
How did I define real horror? Well, I tried to figure it out with moderate success but in the end, my brain boiled it down to a joke from Beavis & Butt-Head. They’re watching a music video and Beavis says, “This is like one of those TV episodes where you think everything’s cool, but then you find out everything really sucks.”
To which Butt-Head says, in his best Twilight Zone twist voice, “But Beavis – everything does suck.”
Beavis responds with an ear-splitting “NOOOOOOOO!!!!” Butt-Head laughs. But that was basically horror to me. Things suck – and your protagonist thinks they’ve survived the suck but, NO! – everything sucks FOREVER! It’s the ending of the film The Mist over and over, for all eternity.
ReaderCon’s panels changed that thought for me.
Let me hit you with the panel names: “Horror and the Weird.” “Cozy Horror Fiction: Putting the Comfort in Discomfort.” “Optimism in Horror.” “Erotica, Horror, and the Fear of Visceral Fiction.” “Ghosts vs gore: styles of horror.” Lot of good food for thought.
But the moments that stuck with me were just two key sentences. The first: “Horror is about empathy for people in terrifying situations.” This is why I often treat slasher or ‘young pretty people in danger’ films as farces. I have no empathy for the characters, and am awaiting their creative demise. It becomes horror when I sympathize with and care about the people caught in this terrible situation. Or at the very least, find them interesting.
The other one came from John Wiswell. “No one should gatekeep what you consider to be horror.” This was from the “Optimism in Horror” panel, in response to me asking “Is it not real horror unless it’s the eternal ending of The Mist every time?” And it doesn’t. People can get out. The survivor may be in the back of a truck, screaming, but they’re alive.
And honestly, I like stories about survivors. “The horrors persist, but so do I.” It doesn’t downplay the horrors, but doesn’t downplay survival. After a nothing but edgelord downer endings for ages (“And the Rapening would continue-FOREVER!!!”) a good bloodied and bruised ‘lemme grab a drink’ ending helps.
Maybe this cracked it for me. But I know, even if others may not vibe with it, I have my own way of telling stories. I need to lean into that and never let anyone gatekeep what I consider to be horror.
As my #NoirAlley folks would say – see you in the Shadows.
Biomechanoid Blues 