Logic vs. Horror vs. Scares

     I am an associate editor for Dark Moon Digest, which is a great experience all around. But it has been making me think a lot lately about the nature of the horror genre. Not too long ago there was a discussion amongst some of us about what our favorite horror novels are. It was good mix of things, and it really highlighted the fact that horror, like humor, is a very individual thing.

     For example, I’m not really scared by slashers, monsters, ghosts, or things of that ilk. Perhaps it’s because my love of the paranormal and Fortean matters means I find cryptids and hauntings fascinating, not frightening. I also have the problem where the logical part of my brain kicks in¹ and starts debunking things before I have a chance to really get lost in the scary atmosphere. Like, what happens in The Ring if you don’t watch the video all the way through? What if you get a few seconds in, decide “I don’t like this arthouse crap,” and switch it off? Or what if you just don’t answer the phone when the creepy girl-ghost calls to tell you you’re going to die in seven days? Is the clock still running, or does the curse have to wait until you check your voicemail? And what if you don’t have a TV? What does she crawl out of? See, stupid crap like that kills any scariness that might have been in the movie.

     On the other hand, I am freaked right the hell out by things that don’t really phase a lot of people². Like this anti-meth commercial. It ran a lot in here in the South, and it is pure nightmare fuel as far as I’m concerned. I find doppelgangers are scary as anything. Likewise, Danielewski’s House of Leaves gives me the willies, whereas a lot of people don’t get what’s scary about it.

     The best way I can describe it is to say it’s a matter of wrongness. I look at a situation where some kind of freaky ghost-clone of yourself shows up and I know that something is fundamentally messed up with the universe as I know it. My logic is useless. Give me a regular ol’ ghost and I think, “Well, let’s find out what’s pissed this spirit off so we can knock off all this haunting nonsense. Get the shovel, Jim-Bob³, we’ve got us a murder-victim’s body to find.” But what the hell is going on with the doppelganger? What does that have to do with anything, anywhere? The old legends say that they were a harbinger of doom, and I agree, because if I ever saw one I’d throw myself off a cliff to get away from it.

     Anyone who has read House of Leaves can probably see why that also constitutes a deceptively simply wrongness of the world. When rooms and corridors just appear in a house and defy physics, it’s time for sanity to pack up shop and move out of town.

     So, I guess you could say I have an irrational fear of irrational things. And that’s good, because I think that’s the kind of thing that is possible to capture in story form. See, many people were also talking in the aforementioned discussion about how books “aren’t scary.” I think these folks are mistaken by the meaning of the term. They have been conditioned to think that things that jump on the screen in time to a sudden blurt of music is scary, when anyone who knows anything knows that this is just startling. Just because you jump in your seat doesn’t mean you’re scared, it just means you have appropriate reflexes.

     No, something that is actually “horror” should leave a mark long after the brief jolt of adrenaline at the theater. It’s the kind of thing that should make you rig your closet door for years to come because you want to make sure you can hear it when the Boogeyman comes out⁴. When I get around to writing my horror novel, I hope that people say it was disturbing or unsettling. Scares are cheap thrills; horror is something that changes and inspires you.

     P.S. I’d love to hear what you guys find frightening (in terms of books/movies), just to go along with my informal survey about what kinds of things people are afraid of.

¹ My near-Vulcan level of devotion to logic is my downfall in more areas than just suspension-of-disbelief. My wife will often win arguments by appealing to my sense of logic. For instance, the toilet-seat dilemma was solved when it was pointed out to me that she sits 100% of the time and I only sit 50% of the time. Therefore, between the two of us, 75% of all toilet-encounter involves sitting. So, logically, I should keep the seat down, since that is the position it is needed for the majority of the time.

² And no, I’m not talking about dolls and mannequins. A lot of people are scared of those soulless mockeries of human life.

³ Jim-Bob’s pretty good at manual labor.

⁴ Thanks a lot, Stephen King.