Horror and the End of October

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
By Alex Ness
Posted 10/25/2021

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” William Shakespeare

I have been contacted by some folks who think I focus far too much upon Horror.  They added to that an accusation of "How can someone who is Christian be a fan of Horror?". And to this let me say, the three most ardent fans of horror on my Twitter feed are Christians.  And while it could be debated, I'd argue that if depicted honestly and thoroughly, the Book of Revelations would need an R rating to depict the horrors it describes.  I am not suggesting it can't be portrayed otherwise, only that it couldn't be so powerful without the images that a direct interpretation should create.  So I'd say, Yes, a Christian or any sort of moral person can enjoy horror, but perhaps not for the reasons others enjoy the genre have for watching or reading or playing.

One point to make, before moving on, is that many people who like True Crime similarly to horror, for reasons that are polar opposite of what crime is, they seek an answer, to solve a crime, to know more about actual evil to understand it, and to fight it.  Sometimes what fascinates us isn't what we want, but what we want to fix and fight, or what we fear and want to fight.

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” G.K. Chesterton

I had an experience on Ebay that was funny, I thought, and I shared it on my facebook page.  I was going to look up Robert E. Howard's book with his works regarding Cthulhu, "Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors" to see how much it was going for on Ebay. As I was typing "Cthulhu Robert E." the predictive text feature offered Cthulhu and Robert E. LEE? As a child I was fascinated by Robert E. Lee and hadn't a clue who or what Cthulhu was, so this was a computer era fail that was personally funny.  I wrote on my facebook, recounting all that, and said, Is this how some of the most weird team ups in fiction happen? Cthulhu meets Robert E. Lee? I made a couple weird covers, but those didn't go over as well as the original post.

The point of my sharing is not because it was such a great chuckle, nor even that I was shocked that crappy condition copies of the Robert E. Howard book Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors go for 15 bucks or more, plus shipping. No, I was just thinking, how most team ups and literary meet ups suck. I don't suggest they all do, but some really do.  However, Cthulhu was made with such quality, because of the willingness of the creator of the setting and concept, H.P. Lovecraft, to allow the development of the mythos, freely, without blocking out of worries over the purity of the story. Sure, some of the stories might have sucked, or failed to advance the concept.  But, if you look harder, you can see a broad, interesting concept, that has a quality that endures. That is, Lovecraft allowed a shared universe and the result was a diverse and wonderful body of work.  It makes one wonder what would have happened if Robert E. Lee did meet Cthulhu.

WHEN I ENJOY HORROR AND WHEN I DO NOT ENJOY HORROR

I find that what I like is either Kaiju (and have spoken often here about them), Giant monsters and all adversaries, the settings and events associated, and the Universal monsters template, of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. So I probably don't "enjoy" horror.  I enjoy the stories of monsters. What many people associate with horror, the vulgar, the violent, the graphic and the bloody are events and traits of creative books, movies, comics and games, I find rather boring or uninteresting. Someone who knows me well has pointed out that as a historian I am aware of the darkest moments of human existence as well as the progress, so horror doesn't offer to me what it offers to others.

I should mention, that I've watched many dozens if not hundreds of videos of surgical procedures, they fascinate me, and the bleed and damaged flesh do not strike fear or horror in me.  Perhaps I am alone or have few friends similar to me in that fashion. There are people who love roller coasters, I do not. There are people who love haunted houses, I do not.  I am not a fan of jump scares. I'm not a fan of the grotesque, unless it is the point being made, and only rarely the perverse. The amount of blood shown or the greater the violence graphically depicted do not move me. Movies like the Evil Dead, comic books like Evil Ernie, and a variety of works that focus upon abuse of the flesh rather than creating intellectual fear bore me, perhaps even offend me.

And lastly I do love Alien, Predator and similar sort of films, but I get told, even often, that they don't qualify as horror, and are instead SciFi.  So take that as you will.  However, I would say, they don't actually scare me, while maybe they are dark, but... oh, I see it now, that is why they are is SciFi and not horror.  Gotcha.

THE HORROR THAT HAS SCARED ME

Shoah was heartbreaking, but real, as such it was horrifying due to the truth and reality of it. Movies and documentaries about the Holocaust and similar themes of Genocide ought scare you. Some are immune, but not me, especially as a historian. Night of the Living Dead scares the crap out of me.  For reasons that are spoilers, you will understand why both work as such, but I'd rather not explain it. The movie Duel was so grueling and relentless it might have felt like roller coaster, but it was so perfectly done, I never felt that it relied upon a camera angle or action that surprises to create the horror going forward. 

As an example, I was alone, for the first time overnight with my parents off to a wedding and overnight stay a 3 hour trip in the distance. I could stay up as late as the television would provide horror movies.  I was 12 years old.  The relatively cheap movie Frankenstein meets the Space Monster was on television, and some certain scenes, however cheesy, freaked me out.  It isn't a great film, but it worked in ways, and perhaps because I was alone, aware of the dangers of the world outside of my home, I remembered it throughout my life, and actually, I still remember it rather distinctly.

About Getting Reviews from Me

First off, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter or through email at Alexanderness63@gmail.com. I accept hard copies, so when you inquire at any of these places, I'll follow through by telling you my street address. I no longer have a post box, although I regret that.  It was a crushing defeat to no longer have a p.o. box, when I came to realize I was getting so little product it made no sense to pay for the privilege to not receive mail at both my home and at the post office. If you send hard copies for review I will always review them, but if you prefer to send pdf or ebooks to my email, I will review these at my discretion. I don't share my pdf/ebooks, so you can avoid worry that I'd dispense them for free to others.

MY LINKS:
My Poetry Blog AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com
My Published Work  AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com/2007/01/My-Work.html
My Amazon Page Amazon.com/author/AlexNess
Lovecraft Styled Horror CthulhuDarkness.Blogspot.Com
Atlantis and other Lost Worlds AlexNessLostWorlds.Blogspot.Com

“I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.”  H.P. Lovecraft