The Nature of Horror
I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’m not very interested in being scared. According to one Glenn M. Benest, “We like to be scared because it helps us face and overcome our most primal fears from childhood.” 1 Well, maybe you want to overcome your primal fears, but I’m pretty comfortable with ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist. Not everyone shares my – perfectly rational – view, though. Horror as a genre seems to exist for no other reason than to scare us. Gina Wisker states that “we enjoy the chill with which [Horror] disturbs our sense of comfort and equally enjoy the way it then finally […] returns us to that comfort, secure.” 2 That’s debatable. A lot of Horror stories do end up with a resolution, but not all. “The Abduction Door” by Christopher Golden ends with the main character saving his daughter, yes, but the true horror begins – now he must steal thirteen children. 3 “The ...
