BLOG: The underrated art of horror

I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about horror that I just can’t say, “No” to.

Horror forces us to question our mortality − and I love it. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a typical white, suburban way with very little conflict. Because of that, I was never forced me to actually face death. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been able to look at dying in an objective way, no matter how much it would freak my family out, (Sorry mom). Maybe it’s because I’m weird. Whatever the reason, I love what horror does to an audience on screen and in a book.

Scary things and evil creatures make people squeamish in a way that other genres just can’t touch. Terror affects people, and one day, I hope my own writing has as much of an effect on people as the things that go bump in the night.

“Dead Silence” forces us to ask if we’re all just puppets. The “Saw” saga freaks people out not only because of the gore, but because it makes us all wonder if we would sacrifice another person to save our own hides. The Internet allows society to point fingers, judge and say, “If that were me, I would have…” as much as we want to. Horror movies make us live the situation and force us to realize that we might not be as honorable as we think we are.

I once had a newspaper publisher ask me who I aspired to write like; was it Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Anderson Cooper or someone else? My answer: “Stephen King.”

Yeah, it might have sounded weird, but once I pick up a Stephen King novel, I simply can’t put it down. While Anderson Cooper can keep me entertained, he has certainly never forced me to question whether humans are inherently evil or if it’s a product of their surroundings and upbringing.

Amidst all the blood, gore and badly timed sex scenes, the horror genre forces us to look inside ourselves and question our morals. Viewers pull the blankets up over their head when the axe murderer strikes because death is scary. That feeling of being scared comes from the primal urge to survive, and horror makes people ask themselves just how far they would go in the name of self-preservation.

Frankly, Jason Voorhees of the “Friday the 13th” movies has had more of an effect on me than most journalists. Jason taught a generation that only the inherently good will survive, like the virgins or well-behaved children. The fornicators, liars, cheats and perverts are always the first to be chopped into bloody bits, and that has had more of an effect on how I live my life than Woodward and Bernstein’s stories about Watergate.

Granted, fantasy and horror writers have a much more interesting and vast base of topics to choose from than the average journalist, but I think it’s important to keep in mind the way they write. Journalists need to be fair and accurate, but being interesting is also important.

So, for the sake of all that is scary, always turn on the lights, never try to save your loved ones once they’ve turned into zombies, don’t go into that deserted house and please, please remember that these life lessons all came from a genre that has been considered lowly and tawdry for years. It’s time for horror to rise above and take its rightful place as something much more meaningful than we all give it credit for.