Why Horror?

It’s the question that plagues every writer of the dark, the grotesque, the weird and uncomfortable and terrifying.

It’s also a pretty silly question. I mean, think about it. We don’t ask doctors, “Why medicine?”. You wouldn’t tell a soccer player that they’re wasting their talent kicking a ball across a field when they could be sprinting around a track. But when artists express an interest in the macabre, people balk.

Sure, you can argue that this is because horror is bloody and gory and gross, that it’s scary, that it makes people feel anxious and uncomfortable and that all of these factors make the genre taboo. Horror, like romance and fantasy and sci-fi and historical fiction, is not for everyone. It’s entirely valid to dislike it.

It’s also valid to love it, and, just like there are many reasons that people love things like country music or heavy metal, watercolor paintings and regency romances, there are countless reasons to love, to consume, and to create horror.

I can go on and on about what horror means to me. I can talk endlessly about how it was the first genre that showed me women — particularly ordinary, girl-next-door type adolescents — as the heroes of their own stories (big thanks to my earliest heroines: Buffy Summers, Nancy Thompson, and Sidney Prescott). I can talk about how the genre shines an unflinching light on taboo topics like death and grief and how it allows us to explore mystifying topics including ghosts and the afterlife. When I sat down to write about this topic, I thought about all of these things. But the thing is, I’m not the only one out here who loves to consume and create horror media. There are so many perspectives to consider, and so many reasons to love this strange, dark genre.

With this in mind, i took to Twitter and asked my fellow horror writers this age-old question: WHY HORROR?

Their answers were as deep and as varied as they work.

“[I]t allows me to ask the big questions,” said Loren Rhoads, author of This Morbid Life and 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die. “Why are we here? What purpose do we serve? What comes next?”

It can certainly be argued that other genres can ask these questions, but dark fiction author L.P. Ring pointed out that horror “…is a visceral way of dealing with real world themes.” It doesn’t shy away from the ugly or the uncomfortable. It leans into the dark and allows us, as both creators and consumers, to get down and dirty with difficult topics.

Even the great Stephen King has written that stories often begin with a what if? Perhaps horror simply allows us to explore the darker answers. What if no one believed a woman about the actions of her abuser (The Invisible Man)? What if a bullied, traumatized teenager discovered she had telekinetic powers (Carrie)? What if a grieving mother wanted to prevent the deaths of more children at the hands of careless summer camp counselors (Friday the 13th)?

All of these stories could be written in separate genres, but without the invisible abuser, without the prom night massacre, without Pamela Voorhees’s unhinged rage, they would be completely different. The blood, the desperation, and the psychological terror are integral.

In this same line of thought, Winter Graves author Luke Walker added, “[Horror] gives me a chance to show people at their best when faced with the worst.” Horror has a tendency to drop ordinary people — babysitters and suburban families, small town sheriffs and childhood friends — into extraordinary circumstances. It begs the question: What would you do to survive? How strong could you be if being strong was your only choice? [See also: What One Wouldn’t Do: An Anthology On the Lengths One Might Go To, edited by Scott J. Moses].

The intensity of the horror genre is another appealing factor, serving as an emotional catharsis for both creators and consumers of horror media. “We need to be scared and then comforted,” said speculative fiction author and poet Marsheila Rockwell. “[Horror] helps us to better deal with the…stressors in our lives that can’t be so easily released.”

Rockwell’s assertions are backed by science. Recent studies suggest that watching horror movies can help reduce anxiety and stress by allowing viewers to release pent-up tension in a safe, non-threatening environment. A similar study found that horror fans and the morbidly curious experienced less psychological distress and greater resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. This may also explain why horror films exploded in popularity in 2020, with increases in sales and streams of horror content and huge buzz around new horror releases into 2021.

Rockwell went on to describe the exploration of darkness as a means of understanding human nature. “Exploring darkness,” she explained, “helps us to better understand, identify, [and] protect against it.”

This sentiment was echoed by fellow poet Courtenay S. Gray, who attributed her love of writing and reading horror to its unflinching examination of dark themes. “[T]he macabre side of life is fundamental in broadening our understanding beyond our circle,” said Gray.

Horror also offers opportunities to turn inward. “Exploring our own personal darkness is a form of therapy,” Marsheila Rockwell continued. Likewise, L.S. Johnson, author of Seeds of Truer Natures, stated that horror, “lets me explore my inner monster.”

If you asked a dozen more horror writers, readers, filmmakers, directors, viewers you’d get a dozen more answers about what horror means and why folks love it. Researchers have explored the topic again, and again, and again, often coming to similar conclusions: horror media offers safe and secure thrill-seeking, allows us to “practice feeling scared”, and offers emotional catharsis. Horror allows us to explore the darkness around and within us, to ask and attempt to answer difficult questions, and to explore and explain our deepest fears in the safety and security of our own homes.

When it comes to creating horror, the reasons are just varied, but can be summed up in a sentiment expressed by both Marsheila Rockwell and L.P. Ring: “It’s fun.”