If dark fantasy and some of the other delightfully edgy shades of storytelling draw on horror (like I said last time), just how many variations does horror have? What kind of sinister heart does it have at the center of all those, how far can it stray away from that, and what does it have in common with Jane Austen?
–I admit, I’m not a full-time reader of horror (or Austen) over the other styles I follow. I’d also never say a tale “isn’t horror” if it crosses some specific line, but I’m interested in what all the genres have to lend each other and different ways to strike a balance. So let’s take a look:
First off, dark fantasy… it may draw on the “darker” side of the “fantastic” (you’ll meet more demons than angels), but it’s not writing with the same aim as horror. You can find plenty of articles like Alan Baxter’s at The Creative Penn, http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2009/07/19/dark-fantasy/, that spell out how full-on horror takes its name seriously: it’s out to scare us.
Or take Alien. And then, Aliens.
The first is well-known as “a horror movie in space,” and it’s a doozie: dark tunnels, a literal “monster within,” and even Sigourney Weaver’s survival making her a “Final Girl.” The sequel has the same danger, but instead of one xenomorph terrifying a handful of crew, the suspense shifts to dozens of critters and hundreds of bullets fired by doomed soldiers. Still dark, still a fine tale in its bloody way, but “Game over, man! Game over!” isn’t the same kind of spooky, is it?
Call it an ironic pattern:
[bctt tweet=”Other genres tend to creep into and take over territory that used to be #horror’s. http://bit.ly/1M1jdfB”]
Consider how vampires—even not counting the romantic spins on them!—seem less and less likely to be a sinister, unstoppable Dracula classic or a Salem’s Lot. Instead, they more often build up their own vast but killable hordes like The Strain. Or more often still, the monster-fighting heroines (or heroes, yes) have more supernatural power as the beasties themselves: Buffy, Blade, Kate Daniels, and whole shelves of anime super-action seem to be making Jonathan Harker’s very human struggles obsolete.
Or zombies. “First the zombies overrun the world, then comes the hard part,” pushes the fear to a whole different scale. Dodging a few Walkers, or even blowing them away, becomes only the punctuation for the real question, of what it takes to survive for days and years in that world. Like any apocalypse, that’s more an extra-dark Speculative Fiction than pure horror.
Do we take horror for granted?
So here’s a question: with all the demon-powered Slayers and horde-kicking survivors on our book covers, does that mean we’re less and less interested in simply being scared?
Horror certainly never goes away, but it can seem like it loses ground sometimes. But here’s a theory: how does that pattern of horror’s shift look, from the viewpoint of the storytellers—or the horror story itself:
- Horror’s easier to sell (in some places!) than action or other genres, because fear is so primal.
- Good horror can starts varying its base, to stay fresh; bad horror-makers lose track of it before they know it’s gone.
- Result: it can be true horror that gets its foot in the door, and then it spreads out and takes on other forms.
(Hope that description was as spooky as it deserves!)
To look at that second step again:
It’s often said that horror draws a lot of its power from the unknown, the sense of facing a kind of danger we can never truly understand. I think that puts an extra pressure on horror writers to either start with concepts the reader doesn’t know as well, or show how they can mutate them. –Same as for any other genre, of course, it’s only that “Same old vamp” can be a bigger letdown than “Same old gangster.”
Even horror’s plot shows some of that evolution. Watch any number of old Universal Studios monster movies and you’ll see the creature shambling slowly toward its prey, showing off how many bullets it can shrug off. But the more “so it’s armored” began to seem like a cliche, the more movies had to look for other kinds of unstoppability. (Not that that can’t have its uses: consider the original Terminator, something you can’t shoot and that only needs a phone book and a clear view across the room to shoot you.)
But, compare to ghosts. Ghosts (fittingly) never seem to go very far out of fashion, and neither do possessing demons and other less-than-solid horrors. I’d say that’s for one simple reason: it’s a huge head start to have an enemy you can’t see until it wants you to, and that you can never simply hurt. Build a story around a ghost and the hero has no chance except to enter the spirit’s own world of rules and try to find a weakness that makes no human sense. Not many werewolves inspired as deep a terror as the victims scrambling to make it through The Ring, let alone The Exorcist.
Horror’s eye of the beholder?
Then again, “unknown” is a matter of perspective, and we storytellers own perspective. Some monsters may make it easier to force the heroes out of their comfort zone, but it’s better still to simply bring that hero’s comfort zone to life and show how any evil that really tears into it is horrific enough.
For instance:
Stephen King wrote two famous books both about girls with paranormal powers pushed toward becoming monsters. But Charlie and Carrie (ah, those matching names! King was having fun, wasn’t he?) take different routes, simply because the former had a loving father who gave her a reason not to burn up the world. The latter never had a chance.
[bctt tweet=”#Firestarter < #Carrie: one has running from The Shop, the other has teen bullying and child abuse.”]
It’s more than a rule about villains, monstrous or not. What really brings a predator to life is the right prey and making us believe we’re there in that hunting ground, hoping Jamie Lee Curtis can turn the tables on Michael. It’s the whole connection between villain, hero, and everything else lining up to make the fear real. And any of those can let the story down; it’s often said:
[bctt tweet=”Bad #horror’s first sin is a boring villain. Its *worst* sin is a boring hero. http://bit.ly/1M1jdfB”]
Or look at gothic horror, that can build up so much atmosphere it barely matters if the threat turns out to be the Devil himself or “only” a madman. And consider, how much of that menace comes from the sheer dependency of the hero(ine)’s position: usually a destitute bride or helpless orphan child (or both), she’s vulnerable in whole other ways. Even if the lurking danger doesn’t kill her, if that enemy turns out to be the one man in the world who was willing to take her in, much of her life is over anyway.
–And that’s what I’d call the connection between horror and Jane Austen. No, Pride and Prejudice isn’t a long study in terror, no matter how many men (who didn’t read it) say it is. But any romance of the time has at least a bit of a thriller edge behind it: who a 19th-century woman marries has much higher stakes than a modern prom date. One wrong choice or twist of fate could leave a woman the property of a man who gambles away their money, beats her, or worse. And any romance that focused on that would count as full-blown horror.
I’d call that the essence of horror, something that it mixes with other genres any way it wants: taking us to a place of helplessness.
Many genres say the villain isn’t complete without a vicious, devastating “gun,” facing down a hero who has a right to his own “gun.” Horror says the villain has a devastating “gun” and the hero has a set of antlers.