GENRE 101 – Horror

“My revenge has just begun! I spread it over centuries and time is on my side.”

Bram Stoker, Dracula

Imagine for a moment, how it must have impressed the prehistoric humans, after having mastered the ability to conjure and control fire, to realize that they were unable to carry a torch into the mountains. Despite making sure it was potent enough to last the way, the flame was still snuffed out if they went deep enough into the cave. They would be left disoriented, blind, confused, dizzy. Did they panic and faint, see strange visions and feel, as if someone or something was strangling them in the dark?

They could not have known about the interplay of oxygen levels and fire yet, nor why it made breathing harder and causes them to hallucinate. If they managed to return to their people, they would tell them to avoid the tunnels, for unexplained and harmful forces were at play down there, some dark entity hiding in the shadows. Considering the fear they must have felt, who would blame them for coming to this conclusion? Even today, with the light switch only inches away and a reliable supply of power to fuel it, we still sometimes wake up in the dark of night and feel like we are not alone, especially when we are.

When something inexplicable happens, we wonder if it was just a coincident, an accident or arranged by design. If we had to watch all of our family members and friends suffer from the same illness without an apparent cause, is it easier to believe in random misfortune or an active agent in our demise? When the plague hit Athens in the 4th century BCE, they blamed the gods, despite being one of the most advanced cultures when it came to medicine. Instinctively they knew there was an agent at work, they just had a hard time figuring out what kind of agent.

As a species, we fought our way from prey to predator and somewhere along the way we became suspicious and obsessed with recrimination. Still in our seemingly save new world we always feel like someone or something is after us to do us harm. We could call this notion a necessary evil. Noone enjoys being scared, but it keeps us alive.

The Psychology of the Unexplained

We are mortal. Therefore, our instincts tell us to always expect the worst and be prepared for it as best as we can. But unfortunately, the bad experiences we make can not always be explained and even though we try to find their cause we are left with an eerie feeling that what has happened was the result of supernatural intervention. We try to make sense of it and create dark forces within our minds.

If we pair this basic view of cause and effect with unexplained sightings of shadowy figures, familiar yet disembodied voices and visions of the departed in dreamlike states, it is only a small step from the belief in the animated universe to a world were a physical body housing a spirit can turn into a ghost at the loss of that body. It is this traumatic break with the reality of the natural world that has not only given traction to the emergence of religious practices but also to the rise of horror stories. They are as old as the spiritual awakening of mankind.

The common theme for this type of tale remains the same to this day: Death, the “Undiscovered Country” as Shakespeare’s Hamlet muses after encountering the ghost of his father while watching armies of the living march cheerfully to their certain demise. All the aspects of physical destruction as well as the corruption of the unknown thing inside this body of flesh may come under the looking glass of the horror story writer, the soul that, turned into a monstrosity, can destroy the mind and lives of others.

Hence, this entertaining genre of storytelling turns out to be the most philosophical of them all. It was created to ask the most difficult questions that lead faith, principles and moral guidelines ad absurdum: what if death was neither peace in heaven nor bliss in nirvana? And what if those disappointed by this revelation came back to avenge themselves on the living?

History Of Horror

One of the better known ancient ghost stories was that of Khonsuemheb, an Egyptian priest from the 12th century BCE who encountered a grieving ghost whom he after the request promised to rebuild his collapsed tomb. While the ghost is in fear for his crumbling memorial, a threat much more serious in those days, the priest is reminded that one day it may be his own soul that needs his eternal shelter rebuilt and by giving service to the tomb of the ghost, he reinforces and promotes the tradition of care.

The themes of this genre reflect the universal worries of the people even though old horrors often receive a new face in respect of the different eras. The ghost encounter is probably one of the oldest and longest-lasting themes. It strikes close to the heart of the human being, whether they are in doubt of the existence of the soul or not.

While prehistoric people shrunk away in fear of lightning and fire, vicious predators and the depth of caves worming through the mountains, the people of antiquity began to explain the spiritual animus and the visible phenomena of energy by adding soul to the tale. The Egyptian and Greek literature is populated with ghosts of those long passed who have somehow not crossed over to the Underworld and are dismayed by the fact. For those who missed the boat to the safe havens of eternity or those whose memory has been forgotten, becoming a ghost has always been a hellish prospect, even before the Bible came about. Ghosts are cursed by fate. The image has held its shape and form to this day. They do not only fail to know what heaven looks like, they often do not even know how they were barred from entering and when they will be allowed to rest.

Pliny the Younger wrote the tale of The Haunted House which has become the blueprint for many ghost stories written since then, including Hamlet. Here the disembodied spirit directs the new resident of his home to the resting place of his bones. Only a proper burial can free it. Ghosts no longer control, they have become helpless. They come to haunt the living not out of malice but out of need: The living still have time and they can right the wrongs the dead have caused or consented to in their lifetime. Contacting the living is the only chance for a ghost to find some peace.

But benevolent ghosts which frighten the living out of necessity were not enough to explain all the misfortunes that befell the people. With Christianity came a separation of spiritual and philosophical entities into agents of good and evil. The main concepts remained the same but were renamed and rebranded. Dangerous animals were seen as shape-shifting humans craving human flesh, transmuting, when seen through the religiously tinted lens, into demons incarnate. Supposedly magically induced objects became the tools of the devil, given to wizards and witches. This development reached its peak during the witch trials in the Renaissance, a time of great progress, marred by spiritual anxiety that turned human history into a real-life horror story. Those were the days, when Shakespeare wrote his Hamlet, who wondered if the ghost he saw may be the devil. If he had not doubted his perception, the story would have turned out very differently.

Once the time of the witch hunts came to an end and technology took a great leap forward, the typical horror themes became the subject of spiritual disenchantment. But with scientific progress it turned out that even though many of the most pressing questions could be answered, there were even more terrifying ideas and so many more questions. Those were the days of writers like Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, Gaston Leroux and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of which asked deeply philosophical questions, utilised science and logic and often played with the perception of the reader.

Frankenstein’s Monster is not simply a warning to those in science and technology who know no limits, it embodies a timeless fear that goes back at least to the myth of Osiris, whose body had been torn to pieces, who had to be reassembled only to reign over the world of the dead henceforth. Vampires, just like cannibals, neatly fall into the category of the relentless predator, who snatched children and virgins because of the sweetness of their blood. Bram Stoker made them irresistible and even more powerful by giving Count Dracula the ability of teleportation and telepathy.

Le Phantom de L’Opera and the numerous Sherlock Holmes stories mark the crossing of the genre into what is known as Mystery, a genre that did not exist before. It was a time of criminal cases so mind-boggling and terrifying that people had a hard time refraining from speaking of the devil. Both Gaston Leroux and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle toyed with that perception. The Hound Of The Baskervilles has turned a sinister prophecy into reality, before Holmes can uncover the plot of deception. The Phantom too seems like a ghost of divine skill and demonic temperament until the mask comes off.

Modernity has brought back fundamental fears for survival but a new cloak has been tailored to fit our level of advancement. Evil forces are no longer directing the fate of humanity but science and technology have taken their toll and enhanced the spectrum of possibilities. The monsters of days long past are no longer of this world, but from other planets. The plague has turned everyone into Zombies. Ghosts do no longer seek help, but revenge on all of humanity, indiscriminately of individual guilt.

We approached a point where we could explain away many of the mysterious phenomena, yet the fear remains. We chose to chase after rhe shadows that harbour the unknown and inexplicable. They seem to bow out from under the light we shine on them, but they only move, they never vanish. Horror always chooses the most sinister plot, like instinct always expects the worst case scenario. It keeps the human mind on its toes so to speak. The joy in fright, the obsession with the grisly tale may be as blatant as the relief in thinking of the worst and not having to live through it in reality.

A Genre In Trouble

Stephen King is undoubtedly one of the most successful and popular horror writers of the 20th Century and one of those responsible for the fact that the goal posts of the genre have been moved further and further into explicit and graphic imagery. He described his work as an interaction between himself and his reader as follows:

As a writer in general, and especially as a horror writer, it becomes second nature to go into the dark places, the ones parents, teachers, priests and psychologists warned about. But as a creator of worlds one has to understand the personality of all characters, whether they are good or evil, whether they are wholesome or depraved. In that quest you will get used to asking the tough questions, look at that which other people would like to avoid. Morbidity, immorality, murderous intentions and brutal intensity are no roads block for your story, but destinations.

Stephen King’s battle plan is a practical one, when it comes to selling the brand, but it is at the same time also an admission of defeat and he makes no secret of it. His work is an attempt to force a reaction from the reader after terror and horror have failed. The only philosophical lesson left at this final stage is not the wonder when facing the unknown, not fear of the unexplained powers, but a base disgust on the physical level. Peel away the flesh suit, skin the biological shell off the human being and identify the remains with the core of it. There is nothing left inside, no soul, no higher power, nothing but bloody tissue. Does it really surprise anyone that even the living in modern horror stories behave as if they are already dead?

Yes, Horror as a genre seems to have lost its soul. Hamlet was still deeply shaken at the sight of his friend’s skull, which instantly made him reflect on his own mortality. Detailed descriptions of mutilated bodies have become so commonplace in literature and television that people hardly ever raise a brow, not even at the sight of a real one. We do not ask the questions anymore because nothing makes us shudder, hence the genre has become completely uninspired. And its getting worse: Horror, stripped off its philosophical foundation, keeps bleeding over into the Mystery genre, into Science Fiction and Fantasy, turning them into banquets of chopped up human beings as well. It is a dangerous development and it will take a new generation of writers to restore the roots of this ailing tree, a tree that has many branches and twigs, yet still stem from the same soil.

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