Thoughts about Halloween Horror

Ok let's start this puppy up Darlings.

So, I was wondering about Horror and Halloween. It's just well, I don't like being scared because its very irrational but well, in horror you end up dead. I don't want to die so it's a survival tactic. Stupid right?

But there is something More to it I feel. Why is it that people love horror? Is the blood, the violence, the stupid unimportant sex that NO ONE SHOULD EVEN BE DOING, the villians? Maybe and those are good ideas. But well it's just not psychologically interesting to me. I mean when we were just kids, we liked getting spooked and getting free candy. (Still love and will trick or treat no matter how old, Just as long as I'm in a costume, someone better give me my Resee's candies and Butterfingers! (This is in case any of my family members want to give me some trick or treat goodie baskets! But what is it that makes horror of Yesterday and Today so important?

Well, I learned a new word not so long ago and I think it might be the reason why we love horror and maybe hopefully, I can muster my courage to maybe write something horror related one day. The word is Catharsis, Greek for Cleasning or ... well Catharsis. (It's not proper to use a word to define the same word but not every word in a foreign language is easily translatable to the English and is the same with all other languages.) Even when I did muster my courage for some of the more scary video games I mentioned Last Week, there is this element of horror we see that we like because well It makes us braver. I know it sounds ridiculous but that was a primal part of tragedy where when we saw good characters do bad things because fate dicated it or it was of their own flaws, in the end despite what was done, they do make things better in the end but they die. We feel sympathetic towards them. In a similar fashion with horror, we want to face the monsters despite how uncontrolled we are in Horror.

In the book, The Silence of the Lambs, A book I suggest reading and I will suggest again tomorrow for my book list, Clarice Starling stars in a thriller about finding a mysterious serial killer and her only link is Psychoanalyst Hannibal Lecter. He's done awful things: manipulating patients, murdering and devouring people, enforcing cannibalism unknowingly on others are a few of the main ones. But yet we feel stronger knowing him. It's fun and interesting knowing him because unlike Clarice, we are one step away by either reading the book or watching the movie. Seeing Clarice hunt the killer down also makes it fascinating but also looking into the killer's psyche is another part of this novel and is just as pivotal for Cathartic experience. Basically, Catharsis develops in different ways for different mediums. Comedy provides us with just looking back on the human experience, Tragedy finds to what makes us human, Science Fiction and Fantasy provide escapists worlds that are just as human as our own to examine ourselves and other issues with society, and Horror makes us stronger for that same experience of downfall, sorrow, and paranoia.

But I don't really see that in today's horror. It's not about this growing up with strength. It's more about jump scares and cheap tactics, (But even if they are cheap, they still work on me) instead of developing our heroes, even if they do die. That's what I liked about Silence of the Lambs even though you wouldn't expect me to watch or read that book. (I haven't watched the film but I did record it to watch later. I did watch Red Dragon and Hannibal though. Just as chilling though i did prefer Red Dragon for the same reasons as I mentioned why I like Silence.) It's very difference from developing the sense of helplessness that comes from it. It's weird that I mention another horror writer who focused a lot on this helplessness, H.P. Lovecraft known for his Cthulu Mythos of cosmic entities who don't care what happens to the world. Their power is insurrmountable, and humans can't do anything to stop it. Ironic since many board games and video games make it possible to fight and win against Cthulu when you can't win. The End. I'm just weary of reading Lovecraft because personally, he was quite an elitist in the worst of the sense. (I know I'm sounding like an SJW, but a guy who says Catholics, Germans, Irish, African-Americans and non-WAPS are inferior in a class heirarchy of who is better than one another is a collectivist ass in my book. It's like how I feel about Roman Polanksi, mixed with wanting to like his works but hating his disgusting ass.)

But back to Horror, Maybe what we need is that kind of Horror Lovecraft and others have made in the past, warning danger and helpless dread to stop it. And hopefully I can muster my courage to watch Crimson Peak this Halloween. It's a good step, don't judge me!