how does a person fall in love with horror

T A Newman of the Miskatonic Playhouse recently raised the question and subsequently wrote a piece that you can read here posing and answering the question ‘how does a person fall in love with horror?’

It’s an interesting question especially as someone who plays a lot of Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green which fall into the Cosmic Horror genre of tabletop role playing games.

Now straight away I am going to come right out and say that I find most of the ‘creatures’ and ‘entities’ in both games quite amusing and especially in terms of the greater entities in being given stats that allow you to come up against them. Most of the illustrations amuse me even more! But we will come back to this.

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

Now I feel as though I should clarify that this isn’t meant to be disrespectful to the creators or the artists skills. I love Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. The skill of the artists is not in doubt. It is rather that and especially in terms of the greater entities, they should be totally incomprehensible to us, the mere specs of dust that we are. It is more the notion of being able to picture or comprehend these entities that I find amusing. Of course, in game play you need stats to be able to poke at something or to be affected by it. However, for me the ‘horror’ is best left unseen and intangible apart from the effect it has on the mind or the perception of reality.

I can’t honestly say that there was a moment in time when ‘I fell in love’ with horror. I indulge in all genres (well most) of film, audio drama and writing. It must be said however that I am especially drawn to adventure, ‘horror’ and investigative works more than any other. I would in my case replace the word ‘horror’ with ‘suspense’. I am drawn to suspense and the unkown.

To quote a rather famous line ‘Nothing to fear but fear itself. And that is exactly it. What do most of us, possibly all of us fear and some more than others? The unknown. We are creatures of habit, familiarity and routine. We don’t like it when the routine is broken, when the familiar is replaced with the unfamiliar. We are all suddenly summoned to an out of the blue meeting at work – the heart race increases, this can’t be good. A letter arrives in the post with HMRC on it, uh oh, that can’t be good. We break down on a dark country lane at one in the morning, suddenly we are on edge - what was that noise? Our minds are programmed to dislike the unknown and chemical changes put us into various states of anxiety, panic, and irrational thoughts. All in the name of ‘protecting us’ the brain goes into what is termed System1 thinking. This is a state of rapid conclusions without using any reasoning. It has its uses for quick decision making and rapid action when there is need. The downside is it tends to kick in when there really isn’t any imminent need or danger, simply a perceived one. It makes assumptions in times of stress of anxiety and exacerbates the state we are in. Yes, if we suddenly find ourselves face to face with a snarling tiger, we want system 1. System1 changes everything - it focusses our attention, draws blood to the major organs, powers up our major muscles to fight or flee. We don’t want to stand there thinking ‘oh hmm, I wonder if that Tigers intents are honourable, is it snarling – ah yes, well that’s not good.’ Fuck that we just need to run or thump it, reasoning brain get out of here.

OK, so without going down a psychological rabbit hole let’s get back to horror and to my earlier comments concerning how I find the entities and creature in some of my favourite games (and in the majority of the general ‘horror’ genre) amusing rather than horrifying.

Once we can identify something it loses its mystique. It in some ways loses its power. Once you have seen the monster in the film it is a known. It may have had a ‘sudden shock’ moment on first appearing but now yeah it is the ugly oozy six-armed thing that walks upside down on ceilings. It might still be repulsive but it isn’t frightening. The psycho is going around with a chain saw eviscerating people. Yeah, shock moment, but second victim, well we know what is coming. It is still gory though. Victim number seven and we are thinking ‘here we go again, oh just get on with it’.

So, for me the over-the-top violence or the scary monster just leave me board and possibly cheering the baddie on.

What engages me is the unknown and that excites that System 1 brain function which then takes simple things and magnifies them. It puts your senses on alert, your heart rate increases, you experience tunnel vision and all the physiological effects of being in a state of high alert. During a good suspense film if someone knocks on your front door – you jump! System 1, we love you.

So, for me a horror film or game doesn’t have lots of over-the-top gruesome scenes, it also doesn’t have monsters that you can see. We easily become desensitised to those. I want and need for it to work my horror to be the unknown. The brooding presence in the background that is felt but not seen. The slow build in tension. The situation that evokes all those System 1 responses and primordial fears. The events that just aren’t quite right, the sounds heard but not truly discerned, the presence that haunts but can’t be identified.

That is why when I play call of Cthulhu the fear is built through the feeling that things are wrong rather than charge at the weird thing. The slow building dread that you and your world are being changed beyond your understanding or control. Even maybe that your world and everything you are familiar with and take for granted is a façade that now you are seeing glimpses through. There might be something lurking, but you will never see it. People might disappear around you, but you won’t see it. If you do it will be the merest vague movement on the periphery of your vision.

While the starting statement was meant to be a positive one ‘Nothing to fear but fear itself’ - lets flip that and say for me horror is ‘fearing and feeling the fear you create yourself’.