As October draws to its end, I felt it only natural to discuss the subject of monsters as today’s post, and not the kind one would find in black lagoons or Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. More specifically, two different kinds of monsters, three if you count what the mind is capable of on its own. Horrors of a much scarier nature, because they are a part of daily life for us all.
Anyone trying to venture into writing in the horror genre will be familiar with the phrase “nothing is scarier.” What that means is simply that not showing the monster and utilizing the other senses makes for a much more terrifying experience. One good (overall) film that does this in my opinion is the movie Chernobyl Diaries, at least up until about the last ten seconds of it. Of course, writing does this as well, such as in H. P. Lovecraft’s The Beast in the Cave. Each individual’s tastes are different, however, so I’ll not spoil the plot to either story, and so you are free to look it up if you choose to do so, but how does this connect to real horrors? Both stories play with the premise of the unknown, and so in robbing the observer of the visual of these monsters, the mind creates something so much more terrifying than anything a special effects team could think up.
Outside of the unknown, there are other demons we deal with on a daily basis, all stemming from fear. As I just stated in the last paragraph, the mind is capable of dreaming up a number of ghoulish fantasies that could make the bravest among us cower in fear, but this act does not limit itself to the world of fiction. Surely, we’ve all felt it; picturing something going wrong that could embarrass us, drawing a blank for a presentation you’ve been preparing for weeks, even something as basic as playing out an uncomfortable but inevitable situation that’s lurking around the corner. There are those among us who skip to the endings of books to read how it ends before starting the first chapter precisely because not knowing the ending causes them more stress than the roller coaster that the writer might take them on. Many of these reasons tie back into our fear of the unknown, and can be more frightening than anything that you have a clear picture of.
The last thing of the real world I can think of that could rival some of the worst horror movie monsters out there is something that often looks like the hero; people. The late Steve Irwin had a quote about describing the type of creature he worked with, and to some seem preferable to dealing with people. “Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.” Perhaps I’ve just been around the wrong type of people, but this is why I prefer animals; they’re more predictable than some humans. Another reason is because what you see isn’t always what you get; sometimes beauty only runs skin deep, and hides a more distorted and twisted face.
At the end of the day, humankind is filled with creatures more heinous than anything a writer could put into a horror script, and some of our stories scarier. The simple answer is we can’t always discern what means us harm from what comes to us with honest intentions. At the end of the day, the unknown remains our biggest fear because we are free to plug in anything our minds come up with in the void that is there. In my opinion, we lose our fear of the dark only when we start to realize what that void could be filled with.