Introduction
The modern horror genre has been around since the 18th century, roughly 200 years, but has existed since man became self-aware. For as long as we’ve been self-aware, the human race has always found something to be afraid of, whether that’s: predators, pain, death, losing loved ones, or the supernatural. Fear has always been around. A large number of people have utilised that fear through stories to provide warnings or for entertainment. People like H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and even our own parents. Most of these tales never stick though, why is that? Do we simply grow out of fairy tales? If so then how has the genre survived for this long? What makes a story scary and when does it stop becoming scary?
What makes horror scary?
Scaring an audience is the key element, and driving force, for the creator when it comes to making horror. But what makes horror scary? The definition of fear can be described as “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc.”. Jumpscares are a common tool used in the genre, but is that an emotional reaction? No, jumpscares cause the body to physically react to possible danger. Once the jumpscare passes we are either left on alert or the moment passes and we calm ourselves down, until the next jumpscare. It can be argued that is NOT fear as it’s just a temporary reaction. Something scary needs to cause a reoccurring state of stress that will leave someone in constant panic and fear. Video games, such as; Project Zero, Silent Hill, and Amnesia, immerse the player by forcing them to take the role of protagonist and pressure them into making the decisions that will decide the direction of the narrative. Comics and manga use a visual narrative, illustrating an obscure aesthetic to create an uncomfortable world for the reader to lose themself in. Focusing on one of the earliest forms to consume horror media, novels, novellas & short stories. Crafting a story that will not only enthrall an audience but scare them as well as a tricky task as it could easily flop. How did some of the titans of horror, like Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, manage to write some of the most influential novels in the genre?
How did the time period influence the writers?
The 19th Century spawned the fear of classic, mainstream, monsters such as vampires, zombies and ghosts. Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man are iconic examples. Being born and raised during this time period would’ve been a prime opportunity for Edgar Allan Poe to profit off of people’s superstitions of the supernatural. Although monsters were scary, and Edgar did write such stories as The Raven (1845), he took a rather unique approach for its time. That being taking advantage of the natural. What’s scarier than a fictional monster? A very real, and very dangerous man. Some of the world’s most notorious killers lived during the 19th Century, for example; Jack The Ripper & Billy the Kid. Even though some of the most famous ones weren’t alive during Poe’s time there were still serial killers roaming streets around the world which can still be used as inspiration for a writer. Edgar Allan Poe was one of, if not, the first writers to use people as the object of fear in a narrative, that is his short story The Tell-Tale Heart. The Tell-Tale Heart is a story narrated by the insane protagonist who tries to justify his murderous acts as sane.
Unfortunately for H.P. Lovecraft, the 20th Century was not as easily scared by monsters and small-time criminals. World War 1 had come and gone, leaving the globe in a post-war shock. Numb to the concept of death, society had bigger problems than whether or not their neighbour was an insane maniac or a shape-shifting wolf. Even though it wasn’t during his own lifetime, H.P. Lovecraft managed to frighten the toughest of men by fabricating his iconic mythos that inspired generations to come, just as Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado had inspired him. Lovecraft took advantage of the world’s current state and took their fears of being helpless against a dirty bomb and manifested it into the fear of being helpless against the unknown. Humans are naturally scared of things they don’t understand, which can be can be tied back to Lovecraft’s own xenophobia. Natural occurrences, such as; the northern lights, eclipses, and earthquakes, were once feared by man, Lovecraft reawoke that fear by including his own supernatural twists to those events. After his death, the stories he wrote became a staple of the horror genre making it a mainstream form of entertainment once again.
Following in H.P. Lovecraft’s footsteps, Stephen King found his signature writing style through the discomfort in everyday settings. Misery, Carrie and IT are three of his many iconic series that ALL utilise their normal, familiar, and comforting environments juxtaposed by the obscure, and often abnormal, scenarios. King gave the world a more updated version of Lovecraft’s style of writing as he would often let his xenophobic side take charge when writing the antagonistic forces, using demeaning language towards certain groups. Lovecraft also let his poor education take away from the immersion of his stories. Stephen, on the other hand, kept the tradition of having a supernatural entity at the root of the problems, giving leeway for plausible scenarios.
On the other side of the world, Junji Ito took a more abstract approach when carrying on Lovecraft’s legacy. Ito was a former dentist and currently working as a horror mangaka. Meaning he uses a visual narrative when telling his stories. Known worldwide for his horrific artwork in tales such as Tomie, Uzumaki, and Gyo, Junji Ito has broken past the cultural barriers that have held many series back from success and became a titan in the horror industry. What makes him from Lovecraft or Stephen King though? Well, for one thing, his lack of focus on the antagonists. Ito will throw the reader into his world with very little context given and leave us as helpless and in the dark as the protagonists, vulnerable to what lies behind each page. When the time does eventually come we are greeted by a creature that defies all-natural logic only for the story to end, blue balling the reader to sit there with an unsatisfying conclusion that will draw you back to the beginning to try and answer the many questions you will be stuck with. Junji Ito has cleverly, or luckily, taken advantage of the world’s current interest in foreign cultures by releasing his manga at the peak of Japan’s popularity. A lot of his stories take place in a modern Japanese setting, whether that be urban or country, following a lot of their traditions and social structuring. Ito is still going strong to this day!
When do techniques start becoming cliche?
To answer this we will have to look back at the previous question, “How did the time period influence the writers?”. Well, in short, writing techniques become cliches when a generation has moved on and adapted to their current environments. Monsters stopped becoming scary after society realised people are scarier, genocide is more frightening than an undead corpse. People stopped being scary when human nature became predictable, as serial killers and war criminals were often associated with mental illnesses and cultural ignorance. When people are introduced to something new they can feel an assortment of emotions such as; curiosity, fear, or simply refreshed. As of now, the fear of the unknown is what’s popular, but how long will it take before that too becomes just another predictable and overused concept?
Will the horror genre die?
Over time the human race will surely run out of things to be afraid of, right? It’s very possible that may be the case but we as a species are always changing, always evolving, so we might perchance create a whole new wave of fears, or on the other hand, return to our roots of horror and once again find a thrill in what used to scare our ancestors. Unfortunately, at this moment in time, no one can say what the definitive answer is, so long as we have something to be afraid of there will always be horror.