For Fear’s Sake

Slashing through the Trauma

And so, we get to Horror.

You know me and you know I love Horror. You know I do, I mean like so much, and I talk about it and read about it and watch about it and dream about it, and I want to dismiss any assumptions you may have about that FANtastic fan-ship. I mean, I am not “assuming” that there even are any misconceptions, and you may not even be interested in caring why I care about Horror, but what if you tried?

And, again, what if there was benefit not to understand me, per se, but to use me as a signifier of what the benefit is (as I believe it to be) to have and delve into fan-ship, yours or another’s. Know that having awareness about the things that are ‘fun’ and accessible and easy is like the most insightful and intelligent aspects of ourselves. Does that make sense? I don’t know if it does - but let me show you something and we can circle back - how’s that?

OK, so as you know I LOVE horror, so you likely know I am a violent crime assault survivor, who entered that space with a good deal of PTSD in tow, and (yup) have an anxiety disorder - so yeah, bag of tricks. And as such, being freaked out is like baseline operations for me. That is not individual to me. Not by far. That is, sadly, an American experience - oh bigger than that, no? A modern WORLD experience. Since the industrialized age, not that anxiety nor stress was invented on an assembly line, but from that mechanized revolution came the distancing between the ‘us’ and everything else became ever more skewed. We could say distanced or oppressive, but rather I think of it as bend. For our abilities as individuals and larger society’s capacity to support the integration of experience into internal, authentic aspects well - fails. Yes, there is sociology and psychology and whatnot but all those become necessary (and thank God they do exist, for my wonderful present life is a testimonial to their value and performance) because of the above tectonic riff.

So, here I am with my particular type of trauma (again, not particular to all but specific to me, and I am talking, so there!) and wouldn’t you know that a very similar thing is examined,  shown, and approached and yet celebrated and scrutinized and exploited in a… you got it... also very specific type of entertainment to a very particular pair of ends. Those being (binary as they are) either towards aversion or, yes, empathy. Oh yes, horror, as I understand it as an easily triggered person, is an empathetic exploration of worst-case scenarios. And, yeah, I feel like that is kind of my normal.

I see the World as a tenuous thread between the pedestrian predictability and the Hell and Grace of when the “what if’ or “oh fuck’ hits like so many Swords of Damocles descending from above. Where we simple bags of flesh stand in the presence of fate and circumstance alike and cope, just cope and then, as with so many Final Persons, live in the thereafter.

I love horror because I am too freaked out and doing my best and running and screaming and fighting back and failing and winning and then, most interestingly, needing to move on after the incendiary moment where everything changes but the World we return to does not make enough room or our difference from living.[1]  Yes, really, really living in terror and the beauty and the ‘what’ that occurs vs the ‘what’ that is expected.

Horror is about fear and terror and too about honesty, the what if and the ‘oops’ too.

Add to that - the genre is really sad. I, as an avid, happy, and committed fan, find horror viscerally upsetting and extremely unpleasantly uncomfortable. So why do I watch, think, read, write, and dream in the genre? Because nothing else hits as real and valid and interesting as the lead up and execution of the worst possible experiences ever.

A lot of life feels like a lie. As if to “function” is like a relatively simplistic series of dance steps repeatable and no longer full of heart. I learned the ropes long ago and simply gaze upon myself repeating. I hear the others in so many aspects of my life - previous jobs, family relationships, those college friends I can no longer relate to - repeating and repurposing and I just don’t believe it. I don’t know what we are “doing”; what we are NOT talking about is the meat, the heart, and flesh that ripple beyond the skin and I, in the “proper” outfit and “appropriate” language, I and thy are wearing in the pageant of politeness. I am inclined to laugh and cry and yell and curse and do so despite myself and then burn with the “you are too much” feedback on the faces of the very nice folx holding it together oh so hoping that ‘it’ does not happen to them. 

What ‘it’ is is just that - the Final Person-ship which I will hereby say is not the ‘getting away’ but rather the ‘living with’, an experience of being marked by just that: an experience. Yes, perhaps we were silly and did not lock the door. Maybe you walked down into the basement when the overhead lightbulb hanging from the string in the ceiling was out, you said, “Oh well, I just need to check that one funny noise down there. No biggie, it is just a basement in an old, abandoned farmhouse, after all...” Or maybe you got too drunk at the Christmas party? Had the ugly break up. Got fired. Screwed up the project. Flunked out. Forgot. Missed the deadline. Or didn’t choose or follow up on the offer or idea or reminder? What if, whatever happened, the people in this office or your current friendship circle have absolutely no idea about? But you are laughing and applying and presenting and feeling that there is a smell or stain around your head or in your heart that everyone knows about - EVERYONE - even if they cannot name it.

With me, and perhaps this hits you each a bit in the squishy place … the ‘touch’ that makes me feel Final is, sure, surviving a horrific assault that changed my face and body and brain and is very much a worst-case scenario for many. Understandable, as it was very much for me as well, but it is not, well, my reality. Shit. Add to that an eating disorder and psychiatric illness, sex abuse experience, oh and a chronic illness that is shortening my life and leaves me with very, very little control over... what… my poop! Literal stains as you might so imagine and also upon the soul and human resume and yeah, I have a feeling so Yes -

In the sequel when the girl is wheeled into the emergency room and the camera is above her gurney, I get it. I feel such a whirlwind and talked over and not understanding and freaking out and wondering what happened to the time before now and cannot even imagine what happens … not just now but a lot more later. 

Will it ever be the same? After the monster shows itself? The blood comes from my face, the walls, out of the elevator - answer: No. And NO, I don’t say that things are better now or that the time before was a lie as much as it did not, I did not, allow for the horror of what is actually happening and that it can be died during but also lived through as well.

I guess I love horror because I know that possibilities can be both wondrous as well as terrible, but that once we look, open our eyes towards the unrelenting screen and screams of what is before us, there is something very informative and, perhaps, very OK that we leave the theatre with.

This season, here you go with candy corn cheers to the breaking of the mold, the getting loud. A chocolate kiss wrapped in orange towards living in the freedom of Final-ness so that the final-ness is the star of the forever sequel of the blockbuster that has the kids screaming and popcorn spilled in the aisle.