You Scream, I Dream: Learning to Love the Horror Genre

I'm not someone who can claim that they've always been into horror. Up until my 30s I actually couldn't even watch the previews for new horror movies. I tried, like every good millennial to get into it and faithfully watched our generations' classics; Jeepers Creepers, Final Destination, and The Ring. My imagination was just a bit too vivid, my anxiety a little too unmedicated, and my trauma responses just a little too over enthusiastic. What I thought was me being a gigantic baby was a combination of things that as I got older I worked on and finally with an anxiety and depression diagnosis and a small SSRI prescription I was finally able to turn down my hair trigger responses.

I dipped a toe into the horror genre, it all started with podcasts in 2015. I found a couple of fiction podcasts that I enjoyed; looking at you PNWS, and then I found one I absolutely fell in love with. I completely credit The Magnus Archives with enabling my rapid descent into the horror genre. And I honestly would never want to go back. From podcasts I progressed to books and found a new favorite author, Darcey Coates, and voraciously read everything from her I could find. At the same time I became enamored with audiobooks and found that Horror was one of the genres I could process when it was told to me via audiobook. As a side note, has anyone else found that there are just genres that they cannot do as an audiobook? For me it's anything resembling high fantasy. My brain just cannot process the storylines without seeing the text.

Once I established that this new exploration of different ways of consuming horror stories was not making my nightmares any worse and that I wasn't a complete basket case in the dark every evening I figured it was time to start exploring horror movies once again. I'm glad that this is the way I kind of inoculated myself to horror because I was able to determine what I did and did not like as far as horror sub genres. It turns out that I preferred Gothic Horror, Found Footage Horror, and Religious horror. Slasher fiction was just not my vibe; and a majority of what was coming out at traditional box offices was more in line with Slasher fiction, with some monsters thrown in. I'm still not entirely opposed to Monster Fiction as a genre but I almost prefer it when we never meet the monster when they aren't human, with them slightly off screen for the majority of the story I think it adds a heightened level of discomfort and terror rather than try and put a face on it.

Closed train station, image taken by the author

Now I face a different conundrum, finding the specific sub genres that I enjoy and finding them well done. In a lot of the theatrical versions of this I find that I have to go to more indie and B or C movie releases to get what I'm looking for. For written stories I've also encountered the issue of niching down where my options tend to be Monster Horror, or Eldritch Horror. But with all of that searching I find gems. And I find new ways to better understand my love of horror.

I love the safety it provides in exploration. Getting to explore different themes that are covered as part of social commentary is kind of the entire intent of the horror genre. Taboo topics that have evolved over time. From the independence of women, domestic violence, social commentary on the expectations of mothers, and broader themes across cultures like looking at the history of a place and the injustices that may have been committed in the name of 'progress' or 'science'. I love all of it. I love it even more when it's being done through excellent prose that shows character development and proper discomfort.

Do you have a favorite genre? Did I convince you to give horror a try? What other genres should I dedicate the same kind of exploration to?