Why I Love the Macabre

A love letter to horror

Horror is just one genre I adore alongside fantasy and sci-fi, but horror has consistently been there in my life.

Some of my earliest memories involve horror, or things with a horror theme. When I was born in the mid-1980's, and for a few years after, there were regular repeats of things like Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video on TV. I also remember being shown the camp, kitsch and yet horror inspired Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was five years old. Back then I couldn't understand the story, but what I loved was the songs and the horror visuals. Even as a child I could appreciate the power of Tim Curry (Frank 'N' Furter) dressed in a dark cape with black eye shadow and dark red lipstick (like some incredible vampire figure).

Like many Children I was introduced to the idea of hunting monsters through Scooby Doo. Not only did we have endless repeats of the original episodes, but we had our own new episodes with the edition of Scrappy Doo; the better spoken, plucky little nephew of Scooby. Watching the Scooby gang each week was a high light for me. While most of the monsters turned out to be a local business man or carnival owner, there was just enough sense of dread and threat there to give you a chill among the laughs provided by Fred's elaborate traps or Shaggy and Scooby's adventures in food.

It was that chill feeling I wanted though. That moment where your heart beats faster and you feel your adrenaline rise as you prepare for 'fight or flight'. This feeling is like a drug and leaves you wanting more once you have tried it. As a result I have sought out horror in my adult life as well as my childhood.

As a child I was more excited for Hallowe'en than Christmas. The dark evenings and cold winds rustling through the leaves, coupled with living in the countryside and hearing fox screams or owl hoots, really set the scene for me. On the big day itself I would dress up (usually as a witch) and would even spend the year growing my own pumpkins for carving! Imagine my joy as a 10 year old when I was told my class would be dressing as monsters for our class dance for teh school panto! We even did our entrance to Thriller and the dance to the Time Warp (heaven!).

My favourite books as a chil were 'The Worst Witch' by Jill Murphy and I read them from cover-to-cover so many times. I had a fantasy that I would be Mildred Hubble's best friend and we would have adventures together while attending Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. This story totally pre-dates Harry Potter by about 20 or 30 years and I much prefer it to this day. Nothing in the books was sugar coated and I adored it!

It was no wonder I would embrace horror as an adult.

The Haunting

In 2018 Netflix aired a brilliant modern version of Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House'. In this version a family re-lives the horrs that befell them as children growing up in the house that their parents had bought and were 'doing-up' to sell on. I found this series compelling, sad and very scary at times.

My love for this story began in my teens though, when 'The Haunting' (1963) was aired on TV. In this version a scientist doing research into the Paranormal (Richard Johnson) invites two women (Julie Harris and Eleanor Bloom) to the house and one starts to lose her mind. Also there is the skeptical young man (Russ Tamblyn) who is set to inherit the house.

This film is shot entirely in black-and-white, despite colour being an option, and this adds to the horror element very well. It is also notable that most of the suspense is built because you never see the monster. You only eve hear sounds and see doors banging, but never a visual of the beast itself.

I saw this film once as a teenager and it stuck with me until I saw the Netflix version and I had to watch it again. It is still just as terrifying today and gives me that rush I look for in horror.

So Emo

In my late teens and early 20's I was part of the emo culture. Dressing in black with sweeping fringes and listening to MCR, FOB and P!ATD was my thing. Devouring horror was another, particularly gothic horror.

Around this time there was a flurry of Tim Burton films and he is the gothic horror (lite) king. As a child two of my favourite films were 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'Edward Scissorhands'. the first follows the adventures of 'Pumpkin King' Jack Skellington from Halloween Town as he becomes obsessed with Christmas due to boredom with his life and how he and his friends almost ruin it because they twist it with horror instead of joy. Edwards Scissorhands was created, like Frankenstein's monster, but given scissor for hands and unfinished after his creator dies. He is adopted by a perfect suburban family, but can't adapt to life there and is chased back to his castle home where he carves ice-sculptures each winter and brings snow to the town.

When Tim Burton released 'The Corpse Bride' and 'Sweeny Todd' while I was at university I was really excited. The first was a stop-frame animation like 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'Sweeny Todd' was based on the Sondheim musical. Both starred Helena Bonham-Carter and Johnny Depp, leaders in the gothic genre of acting.

Also at this time I got back into 'The Addams Family' and 'Sleepy Hollow'. Both were gothic and one involved witches and demonology.

For someone deep in their own dark thoughts I found a strange comfort in these films and a release through the brutal, yet perfect, deaths.

Ghosts

On to the topic of individual entities. My love of ghosts started with 'Casper The Friendly Ghost' (1995). This was the first film I saw in the cinema with my family and I adored the CGI used to create the slightly see-through ghosts.

Later on I saw films like 'thirteen Ghosts' and 'Sixth Sense' and they always had a place in my heart.

While I was at university I studied a module called 'Supernatural and Witchcraft Beliefs' that went from the Early Middle Ages to modern day. My presentation was on the significance of the ghost of Hamlet's father in Shakespeare's Hamlet and what context in Shakespeare would have been writing in.

Witches

What started with a love of 'The Worst Witch' turned into more. When Disney released 'Hocus Pocus' in 1993 I was six years old and this film made me want to be a witch more than ever. There  was even a witch called Sarah (Sarah Jessica-Parker) in the film and I wanted to be her.

Not only did it have witches, but there was a talking cat called Binx and a zombie. This film was genuinely scary for kids and very cool to me.

Later in life came films like 'The Blair Witch Project' and 'Paranormal Activity 3' where witchcraft and demonology met to create unpredictable and terrifying stories. The idea of 'lost footage' for both film series, as well as using the actors real names, just added to the fear factor.

Zombies

Like everyone I was hooked on zombies in the early 2010's. i watched and read all of 'The Walking Dead', I played COD: Black Ops II Zombies for hours and I even got to the point where I had zombie dreams.

The decade before I had been shown George A. Romero's 1978 film ' Dawn of the Dead'. It really brought home to me just how scary that loss of self-control and free will is and makes zombies one of the most terrifying monsters still to me.

'28 Days Later' (2002) was a post-apocalyptic horror directed by Danny Boyle, written by Alex Garland and starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Christopher Ecclestone. It follows the month after the accidental release of a virus that effectively turns people in to zombies and how society collapses.

I like this film because it combines ideas used in 'The Walking Dead', 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Day of the Triffids'.

Like '28 Days Later' or 'The Walking Dead', the protagonist in 'Day of the Triffids' awakes in hospital to find society has collapsed as a mysterious meteor shower has blinded most people. At the same time a mysterious plant, 'Triffids' that can walk and kill are hunting the blind. Again, that loss of control is terrifying! A few survivors band together in an almost hopeless attempt to survive. The book is a little dated now (odd ideas about the role of women), but you can see how some of the ideas influenced the later zombie stories.

Vampires

Vampires are damn sexy and that's why they're one of my favourite monsters. I'll come back to this.

I read Dracula in my teens and have read it lots of times since. Put together like a case file of diaries and newspaper clippings, Bram Stoker;s man and women encountering the terrifying Count Dracula and attempting to ride the world of his evil.

Vampires have been part of legend since the Middle Ages, but this work gave us many of the ideas about vampires we have today such as his fear of sunlight, garlic and the crucifix as well as killing him with a stake to the heart and beheading.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer began airing during my teens and here was a kick ass, slightly older teen who I could relate to and want to be. Plus the vampires, Angel and Spike, were hot (although I was more a Spike girl than an Angel girl). I watched every episode without fail! It also had other monsters like witches and demons so it was awesome!

Back to vampires being sexy though. In 'Dracula' and 'Buffy' the vampires represent that loss of innocence as the skin is pierced and blood drawn. In 'Dracula' we see the virginial Lucy Westenra transformed into a voluptuous and flirtatious creature and in 'Buffy' there was a clear 'no sex before marriage' message about sex and STDs.

In the latest Dracula (2019) shown on the BBC Claes Bang plays a suave and sexy version of the nosferatu and you can't help falling for his charm as well as finding him excitingly deadly.

Comedy of Horror

Horror has potential for comedy and often this is included to make the jump scares more intense. Sometimes the humour is unintentional and one of my favourite things is to find crappy horrors to stream with my husband and crappy horrors to stream with my husband and laugh at. May I recommend 'Jurassic Shark' (2012) as a particular favourite on Amazon Prime?

The four film 'Scary Movie' series parodies every horror film (and some others) from the last 30-40 years. It includes 'The Haunting', 'What Lies Beneath' (great film), 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', 'The Grudge', 'The Ring', 'War of the Worlds and things like 'The Matrix'.

Still, these films are also a little scary in their own rights and are more of a love letter to the genre than a piss take (especially the first two films with the Wayans Bros at the helm).

Supernatural

This wouldn't be a blog by me if I didn't include my favourite TV show, Supernatural. I have left this to the end because it encompasses everything I love about horror.

When the show started in 2005 we were at the peak of emo culture (2005 - 2009) and even the soundtrack included gems like FOB's 'Sugar We're Going Down'. A whole generation of misfits and outcasts found a family through the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester, but it's the monsters I want to talk about here.

Over the last 15 years we've seen Sam and Dean deal with Vampires, werewolves, wendigos, demons, witches, ghosts, ghouls, shapeshifters, fairies, angels, Lucifer, norse (and other pagan) gods, God, The Darkness, leviathans and thousands of other creatures. Every one is based on the actual lore or myths and legends and so beautifully put together by actors, make-up and CGI.

Yes, I love the story side about family and protecting it, I love the idea that "family don't end in blood" too. However, the excellent use of horror and monsters was also enough to get me hooked. I can really appreciate the level of work that went into this show and, as it ends (eventually...at time of writing there are still two episodes to film and 7 to air due to COVID-19), I want to thank everyone involved for dealing with the horror side so brilliantly.

Horror love story

When I was first dating the man I am now married to we used to go to the cinema a lot and see the latest horror film together. This was not so we could cuddle in the dark, but was because he loves horror too.

We saw 'Paranormal Activity' (one, two and three), Devil (2010) and 'Haunting in Connecticut' (2009) as well as, I think, 'The Last Exorcism' (2010).

Since getting married and living together we still seek out good horror films as well as bad ones. We both enjoy a good jump scare movie too.

We have our differences though as he likes gore such as the 'Saw' films and I prefer the thrill of something unseen like in 'Paranormal Activity' (2007). However, there is enough crossover for us to compromise at times.

You could say at shared love of horror (and fantasy and sci-fi) brought these two nerds together.