What Horror Means to Me
By Nicole Monsees
The scariest things are the things that are real, or could be real.
With that said, I don’t necessarily believe the greatest horrors come from the books (and films) classified as Horror. Of course, it’s always fun to watch films like Poltergeist, The Ring, and The Shining (along with many others not mentioned here), or to read the works of Poe, Lovecraft, and King (again, along with many others not mentioned here). But, to me, that’s just pure entertainment. Ture horror, at least for me, is found in the books (and films) that stay with you long afterwards, that reach down and touch the roots of things we fear the most, even if we don’t know it.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury is one of those stories that sticks with you long after you read the final page. (In the honor of full disclosure, this book gave me weird dreams and nightmares for a week or two after I read it.) There’s a sense of uneasiness through the entire book—beginning with the foreshadowing of the impending storm to all the mysterious things happening around town and everything in between. Now, this might not sound too scary, but when diving deeper into the story, the book is able to produce a sense of uneasiness, which is sometimes downright disturbing. (The movie did a fair job of this too.) I believe the most disturbing part is the idea of temptation and man’s greed. Everything has a price to be paid when giving into temptation. As for man’s greed…well, that can cause a person to give into said temptation, whatever it might be. The truth is, we all possess the power to be our own downfall.
When it comes to Bradbury’s work, I’ve also found a terrifying sadness, or reality, in his beautifully written Dandelion Wine and Goodbye Summer. It’s the idea of seasons in nature changing like the seasons of life—childhood ends as we all grow up and grow older. The memories of summers and the looming sense of change evoke melancholy and dread. But none of us are immune to the inevitable forward march of time. And so, these themes flow through other works, such as The Halloween Tree as well as some of the stories in The October Country, like Skeleton and The Scythe—two stories I specifically remember from this collection of stories, though I loved the entire book. I’ve found these themes of the passage of time and death to be done in a haunting, yet beautiful way. Other topics, such as mortality, obsession and paranoia, and the unseen and the unknowable are all ideas we each wrestle with at least once in our lives and, therefore, at least for me, is what brings out the true horror of the stories.
While some of Bradbury’s work leaves me with an unsettled feeling, Neil Gaiman’s work leaves me with a different discomfort. Coraline and Neverwhere are two stories I have yet to be able to pinpoint why I feel uneasy at times. (Maybe there’s something deep down inside I have yet to uncover, something even I don’t know about myself…which is an almost disturbing thought in itself.) But maybe that’s the beauty of it, and the horror. With that idea in mine, Click-Clack the Rattlebag, is also one of those stories where I question why I feel the way I do. It’s eerie, dark tone, and mounting terror flows through every line. While reading, it’s uncertain where the plot is going or what’s going to happen, until it happens—the end. Maybe that’s where the uneasiness comes from, or at least part of it—the unseen and the unknown.
Rodger Zelazny evokes a sense of horror in some of his stories that, to me, is terrifying. Damnation Alley doesn’t play with the idea of the unseen and the unknown. This story very specifically states this could happen if this happens. I can’t even begin to imagine the apocalyptic world like the one he wrote about in this book. It depicts a desolate landscape with a society on the edge of collapse. It creates a sense of despair, which gives way to an atmosphere that is both a terrifying and disturbing possibility.
All these thoughts and feelings have been found within the pages of many books that might not be considered traditional horror. And maybe they aren’t, but the subjects tackled, and the stories told stir an eerie, uncomfortable, terrifying, haunting feeling.
Again, I believe the most terrifying things are the things that are real, or could be real.
It’s the things that literally go bump in the night.
It’s the things that hide in the shadows of our thoughts and feelings.
It’s the things that we can’t see but linger in the corners of our eyes.
It’s the things that burrow into us and touch upon our own internal fears, sometimes, without us even knowing it.
It’s the things that, no matter how fictionalized by books (or films), could, in the end, be real.
Neil Gaiman once said, “Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things.”
And, sometimes, what scares me the most is the truth.
But, then again, maybe that’s a universal thing (or truth). Maybe no one likes to see or hear the truth.
This idea I have of horror has found its way into my own writing. Sometimes it might be traditional horror while other times the subject, when the layers of the story are peeled back, is something more sinister. It digs down to the depths of our most deeply rooted fears.
I’ve written about love and death, guilt and jealousy, internal fears and conflicts, and the truth. I’ve made these topics foreboding and eerie, uncomfortable and ugly, and terrifying and haunting. This may or may not be putting the topics in my stories lightly, for I believe they’re more than just these things. In a way, they simply have to do with our human nature, but humans can be as simple as they can be complex. And, sometimes, human nature can be as terrifying as it is beautiful.
So, whether it’s within the stories I write or the stories I read, I believe the most terrifying things are the things that are real, or could be real.
Nicole has short stories available to read on her website (https://nicolesnarratives.wordpress.com/category/500-word-stories/). She will also be publishing a collection of short stories in 2025.
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