The Framing of Horror

 

Villainizing a Moral Genre

Horror gets a bad reputation; we all know it. A genre that trades in the business of fear and the macabre, it's often relegated to the category of cheap fiction - B-movies, hollow gore-fests, and unnecessary jumpscares. As though the genre itself could be done away with. What would a world without horror be like?

The truth is, we couldn't do away with the genre any more than we could do away with the human need for society and order. Among all of the gimmicks of horror, there remains one truth at the core of the spooky stories we share with one another, and that is the fact that they mirror our own moral and ethical frameworks, which, at their most basic, are often based on our deepest fears as humans.

Horror Reveals Our Transgressions

Horror is a mirror you sit in front of. It shows you visions that are difficult to look at, but beyond the scary and oft-times repulsive surface, they ask questions that cut deep into our needs, our desires, and the limits we face as humans.

Horror demands we look at our transgressions and question our boundaries. What is right, and what is wrong? Why? What happens if we decide to set morality aside and give into the darkness that whispers to all of us, poison dripping in our ears?

It's one of the reasons horror is one of my favourite genres to explore, to analyze, and to simply enjoy. It's why we often go to watch that scary movie, knowing that we'll be staying up late all night thinking about it, listening to sounds in the darkness, reaching for comforts.

Horror Challenges Misused Amana

I've been considering horror from a religious perspective, too. Whether it’s the hubris of a scientist playing Creator or the greed of a traveler ignoring a warning, horror is the genre that deals with Amana—of moral responsibility, that which we are entrusted with. Horror poses a simple question: What happens when we fail to be good stewards of the power we hold?

Most sins are sins because they erode the trust we have in ourselves and in one another, and by extension erode our ability to form the coherent social structures with which most of us would not survive. The monsters under our beds are rarely monsters at all. They're representations of our own misdeeds, our own sins. Sins against ourselves. Sins against others. They're the personification - the manifestation - of a debt now due.

And then the monster comes to collect... That's a warning, bearing its teeth, sharpening its claws. It may not be a monster that punishes your own real transgression, but make no mistake: there is a punishment. It is inevitable.

Horror Fosters Courage

We protect our children from so much, for they would not be able to handle that which we ourselves would struggle to handle, let alone much of the weight that we do bear. And yet there are lessons that even children must learn.

Despite its reputation, horror is a safe space to explore our fears, explore different scenarios, and consider our own perspectives and actions. In short, horror is the training ground in which the soul to practices courage. As I've explored in my horror writing course, horror gives us the chance to face the 'Unseen' from the comfort of our sofas, through the barrier of our screens, and extends to us an invitation to test our internal compass against hypothetical terrors.

Much like the rest of storytelling at large, through all of its media and genres, horror remains a testing ground for the values and beliefs we hold, allowing us to re-examine them and better prepare ourselves for the complexities of the world around us. For it has monsters, too - monsters of a different ilk, but evil all the same - and we will need to stand before them and face their terror with courage and an unshakeable moral conviction.