The Importance of Horror.

An essay.

Horror has always been there for me. From my childhood to today, I am an extremely anxious person. Yet growing up I was always the kid renting books about UFOs, Ghosts, and Monsters from the library. There was and still is something cathartic to these stories. The media that’s made to scare me always brought me comfort. So today I’d like to share a small essay I wrote on why I think horror is so important.

---

From the pioneers of the genre such as Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, to contemporary legends ala Stephen King and George Romero, horror has always been the home to many amazing creators and some of the most important and influential stories in all of fiction. I believe horror is one of, if not the most important genre and I’d like to tell you why. 

Horror can do more than just entertain or scare us. It can be used as escapism, as therapy, and horror can be life-changing. 

“Fear is like radiation. You spend enough time around enough of it, and it changes you genetically.” 

Stated above is a quote from Mike Flanagan's 2022 Netflix horror hit, The Midnight Club. I include this because I believe Flanagan to be someone who truly understands horror, maybe more than most in his field. All of his stories are prime examples of stretching the genre and making it deeper than the scares. From Midnight Mass, a monologue-driven and thought-provoking story about faith, religion, and alcoholism. To A Haunting of Hill House, a devastating family drama about grief, forgiveness, and well, ghosts! Flanagan and company have crafted stories that do what I believe great horror should do. These stories dig into our deepest primordial fears in an extremely unique and somewhat uncomfortable way. 

We come across so many fears and feelings every day in the real world. Global pandemics, intense political division, religious extremism, and war. We live in a world of constant fear and anxiety. What horror allows us to do is confront said fears in a controlled environment, for the duration of a film or a novel you can be brave. For what is horror and what is life if not a test of bravery? 

Over the course of writing this essay, I was able to ask one of my favorite writers his take on what makes horror important to him. I wanted to include it as it meant a lot to me to get his perspective. 

“Horror is entertainment, yes, and that's all it needs to be for some folks. For me, though, horror is catharsis. It's therapy, right there on the page or on the screen. Experiencing the emotion of terror along with the characters in a story almost always helps me deal with whatever awfulness is swirling around in my head. It helps me cope. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. A little goes a long way, though.”

 -Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe, The Empty Man, and much more.) 

Thanks for reading everyone. Please let me know what makes horror important to you or if you have anything you’d like to add, I’d love to hear it. Maybe I’ll write a whole essay focusing on Mike Flanagan and the impact his works had. 

Big thanks to Cullen Bunn for answering my question and allowing me to use his answer in this essay. Cullen is one of my favorite writers and such a great person. A true inspiration for me and lots of other writers.