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When I was a child, the writer who spoke most to me was Anne McCaffrey, especially with her Menolly books. Those books told me what I most needed to hear, which was “The place you’re in really is terrible, but there is a better place for you, and you can escape to it.”
When it looked like I was going to die because I couldn’t convince anyone with the power to help me that I was really sick, the writer who spoke most to me was Stephen King. And what his books said was, “You’re not crazy. Things are exactly as bad as you think. I believe you.”
Someone asked a while back what people get out of reading horror. There’s a lot of answers, much like the answers to what people get out of reading comedy or fantasy or any genre. But one of the key themes of horror is that Cassandra was right. And that if you feel like Cassandra, then you are probably right, too.
In horror, the person who everyone initially ignores and dismisses, the person trying to get everyone to admit to the existence of the bad thing that everyone else is ignoring, the person who sees the missing stair, the monster in the closet, the pandemic in waiting… That person is always right.
Sometimes we want to hear that everything will be fine. But sometimes the only way anything can ever be fine is if we admit that everything isn’t fine right now. Horror tells us that everything isn’t fine, and we should start listening to the people who’ve been saying so all along. And if we are those people, it tells us what we most need to hear: “I believe you.”
When it looked like I was going to die because I couldn’t convince anyone with the power to help me that I was really sick, the writer who spoke most to me was Stephen King. And what his books said was, “You’re not crazy. Things are exactly as bad as you think. I believe you.”
Someone asked a while back what people get out of reading horror. There’s a lot of answers, much like the answers to what people get out of reading comedy or fantasy or any genre. But one of the key themes of horror is that Cassandra was right. And that if you feel like Cassandra, then you are probably right, too.
In horror, the person who everyone initially ignores and dismisses, the person trying to get everyone to admit to the existence of the bad thing that everyone else is ignoring, the person who sees the missing stair, the monster in the closet, the pandemic in waiting… That person is always right.
Sometimes we want to hear that everything will be fine. But sometimes the only way anything can ever be fine is if we admit that everything isn’t fine right now. Horror tells us that everything isn’t fine, and we should start listening to the people who’ve been saying so all along. And if we are those people, it tells us what we most need to hear: “I believe you.”
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