Horror and Its Roots in Our Primal Fears and Realities

Horror has always been a popular medium because it preys on our deepest fears and secret desires. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Dracula, The Hounds of the Baskerville’s, Frankenstein, 1001 Arabian Knights, Pet Cemetery, and the list goes on. What is that thing that goes bump in the night? We are scared and still want to know, even if we can’t readily admit it! The desire to unlock the door to our fear and psyche has been a part of who we are since we have walked upright as a human. If you can dream it, fear it or even love it, then there is some chance to find a story lurking there! It is a premise that only lurks waiting for its chance to pounce upon the unexpected reader: an old house with a reputation of being haunted, or a stranger who seems dark and aloof because he is a serial killer, a babysitter all alone late at night, a terrible family curse, a mad scientist who is a twisted doctor with visions of grander. All of these things add up to many of the fantastic stories that the true horror reader cherishes like a dark and scary valentine.

Fantasy and fear have its roots in factual details. The laws of nature have always been under close scrutiny by those who sought answers to those mysteries that defy rational explanation. We find ourselves on the grand breakthrough of many scientific advances, but at what risk to ourselves? Do we open up a Pandora’s Box to try to cure something like cancer or do we possibly create something much worse like the viruses some doctors falsely try to cure with antibiotics to only make stronger bacteria that won’t eradicate easily. These might kill thousands to leave the world uninhabited but by a few fortunate persons. Such are the details of many movies and books.
Cancer seems to be caused by unique forms of viruses that are common to our world. Combinations of these affect the human body to change and disfigure what is considered normal. These are the monsters who form the basis for the aliens we should fear, not the odd creatures that emerge from a stunning metallic spacecraft but from something so small that hundreds of thousands might fit on the head of a single straight pin. Then the science fiction of the transplantation of human organs was once fearful as the monster of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. But today such things are common place in the transplantation of numerous human organs from hearts, livers, kidneys, blood vessels, skin, stem cells, and bone marrow. Hands and faces and various body parts have been implanted as well as new artificial ones. These things seemed far-fetched and bordered on fantasy just a century ago. These are removed from corpses and some living donors. Now they are common place and accepted as common practice to restore those that have been affected by malaise. What would have Shelly thought of such things if she could see them in our modern perspective? Past generations would have seen such things as fiendish or even bordering on the realms of witchcraft and sorcery. Magic was really defined by the effects of drugs on an innocent person. Early Salem had stories of those people affected by such incidents of being influenced by the drugs of witches being imposed by the fear of black magic. These things were unthinkable and the figment of someone’s nightmarish visions. Now how do we answer these riddles that life offers? Horror authors reach the length and breathe of the imagination. These offer what seems a possible explanation. It is only limited to what we can imagine and fear the most. Death and malaise plant the seeds of fear of the unknown. Fear is a blank canvas that can be filled with our dreams of success and possible threat of failure. How to best quell our remorse over possible failure or how to best postpone our terrible death?

Success is paved by those that failed numerous times and built upon the knowledge of others. That knowledge depends on how well we understand our true human natures. Horror begins in these places where fear and doubt meet our vivid imaginations. We seek answers to explain what we do not know. For as long as man has been around there have been stories of the unexplained has filled our distant memories. How we deal with them to explain the world around us is the answer to what makes horror so popular through the ages. What we read today as horror or fantasy might be the scientific fact in another time. It is up to us what we make of it. Do we dare to dream or do we live in fear of what we dare not try to understand? Horror and fantasy gives us those answers to what the unknown holds. It reaches out to grab our fears and make them seem rational and reasonable. This gives us hope for all the possibilities that death denies and life still holds dear. So when you hear that next bump in the night, just ask yourself: “What was that, really?!”