It was near the time my mythology professor assigned Emil Ferris’ “eye-popping magnum opus” of a graphic novel, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, that I began to realize… monsters aren’t scary anymore, and I felt a little grief at that, and then I became very glad for it.
It’s a little odd, because when someone says “Horror,” thoughts jump at Dracula and Frankenstein, and Dorthey muttering, “zombies & ghosts & werewolves, oh my!” And I think these monsters were frightening once upon a time — when we were children and new to fairy-tales — but haven’t we grown over-familiar? The ghosts are friendly. The werewolves are hot. The vampires sparkle (and one of my best friends is gay so being scared of vampires seems frankly insensitive). The zombies have for a long time been only the ultimate in morally justified bullet punching bags for movies and games.
I’d seriously like to ask, when is the last time you were frightened by one of these monsters? I wonder if the poets (like me) have had too much fun — pulling these old monster-myths by the strings until they unravel and we can see all the guts and all their gory, endearing details.
Eventually the movie monster is revealed, and immediately becomes a disappointing CGI puppet, compared to the grand demon our minds had imagined.
Monsters (and maybe all other things) are only frightening by virtue of how much of them stays hidden in shadow, and when we read the extended lore and history document all that terror dissipates entirely. Reading Dracula with no knowledge of Vampires? Terrifying. Reading Dracula while knowing that vampires drink blood, can turn into bats, can’t cross thresholds, can’t enter sunlight, etc, etc? Not so scary. There is no better way to ruin a good Horror story than to read the Wikipedia article which explains exactly why and how everything is happening.
And even better at killing fear are all of those genre-fusions, where suddenly we see things from the perspective of the monster, or see the demon as a friend, family, or partner.
And the older I get, the closer I get to believing that all fear is Fear of the Unknown… and that because of it, Familiarity is the Fear-Killer.
THE NEW MONSTERS
There might be an arms race at play, an entirely collaborative arms race where both sides are colluding for our entertainment.
Popular monsters get so popular they become stale and familiar.
Genre-fusion re-imagines them in comedic or romantic forms.
Horror invents new monsters or uplifts them into broader popularity.
The most popular of the new monsters grow dull also. Repeat from step 1.
In step 1. and 2. we have things like Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Twilight, and the Japanese comedy Zombie Land Saga in which teenage girls re-animate as zombies and then attempt to live out their music career dreams as an idol band.
In step 3. and 4 the public and horror writers realize they’ve run out of scary monsters, and set about inventing new ones like the poltergeist demon from Skinamarink. They may also re-invent old monsters like the fungus zombies from The Last Of Us which are infected by a Cordyceps fungus and slowly turned into mushroom monsters, or Steven King’s Pet Semetary, which is really just a zombie novel if you think about it hard enough. Lastly, they might try uplifting or adapting more obscure folklore into popular media. This has happened over the last decade with an insurgence of the Native American Wendigo, and the explosion in popularity of the Cthulhu mythos. (Though I think Cosmic Horror is going to stick around, Lovecraft’s Cthulhu may be nearing its own ‘popularity overload’)
And this is why I’d firmly say this bizarre media cycle of monster invention is a great thing. Even though Lovecraft is undoubtedly rolling in his grave at the thought of a Cthulhu dating sim, the cycle keeps things fresh. How dull would Horror (and life) become if we were each forever stuck being afraid of zombies and ‘the monster under the bed.’
But most importantly this cycle teaches us that we don’t need to be afraid of things forever. We can befriend monsters and overcome fear.
FAMILIARITY IS THE FEAR KILLER
Before ending I want to highlight a bi-product of this. It’s maybe the most important thing.
If you want to stop being afraid of something, you need to get close to it, really uncomfortably close. You need to know the object of your fear in-and-out like the subtle interplay of veins on the back of your hands, until your discomfort fades out.
I was once afraid of spiders — to a moderate degree. Then I lived in the basement of a 1900’s house which was so thoroughly infested I could kill 1-to-2 a day for months and apparently not bother them at all. Funnily enough, after killing hundreds and waking up to them in the bathtub and scampering toward me across the floor, I am not scared of spiders anymore. Or I have learned, at least, how to manage that fear. I understand how spiders move, and how quickly they can move. I understand the kind of whip-like looseness which is needed to slam down with a book or shoe. I understand how still spiders will sit on a wall, in hopes of being unseen, even when you are hovering above them, and how nervously they scurry across a floor — even when you haven’t seen them yet. After surviving two years in that house, I understand why they are more afraid of me than I am of them, and I only feel bad about killing so many of them.
I could have expedited this process greatly by doing research, by learning the names of spiders, identifying the species which lived with me, and learning more about how spiders work. This kind of mental familiarization is also powerful, just like reading up on Vampire lore.
So far, this kind of confrontation is the only way I’ve found to overcome fear. “Face your fear,” is a cliche more worn and tired than most. Cliches are often worn out because they’re true.
In order to stop being afraid of going outside, we must go outside.
In order to stop being afraid of people, we must talk to those people.
In order to stop being afraid of rejection and failure, we must risk rejection and failure.
In order to stop being afraid of life, we must live.
In order to find new monsters which are worthy of our fear, we must come to love the old ones.
Your theories intrigue me. It does seems like attending a cocktail party where chitchat is required has become scarier than the zombie apocalypse in way. Do you think the scariness of an intruder in your house has held its power to frighten, while monsters haven't?