as i wrote in Horror Fans: A Taxonomy ... of sorts – we all watch horror movies for different reasons and these reasons can change from day to day – sometimes we’re in the mood for a brooding, atmospheric piece, and the next day we decide that some high-energy carnage is more our speed
and while a lot of fans are happy to flit between subgenres like a vampire bat in a petting zoo, we all have our preferences …
[i then went on to describe six [1] categories of horror fan that I just made up for shits and giggles – and the post finished with]
… naturally, there’s a lot of overlap between these types of horror fans – with some overlapping more than others – and yet, if you’ve ever spent any time on a website focused on horror movies (particularly if you dip into the comments) you’ll read a lot of stuff you could do without
aside from so-called fans abusing other commenters and using bigoted language – a lot of commenters express their opinions in a way that reads more like statements of fact … and these statements are often expressed rather bluntly (i.e. some fans are just fucking rude)
which is a shame, as it discourages actual discussions between fans
which brings us to this little rant
ignoring the actual arseholes, the one statement of fact that pisses me off most is:
“that’s not horror”
what a worthless collection of letters – i have yet to see this statement supported (even once!) by a reasoned argument of why, said movie, does not fulfil the (always) undisclosed definition
occasionally you might see a couple of extra words added, like: “that’s not horror, it’s a thriller” or “that’s not horror, it’s a dark fantasy” – srsly?! – well thanks for the “clarification” – now we have two unanswered questions: what is horror? AND what is a thriller?
i mean, FFS! – after what feels like centuries of being in the ghetto, HORROR is finally getting some recognition and yet we have so-called fans (burn!) trying to SHRINK what is allowed to be called “Horror” by applying their petty version of a “purity test” to determine what is and what is not “Horror”
SBJ! – we have victory (of sorts) within our grasp, and these nuff-nuffs are trying to cram us back into the jaws of defeat – WTaF?!
maybe that’s where these “purists” feel the most comfortable – in a small, constrained, inward-looking genre-fandom, ever on the lookout for “outsiders” who may challenge their position as … what? – fuck knows
i have to admit, i find it really hard to understand their reasoning
[if i didn’t know any better, i’d believe those trying to limit what Horror can be, are actually in the pocket of Big Rom Com ... but i’m not one for conspiracy theories]
now i’m not saying that no one should try to create a definition of what Horror is – but that’s something for the anthropologists and others involved in cultural studies to worry about – it’s not something we, the actual subjects of these cultural studies, need to concern ourselves with
we shouldn’t worry about it for two reasons – one, most of us aren’t in the position and don’t have the training to even begin designing anything close to a meaningful definition, and – two, for most of us, it’s boring and pointless …
pointless, that is, unless you want to weaponise it for use in some kind of culture war against your “enemies” – y’now, the sort of tribal bullshit that’s currently killing our planet [too much?]
the other tiring thing about these pointless, soul-sucking arguments is that they have all been fought before – fought and lost
for example, Science Fiction fandom, before it became Sci-fi, would have long, protracted arguments over what actually constituted Sci-fi – but in the end, all the definitions, the point scoring and the raised voices gave us NOTHING – not one piece of fun, interesting or great piece of Sci-fi was ever created because someone somewhere had finally sorted out what Sci-fi really is
Horror (like beauty) is in the mind of the beholder – the definition isn’t important, the experience IS
so what do you do if, up until now, your main contribution to chats about Horror has been limited to saying stupid stuff like, “that’s not horror”? – well, you either shut up and be content to read other, more nuanced takes on the subject at hand, or you put in the work
focus on your experience of the movie, series, book, game or woteva and how it affected you and why – what worked for you and what didn’t – are there similarities or links to other examples you know of? – how do they compare? etcetera and so on
and please try to avoid simple, declarative statements like: “zombies are boring” or “CG sucks” or “it wasn’t scary” – they don’t really lead anywhere unless you try to explain why – and things are rarely so cut and dried
so let’s celebrate Horror and try to have a discussion, not a debate – after all, it’s not a competition
and please, leave the unpleasantness on the screen
[1] i chose 6 because popular tradition tells us, it be the debil’s number! – however, the oldest version of Revelation 13:15-18 so far discovered gives the Number of the Beast as 616, not the more popular 666 – and while they both got sixes in them, i doubt the current popularity of the number would’ve survived if the original number (616) had been retained – Wikipedia has more here