I’ve always been fascinated by what makes our brains misfire. Conspiracy theories, phobias, comedy, fanaticism (or “fandom” a word we invented to say we’re not fanatical, we just enjoy something and woe be on you who does not), and suspension of disbelief are all rewirings of the basic, evolutionary, function of our mind: to keep our bodies alive long enough to pass on our genes. Our minds are a fragile thing, and likely to be tricked. Small things, the perception of the same stimulus at two slightly offset times (“deja-vu”), to large things, an iron rod thrown through your skull at supersonic speeds (“Oh, Jesus, no”), can change the way we process our reality. Somewhere, between the two, is a love of fear.

From the late-1700s into the 1970s, natural gas lamps were common in houses around the world. Natural gas was cheap and plentiful, a byproduct of coal mining and the petroleum industry, so it became a ubiquitous source of light and heat. What many people didn’t know was that it had side effects. Incomplete combustion of carbon-rich fuels produces carbon monoxide which can produce side-effects like: dull headache, weakness, confusion, blurred vision, loss of consciousness, delirium, and hallucinations. The households that had poorly maintained gas lights often reported hauntings, poltergeists, demonic possessions, and, later, alien visitation. To the victims all these things were real, more frightening than anything we will see on our screens, and unstoppable. With the rise of electric lighting the reports of, and belief in, these horrors decreased rapidly.

The 1970s saw the rise of a new terror, the horror film. There are, certainly, horror films that predate 1970; however, that is when they came into their own. The 70s became the era of the slasher, the demon-possessed, the sea monster, the murderous town, and the tanned human-skin-mask wearer. Losing the oral histories of people driven mad by CO poisoning and the latent misunderstanding of their location (due to the white flight of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s) caused generations to seek out a new understanding of what fear was. Mostly, that involved cutouts which could be filled by whatever societal outcasts could fit in for the panic of their fore-bearers.

The 1980s brought new kinds of threats, specifically AIDS and corporate greed. Those films brought with them fear of outwardly innocuous things and an uncaring, callous, and forgetful world. The 1990s, existing at “the end of history,” brought deep, existential ideas of our own fragility and societal doom. Finally, the 2000s ushered in torture porn and the bleakness of our onrushing cyber dystopia.

I have to make a confession here: I, often, don’t enjoy mainstream horror movies. My responses to them fall into one of two categories:

1. I just don’t care about any of these people. Many horror films feature characters who are so unlikable, so one dimensional, or so vapid that I just do not have any investment in what happens to them. Most of these characters would be the foil in a Twilight Zone episode (I’m looking at you, “Coherence”) but their screen time is stretched out into a major plot line in a 90+ minute movie, and I am just waiting for them to get dead so the rest of the plot can progress.
2. This is kinda gross.

On the other hand, I do enjoy psychological horror and thrillers, which are just highbrow, non-gory horror. I was always willing to check out an inventive, scary movie, if someone I respect gave it a strong recommendation. In the before times, I would, often, find something redeeming and enjoyable about it.

Over the last five months, I have watched a number of films that fit the archetype of a frightening movie I would enjoy; because, quarantine gives us a lot of time to explore the wide world of media. Mostly, I have found them lacking: mirthless, boring, or cruel. I, deeply, enjoyed the first episode of “Lovecraft Country” this past Sunday, but I could not bring myself to feel fear during its tense/terrifying parts. I didn’t find the thrills of “The Parallax View” to be compelling. The modern, urban tension of “Cache” left me flat (except for the fantastic elevator scene). It even diminished my recent viewing of one of my favourite movies “Le Pacte des Loups.”

I don’t think this is a defect in these productions, though, it’s a defect in me. I do not dream a lot, but I prefer nightmares to pleasant dreams. When you wake from a nightmare it is over, when you wake from a pleasant dream you have squandered that joy. Despite this, I do not actively seek nightmares, and the world has become an nightmare from which we cannot wake.

The days of horror being a hiding place for our fears are over. We do not need a fiction to locate ourselves within a world of terror, it exists all around us. Fear permeates every interaction, every step outside, and every necessary task. The more we learn about COVID-19, the more we learn about our society, the more we learn about each other, the unease grows. If you will permit me to quote myself:

Is this the interaction that infects me? Will I know if I am infected […] Will this end? […] Am I going to die, suffering and alone?

I hope that after (if) this all over we can go back to our fantasy terrors. Until then, make believe monsters, even ones that are based on our true fears, have no power here. What need have we of silhouettes when we have a portrait?

Be kind, be understanding, be safe. And, if anything I wrote here makes you mad, feel free to fight me in real life. PS: rent The Cube