The following is for the League of Tana Tea Drinkers' roundtable discussion of "What Do Cute Versions of Monsters Tell Us About Horror?" I realize that I didn't address the question directly, but I think my piece fits into the larger discussion.
I've never been a spiritual person. The
most pressing conflict of faith I had growing up was whether I would
become an agnostic like my father or an atheist like my mother (I
still bounce back and forth to this day). I suppose we all need
something to believe in, however, especially as children. I believed
in horror. It was, in many ways, my faith - adored without
question, every movie I could get my hands on committed to memory and
recited ad nauseam. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, and an
exquisitely tortured Vincent Price were all major deities. It was a
simple pleasure in a complex time - my parents were getting
divorced and I was being moved (as opposed to moving, which suggests
I had some choice in the matter) to another state. In hindsight,
horror was something I very much needed to survive - the heightened
acting, the fantastic settings both foreboding and unreal, the
monsters who brought thrills and chills to supplant the uncertainty
that was actually much, much scarier.
(read more...)
