For most of my life, I thought I wasn’t a horror guy.
Horror movies were not what I loved growing up. I don’t consider any horror movies amongst my all-time favorites, I rarely pay attention to the new horror releases, the list of horror movies I consider overrated is long, and were any hardcore fans of the genre to read it, they’d probably want to don a mask and dismember me in the streets.
Simply put, I don’t have horror brain, and I never thought I’d write a horror movie. Or a blog post for Killer Shorts, a wonderful horror screenplay competition, for that matter. (Or that I’d be interacting with some fantastic horror writers on the Screenwriter’s Network!) But here we are in 2020, a year that’ll rarely be uttered out loud without the word “fuck” in front of it, and here I am, having done both for the first time.
So how did I get here? Was it a change of heart on the genre? Was there something in the air besides an incredibly dangerous disease? Did it occur to me that I’m getting older and it would probably be a good move for my career if I stopped being a fat red headed asshole with a bunch of unsellable scripts who thumbs his nose at one of the most popular and financially successful genres in the medium I’m trying to be successful in?
Truthfully, it’s a little bit of all three. But there’s a more important reason hanging over all.
I Got Over Myself
If you and I had a conversation about horror a few years ago, I would’ve remained laser focused on everything I don’t like about the genre.
I would’ve told you about the paper thin characters that seem to occupy an alarmingly high number of horror films. Or perhaps the ceaseless repetition of tropes and the annoying feeling that every horror movie I saw felt like it knew I’ve seen a horror movie before. Maybe I’d rant at you about the shallow nihilism on display in a lot of the worst horror films I’ve seen. Or the frequently boring visual aesthetic. Or the many other nitpicks and sticking points I have that The Cabin in the Woods already did a better job pointing out.
To be fair, I’ve been the intern who had to watch the horror screeners. I’ve seen this genre at its worst. And let’s be honest, I’m a coward and I don’t like to feel afraid. There. I said it. Are you happy now?
But then something happened. The Babadook happened. Get Out happened. So did The Haunting of Hill House and SOMA and A24. There was influx of horror media, both traditional and experimental, that truly spoke to me. For the first time, I felt those delights I imagine many horror fans felt when they snuck down to their living rooms at night to watch the midnight movie.
On top of that, I reached a point in my life where I don’t want to outright dismiss entire genres anymore. The more I heard myself talk about horror, the more I began to feel like some dipshit in a rectum of a subreddit spreading memes about Joker and calling Rey a Mary Sue. The kind of person who, as a lover of this medium, I can’t fucking stand in the slightest.
So I began to think less and less about what doesn’t work for me about horror, and I started to think more and more about what does.
What Does Work For Me
Just to be absolutely clear, I didn’t outright hate every horror movie I saw. Alien and The Shining were as formative to me as they were for many other people, and I can rattle off a long list of horror movies I loved well before this awakening of mine. It’s just that I thought, by and large, that the intent of most horror wasn’t something I was interested in exploring as either an audience member or a writer.
But if there’s horror that speaks to a horror skeptic such as myself, then clearly there was something about this genre that worked for me, right? So what could those somethings be?
Well, for starters, I like the atmosphere of a good horror movie. And by “atmosphere,” I don’t mean the quiet moments before the jumpscare or the look on the coed’s face before the knife goes into her stomach. I’m talking about the sense of unease that horror seems to be the best at evoking. An understanding that we have entered a world where the rules that govern our lives, be they physics or the written law or any combination of the two and many others, no longer apply. The feeling that something is deeply wrong.
I also enjoy the subversive spirit of a lot of horror. I like how horror can take something that’s seemingly innocent and turn it into a sponge for all the depravity lurking around in our subconscious. Summercamp was just summercamp until you watched your first ‘80s slasher, and now your camp could be the stomping grounds of a killer. The beach you swam in during family vacation may have something lurking in it that wants to eat you. That noise you heard from your neighbor’s apartment was probably something innocent. But what if it wasn’t?
Horror takes perverse glee in exposing the fucked up core of everything we hold dear, and if you’re of a certain mindset, it’s hard not to love it.
But if I had to single in on the one thing about this bloodthirsty genre of ours that really hooks me, it’s that this genre has the opportunity to be profoundly personal. I can take a part of myself that bothers me, something that makes me scared or anxious or enraged, and I can give it some fur and some fangs and have it hunt down some teens in the woods. My pretentious metaphors can pack a literal life-ending punch. My deepest fears and insecurities can become grotesquely real.
So I Wrote a Horror Movie, And You Can Too
When I stopped looking down on the horror genre, I finally had an idea for my own horror script. It’s an idea that I became quite fond of. So fond of, in fact, that I abandoned a project I had done months of research for in order to work on it. A few weeks later, I wrote it. It’s been through a few drafts now, and though it needs some work, the feedback’s been encouraging.
I did all my usual stuff. I had an intent and a point to make, I made an outline, I took forever to write a bare minimum of pages while fighting the siren song of Youtube and the brightly colored corner of Amazon that sells candy and other assorted unhealthy shit. (Did you guys know that you can buy a three pack of family sized Double Stuf Oreos for ten bucks?) In other words, I didn’t treat it like I was going out of my way to write a horror movie. I treated it like I would any other project.
As a result, it may not be “horror” enough for a lot of horror fans. Though there is a bending of reality and plenty of blood, it’s light on horror tropes and the kind of titillating details that many horror fans or detractors of the genre may expect.
But I like it, and it’s mine.
We don’t have to agree on what horror is and isn’t, and I’m more than happy to fight all day about which horror movies deserve to be thought of as classics and which ones spend the entirety of their act two repeating the same goddamn story beats over and over again. Moreover, I could write you several infinitely long articles about what I learned about horror now that I’ve dipped my toes in the water.
However, this is what I want to say to you, writer who found this competition because opportunities for writers are small: You’re a human being, and thus, there’s something in your life that isn’t quite right. Maybe it’s something that scares you to your core. Maybe it’s a gnawing insecurity that lingers in the back of your thoughts. Whoever you are, you have demons. Why not make them literal?
No matter what genres you like or the kinds of stories you like to tell, there’s a way forward with this genre for you. You just have to make it yours.
The thumbnail is a screenshot from The Shining, distributed by Warner Bros., written by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson, directed by Stanley Kubrick, released in 1980.
