Why dedicate a blog to the genre of horror?  Chances are, if you have stumbled across my blog, you have enough interest in horror to answer the question for yourself.  If, however, you are one of the uninitiated or are not a total horror nerd I’ll try to explain what it is about the genre that is so enthralling.  First of all, there is this unidentifiable thing that just makes it so enthralling. I want to get that out of the way before I try to rationalize. For the people that devote much of their free time, or sacrifice their not-so-free time to horror, that unidentifiable thing is what separates us from the regular interested folk. Aside from that, I think that there is a lot of hidden potential in horror. It is easy to make drama, to tug on heartstrings. If you can scare someone (or make them laugh, for that matter), than you have suceeded at a very difficult endeavor. If you fail, you end up with cheese.

People tend to write off horror as second rate art. Horror is notoriously the bane of critics existences. But why? Really good horror reflects the human condition in ways that many movies cannot. Fear is a primal emotion that everyone feels; it is a thread that runs through all cultures. When Damien makes his way into the White House, we can opt to see this as a commentary on the Nixon administration. When Romero has zombies walking around a mall, we should be able to see that as a criticism of the way Americans value commerce. When William Friedkin has Regan curse, spew bile, and kill we can go along for the scary ride that The Exorcist offers and leave it at that. Or we can see the film as an apraisal of the rift between the generations, especially when dealing with the Vietnam War. This is only highlighted by the scene that actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) shoots with the protestors. We can choose to delve into the subtexts of good horror and see it as something more than late night, drive-in, midnight movie fare. to be continued