“On Horror”

Oh no, you totes misunderstand. I love horror. I adore horror. I just hate modern horror and in particular modern American horror because no matter what.  it reinforces the familiar.  All horror (or most) does this to one extent or another, but America can middle-class anything up,  and so the familiar (and thus the “uncontroversial”) is reinforced & elevated as both the purity that provides safety and that which must be defended.

Bullshit. I don’t want to see that.  You lean into the familiar too much and you get head-up-ass talk radio republicans who think the world has always been like 1990-2020 and will always be like that forever. 

I don’t want to defend that. I want that shit torn the fuck down. Let the monsters have it. Let it burn.  IF you want me to care about the horrors run amuck, threaten something of value, not just something recognizable.

But fuck Stephen King and Dean Koontz and all of those small town values defenders out there, give me Poe, give me Hawthorne, give me Barker.  Give me Outsider Horror stories.   Give me  Caitlin Kiernan’s Silk, give me “

Give me queer horror stories, horror stories by women, give me horror stories by people from large cities (other than bloody new York),

Give me horror by those who know the normal often hides the worst horrors

Give me horror that doesn’t reach for easy answers and social norms.

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