We had a couple of deaths in the extended family last week, and I don't think it's coincidental that I've gone on another horror kick. (True confession time--while my son was in the funeral home bathroom, I scraped at the door, chanting, "braiiiinss. Braiiinns!" He was more annoyed and embarrassed than scared, which is a testament to both the high quality of his judgment and the low quality of my zombie imitation.)
I mean, yeah, okay, I've been on kind of a lifelong horror kick, but sometimes it gets more intense than others. Right now is a particularly intense time--I'm reading Christopher Moore's You Suck, which doesn't really count, but sort of does since it's about vampires. I'm also reading the Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics, which contains many twisted and demented horror comics from the 50's onward. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but it is kind of funny that we created the most horrific weapon of mass destruction ever, and then they thought it was the horror comics that were messing everyone up. I've also been listening to stockpiled episodes of Rue Morgue Radio--I can go months without listening to this, and recently I've been listening all the time.
I've written before about horror and how I think it helps us deal with the genuine horror of mortality, but I've realized for me, it's something different: it's strangely comforting.
I think this has to do with the fact that my dad was into horror movies (why? He died before I could really ask him. But could it be because of the death of his older brother when he was young? I do think that the people most into horror movies (and comics, and stuff) are the people who've been the closest to real horror.). He had this big coffee table book that I used to peruse endlessly, looking at pictures of Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr. (neither, sadly, walkin' with the queen nor doin' the werewolves of London) and all kinds of guys in rubber masks and suits pretending to be scary. So in some weird and probably twisted way, gore and horror reminds me of a rather idyllic point in my childhood, i.e., the point before my dad died.
One of my fondest memories is of my dad waking me at what seemed, at the time, to be the middle of the night. I couldn't have been older than 8 or 9. "Wake up!" he said. "King Kong is on TV!" (This, remember, was before the VCR, a sepia-toned, grainy time when a midnight showing of King Kong might be your only chance to see it for years).
Anyway, I'll emerge eventually--right now I'll just keep watching Tales From the Crypt on Chiller and anxiously awaiting the new Lordi CD.
