everyday is halloween

 why horror?

short answer, cuz it gives me pleasure.  which is not really an answer.  long answer is, i don't know. 

watching a halloween vlogger's exploration of a museum of monsters gave me great good pleasure.  why should these images of frights provide such good feelings?  that's a headscratcher.  the imagery of horror, the sounds & sights make me happy.  

yet, that must not be confused with real horror of the world we live in.   seeing werewolves, frankensntein's monster, or hearing horror movie themes is an augment to life.  an art.  the real shit of the terrible things humans do to each other is on another plane.  of disgust.

i simplify things.  & in no way can i answer the differences between made up horror tropes & the real things we see & hear everyday in our world.  perhaps the fake shit gives us an anchor to the world we live in.  a world that can be cruel, indifferent, & fucking horrible.

but then again, i don't even play a psychologist on TV.  when i watch a horror movie i identify with the victims.  i am experiencing the trauma too.  but why subject yourself to such things?  perhaps it is to come out the other side, whole & intact.  to know terror & to live to tell the tale. 

again, i simplify things.  i was watching a vlogger explore the halloween goings-on at salem, ma.  the place infamous for the witch trials of the late 17th C.  & with horror in popular culture comes a lot of kitsch.  if you are a fan of my beloved genre of horror then you are well acquainted with kitsch & even love it.  the real horror was the mass hysteria of a community in the late 17th C new england town that thought witches infiltrated its midst.  the kitsch comes a few centuries later when the town where the witch trials took place [which should be a thing of great shame] monetized that notoriety to a halloween spookshow.  

but then why horror?  perhaps it is because i know there are things that do go bump in the night.  those things are always human caused & human created. & perhaps my beloved genre of horror explores, even in it most baroque signs, knows it is silly, & says that we are human monsters who live in the shadows of the night.  & that those human made shadows are ripe for explorers to make fun of & know that we are capable, in the words of one of the most evil hollywood monsters, noah cross, from the flick chinatown [1974], under the right circumstances, we are capable of anything.  

boo