Can horror be comforting?

• Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
• no comments

It’s absolutely no secret that I adore horror. The films, books, campfire stories, haunted houses, ghost buses, ouija boards – you name it, I’m into it.

One of the things I love about horror, I think, is that I feel a little like I’m in a special club. Lots of people actively dislike horror stories and movies – my husband, for starters. He says he finds horror boring but I think he just doesn’t *get* it. He’s not in the club.

Horror has a lot of haters

In 2022, a poll found that horror was the most divisive genre. People either really hated it or really loved it, and a lot hated it:

The poll asked Americans to say whether they love, like, dislike, or hate 10 genres. Of these, horror has the smallest number of people who collectively love or like it (49%) as well as the largest share of people who hate or dislike it (45%). And people who dislike horror really dislike it: More than twice as many Americans (23%) say they hate horror as hate the next most hated genres, each hated by 9% of Americans — Western, science fiction, and romance. At the same time, people who are fans of horror tend to love it. A larger share of horror fans — people who like or love horror — say they love the genre than is the case for any other genre. Another way of looking at it: Nearly half of Americans love or hate horror, a greater share than for any of the other nine polled.

You know that scene in As Good As It Gets where Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt he’s the only person in the world who sees how amazing she is, and that makes him feel good about him. That’s kinda how I feel about horror. I’m one of the special ones who sees how incredible the genre is, and that makes me feel good about me.

Some people complain that horror is formulaic but this is missing the point of the genre completely. Horror stories are the only stories that are defined by the emotion they make you feel: fear. When you pick up a horror novel or watch a horror film, you know the people who made it were trying to scare you. You don’t know exactly how they’re going to do it but you can probably guess at a few of the tricks up their sleeves. If that feels formulaic for people on the outside, I get it. It’s different from other genres with far more broad definitions: fantasy books feature some sort of magical element; romance focuses on a love story; historical novels are set in the past. Beyond the initial genre signpost, those books could be about anything and make you feel anything.

But horror will always work to scare, unsettle or repulse you.

In the mood for a scare

For me, this is the appeal. I know I can pick up a book and feel a particular emotion (if it’s written well and taps into the things I find scary, that is). How cool is that? How comforting?

At university, I would always put on a horror VHS while I got ready for a night out. I’d rotate between The Blair Witch Project, My Little Eye, Scream, The Amityville Horror and Rosemary’s Baby. There was something reassuring, familiar about them that relaxed me and got me in a good mood. I think it’s partly that universality of fear that does it: everybody would be scared if somebody shook their tent in the middle of the night in the woods, right? Everybody would start feeling unnerved if they realised rich people were betting on their odds of survival in a reality show. Everybody would freak out of their house was trying to kill them. That’s kind of nice, isn’t it? We’re all the same, deep down.

Genre in general is really important when it comes to making books feel accessible and safe for young readers. They know what they like and what they’re going to get when they pick up a book, and horror has the added bonus of telling you how it’s going to try and make you feel, too.

And I think that’s super comforting. So I’m gonna grab my hot chocolate, wrap myself up in a blanket and hunker down for a Final Destination marathon. See you when I come up for air.