a word about horror
we love it. Not at three am, when the doors are locked, and the lights are on, and we’re going to look like crap at work and be too embarrassed to say why, but we love horror. In the daytime. When it’s bright.
Ghosts are scary for several reasons. There dead, and that’;s like the ultimate end to a fight, the last card we can use, and now it’s worthless. They’re everything we despair about death, the coldness, the inevitably, the nearness. Ghosts that cozy up to us are scary. The dangers we can’t see, right there, that we can’t defend ourselves against, are what scare us.
My problem- if I die, I do not want to haunt work. Kinda makes you wish like heck you die somewhere fun. I mean if your ghost is going to stay there, it better a fun place to die, especially if you’re there for a while. Did Indians have ghosts? What would a thousand year old ghost make of us now? Who would be more scared, us or it?
The things worst than a horror movie are right here in real life. We don’t expect our day to end in mind twisting pain, mutilation, and gore, but if you go for a walk and a semi truck parks on your butt, well, your there. And it could happen. But we don’t expect it.
Fear is cold fingers on the back of our neck, the hidden ghost we don’t see that watches us, the lurking fear that logic can’t explain.
I love reading horror. Not late at night, but I love horror.
I don’t watch horror videos late at night, usually. New rule, post grudge. No more scary movies late at night, and I don’t like going to sleep with those gory images in my mind.
Okay, but how about something better? I just saw perfect blue, very nice. It’s a japannimation about a cool murder mystery, and very nice animation.
So what does that have to do with writing? Well duh, haven’t you been reading this thing? (And if you’re new, it’s a good excuse.) It’s all practice for your writing. Now we know why ghosts are scary, how does that apply to the book? The paramedic book just isn’t scary enough. There’s a need to see more ghost, something missing, the ghost needs to be more than just a vague presence, it needs to a be character.
Movies are a good way to see how to hide info, or lead the wrong track. Perfect blue does a good job at this, with a logical ending, but hard to see coming.
Shutter was pretty good, though I could guess the ending. But scary, nice ending scene, very nice and scary.