Oh, The Horror; the Horror! It's good for you!

By Glenys O'Connell

As a kid I can remember being terrified by a television showing of the original black-and-white movie Dracula. Later, married with two kids, I couldn't face going into my basement to do laundry at night after reading Stephen King's The Shining.

I recently saw The Shining again, and wondered what the fuss was all about!

But I'll be right there the next time there's a King book out, or a horror movie showing at the local movie house.

And I won't be alone.

I know you – and lots of our friends – will be right there with me.

Horror is good for us!

It alls starts when we're kids – have you read some of those traditional fairy tales recently? I don't mean the politically correct versions some of those killjoys out there want kids to read. I mean the ones with wicked witches and monsters, children being cooked over an open fire….even the rhymes like Humpty Dumpty and The Three Little Pigs are early horror fodder for our young.

So what do I mean by horror is good for us? Well, for one thing it lets us explore our worst fears, just like the cavemen who drew pictures on the cave walls showing them fighting off saber toothed tigers and other monsters of the day. We face our fears, and then we can say wow, we faced the crazy serial killer, the zombie, the monster, and we survived! And deep down inside, we know it's not real.

There's also the borderline real horror shows, like CSI. Now we don't care hoew gruesome the scenes and we don't really care if it's inaccurate. What is important that the story shows us the world is set right after something aweful happens. That's what we want to know: always the bad guys are punished in the end and the good guys win out.

Uhm. Maybe not so much like real life, after all.

Now, I'm all for horror, but I'm also all for keeping it in the fantasy realm. Fantasy horror, on tv or the big screen, where we can shudder or scream, close our eyes tight or snuggle up to a lover for comfort & protection, is a great safety valve.

But real life horror, that's something else. As a journalist I saw some pretty awful things that have stayed with me for many years. One is the way a weedy little man, charged with eviscerating his estranged wife, turned around in court to smile at his relatives who were there to support him.

That grin said so much – the pleasure and pride he felt at what he'd done, the lack of a conscience or any remorse, and the empty, insane look that made shivers run down my spine. I'm glad to say he was put away for a long, long time.

One I'll never understand. I used to dread being on duty during long weekend holidays, because one of the jobs then was to cover the traffic accidents. We all know folk go a bit crazy on holidays, what with mixing booze and unaccustomed freedom, so the accidents can be pretty horrendous.

So, we have a beautiful summer day, birds singing, leaves budding out, blue skies with fluffy white clouds. And an accident scene – two wrecked vehicles, emergency crews everywhere, an elderly woman being rushed to an ambulance while her husband's body lay in the road.

And a middle aged couple with two children in tow arguing with a young cop because they were not being allowed near the scene. They wanted the two children, aged about nine and 12, to see the dead guy. Indeed, they claimed they had a right to see the dead.

I was an educated adult and yet I can still shudder when remember that blanket covered form, still in death, and one hairy wrist protruding from the coverings, a gold wedding ring glinting in the sunlight. Would seeing this be an education for the two kids? Or nightmare material?

Yet the two nutcases wanted to expose their kids or grandkids to some titillating entertainment of the dead body type. An early forerunner of reality television?

No, thanks. I'll take my horror with popcorn and a few good friends. The kind of horror we leave behind when we leave the theatre or turn off the tv.

Real life horror is just too, well, real for my taste.

Romantic suspense & mystery author Glenys O'Connell admits to some pretty evil deeds herself. For example, at Hallowe'en she's been known to stash some of the best candy away for herself and then lie to innocent children about having given it all away…you can read some of her work on www.glenysoconnell.com under the brand Romance Can be Murder.

What Makes a Horror Story Truly Horrific? By Jannine Gallant

Do severed limbs and spouting blood make you cringe in terror—or roll your eyes? If you’re like me, violence for the shock factor doesn’t keep you glued to the TV screen or turning those pages. Discerning viewers and readers want something a little more subtle when they’re in the mood to be scared.

I was trying to think of a suitably eerie topic for my October blog, when my younger daughter plopped down a work sheet for her 7th grade language arts class on the table in front of me. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. A shiver ran through me. It has been at least 35 years since I read the story, but I remember every nuance of the setting. The building tension as the villagers’ nervous laughter turns to silence, then anxiety and dread when they open their slip of paper. The relief that follows for all but one family. The dawning horror as the first rock is thrown and my imagination takes over. All without a single drop of blood shed. Hollywood could take lessons from Ms. Jackson.

Hollywood has gotten it right a few times. Who can forget the look on Jack Nicholson’s face in The Shining? Yikes! Has anyone ever watched Jamie Lee Curtis walk down the dark street in the original Halloween without feeling their heart pound in their chest? It’s the anticipation of knowing what waits in the dark that gives us goose bumps and nightmares. We don’t need to see the violence. Our imaginations are our own worst enemies—or best friends if you like having the pee scared out of you! LOL

I don’t write horror, but I do write suspense. The same principles apply to both genres. My editor offered me a contract for my latest effort not long ago, but she wanted me to add scenes from the killer’s POV to build tension and add to the creepy factor. A Deadly Love is about a serial killer stalking women through the redwood forest of Northern California. I grew up there, so I knew the habitual fog and drizzle made a suitably chilling background. But did I want to witness murder and mayhem first hand? Shudder. Still, I had to write those scenes…

I drew inspiration from The Lottery. I wrote about what the killer was thinking, his frustration and anger because no one understood his motives. I showed the women waiting for their fate to play out, how the reactions of each reflected their different personalities. I’m please to say my editor loved the new scenes. A Deadly Love won’t be published until sometime next year, but you can tell me then if I managed to send a little chill down your spine…

For information and news on my current releases, please check out my website at http://www.janninegallant.com/, like my JannineGallant.Author page at Facebook, or follow me twitter.com/#!/JannineGallant on Twitter.