Someone
recently asked why I don't seem to write about monsters. It is, that someone
told me with an air of assumed authority, the bread and butter of the horror
world. Of course, when I told that particular person I do write about
monsters, that person then simply begin shaking his head and asked me to
name a single story I had written which contained the aforementioned
abomination.
I named four
of my most recent stories – which I hope to have positive responses from in the
coming weeks. Then it struck me that person wasn’t actually talking about
monsters, but Monsters. And that’s when I understood what he meant.
He was a
talking about the thing under your bed or hiding in your closet. He was talking
about Imps and ghouls and unnameable things dredged up from the seventh circle
of hell.
In the past
I tried to write typical monster fiction. In fact, when I first started to
write I cut my teeth on horror fiction by reimagining some of the old movies I’d
seen as an impressionable kid of maybe seven or eight (fan fiction, I guess you’d
call it), and while I’ll admit I enjoyed every minute of it, I can also attest
to the fact it did nothing for me.
For me, the
best kind of monster there is to deal with is the human monster: the guy or
girl next door; the troubled kid with the baseball bat and an evil glint in his
eyes; the unfortunate midnight expeditions which seem to bring the deviants out
into the moonlight; the stepfather; the stepmother. The list is endless.
Sure, I’ll
admit, they’re monsters of a different kind, but they’re real.
The human
condition is far more interesting to me than some toothy, hell-bent demon
rocking up at the crack of midnight.
Think about
it.
Some of the
best horror movies committed to the silver screen are about people in some kind
of state. Psycho. Hellraiser. A nightmare on Elm Street. The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. The exorcist. The evil dead. The list is endless. And all of those
films, ultimately, depict the human condition.
And that,
for me, is the scariest monster of all.
We all have
the potential to become a monster – we can even live for years next door to one
– but we’re never ever going to become a werewolf or Vampire or unnameable
thing dredged up from the seventh circle of hell.
Face it. We’re
always going to be simple old Mr. & Mrs. Smith – the nice, church-fearing
couple from next door. Until, for one reason or another, we open the kitchen
draw and the butcher’s knife gently winks back at us.
For me, Mr.
& Mrs. Smith are just as scary as the things we imagined to lurk inside our
closet as a child. Because as adults they’re the people we really lock our doors
against. And when we hear that crack of a well trodden board in the dead of the
night, whose feet do we really imagine walking through our halls? Do we really imagine
clawed hands and razor sharp teeth, or do we simply imagine a nameless face?
I know what
I imagine. Do you?
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