Real-Life Horror is Not a Slasher Movie. All Too Often, It's a Lot More Mundane

From Troma to Terrifier, The Horror Genre is Rife with In-Your-Face Nastiness, But How Does That Compare to the Horrors We Face in Real Life?

The late great Richard Laymon described horror as “the genre of worst-case scenarios,” and his books are an apt reflection of this literary philosophy. Even over a quarter-century after his death, they ruffle feathers of readers with their frank depictions of depravity, human and otherwise. He still gets dragged in Facebook groups for how often his books feature sexual assault, but when you consider how he describes the genre, it fits. Can you think of much else as awful? Me neither.

I don’t think Laymon is the only horror creator who sees the genre this way, as a showcase of worst-case scenarios. I’m not even sure if he’s the one who first described it as such. His oeuvre certainly isn’t the only example of work that shares this philosophy. From a masked killer ruining the fun for a bunch of teens partying in the woods to a family curse rearing its ugly head, horror media explores so many instances of things going horribly wrong.

Actually, “instances” is a good word here because often horror is of-the-moment. The moment when you realize the clown whose lap you’re sitting on has malevolence on his mind. The moment when your boy reads from the Necronomicon and the Evil Dead come out of the woods to turn your friends into murderous revenants. When you wake up in one of Jigsaw’s traps and you suck at puzzles.

But what about the trauma we don’t talk about, the quietly devastating, the real-life horror that lingers?

On August 14, 2020, my wife Jean was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s Disease.

I don’t even know how to finish this post after writing that line. Seriously. This is the first time I have mentioned her illness online. My family knows. My inner circle knows. But this is the first time I’ve told you, my incredibly kind and faithful subscribers.

The diagnosis came on our anniversary.

At the time, I was working for a “package concierge” service, one of those companies that held parcels for apartment residents, so the leasing offices didn’t need to deal with them. It was a grift and a half, serving landlords heaps more than it served the tenants. Of course, the fee we made was passed onto them instead of shouldered by the leasing companies. I hated the idea of it almost as much as the residents did, but the company let me work from home—even before everyone was working from home. Plus, it paid okay, and I had time to write.

My home office shared the guest bedroom with a futon that folded out to a king-size bed. Sometimes I slept up there because our son had night terrors that brought him stumbling blindly in the dark down to our bedroom to sleep with us. No bed could comfortably hold three, especially when one of its occupants was a four-year-old who tossed, turned, and kicked in his sleep, so I slept upstairs.

I tried to find the joy in it, like the fact that I could see the moon, bright as God herself in the window around three in the morning, and that I could jump to my desk in a pinch if late-night inspiration struck.

Jean sat down on the edge of the futon and waited for me to finish up a call. After I got the resident to email her proof of delivery to me so I could share it with the warehouse, I said goodbye and spun in my chair to face Jean. I smiled at her and held out my arms. Under the weight of the workday, I had forgotten that she even had a doctor’s appointment, which is something I still sometimes harbor guilt over.

When she didn’t come into my arms, I got up to embrace her, but she shook her head. I noticed her expression then. The usual brightness that gleamed in her blue eyes and under her freckle-dusted skin had dimmed to something I rarely saw in her. This dullness was so infrequent that if I thought about it, I could probably count the times I had seen it. Then, something even rarer: I saw tears brimming the edges of her eyes, and I felt something sink inside me. Not just my heart, as is often stated in prose, but a vague, stinging everything.

“What is it?”

I was remembering now: the persistent limp on her left side, how her sense of smell vanished long before such a symptom became a telling sign of COVID, an exhaustion that I just chalked up to the stress of the last few years between my trip to the hospital, her mother’s decline, her cousin’s death, raising a small child, and having a second child on the way. Aside from the sense of smell, which we just assumed was caused by her environmental allergies, I low-key wondered if her pregnancy was to blame—that once our second child came, her symptoms would lift and she would be back to her bubbly, brilliant self.

She was always quick to point out that all her symptoms predated her pregnancy. I always tried to convince myself she was misremembering, but I should’ve known better. Bodies know themselves. They remember.

“They said that it’s most likely Parkinson’s,” she said.

Then I hugged her. Her tears didn’t last, but she accepted my comfort.

I had no idea what to say. No idea what to think.

I still sometimes don’t know what to say or think.

My therapist and close friends refer to me as a caregiver, not just for my children but for Jean too. And it’s hard to see myself that way. The fact of the matter is if you don’t notice the way she limps, you wouldn’t know she was sick. She’s remains the hardest working person I know. She’s still social in a way that my introverted self can hardly wrap my brain around. She’s still the person who lights up every room she enters.

And yet, it lingers. The knowledge of what’s in her body hangs over us like a cloud promising jagged rain.

The diagnosis was the moment, a grounded, real-life equivalent to the scene in a horror film when the axe falls. It lasted a maximum of two minutes, but the effect has endured for six years. I imagine it will continue for the rest of my life.

Friends, this is why Twin Peaks (and the prequel film and revival series) may be the best horror text ever made. Sure, the show has numerous horrific moments (despite not being marketed as part of the horror genre), but the majority of episodes concern themselves with the aftereffects of violence, most explicitly the death of Laura Palmer. Jean’s diagnosis wasn’t the first “death of Laura Palmer on a personal level” I’ve experienced, but it’s the most consequential by far.

I don’t know what the future holds. On most days, my emotions run the gamut of fear, frustration, and profound sadness. Even on the good days, we’ve got this thing living in the house with us.

We have each other. We have two lovely children. We live in a nice house. These things count for something. Of course they do. That’s what makes knowledge of her illness so fucking scary. Someone once told me that when you’re in your teens and early twenties, you fear that you’ll never amount to anything, won’t be loved, or build anything close to resembling a meaningful life. When you’re middle-aged, they said, you fear losing the life you have.

Now, of course, all things end. Such is life. Horror fans know this. Shit, everyone knows this, but horror people have constant reminders of this truth, and for some reason, it helps them process it better.

At least, that’s what I thought, but things have changed.

I still love the genre and always will. It just doesn’t comfort me the way it used to.

I’m sure there are multiple factors that have caused this. My life as a horror creator has shown me the ugly side of the horror community (that’s a whole other essay). Having kids has made it harder to watch or read some of the more extreme stuff, namely when there’s an emphasis on realism.

More than anything, it’s living with this thing that threatens to take everything from us. Now, when I watch horror, I seldom feel comforted. I feel reminded.

Sometimes, I need that reminder. Remembering how easily all this can be taken away helps me stay grateful for the good things. Sometimes, I don’t need that reminder because the knowledge of what I stand to lose is so heavy and pervasive that gratitude doesn’t come easily.

I’m not talking about campy or cheesy works of horror. Watching Killer Klowns from Outer Space for the umpteenth time isn’t likely to remind me of anything aside from how much fun the genre can be when it wants. Nor am I talking about the aesthetics of Halloween and horror cosplay, when it’s a playful, surface-level appreciation of the genre and all things spooky. When I’m at a convention watching all the cosplayers who put so much care into their outfits and the crafty types who make skateboards with horror characters on them in their free time, I get that “coming home” feeling. I don’t feel reminded of anything bleak or sad.

And I’m certainly not talking about slasher movies, which I’ll always argue are essentially cartoons for adults. Real-life horror isn’t a slasher movie; all too often, it’s a lot more mundane. It lingers and looms. It weighs on us, even when outwardly, we’re getting by just fine. It threatens but you never know when it will deliver on its threat, only that it will.

This essay was extremely difficult to write, so thank you for reading it. I appreciate all of you, seriously. Am I okay, you might ask? I suppose it depends on what you mean by “okay.” I’m above ground, and I intend to stay that way. That’s enough for now.

Some writing updates:

• I’m not actively working on anything at the moment. I’m doing whatever the writing equivalent of “sketching” is. Otherwise, I’m throwing most of my creative energy into this newsletter. I’ve agreed to post one personal essay (like the one above) and one short story (for paid subscribers) every month.

• Project Cryptid is going through revisions.

• The tenth anniversary of my book Mania is this October. To celebrate, there will be a new, hardcover edition coming out through Madness Heart Press, so keep an eye out for that.

• If you’re a book reviewer, and you like audiobooks, send me a message to receive a US or UK Audible promo code for Goddamn Graveyard Zombies so you can listen to it for free. All I ask is that you post an honest review when finished.

Currently reading: Subliminal Messages by S.Q. McGrath

Recently watched: Minions and Monsters (directed by Pierre Coffin - theaters), Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (directed by James Signorelli - Amazon Prime), Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (directed by Richard Ayoade - Amazon Prime).

Listening to: “One2Blame” by Rubix Kitten. Her new single is on Bandcamp and definitely worth a listen.