| As a Horror writer I've been often and pointedly | | | | looks so hideous, though for the life of me, I can't |
| been asked why I write this stuff. It's not ever | | | | figure out why he had to make the thing out of |
| said directly, but it's always there: Is there | | | | several icky corpses instead of just finding one |
| something wrong with you? In my own defense, | | | | beautiful one and giving that one life. Anyways, |
| quite a few people enjoy reading this same stuff | | | | the monster runs away and then comes back to |
| and even more get a thrill out of watching it on | | | | haunt him and he has to destroy it.The |
| the big screen. Just to hazard a guess, I'd say | | | | explanation for Frankenstein is that the monster |
| most people have in their life read a horror book | | | | represents science and the Victorian fear that |
| or seen a horror movie. The question then | | | | science and progress had gone too far. Science, |
| becomes: What's wrong with us?My first | | | | once the obedient servant of mankind, had, like |
| occasions to hear horror stories was as a child in | | | | Frankenstein's monster, broken free and turned |
| church. I was told that there was a man in a red | | | | against its master - us. A hundred or years later |
| suit and horns who carried a pitchfork and | | | | this same theme is echoed in the movie The |
| watched everything I did and wanted to send me | | | | Terminator, only this time the science that breaks |
| to the worst, most horrible place ever if I did bad | | | | free is computer science. Computers, our |
| things. Worse than this, I was told that there was | | | | formerly docile servant, turn against us and band |
| something called 'original sin' and just by being born | | | | together to become one giant warlike mind which |
| I was on God's crap list and if I didn't repent for | | | | for some reason or other decides that all humans |
| things I'd never done, the man in the red suit | | | | must perish throughout time. I guess we had it |
| would still get me. It didn't seem quite fair to me | | | | coming to us.Vampires, another popular monster, |
| that my little three year old wrong-doings could | | | | have represented the once prevalent infectious |
| earn me the same trip to Hell that someone like | | | | disease that used to regularly wipe out giant |
| Hitler got.I was scared constantly. And that was | | | | swathes of human population. In modern times, |
| the point of those stories, to scare little boys into | | | | Vampires have been reinterpeted to be kind of |
| behaving as their parents wanted them to.Fairy | | | | sexy, that is, they represent the dark sexual |
| tales have the same theme: Obey your parents, | | | | impulses people have inside themselves that they |
| or bad things will happen. I can't swear that I | | | | also think may destroy them. Vampire stories, |
| remember all of my fairy tales, but I do | | | | then, become our victory over our dark, |
| remember as a child being - probably - | | | | forbidden desires. Which are represented by |
| unreasonably worried about being eaten. For the | | | | those sexy, sexy vampires.Sex is a constant |
| time, being eaten seemed about the worst thing | | | | theme in the slasher movies. The Scream movies |
| that could happen to me and I looked warily at | | | | brilliantly satirize this by having the teen-agers in |
| strangers trying to evaluate in my mind whether | | | | the movie aware of the conventions of the genre |
| they would try and eat me. Fortunately, there | | | | they are living through, yet helpless to change |
| were very few cannibals in Wisconsin at that time. | | | | them as those conventions become their fates. In |
| Jeffrey Dahmer was one, but for the life of me, I | | | | the slasher movies young girls fear of their own |
| can't think of any other Wisconsin cannibals. Oh, | | | | sexual maturity is confronted symbolically by the |
| wait. Ed Gein - but that's it.Parents frightening their | | | | slasher who represents teen-age boys through |
| kids is one thing, but why do people want to | | | | the menace of wielding the very Freudian penis |
| scare themselves? Did you ever wonder why you | | | | knife. You'll notice that the heroine that inevitably |
| paid good money at the bookstore and at the | | | | prevails in these movies is the virgin who never |
| movies for this service that your parents would | | | | succombs to the temptation of sex and not |
| happily provide you for free? Well, horror stories | | | | coincidentally, does not succomb to the slasher, |
| are about fear, but it's not just about making | | | | either.My favorite monsters are the ones from |
| yourself scared - that alone is no fun. Horror | | | | the Japanese monster movies, Godzilla, Mothra, |
| stories are about conquering your fear, and the | | | | Rodan and, of course, Monster Zero. The reason I |
| way they do that is symbolically by creating a | | | | love these monsters is that they are political |
| monster that represents a fear and by having | | | | monsters. Think about it: Godzilla is a giant, |
| that monster defeated. Thus it helps you to | | | | super-powerful radioactive monster who comes |
| overcome your subconscious fear/Monster by | | | | from over the sea who is created by |
| identifying with the destruction of the one in the | | | | radioactivity and then attacks Japan with that |
| story. Works out pretty neat, huh?Here's how it | | | | same radioactivity. Sound familiar? (Hint: It's |
| plays out in a few familiar scenarios. Frankenstein, | | | | America). All these monsters from overseas are |
| by Mary Shelley, was thought to the first real | | | | constantly attacking Japan and being beaten up by |
| science fiction book, although it really is a horror | | | | the cohesion of the Japanese people.Now, the |
| story. In the story Victor Frankenstein discovers | | | | obvious question for me - being a horror writer |
| the secret of life - itself! As an experiment he | | | | and all - is: What are the symbolic monsters in my |
| creates for himself a man sewn together from | | | | book, Breakfast with the Antichrist?Well ... I'm not |
| cadavers and then embues it with life, and then | | | | telling.Steve Sommers is the author of Breakfast |
| seeing what an awful looking creature he's | | | | with the Antichrist. |
| created, he abandons it. He does this because it | | | | |