Monsters from the Subconcious

As a Horror writer I've been often and pointedlylooks so hideous, though for the life of me, I can't
been asked why I write this stuff. It's not everfigure out why he had to make the thing out of
said directly, but it's always there: Is thereseveral 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 stuffthe monster runs away and then comes back to
and even more get a thrill out of watching it onhaunt him and he has to destroy it.The
the big screen. Just to hazard a guess, I'd sayexplanation for Frankenstein is that the monster
most people have in their life read a horror bookrepresents science and the Victorian fear that
or seen a horror movie. The question thenscience and progress had gone too far. Science,
becomes: What's wrong with us?My firstonce the obedient servant of mankind, had, like
occasions to hear horror stories was as a child inFrankenstein's monster, broken free and turned
church. I was told that there was a man in a redagainst its master - us. A hundred or years later
suit and horns who carried a pitchfork andthis same theme is echoed in the movie The
watched everything I did and wanted to send meTerminator, only this time the science that breaks
to the worst, most horrible place ever if I did badfree is computer science. Computers, our
things. Worse than this, I was told that there wasformerly docile servant, turn against us and band
something called 'original sin' and just by being borntogether to become one giant warlike mind which
I was on God's crap list and if I didn't repent forfor some reason or other decides that all humans
things I'd never done, the man in the red suitmust perish throughout time. I guess we had it
would still get me. It didn't seem quite fair to mecoming to us.Vampires, another popular monster,
that my little three year old wrong-doings couldhave represented the once prevalent infectious
earn me the same trip to Hell that someone likedisease that used to regularly wipe out giant
Hitler got.I was scared constantly. And that wasswathes of human population. In modern times,
the point of those stories, to scare little boys intoVampires have been reinterpeted to be kind of
behaving as their parents wanted them to.Fairysexy, 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 Ialso think may destroy them. Vampire stories,
remember all of my fairy tales, but I dothen, become our victory over our dark,
remember as a child being - probably -forbidden desires. Which are represented by
unreasonably worried about being eaten. For thethose sexy, sexy vampires.Sex is a constant
time, being eaten seemed about the worst thingtheme in the slasher movies. The Scream movies
that could happen to me and I looked warily atbrilliantly satirize this by having the teen-agers in
strangers trying to evaluate in my mind whetherthe movie aware of the conventions of the genre
they would try and eat me. Fortunately, therethey 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, Ithe 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 theirslasher who represents teen-age boys through
kids is one thing, but why do people want tothe menace of wielding the very Freudian penis
scare themselves? Did you ever wonder why youknife. You'll notice that the heroine that inevitably
paid good money at the bookstore and at theprevails in these movies is the virgin who never
movies for this service that your parents wouldsuccombs to the temptation of sex and not
happily provide you for free? Well, horror storiescoincidentally, does not succomb to the slasher,
are about fear, but it's not just about makingeither.My favorite monsters are the ones from
yourself scared - that alone is no fun. Horrorthe Japanese monster movies, Godzilla, Mothra,
stories are about conquering your fear, and theRodan and, of course, Monster Zero. The reason I
way they do that is symbolically by creating alove these monsters is that they are political
monster that represents a fear and by havingmonsters. Think about it: Godzilla is a giant,
that monster defeated. Thus it helps you tosuper-powerful radioactive monster who comes
overcome your subconscious fear/Monster byfrom over the sea who is created by
identifying with the destruction of the one in theradioactivity and then attacks Japan with that
story. Works out pretty neat, huh?Here's how itsame 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 realconstantly attacking Japan and being beaten up by
science fiction book, although it really is a horrorthe cohesion of the Japanese people.Now, the
story. In the story Victor Frankenstein discoversobvious question for me - being a horror writer
the secret of life - itself! As an experiment heand all - is: What are the symbolic monsters in my
creates for himself a man sewn together frombook, Breakfast with the Antichrist?Well ... I'm not
cadavers and then embues it with life, and thentelling.Steve Sommers is the author of Breakfast
seeing what an awful looking creature he'swith the Antichrist.
created, he abandons it. He does this because it