Earlier this month I spent a lovely Saturday morning chatting with host Cari Dubiel and author Vivian Valentine for the Indie Writer Podcast. We talked about horror in general and splatterpunk and body horror in particular. You can listen here.
In a moment, I am going to introduce you a little bit more to Valentine and Why She Loves Horror, but first, I also wanted to shout out two other Writing Bloc horror authors who also contributed "Why I Love Horror" essays:
Vivian Valentine is a new writer who loves sci-fi and weird fiction. Her first novel, Beneath Strange Lights, blends cosmic horror with queer coming-of-age. It is available now via Kindle. Vivian lives in southern Virginia with her wife and teenage daughter. When not writing, she works in cybersecurity, plays boardgames and plans more RPG campaigns than she will ever have time to run. She cannot lie, all proceeds from her book sales will go toward X-Men action figures.
Listen to us talk about horror with librarian, and host, Cari Dubiel, check out why Valentine loves horror below and don't forget to click through to the the other horror authors I listed above. And thanks to Valentine for sharing a lot of herself as a trans-queer woman and how it feels to be "the sort of person who is supposed to be the monster." This is a powerful essay folks.
Don’t go near the deep water, child. Jenny Greenteeth is waiting beneath the still waters. Don’t go a-stealing from orchards that ain’t yours. Awd Goggie loves to eat thieves. Don’t you go out at night. Black Annis is waiting in the dark.
I love horror because I love a good scare, but more than that I love the monsters. Draculas and Frankensteins, gorgons and Deep Ones, ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. I cannot tell a lie, there’s a part of me that always wants them to win, and cheers when they come back.
There are monsters outside, we like to tell ourselves. We have laws and customs to keep them at bay. They fill stories from urban legends to slasher flicks. Follow the rules and you’ll be safe. Break them and … well, we told you not to go out at night. We told you not to skip church. We told you to stay away from that side of the tracks. We told you not to dress like that.
The stories hit differently when you’re the sort of person that’s supposed to be the monster.
We’ve adopted the monsters, haven’t we? The outcasts, the others, the weird and the wounded, we see something of ourselves in the scary tales and bogeymen. Cishet creators spent so much time queer-coding their baddies that we’ve come to revel in it. We realize Frankenstein’s “monster” only rages at rejection from his creator and his community. We thrill to the seductive queerness of a vampire’s bite. We recognize that all Medusa wanted was to be left alone.
Horror is about transgression. So is my queerness. The latter is incidental, of course; being a trans woman and a lesbian violates the way things are “supposed to be”, according to the mythologized 1950s Americana so many of my neighbors subscribe to. I didn’t break the rules for the sake of it, but there they are anyway, shattered at my feet. Now the monster is out, and what will she do to the village?
Watch out, dearies. I’ll queer you with a kiss.
Of course, we can’t queer all the baddies, can we? The problem with a lot of the monsters is they’re, well, monstrous. Pennywise the Dancing Clown is an ancient fear-eating child murderer. The alien Yith regard all other beings as curiosities at best. Count Dracula may be mysterious and sexy, but he’s also a powerful man with an utter disregard for consent. They have dreadful power and the ability (and willingness!) to us it for harm.
It’s a matter of what makes a monster Are they outsiders, shunned and feared by their communities? Or are they figures of power, of authority?
To a certain audience, I’m scary because a cheerfully transgress all manner of gender taboos. Let me loose and your boys might try makeup, your girls might try kissing each other, and your wives might wonder if there’s more to life than pot roasts and clipping coupons.
To me, the Archons of the Outer Church in Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles are scary because they embody the forces of repression and “order” that want to eliminate people like me. The real-world specter of conversion therapy is frightening enough; a monster that can reach into your head and rewrite your consciousness is terrifying.
The truth is that there are monsters in the world, but they don’t have fangs or tentacles or spellbooks. Some of them have guns and some of them have elected offices and the worst of them have a huge pile of money. I’ll take the pale gal in the black cape over the man with the black suit and tie.
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