Today I am featuring Julia Hodges, a University of Pittsburgh alumna with BA degrees in both Communication and Rhetoric, and Film and Media Studies, and a Certificate in Children's Literature. During her time at Pitt, she was a student employee in Archives & Special Collections, working with the horror studies collections. She is currently a graduate student at the University of Virginia pursuing a Master's in Media, Culture, and Technology while working at a locally-owned secondhand bookstore. She now lives in Charlottesville, VA with her ten plants, and what is probably just a raccoon outside... right?"
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Why I Love Horror
by Julia Hodges
As much as I wish I could pinpoint an exact moment that my love for horror began, I cannot. But there has always been something about the genre, from literature to films, internet culture and video games, that has drawn my interest. Something about the way horror affects us, under the skin and in the furthest cracks and crannies of our minds and memories, has always – for lack of a better word – haunted me. Ultimately, there is no one horror property that captivated me from the start, nor a childhood experience with the supernatural that forever geared me towards the macabre. While my academic and professional work has granted me a grander appreciation for the genre, through hours of papers and even more hours of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done alongside Pitt’s Horror Studies Collection, my love for horror did not begin, nor does it end, with just the films and books I consume, or the research I pursue. In the simplest of terms, I can confidently say that regardless of the franchise or the form, above all, I love horror because I love a challenge.
Consider this: when opening a new book, or walking into a movie theater, for any other genre, what is the most you risk? For many of us, the most we risk by consuming some new media is our time. If all goes well, the media may provide decent entertainment and even leave an impression. If all does not go well, then we risk experiencing maybe the most boring two hours of your life—long enough to finish a dull movie, or just the right amount of time to give up entirely on trying to progress through a book or game. On an off chance, a person may be unexpectedly brought to tears by a sudden on-screen death, or an involuntarily moving soundtrack. All in all, the decision to consume most entertainment media is very inconsequential, coming just down to the time and attention one is willing to offer.
Now, on the contrary: what does the average person risk when going to see a horror film, or when picking up a horror title?
When you venture into horror, you’re risking more than just a waste of the time locked into the media being consumed. Lightly, you might risk getting startled by a jumpscare in front of your friends (or heavens forbid, a date you’re trying to impress), forever condemned to the embarrassment of getting caught off-guard by a loud noise. Or, you risk the disappointment of a film promising to be the next thing to scare your socks off, only to be schlocky at best or boring at worst.
But if the horror goes above and beyond, what more could be at risk? Haunting prose, disturbing plotlines, and devastating descriptions or practical effects can lead to nightmares, distress, or niggling thoughts of ‘what if…’ lurking in your mind when navigating a dark room. Horror can change how you look at a simple object for the rest of your life, or how you hear a song or a name, depending on their placement in a particularly haunting story. Horror, when done well, can be as awe-inspiring as a renaissance painting, and as horrific as watching a vicious car crash unfold. Horror is striking, and fascinating—it draws our attention, and for better or for worse, it does not let go easily. Horror can open the eyes to new forms of art, of new and masterful imaginations put to prose, new filming techniques and even newer thrills. But with the risk of horror’s lingering effects, it effectually creates a natural barrier between itself and the pedestals of mainstream media. The uniqueness of the horror genre in this specific fashion is both its greatest selling point, and the highest hurdle for those who could come to appreciate its complexity.
When I first moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, a few months before beginning graduate school at UVA, I landed a job at a locally owned second-hand bookstore in Charlottesville’s historic downtown district. Upon my first tour of the shop, amidst hundreds of shelves, I saw something pertinent missing. I asked the owner, a sweet elderly woman who always wears flower-printed overalls, where their horror section was located, and she told me with this bittersweet look on her face that they didn’t have one. She had asked me extensively about my experience working with Pitt’s Horror Studies Collection during my interview, so there was no way she could have thought I wouldn’t ask about the genre’s oversight in the shop.
“The thing is,” she told me, “no one on the staff really reads horror. It’s too scary for me to know much about it. And when all the Stephen King books sell out, I don’t know what to put in their place.”
Within the first week, I had used the store’s inventory to pull every title from the other shelves—sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, thriller, classics, even general fiction—to build a horror section. And even with my daily additions to the newly labelled shelves, I can barely keep the section full. Horror is popular, regardless of the risks that deter so many from trying it. But I can always find new or different titles to refill the empty spaces—because horror is also dynamic, thought-provoking, challenging, and exciting. Horror can be found in so many subjects, in so many forms and from so many authors and creators.
Horror will always exist on the outskirts of pop-culture for the very purpose I recognized while writing this entry. Horror, unlike most other media, has risks as a barrier of entry. To become a fan of horror, especially as an adult, one must face more than the challenge of knowing where to start. It requires the introspection and wisdom of a person to know their own boundaries, and yet the courage to try something unexpected, unfamiliar, and possibly frightening. Whether because of stigma or personal skittishness, so many are reluctant to try getting into any media that has been labelled as ‘horror.’ But, with the same skills I use as a salesperson in a small bookstore, I do what I can to think outside the box—what is a recommendation someone wouldn’t expect? Where would someone be willing to compromise in order to try something new? Maybe they can try horror cloaked in prose and poetry, like Poe; maybe they prefer the monstrous actions of a criminal in a thriller book, rather than the paranormal. Perhaps they want something that they can critique socially from a modern perspective, like a Lovecraft work, to understand the creations of horror without fully investing themselves into the story. Or maybe, the reader is brave and willing to try a new book for its own sake but just don’t know where to start.
Horror invades, permeates, and latches onto every concept, every uncanny, and every known fear that humans can come up with; it just depends on who the story came from, and who the story speaks to. Because it is unexpected, unknown, and unruly, so many audiences are reluctant to give it a chance. But once horror can be recognized for its diversity, its innovation, its creativity and its openness to adapt for audiences within and without the genre, I think it can be a remarkable tool for building communities, fostering empathy and open-mindedness for all of us. And with a lighthearted understanding for the absurd possibility within the genre itself, I think that overall, the fun that surrounds horror amidst the fear is like the thrill of riding a roller coaster. Just strap in, buckle up, have fun, laugh, shriek if you need to. At the end of the day, no one will blame you for vomiting up your funnel cake, if the loops and turns wound up being too much. We’re all just here to have a good time.
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