What Scares Us?

 by Thomas Kies

Happy Halloween readers!!  Since today is the day when, according to the ancient Celtic tradition of Samhain, we should be lighting bonfires and donning costumes to ward off ghosts…but instead, we’re putting on costumes and eating ourselves into a sugar frenzy—let’s talk about what scares us.

Full disclosure, I like scary stuff.  I like novels by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and the late Peter Straub.  I enjoy the occasional horror movie like Rosemary’s Baby, The Thing, The Shining, and yes, Halloween.  I like going on ghost walks and ghost hunts.

Regarding ghost hunts—I wrote about one in my first book Random Road. That’s loosely based on a real ghost hunt I was lucky enough to join.  I was the president of the Norwalk Seaport Association at the time and one night we ferried a crew of experienced ghost hunters out to Sheffield Island.  The island is on Long Island Sound and boasts a wildlife refuge and a nineteenth century lighthouse and lighthouse keeper’s cottage.  

The island has no running water and no electricity and when you’re out there, it’s dark and deathly quiet.  While I sat quietly drinking a glass of wine at midnight at a picnic table, the hunters snapped photos, took electrical and temperature readings, ran audio recordings, and prowled around the lighthouse and the island. They brought back photos of “orbs” and one picture of a little girl’s face in a second-floor window as she was gazing out at us.  One of the hunters was a psychic or “intuitive” who told us there were three ghosts living out on that island.

The only spirits I saw that night were in my glass.

I sometimes write about things that scare me.  In my third book Graveyard Bay I wrote about White Supremacist crime gangs, the Russian Mafia, dungeons, and S&M…oh my! My neighbor read it and when I asked him how he liked it, he replied with a deadpan expression, “Gave me nightmares.” 

As a writer, that’s when ya’ know you nailed it, baby.

My wife, Cindy, and I are in the middle of watching the Netflix anthology Cabinet of Curiosities originated and hosted by Guillermo del Toro.  I’ve always enjoyed his work, especially his movie Nightmare Alley.  The ending was not only scary as hell but dripping with delicious irony. 

According to Mr. del Toro, this is what frightens him.  “The moment Lon Chaney is revealed as the Phantom of the Opera was one of those seminal moments in my mind. It scared me not because of how scary it looked, but because of how remote and majestic Lon Cheney played it. That gesture, so unique and so commanding and so full of power and rage and despair. It was truly a powerful moment.”

What scares the master of horror Stephen King?  In many of his novels, characters go mad or lose their minds due to dementia, fear, or isolation like the Jack Torrance character in The Shining. When that happens, even well-intentioned people can do horrible things. In an NPR interview he did a number of years ago, King said, “That’s the boogeyman in the closet now. I’m afraid of losing my mind.”

Why are “haunted houses” and horror novels and movies so popular?  My own theory is that we know that, in the end, we’ll be putting that book down and all will be well.  When the lights come on at the end of the movie, we know we’ve had a good scare, but it wasn’t real, was it? 

It’s like being on a rollercoaster.  It feels like we’re facing death by moving at an eyepopping speed and dropping down the tracks over a cliff while your stomach is trying to figure out where it’s supposed to be. But at the end, we know we’ll be stepping out of the ride, legs weak, heart pounding, but safe.

So, it’s Halloween…what scary movie shall we watch tonight?  What will you be doing?