The Scariest Monsters Look Like Us

 by Thomas Kies 

In honor of Halloween (and the Day of the Dead), I’d like to touch upon one of my favorite subjects.  Villains. Bad guys. Boogeymen. Ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. 

When I’m writing, I enjoy creating my protagonists because they’re fun to be with, even if it's only in my own mind.  But there’s real joy… and catharsis… in writing the villains.  

Don’t we all harbor that dark side? When your boss makes a humiliating comment, wouldn’t you like to do something horrible to him, even if only in your imagination? When a store clerk ignores you, wouldn’t you like to grab them by the collar and give them a good smack? Do you have an ex who has cheated on you?  Honestly, don’t you think about digging a shallow grave in the woods?

But enough about my twisted imagination.  Let’s talk about some truly great literary villains. And a lot of them look normal.  Just like us. 

You can’t talk about legendary bad guys without including Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire, Count Dracula.  Wealthy and sophisticated, he enjoys the nightlife. He’s suave, handsome, and a great seducer.  He’s undead and enjoys a hearty meal of blood. At first glance, he doesn’t look scary. 

Dracula has spawned an untold number of vampire novels, short stories, and movies.  These include Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice (which has spawned its own literary, movie, and television industry) and Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. 

Speaking of Stephen King, he’s given us a treasure trove of literary villains.  Pennywise, the shapeshifting stealer of children from It. That novel didn’t make me any less afraid of clowns. Emily and Rodney Harris, the retired college professors who also happen to be cannibals from the novel titled Holly. Jack Torrance, the teacher/writer going mad at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. In the sequel to The Shining, there’s Rose the Hat from Dr. Sleep.  She’s a vampire that hunts children with psychic abilities to torture and feed from them.  Randall Flagg, the pure embodiment of evil, from The Stand and The Dark Tower series.  

But if you’re a writer, the most memorable villain is Annie Wilkes from the novel Misery. A few years ago, I was doing a book signing and a woman came up to me and said, “I’m your biggest fan.” I about peed myself. For a moment I thought she was going to offer me cookies.  

Don’t think I didn’t check whether she was carrying an axe. 

But at first glance, Annie Wilkes didn’t look scary. 

On to other villains.  We have to include Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's arch-nemesis and intellectual equal.  Moriarty would sit like a spider in the center of his own web of wickedness and do his evilness without ever getting his hands dirty. 

Another villain who has sparked his own industry is Hannibal Lecter from Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs. A brilliant psychiatrist, cultured, articulate, and impeccably mannered, Lecter is also a cannibalistic serial killer. He's proof that evil doesn't necessarily announce itself with a hideous face or a sinister laugh. Sometimes it wears a nice suit and speaks with perfect diction. At first glance, he doesn’t look scary. 

And what about the villain who works behind the scenes, manipulating, whispering, scheming?  The villain who understands human weakness and knows how to exploit it. Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello is that kind of character. You could liken those characteristics to advisors to current business leaders, politicians, or even presidents. At first glance, those advisors don’t look scary. 

Who are my favorite villains in my own stories?  Bogdan and Valentin Tolbonov from Darkness Lane and Graveyard Bay.  The Tolbonovs are half-brothers running their own faction of the Russian Mafia. Valentin is coldly charming and manipulative.  Bogdan is the muscle.  Both are devoid of any shred of conscience and aren’t afraid to show their streak of sadism. 

Those boys were fun to write.

Now, if you really want something to think about, many real-life serial killers look normal.  Ted Bundy- handsome, well-educated, charming.  John Wayne Gacy- ran a construction business, participated in community events, dressed up as Pogo the Clown for children’s parties (there’s that clown thing again). Dennis Rader- the BTK Killer (Bind, Torture, Kill) was unassuming in appearance, married, and had two children.  

None of them looked scary.  And there are dozens of other serial killers just like that. 

So, I hope you had a fun Halloween. Yes, it’s time to put away the costumes and masks.  Now, tonight, before you turn off the lights to go to bed, check on your loved ones and make certain they’re safe, then make damned sure those doors are locked tight. 

You never know what’s lurking outside.  And remember, if someone comes to the door, at first glance, they may not look scary. 

Scary Things

 By Thomas Kies

Halloween is tomorrow so you know I’ve got to talk about scary things.  Things that go bump in the night.  Sounds in the attic, doors that open and close by themselves, children laughing in the darkness…where there are no children.

Things that make the hair on the back of your neck bristle and wake you up in the middle of the night. 

I cut our cable service years ago.  We still get our internet through that same company because they have a monopoly in our market and that’s REALLY scary.  Those bloodsucking ghouls raise the price every six months or so.  Why?  Because they can. 

So, we have a Roku stick and we stream everything.  Since the beginning of October, all the streaming services have been serving up a panoply of horror movies.  Some are classics, like Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead, Alien, Rosemary’s Baby, the Shining, Carrie, Halloween, and Nosferatu. 

I’ve been watching some newer horror that includes a limited series on Netflix called the Fall of the House of Usher. It’s an interesting blend of Succession and King Lear with a mashup of many of the works of Edgar Allan Poe.  

Why do we love scary movies, television shows, and books so much?  When faced with danger, we experience the “fight or flight” response, an autonomic physiological reaction to being exposed to something that is perceived as being stressful or frightening.  It’s a dose of adrenaline. It’s a rush.  It’s exciting if you know the danger isn’t real.  

There’s a safety net. If it becomes too much for you, you know that you can leave the theater, turn off the television or change the channel, or you can close the book.  

Part of the allure of scary films and literature is human curiosity.  We want to know what lurks in that cave, the basement, the attic, or the abandoned insane asylum. We want to follow a character as he or she goes somewhere that you’re secretly shouting in your head, “Don’t go down there, you fool!.  Damn, you’re too stupid to live.”

But we can go down there, because we know it’s not real.  Or is it?

Since this is a writing blog, let me give you some of my favorite scary books:

Of course, there’s nobody who writes horror the way Stephen King does.  And it’s difficult to just name a couple of his novels but my favorites are It, the Stand, and Salem’s Lot.  That last book?  After reading it, I couldn’t go into our basement for months.  Shudder.

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, a modern classic.  It was a brilliant slant on the overwritten vampire trope. 

Speaking of which, the original and still the best—Dracula by Bram Stoker.  Sheer Gothic terror that’s been written, rewritten, and retold innumerable times.  But the best is still the original. 

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.  Sure, you’ve seen the movie, and yes, it’s one of the most frightening films of all time.  But scarier still?  Read the novel. 

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.  Two young boys meet the malevolent Mr. Dark at a carnival.  This was more significant for me because one of my jobs when I was in college was working as a carnie.  Scary, weird, and ironically comical.  Someday I may incorporate all of that into my own book. 

By the way, another excellent book set in a carnival is Stephen King’s Joyland.  The blurb on the cover reads, “Who dares enter the Funhouse of Fear?”

Who indeed? Happy Halloween everyone!  www.thomaskiesauthor.com

October: Time for Scary Stuff

We’ve just flipped the page on the calendar to October.  Definitely one of my favorite months, it’s the time when the air turns cool and crisp, leaves on the trees magically transform into brilliant bursts of color, and football is in full swing.

Pumpkin spice lattes?  I might do one.  Only one.

October is also the month of Halloween, the time when nearly all the streaming services are showing horror flicks.  What is it about horror that we love so much? 

My theory is it’s like being on a really scary rollercoaster ride.  When you get to the top of the first rise and you’re just about to hit that precarious drop, your heart is pumping, your palms are sweaty, and there’s a scream in your throat you know you’ll be helpless to stop. In short, it’s terrifying and exhilarating, but in the end, you know you’ll be safe. 

We like sitting in a darkened theater to watch a scary movie or cracking open a horror novel if in the end we know it’s all going to be okay.

As close to a horror novel that I’ve written was Graveyard Bay. It’s the darkest of the Geneva Chase Mystery Series.  It’s the book that when I asked my neighbor if he enjoyed reading it, he looked away and muttered, “The ending gave me nightmares.”

What book or movie has stayed with you for a long time or scared you silly?

For me, there have been quite a few.  As I was growing up, I binged on weekend horror flicks like the nineteen-thirties version of Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolfman. Back in the sixties, Aurora manufactured plastic model kits based on the old movie monsters.  After I’d put those bad boys together and painted them for my bedroom, I decided to read the old classics.  

Dracula by Bram Stoker had some similarities to the movie, but it was much scarier to read.  Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelly is a much different story than the movie starring Boris Karloff and I really enjoyed it.

Then I went through my H.P. Lovecraft phase.  It doesn’t get much darker than his Cthulhu Mythos.

My thirst for horror had taken root.  As I grew older, I read the likes of The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.  That was pretty scary book, but the movie frightened the living hell out of me.  It was one time when the film was scarier than the book.

The book that gave me nightmares, however, was Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. It scared me so much I hated going down into the basement for any reason for years.  His book The Stand comes in a close second.  

And of course, since then I’ve read many of Mr. King’s novels as well as such horror writers as Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rice.  

Just a quick aside, did you know that in addition to horror novels, Anne Rice wrote erotica under the names of Ann Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure? BDSM erotica...written years ahead of Fifty Shades of Gray.

So, I’m going to pour a glass of wine, pop some popcorn, and get ready to binge on some horror before Halloween gets here.  What are your favorites?