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

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?