Suzy Says

Love/hate for Friday, June 28, 2002
Scary Stuff

I think real life is scary enough without adding to it by reading scary books and watching scary movies. Although I am technically a grown-up, I’m still uncomfortable in the dark. I usually blame it on my extremely poor eyesight, which makes it impossible for me to see what monsters and danger are lurking until I locate my glasses by groping around on the nightstand. But the truth is, I never outgrew the fear of the dark, which is simply fear of the unknown. I think fear of the unknown is a very basic human emotion, and has probably been with us ever since we first crawled out of the primeval swamp and started walking. So I find it amazing that anyone would actually want to be scared on purpose, provoking the age-old “fight or flight” response.

Unlike John, I watched very little TV as a child. We only had one little black & white set, and our parents were very careful of what we watched. They made sure we didn’t see the horrors of the Vietnam War, or mindlessly spend hours staring at whatever happened to be on. We lived in the country and played outside mostly, and read, so I grew up with very little exposure to violence, either real or fictional. I think that’s why I get more upset by it than John does, or than most people do (I almost wrote “normal” people, since restricting your kids’ access to TV today is probably child abuse in some states, and is almost certainly very unusual indeed).

John has gradually increased my ability to deal with horror movies and books, though there are still some things I cannot or will not watch. “Silence of the Lambs” gave me an anxiety attack, for example, and I’m always not looking during gross parts in movies and TV shows. John also introduced me to Stephen King and Christopher Fowler, both of whom can be categorized as horror writers, though I think of them as story-tellers first and foremost. No-one can tell a story, or remember what it’s really like to be a kid, than King, and no-one knows London better than Fowler, whose descriptions of gore and mayhem are, well, poetic.

But scary books and scary movies still have the power to give me nightmares. So I don’t allow them into my imagination near bedtime, and if I can avoid it, I don’t sleep alone.