Why I write horror, by writer Fred Rayworth

Today I am handing my blog over to horror writer and horror fan, Fred Rayworth…

 

WHY I WRITE HORROR

By Fred Rayworth

I grew up in the late 50's, early 60's, at a time when paranoia was rampant in American society. The Cold War was at a peak, the threat of nuclear annihilation just a pushbutton away, and the fear of the unknown came not from just that monster under the bed, but from some mutant freak created by radioactivity. We had this pounded into our heads on a daily basis with advertisements for bomb shelters, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and my favorite, bomb drills. We felt a lot safer diving under a desk when the 100 megaton bomb went off just across the road.

Hollywood proved to be fertile ground with countless monsters created by mutations from radiation, or aliens coming from space to threaten our nuclear ambitions. Of course, along with that were the standard Dracula, Wolfman and the Mummy to add to the mix.

For a young preteen, it freaked me out to the point I was scared of my own shadow. My cousin would force me to watch monster movies whenever we'd visit my grandpa in Playa del Rey, California, I was exposed to the "worst" Hollywood had to offer. When I became a basket case, my grandpa had enough of that, dragged me to a movie lot and showed me the fakery behind it. On top of that, my dad made a big deal of pointing out errors in movies. One day it finally clicked and I became a hard-core fan. I couldn't get enough of those B-movie horror classics. The rubber monsters, the "inverted-ice-cream-cone" thing with seaweed hair, the gorilla suit with a diving helmet… the list goes on. One particular memory was the monster trading cards with bubblegum. They had the likes of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, all the classics. Let's just say, I was never scared again.

I write in multiple genres. Horror, or as I call it, icky bug, is one of them. One thing that is common to all of them is that all of my stories are adventures. When I write horror, it is still an adventure, just a scary, humorous adventure. It may not scare me, but if it scares my audience, so much the better.

When I started writing, my second novel was horror. At the time I was reading a lot of horror by the likes of Dean Koontz (before he went sappy), Carol Davis Luce, Elizabeth Forrest and a few others I can't remember. I wanted to do that. However, I wanted to create stories that harkened back to the monster B-movies of my childhood. Movies that I could only find in the cheap rental section at the video store. Movies that are now staples of Saturday evenings on the SyFy channel. Some may call them sci-fi instead of horror.

I've read lots of horror, and what I consider horror is a bit different from what many consider mainstream horror nowadays. There are so many subgenres of horror, that I can't even count them all. Most of them, I don't care for. There is slasher horror, which to me, is just extreme crime drama, more over-the-top than a typical detective story (many times without a detective at all). This is where the killer goes to extremes to torture and "off" their victims and the hero is just some poor schmuck trying to get away. To me, that is not horror, it is simply horrifying. In many of those stories, the hero dies. There is no payoff.

Then there is vampire horror. To me, that genre is just bloody romance. It is not the least bit horrifying or scary. It deserves respect as a genre all to itself but not as horror. There are a few exceptions including They Hunger, by Scott Nicholson. Now THAT is horror.

Then there is supernatural and ghost horror. That genre is horror and can be extremely scary, especially since many people believe in ghosts and there may be some legitimacy behind it.

Some authors ramble forever. Their horror is really a character study built around a horrifying plot of some kind. Nothing happens for chapter after chapter. I'm not a fan of that. I won't mention names, but there are some big writers out there that are famous for that. More power to them, but I'm not a fan of that. I like the author to get to the point. Nuff said about that.

My specialty is monster horror, many times with a supernatural element. There is a monster or monsters creating mayhem and the hero or heroine must overcome the odds to save the day. The story is scary but it is also an adventure. It's about the protagonist and his or her friends. It's how they have to figure out how to kick butt and take names, while fighting insurmountable odds, weird circumstances, and trying to keep the body count to a minimum.

I write horror to take the reader on a fun and scary ride, with a lot of humor. I am not out to depress people or give them crazy ideas (as in slasher horror). If I make someone think twice about going in that bathroom at night, or opening that basement door, or unlocking the rusty padlock on that old trunk, so be it. The idea is to have fun and be entertained, not throw the book down and be depressed or pissed off when they reach the end. I want the reader to get to the last word with a smile on their face.