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MY FAVORITE WAY to blow off steam was by watching horror movies. I considered them a sort of exposure therapy. Which was ironic because my former therapist hated the idea. But I found the horror soothing, almost cathartic. Maybe it was the knowledge that everything I was seeing was fake and would be wrapped up neatly in under two hours. If I could train myself to sit through scary movies, face all different kinds of horrors head-on, then maybe I could transform into a calmer, more serene version of myself.
“Art is all about drawing an emotion out of someone, right? A beautiful painting could make you feel wonder. A song could make you cry. A movie could make you laugh. Evoking an explosive, immediate reaction out of someone? There’s nothing more visceral than being scared. It’s why some people love watching scary movies. I love being scared.”
“Trevor’s entire existence is based around the idea that he’s better than everyone else,” Freddie said. “Fear strips that away. It’s the great equalizer. And when you’re truly scared, there’s nowhere to hide—no private school, no popularity, no trust fund. It’s just you and your most base emotion. Fear is where the truth lies.”
“Yes, that’s good horror,” I said. “But really good horror happens when the movie’s over. If it sticks with you. If, long after you’ve stopped watching, you’re still looking over your shoulder. Then you know you’re really scared.”
Coming from this tiny apartment, big mansions in scary movies didn’t ever get to me. But at the Wilding place? We were, like, eleven, all the way up in Bram’s room, like three floors away from the rest of civilization. It was pouring out and we both thought we were going to die that night. It was amazing.”
Mary Shelley writes of two men. One, an intellectual capable of creating life from death. The other, a grotesque creature made of human body parts and covered in scars. But it isn’t the obvious monster that we have to be afraid of. It’s the one that looks like us and acts like us. Mary Shelley’s message was clear: Real monsters aren’t the ones created by man. The real monster is man himself.
