Horror As Medicine
Two days ago, there was yet another murder of an American citizen on American soil by another American. Seemingly seconds later, reports came in that there was yet another school shooting, this time in Colorado. It was the forty-seventh such shooting to happen on the national stage this year alone. And all of this happened exactly one day after the now-infamous Epstein Birthday Book was released by congress.
Jesus Christ.
A lovely coincidence for our sitting president—who drew a picture in Epstein’s book alongside some disgusting words, and signed his name to it—to suddenly have something else in the national discourse, aided in no small way by the complicity of a billionaire-owned news media that continues to feed on the festering American corpse like the ghoul that it is. Lucky him.
Eat the Rich
These recent events have all been varying levels of horrific on individual merits alone, but the real fucked-up part, increasingly apparent since days after the end of the last election, is that it’s endless. We don’t get to breathe, because in 2025’s America, breathing is a luxury for the rich and powerful. Just like land, water, opportunity, freedom, safety, and sanity.
Color us collectively real surprised as these assholes try to reanimate the aging roadkill of every evil regime since the dawn of time—all of which, I might add, have been toppled sooner or later, ground to dust by the merciless boots of history. Power is fragile and temporal at best. Maybe you can pass it on to your kids along with your wealth (maybe), but your slimy, worm-eaten skinsack is going to disintegrate into its component parts just like everyone else’s, and probably faster than most with the amount of piss people are lining up to unload on your grave.
The Honesty of Horror in Evil Times
So to bring this back to our beloved horror genre: I’m leaning in. Shit is bad. Yes. I could try to make myself feel better, or I could read Ligotti’s The Conspiracy Against the Human Race again. I could pretend these aren’t the times I’m living in, or instead admit I might end up the kind of unfortunate historical statistic we read about in high school. And I could write about that too, let the times be something I’m not constantly compelled to escape and instead willing to use as a truth that fuels my work.
There’s something to be said for things that feel honest, or at least seem to be floating around the same level as one’s internal waterline. We’ve all got different ways of coping, of course, but for me, having something that matches my inner state is generally a greater comfort than attempting to fight that state with irreconcilable contrasts. I know many consumers of horror feel the same way, turning to darker stories in darker moments of history. It works with music too. I feel a lot better when I’m listening to death metal in times like this than I would my favorite J-pop albums, which can feel naive or insipid in the face of problems of our current magnitude.
Time and Place
Don’t take this to mean I don’t think folks should play some Animal Crossing if they need to. I dumped a couple dozen hours into Oblivion Remastered a couple months ago because I just needed to feel like it was 2006 again for a hot minute, where all I had to deal with were my 2006 problems (even though those were still awful, really; I guess everything looks better in the rearview).
My point here is that it’s all relative, so don’t let folks tell you that horror is bad for you, a thing they really love to do when the world is looking a little foamy around the mouth. Sometimes it’s better to admit just how bad things are and allow yourself the genuine comfort of equilibrium. Horror can be cathartic no matter the time or place, but it can be especially so when the world seems to be crumbling around you. In those times, it may feel less like escapism and a lot more like honesty.
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