Unspeakable Horror!

I think the Horror genre has the wrong name, at least for the stuff that's actually worth reading and watching.  For a while now, I've been thinking about how the best horror isn't about horror at all.  By this I mean that the purpose of the storytelling is not to leave the reader or viewer with a feeling of horror as the final end result.  Horror, revulsion, tension all happen on the road to the conclusion, but I believe that the best horror gives you something else in the conclusion: relief -- a happy ending, but not always.  Sometimes, the final conclusion gives you a surprising reversal, a denouement that really makes you think.  All of this is in contrast to works of horror that relish in gratuitous violence and gross-outs as a primary purpose.  I find that these types of stories often have a hollow denouement (like the evil is reborn in some new way that is just, well... yawn, not inventive and surprising).  Ultimately, the best horror leaves you with something at the conclusion when the horror and suspense has been relieved.  So, what is this final something?

In regard to Darabont's Mist, the ending was definitely not a happy ending...oh my god!  I won't reveal the exact details of the ending, but I would argue that it was not hollow.  In fact, the ending was resonant.  I thought about it for like three days, and I still catch myself thinking about it.  I would argue that it is a message about not giving up hope, delivered through a very shocking way, in a cultural context that is full of hopelessness and despair.  In fact, the entire film resonates with pieces of allegory that touch upon rampant hopelessness in a culture of fear (like the culture we live in!).  On the road to that shocking denouement, we also have many awesome, thrilling monsters, and gross-outs that serve a purpose in accentuating the suspense.  However, I would argue that the ultimate purpose of the film is not to leave you with horror.  In many ways, the end of Mist is like many Twilight Zone endings.  Rod Serling was a master at crafting the denouement with resonance and meaning.  M. Night Shymalan also does this very well.   

For me personally, my favorite horror films offer relief from the horror and the suspense in the conclusion.  In other words, happy endings.  Ultimately, a happy ending in a horror film is so satisfying because of the building of suspense, tension, and identification with the character's strife.  Good horror absolutely depends upon good, believable characters.  The "horror" is often some kind of embodiment of the character's conflicts; in that sense, horror is about overcoming conflict and facing fears.  My life is about overcoming conflict and facing fear all the time.  If you ask me, that's what the best horror is really about: overcoming horror in pursuit of the happy ending, not relishing in horror. 

Does watching horror offer a psychological benefit, some kind of sympathetic magic for facing the fears and anxieties of my life?  I would say yes. 

My favorite horror films also contain another integral piece, a complicated monster, a monster that is actually not completely evil after all -- like Hannibal Lecter, or Dracula, or Grendel (in a lot of the modern interpretations of Grendel).  A quasi-sympathetic monster also enables queer identification with the monster, because, as a queer kid, I felt alienated and "monstrous" (for a good, straightforward demonstration of this, see the werewolf scene at the beginning of Michael Jackson's Thriller).  This kind of exploration of "monstrousness" goes a lot deeper than just "horror," a lot deeper indeed. 

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