8. to 5. Hysteria and the F-Word

5. The Girl Next Door  

Okay, I have a strong stomach; I've watched some brutal, even indefensible stuff at the extreme ragged ends of the horror genre, and while it bothers me I also recognise it as fiction, in the final analysis. Grand Guignol has its place. Splatter can be downright fun. Depictions of torture a Warner Bros cartoon writ large, stupid and goofy as hell. Horror can often be a carnival ride, and we know that after all the screaming in the darkness, we'll eventually trundle out on predetermined tracks, blinking in the daylight and laughing. Nervously? Sure. But laughing, all the same. However. This pretty much gore-free movie, based on Jack Ketchum's excellent novel, which itself was based on real events, will not make you laugh or fist-pump the air or shriek wildly. It quite simply damages you on some level. Or, I should say, it did me. Not even fully sure why. Something about faith in humanity being shaken. About how girls suffer at the hands of boys. Or, perhaps worse, at the hands of women. About the potential depths of cruelty in humans, regardless of whether their reproductive organs are internal or external. About the sheer power of... well, power. It's harrowing. And heartbreaking. Yet it's brilliant. If you like your monsters very much of the human variety, grown from a particularly middle-American patch of small town soil and tied to a rotted trellis by a virulent braid of repressed female sexuality, internalized loathing, and the awful human propensity to bow to mob rule, watch this film. But fair warning: this is the real torture porn. And you won't forget it. I mean that. 

6. Melancholia  

Again, not horror, I hear people whisper. To which I'll say this: if the impending collision of the Earth with a rogue planet ten times larger, and the subsequent annihilation of everything we hold dear isn't horror then I don't know what is. But the point of this oddly quiet apocalyptic film is how we respond to this impending doom, or even whether we believe it's approaching at all. And deep down, it's about depression, of course (the title's kind of a giveaway). It's slow, gorgeous, wrenching and yet oddly comforting, in that those brave enough to face the reality of our loneliness are perhaps better equipped to also face the negation of everything. 

Whatever else, this eerie virus of a film distracts you with its unique elegiac mood while gouging whole new hollows inside you. 

Oh, and excellent performances by all the actors, as in most von Trier films. 

7. Irréversible  

Continuing with undeniably controversial themes, Gaspar Noe's sickening and disorienting Irréversible is about the randomness of trauma, about how something awful can be waiting for anyone at any point anywhere. And how such things can never be "made right" again—not by vengeance, not by time, not by natural justice. Except it isn't just about that. Because it tells its story backwards, and with such emotive force, most of its horror is front-loaded, which only makes it more wrenchingly sad in the end, and perversely lovely. But seriously, this film features two of the most traumatic cinema moments I've ever endured, so fair warning. (Oh, plus, it features the sublimely gorgeous Monica Bellucci, which itself is double-edged, since she is utterly and mercilessly brutalized to a point no one can possibly feel okay about it, no matter how often the phrase "in the service of art" is wheeled out like a bloody gurney. Yeah, it made me angry. But that's the point.) 

8. Antichrist 

Controversial and disturbing, which goes without saying in a Lars von Trier movie, but Antichrist drills way, way deeper. It's about men and women and the awful history of the struggle (from one very skewed perspective) between the sexes. There's beauty, but there's mostly horror and demonization. Von Trier uses the tired horror trope of the cabin in the woods and injects a dark new life into it. Or, actually new death-in-life. And yet, it's *still* beautiful. Eden or Hell? Christian myth or atavistic pantheism? Guilt or scapegoating? Grief or fear or desire? Is it misogynistic or is it about misogyny? All I can say is that despite the critical focus on one notorious and horrifying scene of genital mutliation, there is enough here to make the eyes of either gender water. Chaos reigns, indeed. Brilliant, creepy, underrated film.

This scene I was completely unable to shake. It disturbed me on some level the existence of which I'd previously been almost wholly unaware, except in nightmares.

Heads Up for the Slaughterhouse

So, I've mentioned it in passing, but I might as well make it a more *formal* announcement. For anyone (and I can't for the life of me think why they would) who wants to know what type of pale, awful critters make those scuttling noises down in the dim cellar of my subconscious, Richard Godwin will be interviewing me tomorrow (Saturday, September 8, 2012). Except "interview" is a wholly inadequate word for this monstrosity. Conducted on and off between March and July of this year, and running over 7,000 words, this thing felt more like an interrogation from someone who was trying to torment me by forcing me to think beyond my comfort zone than any other interview ever. Oddly enough, I don't mean that negatively. The strange mix of relentlessness and openendedness seemed to combine almost alchemically in order to extract a series of interesting (comic, bewildered, bitter, awestruck, sad, pissy, loving) responses that might well occasion some anxious concern over my mental health from some quarters, but I feel better for having stayed on this particular bucking bronco, so yeah. Okay, I'll say it: some of this felt damn near cathartic, and although my reticent side remains a little uncomfortable with its candid nature, I still think it's the best insight out there into why I write and why I write what I write and why I write about the things I write about. Uh. Anyway, look for it tomorrow.

Incidentally, his interview series with crime/horror writers he terms Chin Wag at the Slaughterhouse is well worth checking out in its entirety, with everyone from Jack Ketchum to R.J. Ellory, as well as my good friend Dan Mader, all given the "sharp, bright light in the eyes in the stark, dim room" treatment.

The Mirror's Gaze

© Thomas Harris“Here is a list of terrible things,
The jaws of sharks, a vultures wings,
The rabid bite of the dogs of war,
The voice of one who went before,
But most of all the mirror’s gaze,
Which counts us out our numbered days.”
― Clive Barker, Days of Magic, Nights of War

***

I did promise a while back that I’d return to the theme of horror fiction, undoubtedly my favourite genre. As a result, this somewhat horror-related post will be lacking the lighthearted humour of my usual fare, so please skip this if you’re not in the mood for heavy and ponderous (you can’t even imagine how much I wanted to add a “LOL” at the end of that sentence).

It’s going to be frankly impossible for me to write this post effectively or accurately unless I come clean about certain autobiographical facts, or full disclosures, or whatever journalistic convention dictates they’re referred to as. For anyone who has read my book, this won’t exactly come as a shock. For, existing somewhere in the mostly buried and certainly haphazard detritus of my personal history is a barely legible doctor’s note (aren’t they all?), diagnosing me as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and clinical depression. Now, here and elsewhere, it’s been endlessly discussed and largely established that creativity tends to be accompanied by emotional and mental turmoil, so I’m not going to recross that familiar ground this time around, fascinating though it is.

No, I want to address something else. I belong to numerous online writer’s groups, from Facebook to LinkedIn, and I am noticing a recurring question that frequently gets asked by novice writers, but perhaps surprisingly, not solely by novice writers. Usually presented in a tentative manner, it basically asks whether certain painful topics are off limits, whether writers ought to refrain—through simple good taste, perhaps, or more worryingly, as a duty toward readers’ sensibilities?—from discussing certain painful aspects of the human condition, or even whether writers should avoid certain words (to me, the latter is akin to asking a painter to ignore specific colours). Now, I generally avoid these conversations as I literally don’t have the time to indulge in the lengthy handwringing that almost inevitably follows. And, quite honestly, I am not partial to being misjudged, as so often occurs on all sides when this topic is raised. So, in place of my usual silence in those conversations, here’s a placeholder for my views on this, henceforth to be considered my definitive position. After which, you have my permission to go do something a lot more fun than reading my tortured and over-earnest opinionating.

So, what of those opinions? In one sense, they’re simple: censorship, even self-censorship, is anathema to a writer. Anxiety and second-guesswork over the reception of anything you create will only shackle and smother you. Write the book you want to read—even if zombie gnomes, electric can openers, and baby nuns feature heavily—and damn the torpedoes. Now, obviously, I’m not talking about children’s books, here; fluffy bunnies drenched in gore and cursing like inebriated sailors is never a good look. Well, hmmm… at least in that context it isn’t. But let’s assume we’re talking about adults writing for adults. In which case, I don’t think anything should be off the table. And I mean anything. Some of the best and sharpest writing I’ve read has refused to pull its punches in this regard, from Clive Barker’s Books of Blood to Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian to Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones to Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. These books deal with cannibalism, cruelty, murder/rape, madness, child abuse and serial murder. Not exactly pleasant stuff. They are definitely upsetting. But are they well written? Do they stand comparison with other good or even great literature? Would I recommend them? Absolutely, yes to all of the above. The thing is (and not that this should matter, either): all evidence points to the fact that these authors are well-adjusted, generous, and compassionate people. Stephen King himself, who once wrote about a man who literally ate himself, is a wonderful human being, by all accounts. Conflating their subject matter with their personalities is as wrong-headed as inferring Shakespeare was a sadist (or a racist!) for describing Iago’s treatment of Othello. Or for assuming that Marshall Mather’s worldview is identical to that of Slim Shady (remember, people did this. Quaint, huh? Probably not, if you were Mr. Mathers). Such readings are depressingly shallow. It ought to go without saying that a writer can explore scenes of unmitigated horror without endorsing their real life equivalents. And in most cases, the writer’s outraged humanity is the fuel behind such explorations in the first place. If I hadn’t been hurt in certain ways, my own scrutiny of our tenuous connections and adult sorrows alongside their roots in childhood trauma would probably ring hollow or skewed or inauthentic. Perhaps they do anyway. But, as Stephen King so succinctly said once, “We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.”

Yes, there is exploitation. Yes, there is insensitivity. Stupidity, even. Those are matters for the writer and his or her conscience. And for readers to embrace or shun as they see fit. But freedom of speech is essential to a democracy, and especially to our current very flawed versions. Without even that, freedom itself would only further adopt the worryingly illusory mantle it’s already begun to.

Again, so I am not misunderstood: I’m not telling you what to do. As a writer, you might have your own (personal, religious, ethical) limits with regard to what topics you allow yourself to explore. That’s fine. Some writers aim only to entertain, and I mean it, there’s nothing wrong with that. I may disagree with what I see as misguided morality but I respect your right to it. But those of us who dig around in the entrails sometimes need to feel our discussion of the world’s sharper edges or bleaker corners will not be interpreted as endorsement or approval of such horrors. I have always believed that art mirrors life and not the other way around. Those of us damaged by events in our personal lives (I’m hazarding a guess that’s most of us) need this blighted avenue in which to explore our various wounds. Who knows, without that opportunity, and without the misplaced judgement of the misinformed and the judgmental, maybe more of us would end up being the Hannibal Lecters of the world instead of the Thomas Harris’s.

Look, it’s a lonely enough profession. I sometimes think I write to combat the loneliness more than for any other reason. It’s an attempt to self heal. Okay, I just ran out of steam, so I’ll end on another fairly pertinent quote by our old friend Mr. King:

“Alone. Yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”

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A version of this post appeared on Indies Unlimited on August 3, 2012. David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.