This is the final part of a series on the cultural moment of horror
I’ve mentioned in a previous post that horror is a flexible genre, that can be melded with any other genre you like. This is one of the reasons horror is having a moment. In this final post on the topic, I want to think a bit about why horror fits so well with any thing else.
Old Country, the book that has been our companion through this, is a great example–it is a Western and a horror novel put together. It has all the features of a Western (townspeople under attack by a villain, a hero who rides in from out of town to save the day, set across the Mississippi after the Civil War, etc), and all the features of a horror story (a monster, people of varying innocence who have to figure out the monster, some kind of resolution where the truth about society is revealed, etc).
This can be done with any genre. Science fiction, detective fiction, comedy, romance, anything you can think of can have a monster thrown in as a primary part of the action. Which means that horror works wherever you want it to.
This is why horror is having a moment. Whether other genres are getting played out (when was the last time you saw a good superhero movie? Or a good sequel/prequel/reboot?), horror provides a way to inject the energy of a vibrant genre into these lagging fields. It opens up new possibilities for plot and character development–to say nothing of themes and moods.
This I think is the biggest reason horror is having a moment–it works everywhere. Obviously genres come and go in waves. (Westerns are currently out, but due for a comeback–sci-fi is in but on its way out, horror is in, which is the point of this series of blog posts.) Horror is nearing the peak of its current wave, and hopefully we’re a little closer to understanding why.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO
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