Today, Writerghoulie welcomes Lauren Thompson and Karen Hainstock for a really super-serious guest blog on fear. It is Hallowe’en, after all, and since I’m busy replacing all the candy I just ate (I’m SO kidding about the fact that I didn’t not eat any–or all–of the candy, said Writerghoulie to her less-than-amused trainer) before I can hand it out to the hundreds of Trick -or-Treaters I get (like, 5, tops, but I buy for 500, “just in case”), I figured it would be a good idea to (pass the buck) give Lauren & Karen the opportunity to entertain you. *mumbles around last mini-Snickers* So here they are!

On a dark and stormy Friday night in October, our intrepid heroines Karen and Lauren embark on what many would call a suicide mission. A do-or-die kamikaze maneuver.

Some really fucked up shit.

After spending the day invoking as many horror movie cliches as possible, they meet at the scariest place either could think of. Cold winds whipping around them, threatening to mess up their hair as soon as they leave the warm confines of the car. Pitch black enveloping them, reminding them subtly that no one knew where they were should anything happen to either of them. There was only one thing left to do. Open the car doors and step outside.

“Fuck my ovaries, it’s cold out!” Karen or Lauren (or possibly both) screamed.

A decision was made, one for the ages.

Let us converge on the second scariest place we know of. The 24-hours
Starbucks on Lake Street.

dun-dun DUNNNNNNNNN!

And lo, they spoke of fear. They changed the name of Friday to FEAR-DAY. They bought their super-caffeinated drinks and sugary treats, ensuring at least one hour of coherent thought before descending into girlish giggles.

This is of what they spake…spoke? Spake.

Fear is what keeps us alive. Sort of. Unless you die of fear, which is what we like to call…delicious irony. Are you afraid of irony? WELL, YOU SHOULD BE!

We polled people about their fears. Clowns and anal probing were right up there. Karen fears weird people. (IRONY!) She then rephrased: she fears people who do weird things…but not in the biblical sense. Like when the girl crab walks down the stairs in The Exorcist. “THE FUCK IS THAT?!” (The patrons of Starbucks suddenly wanted to know what Karen and Lauren were talking about. Karen adjourned to the little girls room to compose herself. Fears are whack, yo.)

Lauren fears things with stingers of all kinds. (“Not the bees, NOT THE BEES!!!”) Also needles, which are like stingers, just metal and wielded by humans for the sole purpose of maiming mankind.

We would like to note that fears are perfectly normal. They are leftovers from the caveman days as a way to let us know that, “Hey. Some things in life are bad. (…they can really make you mad…) They hurt. They can kill you. So be scared of them so you stay the hell away from these things. PS – You’re welcome.”

Fear in Horror Films:

Cape Fear: Everyone be afraid of Robert DiNero.
Fear: Everyone wants to stalk Marky Mark.
Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas: This is three-fold: Drugs are bad (a la Mr. Mackey), don’t go on vacation with Benicio del Toro, and NEVER STOP IN BAT COUNTRY.

Good horror films plunge the depths of the human psyche to find that one thing that scares a majority of people: abandonment, death, dismemberment, bear traps closing on your soft and squishy body parts, buckets of blood, bees…clowns…the cat boy in The Grudge…Jeremy Renner not having nice arms in the next Avengers movie…

We know fear in media has evolved from fairy tales warning children to not stray from the path, to always listen to their parents, to not have sex now (or ever, really) and certainly not with that uber-hawt looking wolfish guy trolling the woods for girls wearing bright colours. (“A red cape? In the woods?! COME ON!”) We are reminded of the things we fear on a day-to-day basis via the news. We live in a fear laden culture, so how do you scare people?

(Karen and Lauren break into song, frightening the denizens of Starbucks. Our Ode to Zombies. “People….people who bite…people…are the LUCK-I-EST PEEEEE-PLE…!”)

So how do you scare people, other than singing Zombie songs to the unsuspecting public? Horror films are more of a distraction from the actual horrors presented in everyday life, which is in itself scary. We watch horror films as a way to ESCAPE the crazy things going on in the world around us because that is controlled. You know it’s not happening ‘for real’, you can still go home at the end of the film and believe that everything in your life is reasonably OK. The film itself can make you feel even safer in a way, “Well, my life isn’t that fucked up!”

(And then you hide under the covers from the axe murder skulking under your bed, because everyone knows axe murderers can’t get you when you’re hiding under your covers. FACT.)

Fear in novels is a different type of fear; the monster in your head is always more frightening than the monster on the screen. When presented with a horror novel, the author is forced to illustrate the fear they are trying to convey with words. There is no jarring soundtrack, no sudden images flashing on a screen; it’s just you and a book. You can’t stop reading because you have to know what happens next, but a little part of you wishes you could stop because, for reals, this is some messed up shit. When written properly horror novels can outshine a movie simply because the language used depicts visions and conjures images that no movie can truly encapsulate. Written horror has to be more subtle than movie or TV show horror; it’s not about what you’re seeing, it’s what your mind is envisioning you are experiencing. (Stephen King is a legit master of Horror, playing on the normal fears of mankind and blowing them up in your face.)

You can’t escape fear. There are those who love it, live for it. Those who seek out fear because it makes them feel alive; jumping out of a plane, driving race cars, stunt people, customer service reps working retail at Christmas, these are all examples of people who love the thrill of living life, of embracing fear and living in spite of it. (Or they just need to pay the bills. Potato, patato.) Death is lurking around the corner every day of your life so you’d better make yourself feel alive as often as possible by staring death right in the face. “KNOCK KNOCK, DEATH! WHO’S THERE? IT’S MEEEE!” Even people who say that they have no fear, people who believe their lives are completely fine and normal and that everything will always be all right still have something to fear…the unknown. What happens because of the choices I made today? What happens tomorrow? And then what happens? And then what happens? Maybe you wake up and are served breakfast in bed by the hottie of your choosing. Maybe the axe murderer who has been holed up in your crawl space for three weeks decides to exact some sweet, slightly deranged revenge against you. (You are no longer under your covers so all bets are off, safety-wise.) You never know what is going to happen next.

So what happens next for our beloved girls? Karen is afraid of dying on the ride home, for she is exhausted and the caffeine wore off a couple of hours ago. Lauren is afraid that Karen is going to kill her on the drive home. These are both legitimate fears, and encapsulate both death and failure (failure to drive properly causing death). It’s a one-two fear punch! And this post has officially come FULL CIRCLE.

Fear makes us feel alive. We crave things that make us feel alive because without feeling alive we’d bored to fucking tears. Or dead. Hopefully we’d realize we’re dead…otherwise? Zombies. Boring ass zombies. And no one wants that.

Lauren and Karen have ceased making actual sense and have descended into girlish giggles…or possibly shrieking cackles giving way to the cracks in their sanity and showcasing to all their tenuous grasp on reality.

Which do you fear more…?

(editor’s note: Happy Hallowe’en!)