Thursday Thoughts

First of all, check out my eerie fractal in the sidebar.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Since it is, after all, Halloween, I thought I'd talk about some of the classical monsters.  So many of these - ghosts, zombies, vampires - revolve around the fear of death.  It's a concept that leaves me flat.  I don't find it frightening.  Once a person is dead, their body is an empty shell.  I don't find anything particularly horrifying or unnerving about the idea of being confronted by the unnaturally animated form of a departed friend or family member.  The thing that gets me (the only thing that gets me) about zombies is the unforgiving nature of fighting one:  it doesn't matter if you get away, one bite, one scratch will doom you.

To me, I find humanized monsters less viscerally frightening than the inhuman.  If the monster is human, you can reason with it - you have a chance of dealing with it through personal interaction, however slim.  The inhuman simply doesn't respond or react.  It keeps coming and coming.  On the other hand, a humanized monster is more compelling, more nuanced ... likely more ambivalent.  With logic and rationale, there is a chance for sympathy, however unwilling.

Witches?  So often, today, they're the heroines.  Devils? ... well, the same thing, really, but unless handled in a unique fashion, the religious element fails to invoke a deep, instinctive fear.

The only thing I can say about werewolves is - paranormal romance.