Abstract
When was the last time that you were really afraid? … I am willing to bet that for a lot of you, the last time you were really afraid was in the darkness of a movie theatre, in front of the TV or computer screen, or in bed with a novel. Those of us who live in controlled and relatively safe environments come face to face with true fear primarily when we seek it out, for example in fiction. (p. 1)
This is how Mathias Clasen starts his book Why Horror Seduces and the first key question he asks is, ‘Why does horror seduce?’ (p. 2). He reminds us that horror is ‘one of the most consistently popular and profitable genres’ (p. 1). He defines it ‘as the kind of fiction that is manifestly designed to scare and/or disturb its audience’ (p. 3). The focus of the book is on supernatural horror, which ‘involves some kind of suspension or breach of physical law, usually embodied in or caused by some kind of supernatural agency such as an uncanny monster or a ghost’ (p. 4). Clasen uses an innovative evolutionary social science approach to explain people’s interest in horror fiction and the variations in horror fiction across time and across different cultures. He argues that horror fiction changes are due to a range of biocultural factors – ‘a possibility space constrained by human biology’ (pp. 4–5) and cultural differences. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, An Evolutionary Theory of Horror, sets out the analytical framework. It consists of four chapters, which provide a definition of horror, explain how it works and discuss its ‘appeals, functions and effects’ (p. 53). Part 2, Evolutionary Perspectives on American Horror, consists of eight chapters. Chapter 5 provides a brief historical overview of American horror. The other seven chapters focus on one novel or film each: I Am Legend (novel), Rosemary’s Baby (novel), Night of the Living Dead (film), Jaws (film), The Shining (novel), Halloween (film) and The Blair Witch Project (film). Part 3, Future Evolutions in Horror Entertainment and Horror Research, consists of one chapter on the future of horror. Clasen’s biocultural approach to horror is built on the premise that there are a limited number of ways in which we can be scared and we can only understand why certain things or creatures scare us if we explore the history of human evolution. He argues that most horror artists use ‘universal’ fears to scare their audiences, and these common fears ‘can be located within a few biologically constrained categories or domains’ such as ‘predation, intraspecific violence, contamination-contagion, status loss, and … dangerous nonliving environmental features’ (p. 35). Clasen claims that ‘sustained horror consumption’ can be beneficial to audiences because it gives them ‘tools with which to handle negative emotions and threat situations’ (p. 62). What does the future hold for horror fiction then? Clasen is adamant that horror fiction is likely to continue attracting sustained interest, but in addition to the traditional novels and films, there will be an increased number of interactive and immersive opportunities such as games, virtual reality and haunts. He also argues that horror studies should use a wider variety of empirical methods, including quantitative ones such as text-mining of large corpora, naturalistic observation studies, correlational survey studies and experimental lab studies to better understand audiences’ engagement with the genre. His book offers a welcome and insightful contribution to the field, which would be of use both to students and scholars as well as horror fiction fans more broadly.