For our first-ever Horror Issue, we look back on the things that scared us: uneasy smiles, unfathomable prisons, empty suburban streets, or an unexpectedly sinister blow-job. There are also our brave columnists, skittish or averse, who have been tasked with tackling the genre. And there are writers who found something terrifying in a teen comedy or a trippy romance. It seems horror shapes us more than any genre. When something scares us, it sticks around, morphing onto neuroses, predilections, and resilience. We all have something we can’t bear to watch, something that rings a deeply embedded bell. In the spirit of the season, below is the history of mine. What’s yours?
1. There was a time, as a kid when the thing was to be boyish—play sports, mock pop stars, hang out with boys. It had happened suddenly, and as someone who used to sob when forced to wear pants or practical shoes, I was unprepared for the new standard of girlhood. So I leaned in and drew mean words onto my jeans, always chose dare and steeled myself to whatever it was. I stuck my foot in the compost bin, broke into the burned-out and abandoned house down the street (sidestepping broken glass and fallen beams) and learned to love horror movies.
2. In high school, my boyfriend took me to see the Grindhouse double feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof. He may have imagined I’d be scared, that I’d need to look away or grip his hand. But through the melting flesh, flying limbs and splattered brains, the one thing that made me squirm was Kurt Russell sloppily eating nachos. He thought I was being ridiculous, so did I. But I’ve come to learn that this discomfort is beyond common, we just hate to watch people eat on screen.
3. Years ago, biking home from a friend’s place, a woman doored me and I landed on my side, breaking my collar bone. After hours of interrogations and X-rays, I took a cab home with a handful of Percocet. I struggled awkwardly to get out of my American Apparel pencil skirt and fall asleep, for the first time in my life, on my back. The next day, my roommate came into the room to chat, asking after 15 minutes why I was lying so stiffly. I learned long ago that it felt good when people thought you were brave.
4. Soon after I had recovered from surgery—a metal plate was fixed onto my bone with screws, a gruesome detail that thrilled me and that I would brag about constantly—I started biking again. No mental trauma, I supposed, nothing lasting aside from a slightly weaker arm.
5. But I noticed I was struggling to get through horror movies. I was closing my eyes before the scare, worried that I might see an arm snap, a nose punched in, and things turned in unnatural angles. I was petrified of seeing something I could not shake, but in my downtime, I would imagine all the horrible things I hadn’t been able to watch, bobbing up into my mind and ruining my day.
6. In Spring 2020, like many people, I couldn't sleep. I had just moved into a new apartment and while the world outside felt dangerous and uncertain, so did my home. I lay awake, trembling and anxious, the only thing that would soothe me was to imagine a giant bear sitting at the foot of my bed, sworn to protect me from whatever might come in. I was told by a doctor to exercise, to cut out coffee, and to stop watching horror movies. Eager to recover some ease, I followed the regimen dutifully, except on that last one. That one I could not.
Gabrielle Marceau
Editor-in-Chief, In The Mood Magazine
For our first-ever Horror Issue, we look back on the things that scared us: uneasy smiles, unfathomable prisons, empty suburban streets, or an unexpectedly sinister blow-job. There are also our brave columnists, skittish or averse, who have been tasked with tackling the genre. And there are writers who found something terrifying in a teen comedy or a trippy romance. It seems horror shapes us more than any genre. When something scares us, it sticks around, morphing onto neuroses, predilections, and resilience. We all have something we can’t bear to watch, something that rings a deeply embedded bell. In the spirit of the season, below is the history of mine. What’s yours?
1. There was a time, as a kid when the thing was to be boyish—play sports, mock pop stars, hang out with boys. It had happened suddenly, and as someone who used to sob when forced to wear pants or practical shoes, I was unprepared for the new standard of girlhood. So I leaned in and drew mean words onto my jeans, always chose dare and steeled myself to whatever it was. I stuck my foot in the compost bin, broke into the burned-out and abandoned house down the street (sidestepping broken glass and fallen beams) and learned to love horror movies.
2. In high school, my boyfriend took me to see the Grindhouse double feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof. He may have imagined I’d be scared, that I’d need to look away or grip his hand. But through the melting flesh, flying limbs and splattered brains, the one thing that made me squirm was Kurt Russell sloppily eating nachos. He thought I was being ridiculous, so did I. But I’ve come to learn that this discomfort is beyond common, we just hate to watch people eat on screen.
3. Years ago, biking home from a friend’s place, a woman doored me and I landed on my side, breaking my collar bone. After hours of interrogations and X-rays, I took a cab home with a handful of Percocet. I struggled awkwardly to get out of my American Apparel pencil skirt and fall asleep, for the first time in my life, on my back. The next day, my roommate came into the room to chat, asking after 15 minutes why I was lying so stiffly. I learned long ago that it felt good when people thought you were brave.
4. Soon after I had recovered from surgery—a metal plate was fixed onto my bone with screws, a gruesome detail that thrilled me and that I would brag about constantly—I started biking again. No mental trauma, I supposed, nothing lasting aside from a slightly weaker arm.
5. But I noticed I was struggling to get through horror movies. I was closing my eyes before the scare, worried that I might see an arm snap, a nose punched in, and things turned in unnatural angles. I was petrified of seeing something I could not shake, but in my downtime, I would imagine all the horrible things I hadn’t been able to watch, bobbing up into my mind and ruining my day.
6. In Spring 2020, like many people, I couldn't sleep. I had just moved into a new apartment and while the world outside felt dangerous and uncertain, so did my home. I lay awake, trembling and anxious, the only thing that would soothe me was to imagine a giant bear sitting at the foot of my bed, sworn to protect me from whatever might come in. I was told by a doctor to exercise, to cut out coffee, and to stop watching horror movies. Eager to recover some ease, I followed the regimen dutifully, except on that last one. That one I could not.
Gabrielle Marceau
Editor-in-Chief, In The Mood Magazine