Just In Time for Halloween....

[harmony_bites]

I've been reading off this list from The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List. I just finished the The Horror list. Thirteen of the 44 below are vampire novels. Go figure... I'd tried at least half of these before--but then many of the below fit other genres from thrillers with no element of the supernatural (Jaws, Silence of the

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[harmony_bites]

Well, it's part of why I think I still love the original Dracula and one of my favorite Stephen King books is Salem's Lot. Vampires should be scary, not rich, gorgeous and heroic. But it's not just vampires. Endore's The Werewolf of Paris is rather like The Monk--overblown though shot with humor and a hoot--but no question there the werewolf is a scary, ravening monster--mad, bad and dangerous to know. Well, try to find a werewolf like that now. Kelley Armstrong's are suave and sexy, and JK Rowling's Remus Lupin passive and the soul of politeness. I was struck how it was hard to be scared by Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist because whether in real life or fiction, its hard to associate witches with the devil rather than friendly peaceable sorts going around saying "blessed be." It's hard to find Hermione Granger scary, let alone evil (unless you're Ron.)

We've defanged our monsters. Maybe it's all part of our tolerant, politically correct age where we're not supposed to demonize our fellow thinking and feeling creature. (I wonder how much of my sympathy for the Frankenstein monster Shelley intended, and how much I read in because of my modern sensibility.)

Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell manage to be scary using a contemporary setting though. We moderns do have our own scary things--they just don't reside I think in the same things as the Victorians.

[shiv5468]

Werewolves now are all about conformity, about pack, and submitting to the alpha like a good little bitch. Rolls eyes.

Some of the new Hammer horror films have brought in modern themes - feral children, for one.