Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Caleb Baumgardner

Do you like horror films, Faithful Reader? They aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, of course. But if you do, you and I have something in common.

We also have something in common if you’re into Iron Maiden. I’m a big fan. And one of my favorite songs of theirs, “Fear of the Dark,” goes, in part, like this:

“Have you ever been alone at night,

Thought you heard footsteps behind,

And turned around and no one’s there?

And as you quicken up your pace

You find it hard to look again

Because you’re sure there’s someone there.

Fear of the dark.

Fear of the dark.

I have a constant fear that something’s always near.

Fear of the dark.

Fear of the dark.

I have a phobia that someone’s always there.”

What do these things have to do with one another, you ask? Keep reading.

I like old horror best. There are some good new horror films out there for sure. 2018’s “Heredity” is by far the best new horror film I’ve seen in a long time. Though a bit dated now, 2005’s “The Skeleton Key,” set in South Louisiana, still qualifies as new horror in my book and is quite good. I’m also a big fan of the first “Silent Hill” movie, which was released a year later in 2006. I saw it in theatres four times. Maybe that’s just because I love the video game series. Those games are genuinely frightening. The cinematic renditions of Stephen King’s “It” are solid new horror, both the iconic TV miniseries with Tim Curry as Pennywise The Dancing Clown and the theatrical releases of 2017 and 2019.

In my view, though, these movies are exceptional. Most new horror is mediocre. Take, for instance, “The Haunting.” The original black and white horror classic from 1963 is a stellar flick. It is extremely well done. Flawless, really.

The remake from 1999, which I had the misfortune of seeing in theatres, is thoroughly unremarkable.

The reason I think old horror is better really comes down to one thing.

Take Creature From the Black Lagoon, the horror classic from 1954. Like many of the older films in the genre, it is superior to today’s horror films.

Case in point. The scariest part of the movie is when the film’s leading female, played by Julia Adams (an Arkansas native), is swimming in the Amazonian lagoon wherein the Creature lives. At this point, the film’s protagonists have not yet discovered the Creature’s existence, but it knows about them. She swims blithely in the water, completely oblivious to the fact that the Creature is swimming right along with her a few feet below the surface of the water, watching her. This sequence continues for two or three minutes, with the viewer held in constant suspense. The film’s heroine ends her swim none the wiser.

I find it hard to believe that a contemporary horror film would do something like that. Today, the lady would likely discover the Creature early in her swim, and someone would probably have died a gory death rescuing her.

Today’s horror films lack the subtlety as well as the patience necessary to cultivate real fear. Instead, they opt for blood and guts in an attempt to shock rather than genuinely frighten the audience. Their problem is that they drag the horror out into the light far too early on, rather than keeping the horror in our peripheral vision.

A terrifying thing that appears in an instant in the corner of our eye but is gone when we turn to look.

The horror that we cannot see, but tremblingly suspect in the growing shadows that slowly crawl as the sun dies.

The problem with new horror films, simply, is that they do not do what horror is meant to do: Prey upon mankind’s primal fear of the dark.

Caleb Baumgardner is a local attorney. He can be reached at [email protected].

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