What do Stephen King, Clive Bark­er, and Dean Koontz have in common? They have been dubbed the "gurus of gore." They are all extremely prolific writers of horror novels which almost invariably are made into box-office success movies. While Clive Barker is seen as the promising new kid on the block of horror, Stephen King is still the most successful horror writer of modern time, the ultimate guru of gore.

Obviously horror is "in." A brief look in the local book store shows that a special section has been devoted ex­clusively to horror fiction. Video rent­al outlets have gruesomely decorated shelves offering the latest bloodcur­dling cinema.

Even regular television program­ming has reserved ample time for hor­ror shows, usually later at night, espe­cially on weekends for lonely baby-sitters. Most of these television pro­grams are scaled-down versions of what the movies offer, but they are nevertheless at times downright gory. Being an up-to-date medium, televi­sion, of course, combines classic themes with current issues, such as wife abuse and child neglect, but the results are quite predictable: buckets of blood. It has appropriately been termed "slash t.v."

The horror genre has spawned many recognizable titles and series: Halloween, Friday The Thirteenth, Nightmare on Elm Street etc. There are some pretty awful characters lurking around in the dark these days. The an­cient Count Dracula is a veritable gentleman when compared to modern mis­fits such as Jason or Freddy Krueger, the razor-clawed maniac from Elm Street.

What is "Horror"?⤒🔗

Before we proceed with making some remarks on Stephen King's latest offering, it may be wise to specify what is meant by the term "horror" in arts/media. Most dictionaries will explain the term "horror" as something which leads to great fear and dread. A horror film can be defined as a motion picture with a macabre atmosphere and theme, usually incorporating incidents of (extreme) violence, designed to cause the audience to experience shivers of fear.

The art of horror has one purpose: to give people shocks of extreme fright. One might well ask how horror can ever be a form of entertainment. But it appears that people find extreme plea­sure in being expertly terrified. It is almost like taking a plunge down the steepest incline on a roller coaster, knowing that in the end, after the most frightening sensations, one will arrive safely at the gate. It seems that the thrill is worth the pain.

There is a dangerous development, however, which should be noted. As the public becomes accustomed to the thrills of horror, writers and cinema­tographers must come up with even greater evils and terrors to excite the dulled senses. We are here on a very slippery plane: it must go from bad to worse. That is the trend in modern works of horror.

History of Horror←⤒🔗

We must realize that horror is not something which came only with the advent of modern media in the past few decades. Whoever turns to ancient legends, old folklore, and historic lit­erature will discover that the searching out of the strange and the mysterious is as old as man himself.

Chilling stories of blood and death have been told for ages at camp-fire vigils. Encounters with supernatural creatures and mysterious powers have been curiously chronicled by one gen­eration and carefully cherished by another. A famous writer and poet, Ed­gar Allan Poe, whose work is required reading at many high schools, excelled at diabolical horror. In his poem Alone he explained it as follows,

From the thunder and the storm
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view

Poe indeed wrote like a man possessed by evil, of dark passions and twilight regions.

"Horror" is the age-old art of re­creating impossible, inexplicable events in an atmosphere of convincing real­ism. In modern media it has simply become a very refined technique and a formula for commercial success.

Horror, as we know it, probab­ly took off in the eighteenth century through the Gothic novels which lustily explored such macabre themes as mur­der and indecency. The interest in such tales really mushroomed when these novels were printed in inexpensive "chapbook" versions with sensational illustrations, the so-called "Shilling Shockers."

When printing procedures were simplified and publishing became cheaper, a flood of weekly short story magazines called "Penny Bloods" flooded the market. The themes be­came increasingly torrid. From the far­cical fare of ghosts and ghouls, horror ascended to the world of demonology, occultism, sadism, and unbridled lust. Horror moved from pulp magazines in the latter half of the previous century into color comics in the beginning of our century. The artwork became more graphically detailed and explicitly sen­suous. The gurus of gore have become bolder with time to satisfy the demands of a bloodthirsty public.

Basic Themes←⤒🔗

Most works of horror explore the abyss of pain and death. The main character is unevenly pitted against dark forces of evil, which can come from outer spaces or inner depths. These forces of evil can not really be beaten, but can be detained for a time. It's mostly a bloody race against the clock.

Although in horror fiction human life is considered to be easily expen­dable and people die on every page, the evil itself simply will not die. It keeps returning in a more horrible form. "Freddy" and "Jason" are prime ex­amples of evil persons returning from the grave with infinitely greater savagery and more cruel intent. Many horror novelists can in this way easily spawn sequels to the original tale.

The evil that men encounter, can come from other times. This is the premise of the story of Count Dracula who needs fresh, virginal blood to es­cape the realm of the dead. The evil can also come from other places. Some­times the evil is an uncontrollable mon­ster created from humanity by a mad scientist. Everyone knows the story of Frankenstein. Sometimes the evil re­sults from biological or atomic muta­tion, as in The Fly.

Perhaps the best horror novels tell about the evil which comes up out of ourselves and which we bring about by our own deeds. There is more horror within us than outside us! Think of such horror classics as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Werewolf, two tales of split personalities. There are endless variations on this theme, but it is true that the greatest horrors come not from outside man but from within man. "For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wick­edness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness" (Mark 7:21, 22). This is the real horror story.

The Dark Half←⤒🔗

Stephen King's The Dark Half (Viking Penguin, 1989), a bestseller throughout December 1989, explores the theme of the split personality in a very literal manner. The main charac­ter of the novel, a writer called Thad Beaumont, finds himself confronted with his pseudonym, George Stark, who has risen from a mock grave to assume an independent life. This pseu­donym embarks on a vicious journey to get Beaumont to write again under his assumed name and so to prolong the pseudonym's life. Stark is an em­bodiment of the "dark side" of Beau­mont.

This story is undoubtedly a grip­ping tale of true suspense with some unexpected twists which will keep many readers spellbound to the end. Stephen King is a skilled wordsmith who knows how to tell a tall tale in a credible man­ner.

This latest novel of Stephen King has been acclaimed as one of his best. For a while, King had been writing some very revolting stuff, even show­ing some propensity towards describ­ing the killing of little children (for ex­ample in Cujo and Pet Semetary). The brutal deaths were depicted in a man­ner which left nothing to the imagina­tion. Some critics feel that King has now returned to a more "acceptable" theme.

King does not mix sex and blood as much as some of the other gurus of gore. Still there is always the undercur­rent of sexual brutality which is in­herent in works of horror. The slashing of the victim often includes genital mutilation and is accompanied by feel­ings of lust.

Horror is not sentimental romance. King's books do not have a "happy ending" as such. One is usually left wondering who really won. So it is also with The Dark Half. Even if this book may be considered less repulsive than some of its predecessors, it still is needlessly explicit in its description of kill­ings. The guru of gore is still at work.

The modern horror novel and its cinematic version should be avoided by Christians. Death is trivialized and suf­fering is sensationalized. Gore is glori­fied and victims are brutally violated. Evil is a rampant force which is out of control and can be overcome only tem­porarily by the best of mankind.

Such works indeed illuminate the dark side of humankind and do not let any of the true Light shine through. We must not be children of darkness.