response
Why horror?
N O L C A R R O L L
There is a theoretical question about horror which, although not unique to horror,
nevertheless is not one that readily arises with respect to other popular genres, such as
mystery, romance, comedy, the thriller, adventure stories, and the western. The question is:
why would anyone be interested in the genre to begin with? Why does the genre persist? I have
written a lot about the internal elements of the genre; but many readers may feel that in doing
that their attention has been deflected away from the central issue concerning horrorviz.,
how can we explain its very existence, for why would anyone want to be horrified, or even
art-horrified?
This question, moreover, becomes especially pressing if my analysis of the nature of horror
is accepted. For we have seen that a key element in the emotion of art-horror is repulsion or
disgust. Butand this is the question of Why horror? in its primary formif horror
necessarily has something repulsive about it, how can audiences be attracted to it? Indeed,
even if horror only caused fear, we might feel justified in demanding an explanation of what
could motivate people to seek out the genre. But where fear is compounded with repulsion,
the ante is, in a manner of speaking, raised.
In the ordinary course of affairs, people shun what disgusts them. Being repulsed by
something that one finds to be loathsome and impure is an unpleasant experience. We do
not, for example, attempt to add some pleasure to a boring afternoon by opening the lid of
a steamy trash can in order to savor its unwholesome stew of broken bits of meat, moldering
fruits and vegetables, and noxious, unrecognizable clumps, riven thoroughly by all manner
of crawling things. And, ordinarily, checking out hospital waste bags is not our idea of a good
time. But, on the other hand, many peopleso many, in fact, that we must concede that they
are normal, at least in the statistical sensedo seek out horror fictions for the purpose of
deriving pleasure from sights and descriptions that customarily repulse them.
In short, there appears to be something paradoxical about the horror genre. It obviously
attracts consumers; but it seems to do so by means of the expressly repulsive. Furthermore,
the horror genre gives every evidence of being pleasurable to its audience, but it does so by
means of trafficking in the very sorts of things that cause disquiet, distress, and displeasure.
So different ways of clarifying the question Why horror? are to ask: Why are horror audiences
attracted by what, typically (in everyday life), should (and would) repell them?, or How can
horror audiences find pleasure in what by nature is distressful and unpleasant?
2
In what follows, I will attempt to find a comprehensive or general answer to the question
of what attracts audiences to the horror genre. That is, I shall try to frame a set of hypthoses
that will supply a plausible explanation of the attracting power of horror in its many
manifestations across the different centuries and decades, and across the different subgenres
and media in which horror is practiced. However, in this regard it is important to emphasize
that, though a general account of horror may be advanced, this does not preclude the
possibility that it can be supplemented by additional accounts of why a particular horror
novel or film, a particular horror subgenre, or a particular cycle within the history of
horror also has some special levers of attraction over and above those that are generic to the
mode of horror. That is, an explanation of basic pleasures or attractions of the horror mode
is compatible with additional explanations of why, for example, Rosemarys Baby exercises its own
particular fascination; of how werewolf stories, while sharing the allures of ghost stories and
other horrific tales, have allures of their own; and of why horror cycles, like the Hollywood
movie cycle of the thirties, gain attractive power by thematically developing concerns of
especial appropriateness for the period in which they were made.
A general theory of horror will say something about the probable roots of attraction and
pleasure throughout the genus of horror, but this does not deny that various of the species
and specimens of the genre will have further sources of attraction and pleasure that will
require, correspondingly, added explanations. In most cases, such (added) explanations
will be developed by critics of the genre. However, I would like to address one particular case
here which is especially relevant to readers of this book. In concluding, I will attempt an
account of why at present horror is so compelling, that is, an account of why the horror cycle
within which we find ourselves exerts such a commanding impression on its continuing, avid
audiences: that is to say on us (or at least many of us).
[. . .]
I think it is fair to say that in our culture, horror thrives above all as a narrative form. Thus, in
order to account for the interest we take in and the pleasure we take from horror, we may
hypothesize that, in the main, the locus of our gratification is not the monster as such but
the whole narrative structure in which the presentation of the monster is staged. This, of
course, is not to say that the monster is in any way irrelevant to the genre, nor that the interest
and pleasure in the genre could be satisfied through and/or substituted by any old narrative.
For, as I have argued earlier, the monster is a functional ingredient in the type of narratives
found in horror stories, and not all narratives function exactly like horror narratives.
As we saw in my analysis of horror narratives, these stories, with great frequency, revolve
around proving, disclosing, discovering, and confirming the existence of something that is
impossible, something that defies standing conceptual schemes. It is part of such stories
contrary to our everyday beliefs about the nature of thingsthat such monsters exist. And
as a result, audiences expectations revolve around whether this existence will be confirmed
in the story.
Often this is achieved, as Hume says of narrative secrets in general, by putting off the
conclusive information that the monster exists for quite a while. Sometimes this information
may be deferred till the very end of the fiction. And even where this information is given to
the audience right off the bat, it is still generally the case that the human characters in the
tale must undergo a process of discovering that the monster exists, which, in turn, may lead
to a further process of confirming that discovery in an ensuing scene or series of scenes. That
34 NOL CARROLL
is, the question of whether or not the monster exists may be transformed into the question
of whether and when the human characters in the tale will establish the existence of the
monster. Horror stories are often protracted series of discoveries: first the reader learns
of the monsters existence, then some characters do, then some more characters do, and
so on; the drama of iterated disclosurealbeit to different partiesunderwrites much
horror fiction.1
Even in overreacher plots, there is a question of whether the monsters existi.e., of
whether they can be summoned, in the case of demons, or of whether they can be created by
mad scientists and necromancers. Furthermore, even after the existence of the monster is
disclosed, the audience continues to crave further information about its nature, its identity,
its origin, its purposes, and its astounding powers and properties, including, ultimately, those
of its weaknesses that may enable humanity to do it in.
Thus, to a large extent, the horror story is driven explicitly by curiosity. It engages its
audience by being involved in processes of disclosure, discovery, proof, explanation,
hypothesis, and confirmation. Doubt, skepticism, and the fear that belief in the existence of
the monster is a form of insanity are predictable foils to the revelation (to the audience or to
the characters or both) of the existence of the monster.
Horror stories, in a significant number of cases, are dramas of proving the existence of the
monster and disclosing (most often gradually) the origin, identity, purposes and powers of
the monster. Monsters, as well, are obviously a perfect vehicle for engendering this kind
of curiosity and for supporting the drama of proof, because monsters are (physically, though
generally not logically) impossible beings. They arouse interest and attention through being
putatively inexplicable or highly unusual vis–vis our standing cultural categories, thereby
instilling a desire to learn and to know about them. And since they are also outside of
(justifiably) prevailing definitions of what is, they understandably prompt a need for proof
(or the fiction of a proof) in the face of skepticism. Monsters are, then, natural subjects
for curiosity, and they straightforwardly warrant the ratiocinative energies the plot lavishes
upon them.
All narratives might be thought to involve the desire to knowthe desire to know at least
the outcome of the interaction of the forces made salient in the plot. However, the horror
fiction is a special variation on this general narrative motivation, because it has at the center
of it something which is given as in principle unknowablesomething which, ex hypothesi, cannot,
given the structure of our conceptual scheme, exist and that cannot have the properties it
has. This is why, so often, the real drama in a horror story resides in establishing the existence
of the monster and in disclosing its horrific properties. Once this is established, the
monster, generally, has to be confronted, and the narrative is driven by the question of
whether the creature can be destroyed. However, even at this point, the drama of ratiocin-
ation can continue as further discoveriesaccompanied by arguments, explanations, and
hypothesesreveal features of the monster that will facilitate or impede the destruction of
the creature. [. . .]
What is revealed and disclosed, of course, are monsters and their properties. These are
appropriate objects of discovery and revelation, just because they are unknownnot only in
the sense that the murderer in a detective fiction is unknown, but also because they are
outside the bounds of knowledge, i.e., outside our standing conceptual schemes. This, as well,
accounts for why their revelation and the disclosure of their properties is so often bound up
in processes of proof, hypothesis, argument, explanation (including sci-fi flights of fancy and
WHY HORROR? 35
magical lore about mythological realms, potions, and incantations), and confirmation. That
is, because horror fictions are predicated on the revelation of unknown and unknowable
unbelievable and incredibleimpossible beings, they often take the form of narratives of
discovery and proof. For things unknown in the way of monsters obviously are natural subjects
for proof.
Applied to the paradox of horror, these observations suggest that the pleasure derived
from the horror fiction and the source of our interest in it resides, first and foremost, in
the processes of discovery, proof, and confirmation that horror fictions often employ. The
disclosure of the existence of the horrific being and of its properties is the central source of
pleasure in the genre; once that process of revelation is consummated, we remain inquisitive
about whether such a creature can be successfully confronted, and that narrative question
sees us through to the end of the story. Here, the pleasure involved is, broadly speaking,
cognitive. Hobbes, interestingly, thought of curiosity as an appetite of the mind; with the
horror fiction, that appetite is whetted by the prospect of knowing the putatively unknowable,
and then satisfied through a continuous process of revelation, enhanced by imitations of
(admittedly simplistic) proofs, hypotheses, counterfeits of causal reasoning, and explanations
whose details and movement intrigue the mind in ways analogous to genuine ones.2
Moreover, it should be clear that these particular cognitive pleasures, insofar as they are
set in motion by the relevant kind of unknowable beings, are especially well served by horrific
monsters. Thus, there is a special functional relationship between the beings that mark off
the horror genre and the pleasure and interest that many horror fictions sustain. That interest
and that pleasure derive from the disclosure of unknown and impossible beings, just the
sorts of things that seem to call for proof, discovery, and confirmation. Therefore, the disgust
that such beings evince might be seen as part of the price to be paid for the pleasure of their
disclosure. That is, the narrative expectation that the horror genre puts in place is that the
being whose existence is in question be something that defies standing cultural categories;
thus, disgust, so to say, is itself more or less mandated by the kind of curiosity that the horror
narrative puts in place. The horror narrative could not deliver a successful, affirmative answer
to its presiding question unless the disclosure of the monster indeed elicited disgust, or was
of the sort that was a highly probable object of disgust.
That is, there is a strong relation of consilience between the objects of art-horror, on the
one hand, and the revelatory plotting on the other. The kinds of plots and the subjects of
horrific revelation are not merely compatible, but fit together or agree in a way that is highly
appropriate. That the audience is naturally inquisitive about that which is unknown meshes
with plotting that is concerned to render the unknown known by processes of discovery,
explanation, proof, hypothesis, confirmation, and so on.
Of course, what it means to say that the horrific being is unknown here is that it is not
accommodated by standing conceptual schemes. Moreover, if Mary Douglass account of
impurity is correct, things that violate our conceptual scheme, by (for example) being
interstitial, are things that we are prone to find disturbing. Thus, that horrific beings are
predictably objects of loathing and revulsion is a function of the ways they violate our
classificatory scheme.
If what is of primary importance about horrific creatures is that their very impossibility vis-
-vis our conceptual categories is what makes them function so compellingly in dramas of
discovery and confirmation, then their disclosure, insofar as they are categorical violations,
will be attached to some sense of disturbance, distress, and disgust. Consequently, the role
36 NOL CARROLL
of the horrific creature in such narrativeswhere their disclosure captures our interest and
delivers pleasurewill simultaneously mandate some probable revulsion. That is, in order
to reward our interest by the disclosure of the putatively impossible beings of the plot, said
beings ought to be disturbing, distressing, and repulsive in the way that theorists like Douglas
predict phenomena that ill fit cultural classifications will be.
So, as a first approximation of resolving the paradox of horror, we may conjecture that we
are attracted to the majority of horror fictions because of the way that the plots of discovery
and the dramas of proof pique our curiosity, and abet our interest, ideally satisfying them in
a way that is pleasurable.3 But if narrative curiosity about impossible beings is to be satisfied
through disclosure, that process must require some element of probable disgust since such
impossible beings are, ex hypothesi, disturbing, distressful, and repulsive.
One way of making the point is to say that the monsters in such tales of disclosure have
to be disturbing, distressful, and repulsive, if the process of their discovery is to be rewarding
in a pleasurable way. Another way to get at this is to say that the primary pleasure that
narratives of disclosure affordi.e., the interest we take in them, and the source of their
attractionresides in the processes of discovery, the play of proof, and the dramas of
ratiocination that comprise them. It is not that we crave disgust, but that disgust is a
predictable concomitant of disclosing the unknown, whose disclosure is a desire the narrative
instills in the audience and then goes on to gladden. Nor will that desire be satisfied unless
the monster defies our conception of nature which demands that it probably engender some
measure of repulsion.
In this interpretation of horror narratives, the majority of which would appear to exploit
the cognitive attractions of the drama of disclosure, experiencing the emotion of art-horror
is not our absolutely primary aim in consuming horror fictions, even though it is a determining
feature for identifying membership in the genre. Rather, art-horror is the price we are willing
to pay for the revelation of that which is impossible and unknown, of that which violates our
conceptual schema. The impossible being does disgust; but that disgust is part of an overall
narrative address which is not only pleasurable, but whose potential pleasure depends
on the confirmation of the existence of the monster as a being that violates, defies, or
problematizes standing cultural classifications. Thus, we are attracted to, and many of us
seek out, horror fictions of this sort despite the fact that they provoke disgust, because that
disgust is required for the pleasure involved in engaging our curiosity in the unknown and
drawing it into the processes of revelation, ratiocination, etc.
One objection to this line of conjecture is to point out that many of the kinds of plot
structures found in horror fiction can be found in other genres. The play of discovery and
confirmation, supported by ratiocination, can be found in detective thrillers. And the plots
of the disaster movies of the first half of the seventies often also look like horror plots; but
instead of ghouls and vampires calling for discovery and confirmation, potential earthquakes,
avalanches, floods, and simmering electrical systems are the culprits.
Of course, with detective stories and disaster films, the evil that is disclosed is not
impossible nor, in principle, unknown. This not only means that these narratives do not
characteristically cause disgust, but that there is a qualitative difference in the kind of curiosity
they invite and reward. My point here is not that one kind of curiosity is higher or lower than
another kind; but only that there can be different kinds of curiosity engaged by plot structures
that at a certain level of abstract description look formally equivalent, in terms of their major
movements. However, it is one thing to be curious about the unknown but natural, and
WHY HORROR? 37
another thing to be curious about the impossible. And it is the latter form of curiosity in
which horror fictions typically traffic.
Two other, I think, deeper objections to the preceding hypotheses about the paradox of
horror are:
1) So far the conjecture only deals with horror narratives, indeed, only with horror
narratives of a certain sortnamely those involving such elements as discovery, confirmation,
disclosure, revelation, explanation, hypothesis, ratiocination, etc. But there are instances of
the horror genre, e.g., paintings, that need not involve narrative; and there are, according to
my review of characteristic horror plots, horror narratives that dont involve these elements.
There may be, for example, pure onset or pure confrontation plots. Moreover, earlier
hypotheses about the paradox of horror were rejected because they were not sufficiently
comprehensive. But since there are instances of horror that are not narrative and since there
may be horror narratives that do not deploy the elements of disclosure so far identified as
the central source of attraction to horror, this conjecture must be rejected as failing its own
standards of generality.
2) This conjecture seems to make the experience of being horrified too remote from the
experience of the genre. The revulsion we feel at the horrific being is too detached from
the source of attraction we find in the genre. This is peculiar, since it is the emotion of art-
horror that differentiates the genre. Indeed, it is very often the expectation that a given fiction
is defined by this emotion that leads us to select it over candidates from other genres. So one
seems justified in supposing that what makes the genre special must have some intimate
connection with what draws audiences to seek it out especially. But the account, thus far,
falters in this respect.
The first criticism is absolutely on target about the limitations of my hypothesis in its present
state. My view is not yet sufficiently comprehensive. The horror genre includes examples, like
photographs and paintings, that do not involve sustained narration, especially sustained
narration of the particular sort I have emphasized; and, there are horror narratives of the pure
onset or pure confrontation variety that do not offer audiences the refined and sometimes
intricately articulated strategems of disclosure referred to above. However, I do not regard
these observations as decisive counterexamples to my approach, but rather as an opportunity
to deepen and expand it, indeed in ways that will also enable me to handle the second of the
objections in the course of adjusting my position in order to accommodate the first objection.
I do think that the best account that can be given of the paradox of horror for the majority
of works of horrific art will be very much like the one that I have already offered. However, it
is true that it fails to cover non-narrative horror and horror fictions little concerned with the
drama of disclosure. To deal with these cases more needs to be said; but the more-that-
needs-to-be-said fits with what has already been said in a way that enriches while also
extending the theory developed so far.
Central to my approach has been the idea that the objects of horror are fundamentally
linked with cognitive interests, most notably with curiosity. The plotting gambits of
disclosure/discovery narratives play with, expand, sustain, and develop this initial cognitive
appetite in many directions. And as well, this is the way in which horror fictions usually go.
But it would be a mistake to think that this curiosity is solely a function of plotting, even if
the plotting of certain types of fictionsnamely those concerned with disclosurebrings it
to its highest pitch. For the objects of art-horror in and of themselves engender curiosity as
well. This is why they can support the kind of disclosure plots referred to above. Consequently,
38 NOL CARROLL
even if it is true that horrific curiosity is best expatiated upon within disclosure plots, and that,
in its most frequent and compelling cases, it does mobilize such plots, it is also true that it
can be abetted and rewarded without the narrative contextualization of disclosure/discovery
plotting. Thus, it can be the case that while horror is most often, and perhaps most powerfully
and most primarily, developed within narrative contexts of disclosure, it may also obtain in
non-narrative and non-disclosure contexts for the same reason, viz., the power of the objects
of art-horror to command curiosity.
Recall again that the objects of art-horror are, by definition, impure. This is to be
understood in terms of their being anomalous. Obviously, the anomalous nature of these
beings is what makes them disturbing, distressing, and disgusting. They are violations of our
ways of classifying things and such frustrations of a world-picture are bound to be disturbing.
However, anomalies are also interesting. The very fact that they are anomalies fascinates
us. Their deviation from the paradigms of our classificatory scheme captures our attention
immediately. It holds us spellbound. It commands and retains our attention. It is an attracting
force; it attracts curiosity, i.e., it makes us curious; it invites inquisitiveness about its surprising
properties. One wants to gaze upon the unusual, even when it is simultaneously repelling.
Monsters, the anomalous beings who star in this book, are repelling because they
violate standing categories. But for the self-same reason, they are also compelling of our
attention. They are attractive, in the sense that they elicit interest, and they are the cause of,
for many, irresistible attention, again, just because they violate standing categories. They are
curiosities. They can rivet attention and thrill for the self-same reason that they disturb,
distress, and disgust.
If these confessedly pedestrian remarks are convincing, three interesting conclusions are
suggested. First, the attraction of non-narrative- and non-disclosure-type narration in horror
is explicable, as is disclosure-type narrative, fundamentally by virtue of curiosity, a feature of
horrific beings that follows from their anomalous status as violations of standing cultural
schemes. Second, horrific creatures are able to contribute so well to sustaining interest in
disclosure plots to an important degree just because in being anomalous, they can be
irresistibly interesting. And lastly, with special reference to the paradox of horror, monsters,
the objects of art-horror, are themselves sources of ambivalent responses, for as violations
of standing cultural categories, they are disturbing and disgusting, but, at the same time,
they are also objects of fascinationagain, just because they transgress standing categories
of thought. That is, the ambivalence that bespeaks the paradox of horror is already to be
found in the very objects of art-horror which are disgusting and fascinating, repelling and
attractive due to their anomalous nature.4
I have identified impurity as an essential feature of art-horror; specifically, the objects
of art-horror are, in part, impure beings, monsters recognized as outside the natural order of
things as set down by our conceptual schema. This claim may be tested by noting the truly
impressive frequency with which the apparition of such monsters in horror fictions correlates
explicitly in such texts with mention of revulsion, disgust, repulsion, nausea, abhorrence,
and so on. The source of this attitude, moreover, seems traceable to the fact that they, as David
Pole puts it, might in a way be called messy; they defy or mess up existing categories. . . .
[W]hat initially disturbs us is most often merely a jumbling [or obfuscation] of kinds.5 But
at the same time that the breakdown of our conceptual categories disturbs, it also fixes our
attention. It stimulates our cognitive appetite with the prospect of something previously
inconceivable.
WHY HORROR? 39
The fascination of the horrific being comes in tandem with disturbance. And, in fact, I
would submit that for those who are attracted to the genre, the fascination at least
compensates for the disturbance. This may be explained to a certain extent by reference to
the thought theory of fictional emotion discussed earlier in this book. According to that view,
the audience knows that the object of art-horror does not exist before them. The audience is
only reacting to the thought that such and such an impure being might exist. This mutes,
without eliminating, the disturbing aspect of the object of art-horror and allows more
opportunity for fascination with the monster to take hold.6
One supposes that fascination would be too great a luxury to endure, if one, against
all odds, were to encounter a horrific monster in real life. We, like the characters in horror
fictions, would feel distressingly helpless; for such creatures, insofar as they defy our
conceptual scheme, would leave us at a loss to think of how to deal with themthey would
baffle our practical response, paralyzing us in terror (as they generally do to characters in
horror fictions for the same reason). However, with art-horror, it is only the thought of the
creature that is at issue; we know that it does not exist; we are not taxed literally by practical
questions about what is to be done. So the fearsome and loathsome aspects of the monsters
do not impinge upon us with the same practical urgency, allowing a space for fascination to
take root. So, as a second approximation for resolving the paradox of horror, we can explain
how it is that what would, by hypothesis, ordinarily distress, disturb, and disgust us, can also
be the source of pleasure, interest, and attraction. With reference to art-horror the answer is
that the monsteras a categorical violationfascinates for the self-same reason it disgusts
and, since we know the monster is but a fictional confection, our curiosity is affordable.
This position enables us to give an answer to the justified objection to our first response
to the paradox of horror, which response was so wedded to disclosure-type narratives, to wit:
non-narrative examples of art-horror, such as those found in the fine arts and narrative horror
fictions that do not deploy disclosure devices, attract their audiences insofar as the objects
of art-horror promote fascination at the same time they distress; indeed, both responses
emanate from the same aspects of the horrific beings. The two responses are, as a matter of
(contingent) fact, inseparable in horror. Moreover, this fascination can be savored, because
the distress in question is not behaviorally pressing; it is a response to the thought of a
monster, not to the actual presence of a disgusting or fearsome thing.
If it is true that fascination is the key to our attention to the art-horror in general, then it
is also the case that the curiosity and fascination that is basic to the genre also receive
especial amplification in what I have referred to as narratives of disclosure and discovery.
There curiosity, fascination, and our cognitive inquisitiveness are engaged, addressed, and
sustained in a highly articulated way through what I have called the drama of proof and such
processes of continuous revelation as ratiocination, discovery, hypothesis formation,
confirmation, and so on.
At this point, then, I am in a position to summarize my approach to the paradox of horror.
It is a twofold theory, whose elements I refer to respectively as the universal theory and the
general theory. The universal theory of our attraction to art-horrorwhich covers non-
narrative horror, non-disclosure horror narratives, and disclosure narrativesis that what
leads people to seek out horror is fascination as characterized in the analyses above. This is
the basic, generic calling card of the form.
At the same time, I should also like to advance what I call a generalrather than a universal
theory of the appeal of art-horror. The most commonly recurringthat is to say the most
40 NOL CARROLL
generally foundexercises in the horror genre appear to be horror narratives of the disclosure
sort. The attraction of these instances, like all other examples of the genre, are to be explained
in terms of curiosity and fascination. However, with these cases, the initial curiosity and
fascination found in the genre are developed to an especially high degree through devices
that enhance and sustain curiosity. If the genre begins, so to speak, in curiosity, it is enhanced
by the consilient structures of disclosure plotting. In such cases, then, what attracts us to
this sort of horrorwhich seems to me the most pervasive7is the whole structure and
staging of curiosity in the narrative, in virtue of the experience of the extended play of
fascination it affords. That is, as Hume noted of tragedy, the source of our aesthetic pleasure
in such examples of horror is primarily the whole structure of the narrative in which, of course,
the apparition of the horrific being is an essential, and, as the universal theory shows, a
facilitating part.
[. . .]
One advantage of this theoretical approach over some of the rival theories, like
psychoanalysis, is that it can accommodate our interest in horrific beings whose imagery
does not seem straightforwardly, or even circuitously, rooted in such things as repression.
That is, the religious awe explanation and psychoanalytic explanations of horror confront
counterexamples in those cases of horror where the monsters seem to be produced by
what might be thought of as virtually formal
