Where does the Horror Come From?

I'm a wuss and I love Horror. I jump in every kind of Thriller/Horror/Suspense moment in a scary movie, and, for that matter, in movies that aren't scary at all. Since I was a kid I've been in a love/hate relationship with the genre. It scarred me early, and I think in a pretty big way. I saw 10 minutes of Stephen King's "It", peeking out from my bedroom door, when I was about 5. In that 10 minutes, lots of children died. Horrifically.The last nightmare I had about a clown, I was 15.
For most of my childhood after that I couldn't be alone at night without feeling the terror of something creeping up behind me. I could feel the knife in my back, the talons on my shoulders, the jaws at my throat or the eyes in the dark. Sometimes I still can. I think it's that feeling of waiting for the danger to appear, that terror and suspense, that I've grown to love now. I crave it. So when the Writers Festival held a panel called "Where Does The Horror Come From?" I was there. No way I was gonna miss it.
"Good Horror writing," Sean Williams says, leaning forward on the couch, hands fluttering in excitement "is not necessarily about the gore or grotesque horror of a slasher film, but it IS full of the tension and dread that comes from waiting for something like that to happen."
And, all things considered, I'd have to agree. Sean Williams would know too. He's cranked out some of the most popular Young Adult horror, fantasy and sci-fi novels in Australia over the last decade, as well as collaborating with fellow Master of the genre game, Garth Nix. Sean Williams was a name I knew. I was less fortunate in that the other two members of the panel were strangers. I was in for a treat and an education.
Keith Austen got the Big Chair, facilitating the discussion, and he introduced his companions in a voice loaded with all the scrape and twang you'd expect out of  a journo from East London. He told me later he gets a bit nervous before doing things like this but you wouldn't have picked it. His manner was that of a bloke in his own lounge-room half the time, though he did play up the host bit along the way and it suited him. I later had a long and thoroughly enjoyable chat with Keith and he was one of the nicest people I met all festival, but I'll save that for another blog.
Keith's written 3 books that he likes to call "Fractured Fairy Tales". He admits that they're marketed as YA Fiction  but he jokes immediately afterwards,
"That's just what the publishers say. My target audience is between eleven and one-hundred and eleven. That's my niche." The crowd laughs and Keith introduces the 3rd member of the panel. When he holds up her book I realise that I do know her.
Keri Arthur's books are everywhere. They have sexy, tough looking girls with samurai swords and assorted ancient weaponry on the cover and run the full gamut of horror fiction.Werewolves, Vampires, Demons & Ghosts, Keri told us, no matter the monster she loved and wrote them all. While I haven't read her books, I've seen them around enough to know that they're enormously popular. Personally, I was sold when she described them as "Horror and Fantasy novels with strong female protagonists who were relativity ordinary people in extraordinary situations."
These three esteemed authors of the Horror genre proceeded to take the piss out of their own fears for the next hour. Keith, for example, admitted that he was terrified of cotton wool and would leave the room if it came near him. Sean disclosed a crippling arachnophobia, calmed for now by a recent fumigation. Instead, he said, he now lives in terror at the thought of when he may find a spider again.
"Where there's one," he says, grinning in embarrassment "there will always be more."
Keri didn't have anything funny or phobic to admit to but she did discuss the irrational fears of childhood, like mine, of just fearing something in the dark & being terrified for no real reason. This fed into a cheery and philosophical discussion of Universal Fears such as :

 - Being left completely alone.
 - Death.
 - Alzheimers
 - The Unknown

This list is prestigious and a little confronting and I challenge you to think of others. What's something that Everybody fears? While you're answering the questions that came out of this session, Reader, here are some more:

Do animals feel Horror, as opposed to fear or terror?
Do Horror stories contain a moral lesson?
Is Horror supernatural or can Horror come from everyday moments?
Can you set a Horror story in broad daylight?
What is the difference between Terror and Horror?
Can Horror be defeated or does true Horror never end?

This conversation, dear Readers, was a privilege to be a part of. It reminded me of my love/hate relationship with fear and my infatuation with a genre that shaped my childhood and young adult life. The questions and themes inspired me to start my brain thinking about the genre more and I'm already crafting stories in response.
Fear is fun. With the lights on...