The Shakespeare scholar A. C. Bradley is reputed to have captivated his audiences by lecturing on the Bard's characters as if they were actual, real people: adventurers questing the round globe outside those square auditoria. I was reminded of this scholarly dedication while reading 'A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies.' Horror remains after all these years an intimate rite of passage, as well as an abstraction. It is arguably the crux, the key ingredient, of all organic life; but also a conversational topic around the water cooler, in the security of the workplace. Like Cerberus at the gates of Hades, horror either lies dormant, momentarily uninterested in our insignificance - or comes wide awake in ravening for our throats. And horror is also, strangely, a movie genre, supposed to please and satisfy as an aesthetic fabrication of the entertainment industry. How do we approach it? Luckily, it is not only with the attention of the obsessive but the temperament of the analyst that Mathias Clasen explores these seeming contradictions. Such a potent mix of enthusiasm and care can create interesting books and this is one of them. Dr. Clasen recognizes horror in modern media as based in our innermost primal being, and posits that to understand that source means understanding ourselves. He acknowledges the affective reality of horror (as presented through storytelling) to be rather paradoxical and mysterious. It is a biological imperative that repulses and fascinates us; it repels yet draws people into its complicated web, and in some ways, horror, like life, is this strange force that seems near-spiritual in nature, with its unpredictable capacity to shape and change us. But again, it is also a nasty bit of fun dismissed by many as unworthy non-artistry. So why would movie-watchers on a Friday night subject themselves to a startling simulacrum of death? Why would amusement park owners build haunted houses? What possesses a person to press play on the remote in invitation to another jump scare? What is to be gained from being scared? This book explores and answers those questions, and, as Mathias Clasen proves, there actually is much profit to be had from comprehending (if only a little better) our insecure birthright to fear. This fact we may never divorce ourselves from. It is impossible to escape from horror, and so we domesticate it in ways that may strengthen us and our loved ones. Even when it grows recognizable and stale, we reinvent and revivify it with generational innovations - as if this were its tricking scheme all along! Dr. Clasen addresses this coterminous evolution in a passage on the so-called horror renaissance (thanks to the rise of production studios like Blumhouse and A24) in film of recent years. But he also stresses that horror has from the beginning been pinpointing societal concerns, parental and otherwise existential concerns, survivalist and biological concerns, in its narrative portrayals - be it with the weird sisters of 'Macbeth' (1606), or the witches of 'The VVitch' (2015). The defiance to understand is simply imprinted in the impulse that makes us recreate horror through domesticated media, from stories of old to almost-too-real video games of today. As food for thought, this book thus covers a wide range of truths and suspicions. Moreover, the writing is clear and concise, the scholarship sound and cited, the voice authorial. It will serve as a fine introduction to the subject of horror movies, or, as it did for this reader, provide a sublime smorgasbord of unrestrained comfort-eating that would make even a vampire blush.
Coming from Dr. Clasen's earlier book, 'Why Horror Seduces,' this reviewer wondered what might be expected from another entry to humankind's growing dark library of horror studies. Isn't the Internet replete enough already with user-friendly guides on how to pick and choose horror flicks? Well, what many of these lists lack are the astute rigor and sheer expertise that this book manifests - be it in its presentation of research data, its relevant anecdotes, or its very enjoyable chapter on children's horror movies. What simply shines forth is its vested relevance to our troubles. It is very apparent that the same fears and insecurities covered in this book, and exemplified in the stories covered, remain the same worries regarding opposition, predation, and contagion that kept our cavemen patriarchs up all night, gibbering in the dark and diarizing the grotto walls with the blood of unluckier lifeforms. Were these poor souls (the cavemen, not their prey) capable of enjoying this study - sent to them, say, in a time machine as an ooga-booga audiobook - I doubt they would sleep any better afterwards, or be less nervous. But their dreams would be richer, their discussions and artworks more interesting, and their communal bond so much stronger; for as Mathias Clasen shows, horror ultimately gathers us together in our collective fear of the unknown. Our screams constitute the rallying cries that describe It, dissect It, or try to; since one may never fully understand the unknown - with all of its "amazing and terrifying things" (p. 148).
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