Why Horror Matters (And Why You Should Read More of It Before the Shadows Come for You)
A Love Letter to Fear, Darkness, and the Stories That Keep Us Up at Night
Not the horror of realizing you sent an email with “Their” instead of “They’re,” but genuine horror—the creeping dread, the bone-deep chill, the stories that make you double-check that your closet door is definitely closed.
Some people don’t get it. “Why would you want to be scared?” they ask, clutching their cozy romance novels like a security blanket. Well, listen up, buttercup, because I’m about to tell you exactly why horror is not only important—but essential.
Horror Prepares You for the Real World
Life is scary. There are taxes, existential dread, and the constant risk of saying “You too” when a waiter tells you to enjoy your meal. Reading horror is like strength training for your soul. It teaches you how to handle fear, how to stare into the abyss without blinking.
Because here’s the truth: monsters are real. Maybe not the clawed, tentacled, please-for-the-love-of-God-don’t-let-it-see-me kind, but they’re out there. Some walk on two legs, some wear suits, some live in your own noggin.
And horror? Horror teaches you how to fight them.
Horror Shows Us Who We Really Are
Want to know the measure of a person? Ask them how they’d react in a zombie apocalypse. (If they say, “I’d just vibe with the zombies,” they’re either a liar or already infected; and you don’t want them on your team.)
Horror strips everything down to survival. It puts characters—and by extension, readers—into impossible situations and asks, Who are you, really? Are you the hero? The coward? The one who saves others? Or the one who locks the door and whispers, “sorry, man?”.
Reading horror makes you think. Writing horror forces you to confront the things that scare you. And in the end, it’s not about the monsters…it’s never about the monsters…it’s about what we do when the monsters come.
Fear Is the Oldest Emotion
Fear is primal. It’s older than language, older than fire, older than that weird half-memory you have of a childhood nightmare you’re not convinced was a dream. (Mine involved a giant potato living in a root cellar that looked a lot like the basement of Castle Dracula…but that’s another story).
Our ancestors sat around fires, telling stories about the dark things beyond the light. We do the same thing today, only now we have Stephen King, Junji Ito, Mike Flanagan, and the entire internet full of “real” ghost stories you swear you’ll stop reading at 2 a.m. but don’t.
Horror connects us to something ancient. Something deep. It reminds us we are small, that the universe is vast, and that there are things out there we do not understand. And sometimes, it reminds us that the scariest things are not out there—they’re inside us.
People think horror is about despair. That it’s all darkness, gloom, and no light. But they’re wrong.
Horror is about survival. It’s about fighting when the odds are impossible. It’s about running up the stairs when you know you should run out the door but dammit, you must try something. At its core, my zombie story, EVERYTHING EVOLVES, is about the survival of the part of humanity that makes us humane. THE WALKING DEAD wasn’t referring to the zombies in its title, but to the humans who lost their human spark.
Horror is about refusing to slip quietly into that dark night.
And that’s why we need it.
Because at some point, we all face something terrifying. Loss. Grief. Change. The unknown. And horror stories whisper to us, “you’re not alone. People have faced worse. And some of them made it.”
Read it because it’s fun.
Read it because it makes your heart race.
Read it because it reminds you of what it means to be human.
And the next time someone asks why you love horror, just smile and say, “Because I want to be ready.”
(And then stare at them, unblinking, until they walk away.)
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