I think a crypto-normative title of a news-blog editorial is so pretentious, but when you have some obstreparous young writer on a key-board, these are the kinds of titles you are given. Not surprising, these are also the general types of horror, somewhat more creatively named, which I find myself drawn to. To me, good horror comes in 4 true bundles. Mystery, Hysteria, Psycho-Therapy, and Mythology. It is also interesting how well they encompass what is great about horror (and I do think Horror is great) since it shows how incredibly versatile horror truely is. I bring this up, because my mother phoned me today, and I told her about the sweet deal I found, whereby I got the Hammer Horror collection for 90 quid less. She instantly pointed out to me that 40 DVDs of old horror films was surely nothing to be proud of as it’d just be 40 discs of identical crisis. Having talked last week, as I did, about how nothing is truely original, I’m going to pull a Wittgenstein on myself and contradict everything I’ve said, in a sense, by talking about the brilliance that is horror, and its multi-faceted approach to entertainment. The basic story is just that, one of being diverse, of being able to usually disappoint all of us, and yet to please all of us. Even my mother had to admit that she did like one or two horror movies in her day, admittedly the more ‘realistic’ suspense style ones, or as I like to call them, Psycho-Therapy. Usually because they explore the human psyche, always therapeutic. In fact, before I digress too far, I should track back and decrypt my initial inquiry and ideas.

Let me, if you will, define my terms. First of all, let me just point out that Mystery is what it says on the box. Films which are by their nature mysterious, suspenseful, and hard to place in reality. Its antecedent, rather conveniently, is Hysteria, which is the total chaotic approach to horrror, a far more base and in some cases less intellectually compelling horror films. I like to think of them as a sledge-hammer in horror, brutal and yet rather one-purposed. Psycho-Therapy, as I said before, is more to do with the human condition than the external oddity and ambiguity. Think “Mr. Brooks” over “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Finally, Mythology is what I reserve for those horror films which deal with mythos, usually of a religious overtone. These are my  own personal axes, you should all make your own as you see fit.

Now, why have I brought up 4 axes and stuffed them with a definition that suits me? Because I can easily name 10 horror films in each axis, none like the other, which all please me. Admittedly I am a horror fan though, and such simple suggestions surely seem somewhat self-sustaining. Indeed they are, pardon my alliterative writing, and that is exactly what they need to be.  Odds are, no matter who your friends are, no matter what they think of horror, they will probably have encountered a film that had something of a streak of ‘horror’ in it, and that they really enjoyed. So what, says you? Well, let me bring you further along my line of thinking.

With so many genres, things really are what they seem. Romantic Comedies are almost all without fail somewhat sappy, chick-flick-y, and half of them star either Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, or Ryan Reynolds. They just are, it’s written in the Writers Guild bylaws. Equally true, you know that a true action film likely has punches, kicks, throws, and if you’re lucky, guns. On good days, you’ll even get Arnold in it. Musicals, again, will have a paper-thin plot spread thickly with notes and falsettos. Not to say these are bad things, but they are rather uniform things. You can continue down the line of these genres, passing by Westerns, War-films, Comedy, and even Adult films. They all have variations in execution, various plots, and various things, but they are all linked rather obviously by some fairly substatial link with eachother. You’d think horror, with its being intended just to scare, would fall into this pit-fall. Not so, says I. As I said, I’ve put up 4 axes that show exactly why that is just not true. There is no universality to Horror in the way that there is to some other films, because it tends to be restrictive. What scares you does not scare me, etc etc. But it is in fact deeper than just mere types of fear that its trying to exploit. It needs to be more than that.

Mystery, Hysteria, Psycho-Therapy, Mythology. I bring them back, because when you read those 4 words, I bet not one of you intially thought it was a common denominator of anything except my usual rantings and ravings. And you’re right, they aren’t really things that have much in common. Fortunately for me, that just means that Horror as a genre can do so much more than what many of my friends and relatives seem to think it is capable of. In many ways, its BECAUSE it can do so many things that horror really does become such a hit-and-miss genre with so many people loving the horror community. Its diversity is its strongest link.

I suppose its time to bring you some of the reasoning behind my 4 classifications. I actually arrived at them when I was trying to figure out what to make of the eternal thrill-ride that is Jason X. In many ways, this film is perfection to me, because it is pure mass-hysteria, not just in the film, but for the horror community. It divided into polar camps those who loved it and enjoyed it and those who thought it blasphemy itself, having gone from a mystery suspense series about a killer in a camp to being about a zombie mass-murderer in space. To me, that is the perfection of the culminating hysteria that is the Friday the 13th series, to others its a betrayal. What can I say, I like progression. But it just goes to show, even among fans, one direction and directive (the Mystery angle of the original Friday the 13th) can be outdone by another within its own series (the Hysteria of Jason X). Expanding this into an even more deep and diverse mythos, I realized that Hellraiser as a series perfected my theory. Going over my collection, it was easy to see that there was a reason why I maintain to this day that Hellraiser is the strongest collective of any horror franchise. It has managed to get films to portray all 4 of my personal axes. If you follow with me, you’ll notice that Mystery is denoted as something suspenseful and external to the main character, a slow build of evil portents and difficult situations. Hellraiser, the original, is exactly this. The whole thing is a slow building mystery, virtually a mystery novel. The same is true of Hellraiser 7: Deader where again the action is not pure and total, the building of a concept takes precedence. By contrast to these, Hellraiser III:Hellworld is the quintessential Hysteria movie. Much like Monster-Panic films and high-octane torture-porn, this is an exhibition of bad things being visited on people at an alarming rate. It isn’t so much about the psychological build as it is about the brutal carnage. Like Jason X, and like so many destructive films before and after it, Hellraiser III shows us some serious brutality. Fortunately for my theory, Hellraiser 8: Hellworld, as well as Hellraiser 5 and 6, manage to please me on an entirely different level. That of the Psychological introspection. An examination of one characters challenge and mental anguish, often repeated, gives a morbid ‘Groundhog Day’ feel to these horror films, as they live through their own mental destruction. Finally, Hellraiser 2 is my choice for the Mythological approach. An examination of not just horror and the characters involved, but of more specific theological themes and explorations make this more than just death by chains. It makes it a real almost academic look at pain and horror, and of hell.

Now the astute of you will notice that with Hellraiser, certainly, all 4 elements are doubtless in play at one point or another, to a greater and lesser degree in each film. That is because Hellraiser is amazing. But more to the point, even in a single franchise diversity is present. For all of horror, this means there are many (in my case I break it into 4) axes of thought you can explore. This is true diversity. I doubt I could spend enough time enumerating and elaborating just how these 4 different ways of viewing horror can be brought about, and in what context they exist, but hopefully you’ve gotten a taste for what I view to be the diverse life-blood of Horror.

As I said at the start, I think that these 4 concepts are a tribute to how great Horror is as a genre, and I hope you’ll agree with me about that fact. What it allows horror as a genre to do is to set up many different experiments of living and many different things for you to explore and be scared of. Of course, it may mean you can’t always get what you want, but at least you will always get something that you do. Something I can hardly say for things like Romantic Comedies.