You're in the woods, armed with nothing but the clothes on your back and the flashlight in your hand. You turn, hearing a twig snap. Nothing's there. Then you find a page, scribbled with the words, "YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE."
You take the note and turn away from it — in front of you is a tall, faceless, impossibly slender figure. He's suddenly gone, but you turn, and there he is again: Your life is at its end.
That's the basic premise of the relatively recent independent horror game "Slender: The Arrival," which is a sequel to the original game, "Slender: The Eight Pages."
The production of an Internet-born horror story, "Slender" went viral about a year ago.
With over 2 million downloads, the game helped to bring new fans to multiple web series that utilize the "Slender Man" mythos — stories originated from an Internet forum in which a tall, faceless, impossibly-slender creature in a business suit stalks and kidnaps children.
The Internet isn't the only venue for horror: Just last week, the Evil Dead franchise saw a new film release. The sequel to the horror-themed Bioshock game series went on sale at the end of March. Popular zombie-survival television series, "The Walking Dead," just recently had its season finale with over 12 million viewers.
What is it about horror that captures our society's interest?
I know for me it's part adrenaline. The rush of going to a haunted house, of feeling it rush through me when someone leaps out from a dark crevice, feeling the blood pump through my veins and energize me is a natural high. It's a way for me to jolt myself with a change from the mundane.
It's also in part about the stories.
That's why I play horror-themed video games. The Silent Hill series is all about symbolism and psychological horror, and YouTube series "Marble Hornets" — and therefore by extension Slender — provide me with a mystery to solve. Who is the Slender Man? What does he want? Why is he after these people?
The same goes for "Bioshock."
Horror is incredibly subjective. What will scare one person will not scare another. Some people complained that Slender was absolutely not scary, yet I find it to be one of the most horrifying experiences I've been through, all thanks to a computer screen and some speakers.
Other people find haunted houses mind numbing, where I think they're both scary and a ton of fun.
Back to the original question, though: What makes us as society crave horror?
Monsters can stand in for societal tensions. In the 1950s, alien attacks and body-snatching were representative of the Red Scare. Vampires have been a way to express forbidden sexuality in more repressed times. Even now, zombies may quite possibly represent our fear of losing our individuality and becoming just another mindless drone — a cog in the machine.
On one level, horror is about giving us that adrenaline rush. We go to horror films to be scared, to cling onto something, to entertain ourselves. We attend haunted houses in droves for the feeling of hormones rushing through us.
We even scare ourselves with real pictures of gory moments, like the recent incident where television cameras caught footage of University of Louisville guard Kevin Ware's leg literally snap mid-game.
On a deeper level, we use horror as a way to express our anxieties. It's a release, a safe way to explore the loss of self, temptation or impending war.
On a more mundane level, we use horror to experience situations we would likely never encounter in real life, such as being chased by a mass murderer, being kidnapped by a crazy cult, facing off against a demon or staring down the end of the world.
Sure, horror can fall into its clichés, especially in music, movies and TV released around Halloween to cash in on the spooky holiday. There have even been critiques of the horror genre's tropes: "Cabin in the Woods," for instance, used horror tropes to tell its own tale while simultaneously deconstructing mainstream horror films.
Horror itself is incredibly personal. Whether or not you like it, horror can a great way to explore every one of our anxieties and enrich our lives with new stories. It can stimulate the minds of its creators, providing challenges to keep the genre fresh and still scary.
So take a look around that corner next time you're on campus at night. Peek behind your shower curtain. Indulge yourself in being afraid of the dark.
Boo.
Reach the columnist at baorteg1@asu.edu or follow him at @BrandoBoySP
