The Horror That Originates Inside

Ensemble cast photo from The Haunting of Hill House

The third episode of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House features a subplot involving sick kittens. Shirley, eldest daughter of Hill House’s resident Crain family, finds an abandoned litter, so small and frail that their eyes haven’t opened yet, and takes them in. But these kittens were dying before Shirley found them, and one by one, they die in her care. The series connects this childhood trauma, and Shirley’s adult occupation, as a mortician.

I struggled to watch this plot unfold. Mere months earlier, I similarly found an abandoned litter at work, and struggled to feed and nurture them, without success. Fortunately, when I failed, I reached my local PD’s animal control office, who whisked my kittens to a foster home. So Shirley’s doomed efforts touched me, directly, and I almost couldn’t watch the story, because I anticipated every worst-case scenario, just as I did back in April.

I’m glad I watched it, though. In the final analysis, the show’s dominant theme proves to be the consequences which the Crain family endures for refusing to face trauma directly. The characters personify different forms of denial, evasion, repression, and pig-headed stubbornness. They inflate the possible awfulness of the situation until it becomes epic in their minds, far disproportionate to the actual facts.

Freddy Kreuger

My parents didn’t let me watch horror movies as a child. While my peers reveled in the excesses of Freddy and Jason, and brought their favorite slasher knickknacks to school, my parents believed I was too sensitive for such fare. They probably weren’t altogether wrong, as I still take minor slights way too personally, and tend to catastrophize every tiddling setback. I couldn't understand that, though; I only knew my peers shared an experience which remained off-limits to me.

But just because I didn’t watch horror movies, doesn’t mean I didn’t internalize their implications. During the great slasher film boom of the 1980s, images of soulless bloodthirsty monsters permeated pop culture. My brain combined these floating images, and children’s common fears of abandonment, hopelessness, and being ignored, with the ruthless efficiency of a Cuisinart. My childhood nightmares were a beauty.

This pattern continues into adulthood. My fears have adapted to reality, and Freddy Kreuger doesn’t stalk my dreams anymore. Instead, I have nightmares of failing in life, in careers and relationships, and getting sent back to places where I previously lived, and suffered through loneliness. I fear human rejection, and having to spend the rest of my life alone with myself.

Believe me, that seems like a pretty horrific life sentence.

Now as then, though, my real fear stems not from reality, but from anticipation. My brain is capable of conjuring terrible consequences for stray moments and minor images. Poor Shirley and her kittens faced something awful, certainly. Every child’s first hands-on encounter with death is traumatic. But if I hadn’t watched it directly, my brain would’ve inserted something far worse into the story. It was already trying to.

Shirley’s kittens reminded me of a seemingly tangential corollary: Robin Thicke’s stanky number-one hit “Blurred Lines.” When I learned YouTube had banned Thicke’s video for obscenity and violating community standards, I immediately started imagining how awful it must be. My imagination got so florid that I had to watch, because it had already planted a seed in my mind. Imagine my relief to discover the video was merely lewd, and not an enactment of the depths of human depravity.

Jason Voorhees

Since I started watching horror films recently, I’ve realized the real horror stems, not from what happens, but from what could happen. We, the audience, anticipate the myriad of disasters that could befall the characters, filling the blanks when the camera lingers over an ominously empty graveyard or locked door. When the worst finally occurs, it’s actually a relief, because it’s seldom as bad as it could've been.

At this late date, it’s foolish to second-guess my parents’ child-rearing decisions. But I wonder if my life might’ve unfolded differently if I’d watched horror movies when my peers did. My adulthood has often been characterized by me inventing the worst possible outcome if I applied for my dream job, pressed for some reward I’d rightfully earned, or asked the girl I liked for a date.

Might my life have occurred differently if I’d learned earlier that my worst possible imaginings seldom came to pass? It’s probably too late to say that now. But it’s at least a possibility. And yes, I’m definitely middle-aged now, but perhaps it’s not too late to learn.