Staying Spooky All Year Long

For some of us, Halloween is more than just a singular holiday or even a season. It’s a lifestyle. I, for one, start wishing my friends a Happy Halloween on September 1^st. But my love for all things creepy and spooky stays with me the whole year.

Be it at the beginning of the school year (like Scream) or on Halloween (like the franchise of the same name), fall seems to be the default season for horror media, which is understandable. The vibes are right. Everyone’s already in a spooky mood in anticipation of Halloween; and TV channels play scary movies throughout the entire month of October. Horror is most accessible in the fall: it’s almost unavoidable. But, if you’re like me, you want that heart-pounding, spine-tingling feeling all the time.

Here’s my theory: horror can be seasonal. Not seasonal in the sense that it’s only relevant around Halloween, but in how certain subgenres fit into certain seasons. Allow me to explain.

It is impossible for me to talk about horror of any kind without talking about how much I love gothic horror. It’s dark, moody, and for some reason, frequently snowing. Is that why I am dubbing it the perfect genre for winter? Partially. Crimson Peak? Snow. Nosferatu? More snow. But it’s more than that. Sure, the presence of snow helps them to feel more like winter movies, in addition to the gloomy settings illuminated by candles in wall sconces or lit by low firelight. Heavy drapes on the walls of cold, cavernous houses. They’re all hallmarks of gothic horror and create a certain cozy feeling that cannot be replicated in a summer movie. That is why I’d argue that Dracula and Interview with the Vampire can also fall into this category. Is it snowing? Not necessarily. But they are still the perfect movies to watch by the light of a candle and snuggled under a blanket.

Friday the 13^th and Sleepaway Camp made summer camps synonymous with horror, spawning summer slashers as their own subgenre of horror that is riffed on to this day. From American Horror Story to Fear Street to Stranger Things, people being terrorized during the summer is a trope that we just keep coming back to. I Know What You Did Last Summer, which was one of the first horror novels I ever read, is an excellent summer horror read, as well as The Troop by Nick Cutter, which just so happens to be one of my top favorite horror books of all time. The juxtaposition between bright, happy summer days and the darkness that lurks underneath hits every single time.

Spring is a time for rebirth, renewal, and botanical horror: “Sporoor” as it is sometimes known, usually when there are fungi involved. Whether it’s a sentient plant like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors or a parasitic infection like in What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher, nature takes revenge in this horror subgenre. These plants grow everywhere, consuming animals, buildings, and even people. The body horror that appears in botanical horror books is not something that I’d ever thought I’d enjoy, but it makes me feel bad in such a good way that I can’t help going back for more.

Now, is this a definitive way of categorizing horror media? Absolutely not. Is this, perhaps, a mood readers guide to horror? I think so. While I am game to consume any book or movie I mentioned in this blog at any time of the year, sometimes you want the movie you watch or the book you read to match the season you’re in or the environment around you. If anything, I hope I’ve proved that horror is not just for Halloween time, but any time.

Fall

Slewfoot by Brom

Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Winter

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Spring

Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

Summer

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

—Tyler, Twin Rivers branch