Why do people create horror-themed works for Christmas?
Well, do you think they have a choice? 'Tis the season to be gory. Let the season come upon a midnight scream!
Horror-themed Christmas movies (art, books and poetry) reveal our dark side. They tell us there is a reason to celebrate and look beyond all the terrors and waking nightmares that taunt and haunt us. And people really do find it intriguing to be able to sit back on their sofa during the holidays, grab a bowlful of popcorn in their hands and munch away while watching a really good shock/suspense Christmas movie.
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| Photo: audio-history.blogspot.com |
I'm not trying to make fun of a noble event or blaspheme a holy cause or anything of the sort. But the birth of the Christ was horror-themed. Somebody did try to murder him, if my knowledge of the Bible is not all that rusty, when he was born. A king, I believe it was. And you do remember how that chapter of the Holy Book ends, do you not? The Herod eventually executes every child from age two and beneath thereby, setting himself up as the most infamous infanticide in history.
Besides, as we celebrate, we ought to be made to recall not everybody enjoys the same privileges like us. There's somebody someplace going to get robbed naked on Christmas day; a child on life-support might not make it through the season; life will never be the same (for worse than for better) for some folks after this Christmas. You think I'm sick for mentioning stuff as troubling as these are during the season? Well, take a look around you. Is life more promising during the yuletide than it was in say, November? I'll bet my shirt, it's not.
The war in Syria, the fighting in Afghanistan even in Nigeria (though, of recent things have looked up at least on one occasion, when the military trapped a few members of the bomb-chucking maniacs and annihilated them) the terrorist group, Boko Haram is still very much around and in business.
I don't quite understand the mechanism of some people's minds, but it seems people are more terrified by horror-themed movies than they are of real life-deleting scenarios. Folks watch a horror flick, look away in disgust and exclaim, "What sort of sick individual could have imagined such a thing?" Now here comes the news guy with gruesome images of war and homicide-man actually, killing his fellow man-and this same folks sit up and yell for more live video shooting of the whole drama. If you told them that's gross. They'll probably reply, "Why. That's the NEWS. It really happened!" And you wonder if that ought to make it less or more horrifying.
Every Christmas (since 2010), I write Christmas-themed poetry. This year, I'm taking a crack at horror-themed Christmas poems. 13 dark verses which I have named Thirteen Days of Christmas. It's definitely a new experience for me and I do hope to learn a few new tricks in the art of shutting people's system down, even though temporarily, through the art of fear. It's always a lovely thing to find new reasons to celebrate. Gore came down at Christmas! (Sorry, I mean, love.)
There ought to be a chicken in every pot but you and I can name a few cases where there was no pot and the chicken caught a cold and died a few days before Christmas. Try to get yourself a very merry Christmas and keep in mind that it's better to visit the house of mourning than a place of fun especially, fun for the sake of it. That's probably, why horror sells at Christmas.
Have a horrific Christmas!
Akpan
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