By Frederick Woodward

The horror novel is a unique subset of the fiction genre. In some ways, it can be understood as confronting the whole of reality more directly than many other types of storytelling, for it deals more intimately with the negative constants of our existence: evil, corruption in men, and the perversion of the natural order. The intent here is not to disabuse the reader of such a notion. Rather, it is to illustrate how this peculiar aspect of the genre makes it such a compelling and perhaps uniquely Catholic literary form.

At its highest, the horror novel represents an exercise in Hope. Perhaps counterintuitively, this type of fiction grasps the darkest elements present in the world we perceive and experience, and integrates them into a proper context. At a time where most other types of fiction get evil wrong — either glorifying it, downplaying it, or ignoring it all together, horror fiction represents a means to confront these aspects properly.

Horror fiction at its best seeks not to glorify evil or vice. Rather, a good horror novel seeks to present these elements in their overall context — showing their true nature and extent, while also offering to the reader the relation of these elements to a fundamentally hopeful notion: That evil (particularly seen through an Augustinian lens as good’s absence) is ultimately incapable, by its very nature, of overcoming the power of light. 

This notion of presenting the tangible and intuitive effects of evil within a context that demonstrates their ultimate teleology as oriented towards the fruition of the good is urgently needed in our current epoch. Humans, wounded by a world with many dark and destructive elements, instinctively seek reassurance that “all things work together,” as the Apostle writes, unto an overarching telos, a summum bonum which completes and perfects the individual.

Humans, wounded by a world with many dark and destructive elements, instinctively seek reassurance that “all things work together,” as the Apostle writes, unto an overarching telos, a summum bonum which completes and perfects the individual.

Good fiction in general, and horror fiction in particular, can answer this need. By portraying overall reality within the microcosmos of a novel, the horror novel reassures its reader that not just an abstract darkness, but a very real type of evil and adversity can form an operative part of a story with a good ending.

Dean Koontz — arguably the most popular contemporary writer in the genre, and certainly the most prolific Catholic within it — alludes to this element beautifully in his bestselling novel The Darkest Evening of the Year: 

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, for it has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.

Koontz’s observation — appropriately placed within the very dialogue of a horror novel — encapsulates much of the value of precisely such a novel. Call it the subtext for a soul-building theodicy, as contemporary theologians might, or a reflection of St. Teresa of Avila’s progression through the Interior Castle. Either way, the horror novel accomplishes to an extraordinary degree this very difficult task. Lacking precision? Perhaps. Corrupted by necessarily direct allusions to natural evils in the world? Again, perhaps. But popular because of the reassurance the reader gains through an intuitive mode of knowledge? Without a doubt. 

Catholicism in particular sees the temporal and the incarnate as irreplaceable conditions within the discussion of sanctification. The greatest saints and artists in the Church have grappled with evil’s presence in salvific picture and narrative for millenia. From Dante’s Inferno to Michaelangelo’s Last Judgement to Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, to a thousand other examples, the imagination of the Church doesn’t just see evil, it seeks to encompass and communicate the redemptive role which it rightly plays in reality.

Stories soothe the soul, because they analogize the teleology of reality. Good horror fiction integrates the darkest elements life can throw at man into the overarching narrative present even during his bleakest moments.

The story of the universe is one which is at very core positive, ordered, and sanctifying, despite the gravest elements of evil that unveil themselves amidst it. Horror fiction as a mode of narrative — but also a framework of imaging, is rightly a fast-growing phenomenon. The Visio Catholica Mundi — the Catholic conception of the world as a framework for interpreting reality — is unique in its ability to fully perceive and assess evil in its proper context, within the overall plan of salvation, and horror fiction in particular represents an important vehicle to communicate this vision to a world that needs it more and more each day. The ninth century Irish monastic poem “Pangur Bán” crystallizes this truth incomparably in its concluding stanza: Mutans Tenebrae Lucem… turning darkness to light. Stories soothe the soul because they analogize the teleology of reality. Good horror fiction integrates the darkest elements life can throw at man into the overarching narrative present even during his bleakest moments. And for those who ask of God ‘why,’ and who ask of the world ‘how,’ this microcosmic reflection of the persistence of order leads us to ultimately assert with the Apostle that the sting of death is gone, the weight of sin eased for us who serve the Divine author, Lord and Judge of space, time, and history.

Frederick Woodward is a junior studying Political Economy, Finance, and Journalism.

Photo by Chloe Noller.