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Collector wrote:I could not agree more. While it has never been my favorite genre, I have enjoyed many of its movies and books. However, this oversaturation of horror/supernatural stuff has certainly diminished my appetite for it.

Maiandra wrote:I wouldn't categorise many of these books as horror, since they're not really scary.

Perhaps a better take is that they aren't scary because they have failed?

Does bad writing count as scary?

Yes.

I haven't actually seen this thing, but apparently there is a very bad vampire knock-off (beginning with T, and idolised by lot of teeny-boppers). Apparently, in this universe, vampires who are struck by sunlight merely shimmer and are not turned to ashes.

Does this count as scary, or merely infantile?

Twilight isn't scary, even if its fandom is, especially considering the author's retrograde and dangerously chauvinist views on women (not to mention her complete lack of writing skills).

Sigh. Why is it so (apparently) successful, then? No writing skills, backwards and chauvinistic views on women... sounds like it should only be successful in places where people share the author's views on women, not in the (relatively civilised - I hope!) West.

I don't blame teeny-boppers for idolising it, since they don't know any better. But hopefully they will move on to... well... something else. Asimov, Ursula LeGuin, Anne Rice... anything.

There's still a lot of progress left to be made when it comes to sexism. Thinking the West has somehow gotten done with it is a big mistake.

adeyke wrote:There's still a lot of progress left to be made when it comes to sexism. Thinking the West has somehow gotten done with it is a big mistake.

Unfortunately, I agree.

Rath Darkblade wrote:Sigh. Why is it so (apparently) successful, then?

Because people are rabid lemmings! And incapable of critical thinking. Don't even get me started...

Collector wrote:

Maiandra wrote:I wouldn't categorise many of these books as horror, since they're not really scary.

Perhaps a better take is that they aren't scary because they have failed?

I don't think supernatural subject matter has to be scary any more than any other. There are plenty of human monsters that are terrifying! Actually, I find them more scary, since they could actually be real.

Agreed

Agreed... this theme is a common one is literature. Some of these human monsters, as you call them, would be fascinating subjects to study. But as Hercule Poirot observes in "Cards on The Table":

"I am not so insensitive to art in crime as you think. I can admire the perfect murder - I can also admire a tiger - that splendid tawny-striped beast. But I will admire him from outside his cage... For you see, Mr Shaitana, the tiger might spring..."

Further, as the Dragon observes in Terry Pratchett's "Guards! Guards!":

You have the effrontery to be squeamish... but we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape - we n ever burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

In my book, the most horrible of all human monsters - recent, at least - is Andrei Chikatilo, nicknamed "the Butcher of Rostov" or "the Red Ripper", who committed at least 52 rapes, mutilations and murders over a 12-year period in the former USSR. What makes it the most horrible, in my book, is that the man himself was so ordinary: a shy, short-sighted, studious man who was bullied by his mother, his school-chums and his wife, and who found release in raping and murdering both girls and women. How did he become such a monster? There are literally millions - even billions - of bullied boys around the world, but a very tiny minority become serial rapists and murderers (thank $deity$).