Horror is the most malleable genre in fiction. It can be as intimate as a vampire’s kiss or as epic as a mass of zombies trying to get inside a sprawling shopping mall. This means it can speak in many forms, covering different discourses while employing different voices to do so. It is legion. And now, it is being called upon to help with the upcoming elections with a campaign called Scare Up the Vote. It’s an initiative led by horror master Tananarive Due (The Reformatory) to unite the horror community behind the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Here’s the official announcement:
“‘In scary times, people need to pull together in strength and hope, to fight the darkness,’” Due continues. ‘Horror writers and filmmakers spend a lot of time contemplating monstrosity and thinking about fear. When I realized we had to speak out as a community, and began to invite others to participate, I wasn’t at all surprised by the massive response. We know what the stakes are in this election because we’ve imagined the worst possible outcomes.’
On October 15th, at 8pm Eastern time, Due and the rest of the Scare Up The Vote committee will host a massive online event to drive voter turnout and to raise money for the Harris/Walz campaign. Stephen King, Joe Hill, Rachel Harrison, Victor LaValle, Stephen Graham Jones, and many other authors will be joined by filmmakers including Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep), Scott Derrickson (Sinister, The Black Phone), Kevin Williamson (Scream), Don Mancini (Chucky), and Bryan Fuller (Hannibal), along with actor David Dastmachlian (Late Night with the Devil).”
Before anyone says “hey, get your politics off my horror,” let’s make something clear. Horror has a long history with politics. In fact, it has often been the focus of political attacks from more conservative groups that misguidedly consider themselves the guardians of morality and core national values. Lois Duncan’s 1979 book Daughters of Eve, for instance, was constantly under attack for dealing with rape and abortion along with what many considered at the time “obscene” and “vulgar” ideas. R.L. Stine’s Night of the Dummy (1993) was challenged for containing subject matter deemed satanic and occult. Add to that the number of authors and creators that have been publicly deemed Satan’s own little helpers (or communists during the early Cold War era) for telling scary stories.
Horror movies have faced similar scrutiny from conservative groups, which saw a kind of moral panic produce strong reactions against deep explorations of violence in films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Night of the Living Dead (1968) all the way up to supposedly “blasphemous” affronts to religion in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and William Friedkin’s 1973 The Exorcist (a curious case given the movie portrays Catholic priests as tortured heroes in the eternal struggle against the Devil).
To a point, it doesn’t matter if anyone thinks horror is political or not. The fact of the matter is, politics have been thrust upon it, and it has always responded in kind. Scare Up the Vote is an extension of that, of horror’s reactive nature. Our beloved genre loves to hold up mirrors to society so they can consider the ugliness it reflects back on them. This time around, the hope is that those same mirrors cast the reflection of informed and willing voters ready for the upcoming election.
