Subjectively, what horrifies a person changes depending on whom you ask. But as a nation, what has collectively horrified the United States—like so many other things—is strikingly clear in hindsight. In his immense new release, American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond, Jeremy Dauber chronicles what has horrified Americans through the ages, linking key historical events to the cultural output of each period in question up to now.
We begin with the new versus the long established, AKA Native, American—when the Puritans landed ashore in a world New only to them, and allowed their religiosity and hopes of realizing some grand destiny to engender an overwhelming, dangerous fear of the unknown. Though we typically understand fear as something we fall prey to, Dauber takes care to highlight the ways in which it has historically been weaponized by figures in power to maintain their authority. Among the greatest horrors in a nation invaded by Christian zealots was, of course, succumbing to Satan’s duplicity. The pervasive fear of unwittingly falling into sin is harnessed impressively in these lines from a poem quoted by Dauber near the start of the book, composed by one Thomas Till, entitled “Upon the First Sight of New England, June 29, 1638”:
But yet beware of Satan’s wily baits;
He lurks among you, cunningly he waits
To catch you from me.
Keeping the title in mind, this fear was one carried over the sea from the old world which succeeded in infecting the new. And Satan, trickster that he is, was capable of taking innumerable forms, including those native to this “new” land. Dauber provides a number of examples of “captivity narratives” graphically written both by those who had survived Native American capture as well as those who took it upon themselves to imagine the experience as a means to keep their flocks pure. There are repeated mentions of “scalping” and other “savage” acts. Funnily enough, the natives are given credit where the Puritans feel it is due. One General Bouquet remarks in his account of the “Ohio Indians” and their captivity practices: “No child is otherwise treated by the persons adopting it than the children of their own body […] The perpetual slavery of those captivated in war, is a notion which even their barbarity has not yet suggested to them.” And here, Dauber knows what you must be thinking and says so: “The barbarity of perpetual slavery, indeed.”
The most starkly apparent aspect of this 400-page field trip through time is the way humanity contradicts itself—as only a multitudinous mass of individuals can. What recurs again and again is the realities of existence on a fully occupied planet. A Black person, a woman, a native to the land you have only just come upon, a child, a trans person; in other words, anyone who is not you has the potential to be vessels of darkness, for we can only ever know our own wants and motives. But whether women are being accused of witchcraft following the deaths of cattle or the strange behavior of their neighbors; or the people you have stamped out, stolen from, enslaved, imprisoned, etc. happen to be nearby when some misfortune befalls you, it’s always the marginalized that American history points to as the object of fear, even if the one who is afraid is self-aware enough to feel guilt and fear in equal measure.
Anxiety—of retribution, exposure, a loss of power or control—Dauber rightly holds up as being nutritious to fear. Our anxieties are what feed our explorations of terror, which according to Ann Radcliffe is preferable to horror as a narrative device, since “uncertainty and obscurity […] accompany” terror, while horror is a reaction to something known. This is an interesting opinion to consider in relation to the whole of American Scary. Dauber discusses the witch trials, every major war in which the US has participated, race, youth subcultures, feminism, capitalism, the environment, and several other national preoccupations in conjunction with the horror media created in their wake. An obvious takeaway is that most horror media exists in response to—rather than anticipation of—events we have either survived, witnessed or heard about, but imagination also makes a significant contribution. When it comes to the most memorable horror media, terror and horror, the unknown and the known, work in pleasing tandem.
Dauber sustains his analytical dance between events and their creative aftermath best before the final chapter. As he approaches the present day, the horrors spiral away from their neat associations into almost infinite branches, likely because we are in the process of reckoning with brand new horrors, and perspective on one’s zeitgeist is hard to come by while living within it. As a result, the last chapter spends more of its time on summaries of notable horror media than on said media’s relationship to the current state of the world. Though somewhat less engaging than the call and response between history and culture showcased in previous chapters, the silver lining is the possibility of coming across recent media you haven’t yet discovered on your own.
There is also occasional inconsistency in distinguishing certain films or tv shows as adaptations and not original material. Considering what they are, perhaps Dauber thought it went without saying, but you never do know who knows what, so making such distinctions clear would no doubt be beneficial to some readers. It also would have been enjoyable to see what differences between these adaptations and their sources Dauber chose to spotlight, and the connections he might have drawn between those differences and our social history.
Additionally, there are certain areas of horror that don’t see as much attention in the text as others, like folk horror, graphic novels, and horror for children. Dauber does mention a few major works in these categories, but others were missing that would have been great to see explored. However, as mentioned above, this is already a hefty undertaking which Dauber tackles gamely; it’s simply impossible to cover everything.
Ultimately, American Scary is a fascinating examination of the horror genre’s connection to the events that inspire its continued use and popularity. It is an engrossing read, and a welcome reminder to take the temperature of the world we live in every so often; especially as we consume its gruesome byproducts.
NON-FICTION
American Scary
by Jeremy Dauber
Algonquin Books
October 1st, 2024