Throughout human history, our knowledge of our eventual death has been examined, feared, revered and misunderstood. Ancient cultures often worshipped gods and goddesses of death. Images of the afterlife and the journey from one life to another are subjects of literature and religion in every culture.
The Akkadian “Epic of Gilgamesh”, thought to be over four thousand years old, addresses the great king Gilgamesh’s pursuit of everlasting life after watching his friend Enkidu die horribly. Gilgamesh travels great distances to find Utnapishtim, a man who gained the gods’ favor by saving the animals from the great flood. For this, he was granted immortality along with his wife. Utnapishtim has no answers for poor Gilgamesh.
Great kings and commoners alike from many cultures throughout history, were buried with treasured items to carry with them into the afterlife. Great burial chambers and hidden ornate graves were created as much for the peace of mind of the living as they were for the dead.
With these thoughts of an afterlife, often pleasant and promising, why is death the subject of almost every horror film and book? The eventual fate of so many minor characters, protagonists and the antagonists’ themselves, is usually a terrible death. So why is something that is the most natural thing in life next to birth, the thing most feared?
The truth is a little more complicated.
When you break down most horror stories, at least those within that wide mainstream collection of horror we all love, death is just the final note; there is an entire symphony that plays before it. The true draw in horror, the building complexity that climbs to the crescendo, is the terror associated with death.
There is no horror story where all the characters die peacefully in their sleep. This isn’t an outcome that has the element of horror.
The more fearful our characters are, the more panicked and the more gruesome the actions done to them-that is what creates the level of horror we all love. Death is just the final not; the final exhale of breath, which is inevitable after all the maiming, bludgeoning, slashing, and rending is done. Death is horror drawn to its natural conclusion, but not the thing feared at all.
One of my favorite examples of psychological terror is experienced by the old woman in a Twilight Zone episode, “Nothing in the Dark.” She has seen Death before; therefore she believes she knows its face. She hides in her condemned apartment, with no real life to speak of, a shut-in who is afraid to go outside.
When a policeman is shot and falls down the stairs to her basement hideaway, her compassion barely overcomes her fear, and she brings him in to tend his wounds. Her description of her misery and subsequent fear is the real focus, but she doesn’t realize, Death has been right there with her. He listens to her, calms her, takes her hand and gently leads her out of the sparse apartment. Death isn’t the monster she truly feared, the monster was the fear itself.
