Our Changing Fears

The 'Campaign for Real Fear' poses an interesting dilemma. What is contemporarily scary?

The heritage of horror fiction is as deeply rooted as humankind's ability to experience fear.

One of the earliest re-imaginings of the gothic tale can be found in Walpole's Castle of Otranto in 1764, and horror as a genre gathered pace from thereon.

Back then, and for many years to come, the idea of a fearful tale had a permanent footing in the supernatural. Witches, ghosts, beasts and demonic pacts were all embodiments of the unknown, fearful bogey-men with the power to snatch us away in our sleep.

Even natural phenomena were attributed to gods and monsters - some Nordic folk taught their children that the aurora borealis was a host of galloping demons coming to steal their heads if they stayed out too late.

But what of now? With the torch of science sweeping across our society, revealing no evidence of anything supernatural within any physical laws, what's there to be afraid of? We tend to view the unknown these days as something as yet undiscovered, a series of secrets that will reveal themselves in time.

The real horrors appear to come from us, our treatment of each other or our demonisation of a fellow enemy. The threat has moved from without to within.

The danger is this can make the idea of horror fiction a little less magical and a little more visceral. This is born out in such films as Eden Lake or Straw Dogs But this doesn't mean that all our settings have to now be real-life ones.

I love true fantasy fiction, the invention of other worlds, beings or times - but for these tales to remain truly scary to us in the modern world, they have to reflect our own fears.

And these have changed.

What scares you?