Another good IM gaming night. I wanted to do something with vampires. So vampires showed up and tried eat the main character. Its interesting how many classic monsters are motivated by hunger. I guess there's something universally understood about being hungry enough to kill. Zombies, as they're currently depicted, want to eat the living. Vampires, of course, live on our blood. Werewolves are predators that, again, want to eat us.
Hunger is one of the primal emotions. You occasionally see other primal emotions crop up in horror novels. Creatures that cause or feed off of fear used to be popular back in the 80's, as I recall. I've heard of some ludicrous stories that tried to sell zombies as being lust-driven instead of hunger-driven. Yeah, and necrophiliacs of the world rejoiced when THAT novel was publish. Anger cropped up in 28 days later, though there were severe logic problems with that take on zombism.
I understand the temptation to want to play around with tropes and expectations but I don't think they make for good stories. I think hewing as close to what is universally understood is what makes a story resonate. Monsters should be bad, not your next-door neighbors (with due respect to Monster Squad and none at all to True Blood). Monsters should be scary, not sitting on the couch with you playing video games (Yes, looking square at you ending-to-Shaun-of-the-Dead). Monsters need to be a threat, something to overcome, something to fight against. They should not be something you befriend, team up with or have sex with. Doing that weakens the monster, the protagonist and the story itself, I think.
Hunger is one of the primal emotions. You occasionally see other primal emotions crop up in horror novels. Creatures that cause or feed off of fear used to be popular back in the 80's, as I recall. I've heard of some ludicrous stories that tried to sell zombies as being lust-driven instead of hunger-driven. Yeah, and necrophiliacs of the world rejoiced when THAT novel was publish. Anger cropped up in 28 days later, though there were severe logic problems with that take on zombism.
I understand the temptation to want to play around with tropes and expectations but I don't think they make for good stories. I think hewing as close to what is universally understood is what makes a story resonate. Monsters should be bad, not your next-door neighbors (with due respect to Monster Squad and none at all to True Blood). Monsters should be scary, not sitting on the couch with you playing video games (Yes, looking square at you ending-to-Shaun-of-the-Dead). Monsters need to be a threat, something to overcome, something to fight against. They should not be something you befriend, team up with or have sex with. Doing that weakens the monster, the protagonist and the story itself, I think.
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