Week Three: Old Horror


Reading the short stories of Kwaidan was not the experience I was expecting. As an American, when someone says horror, some of the first things that come to mind are, Jason Voorhees, Insidious, and Saw. All gory and or demonic; purely created to disturb its viewers. These do not even belong in the same category as Kwaidan. Looking back, my views on what “horror” is were closed minded.

Kwaidan was not gory, demonic and dark, but more like classic fairytales, similar to Grimm’s fairytales in which the stories had some sort of a moral at the end and that was the point. Classic fairytales were made to teach lessons and scare kids into doing what was right. The story, the journey, did not have to make complete sense as long as it was interesting, memorable, and had that lesson. That was the important part. That is exactly what Kwaidan is and even though that surprised me, I really enjoyed the read. I would much rather experience something that makes me think and see the world differently, than a story that relies on gore and jump scares and never gets deeper than a kiddie pool. Some of the scariest things come from your imagination. Isn’t that the scariest of all?  

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