Director's Notes: 176 - The Autumn Specter

Back in May, while stuck at home and looking for some kind of social interaction, I reached out to Cecil Baldwin to ask if he wanted to help me get into horror films. He loves them. I never had, but I figured it was as good a time as any to start. So we watched a couple of movies together and then got on zoom to talk about them.

We put a few of these up on the Night Vale Patreon (if you’re a Weird Scout, you can search the tag Quarantine Variety Show to find those) and eventually created a podcast (Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9) which is essentially us talking about each movie and then giving folks who are as squeamish as I am about horror films a guideline for how approachable the movie is.

The point of this post is not to promote another podcast I make. It’s to talk about learning to like something, reprogramming your brain to remove aversions. Looking around at so many of my friends, they loved horror movies, and they seemed perfectly fine, healthy even. Plus, they had a whole ouvre of film that they could draw from for conversation or artistic inspiration.

Then I heard Sarah Marshall on the podcast You’re Wrong About talking about her love of horror movies, and breaking them down in ways that didn’t think possible. Sarah discovers so many rich layers in seemingly basic horror films, and I began to understand that by avoiding this whole genre of cinema, I was denying myself a creative approach to storytelling.

Obviously, I was scared to start. (Do you slowly submerge your foot into the cold water or dive right in?)  But like with the pool water, the worst thing that could happen by diving right in is that you’re shocked for a moment and maybe you’re still chilly and miserable after a few minutes. You get out, towel off in the sun and tell yourself “This just isn’t for me.”

The same can be true for food aversions. Don’t like mushrooms, but you’ve not tasted them in a while? Cook up a mushroom dish. Eat it. See what you think. Don’t like it? It’s one meal out of tens of thousands you’ll have in your lifetime. Who cares. Better to find out if you’re missing out on something super cool.

And so by tossing my entire body into the cold water of horror cinema, I discovered that I’m still a little cold. It’s not easy, but it’s fun. Swimming is fun! Horror movies are fun. And they’re made more fun by having a friend to watch along with me. There are several subgenres I’m still scared to get into: Giant Insects, Home Invasions, Creepy Fucking Faces in the Background. But that’s all part of the adventure, I suppose.

This episode (176 – The Autumn Specter) was fun to make, because I got to play around with horror tropes in a Night Vale sort of way (the mundane is terrifying; and the terrifying is mundane). Cecil really did some great reads on these stories, and Jon created some creepy new music.

I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I did. And if you’re horror averse, find a friend who loves that stuff and see if they’ll help ease you into it. Sarah Marshall is right: there is a lot to unpack in horror films. I didn’t realize how much I was missing. And Cecil (and horror lover Joseph Fink, too) has been a true friend, holding my hand through it all.

-Jeffrey Cranor
October 15, 2020