What is our fascination with horror? Why do we like to be scared? How has horror in books and movies evolved to the place it’s at now, in all its various nightmarish forms? Compared with many books on this subject, Darryl Jones’ Sleeping With The Lights On looks a little slight and contains only a few illustrations, but Jones packs more into 181 pages than many similar volumes do that are three times the size. And, unlike most of those similar volumes, this isn’t surface level fanboy fluff about “what makes horror really cool”. This is an academic exploration that’s refreshingly easy to read, with plenty of original and genuinely fascinating content to enjoy.
Jones’ succinct introduction neatly sets the agenda for the rest of his tome. He establishes early on how much of the horror that’s hit the headlines over the past few decades (especially during the video nasties era) isn’t actually that new, in fact you’ll find concepts and images that are much more disturbing in many of the great classics, from Euripides through Shakespeare, right up to the “respectable” authors of the present day. And, to hit the ground running, the first film he discusses in any kind of depth is Pasolini’s Medea, a terrific example of classical guignol and not a movie you’ll find mentioned in many other books like this.
The following chapters take each of the major horror tropes in turn – monsters, the occult and supernatural, body horror, science horror, and horror of the mind – and, despite the brevity of his prose, Jones goes into impressive depth about the foundational elements which underpin each one. He doesn’t just discuss the films and the literature – he also weaves in art, history, psychology and cultural perspective wherever they’re appropriate, making a solid case that horror is a genre to be valued and respected (and yes, he even touches upon why some people run away when they find out you’re a horror fan).
En route, he discusses all the usual suspects – Stoker’s Dracula, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Lovecraft, The Exorcist and Hannibal Lecter to name just a handful – but there are nuggets of dark surprises scattered throughout here too. Not only do the Marvel universe and devourer-of-worlds Galactus get a mention but, in his afterword about horror in the new millennium, even Slenderman gets to take a creepy-pasta bow.
Whether you’re a devotee who bloodily soaks up everything from the latest Stephen King novel to the newest James Wan opus or simply someone who likes to stay on top of the cultural zeitgeist, Sleeping With The Lights On is the best book about the intricacies of horror that we’ve read in a long time. We just wish it had been longer, and had a few more pictures!
SLEEPING WITH THE LIGHTS ON / AUTHOR: DARRYL JONES / PUBLISHER: OUP OXFORD / RELEASE DATE: 11TH OCTOBER
