Siblings in Horror a Blog piece by Colm Field

armadilloeditor
Oct 23
3 min read

Can anyone wind you up like your brother or sister? They are the first people you compete with, the first person who figures out what really makes you mad. Even now, as an adult with my own children and responsibilities up to my eyeballs, if I have a row with my sister that all goes out of the window. I’m five years old all over again.

In my new teen horror, Uncle Zeedie, older sister Lacey and younger brother George have to stay at their family friend’s house in the middle of a secluded Welsh wood. Their parents are in the middle of a horrible divorce, and both siblings are feeling the strain from it. Then they start to wonder if Uncle Zeedie is a serial killer…

The minute I thought of this idea, I knew the main characters would have to be brother and sister. But I honestly didn’t think about why they had to be, until after I finished the first draft. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that siblings have been showing up in my favourite horrors all through my life.

Remember reading Goosebumps? These books were probably my first introduction to horror, and the one that I couldn’t stop reading, and re-reading, and re-reading, was Welcome To Dead House. It’s the first Goosebumps that R.L. Stine ever wrote, a tale about a disturbing house in a disturbing town. But as unsettling as the house is, what first hooked me to the story were the brother and sister in the book; Amanda and Josh. The minute they appeared on the page, sniping at each other even as they grow more and more frightened by the strange occurrences in their new home, I knew this was going to be a story I could relate to.

However, siblings offer more in a horror story than just someone to argue with. If your brother or sister is the first person to figure out what annoys you, it’s because they knew you, back before you had time to develop that mask we all wear when showing ourselves to the world. Yes it’s annoying… but it can also mean that we trust our siblings in a way we can’t trust anybody.

In a great episode of Netflix’s young horror series Creeped Out, three siblings get lost in the endless corridors of a hotel. It’s claustrophobic, and even if the ‘monster’ chasing them isn’t the best, the tension kept me glued to the telly, mainly because I really didn’t want this brother and two sisters to lose each other. Even when they were arguing, I was certain that they could trust each other more than anyone else in the tale, more than if they were just friends.

Likewise, in Uncle Zeedie, George has a horrible gift he calls The Feeling; he can see dead people. He won’t tell his parents about it, wouldn’t tell his friends either. The one person he trusts to tell is his big sister, Lacey. Oh, and when Lacey is scared for her brother’s safety left alone with the sinister Zeedie, do I have to spend time explaining why his jeopardy terrifies her so much? ‘Course I don’t - he’s her baby brother.

That doesn’t mean that siblings themselves can’t be creepy either. One of the most disturbing books I have ever read is an old one, We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. In this we meet the Blackwood sisters, who are completely dependent on each other, and who may or may not have poisoned their entire family. Dark and compulsive reading, this book perfect for teenaged readers who have already grappled with the power and care that is inherent within siblings… and who want to imagine the dreadful harm that power could unleash on others.

I’ll finish this post with one last recommendation for teenage readers; Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall. The siblings do not face their horror - a mysterious game that takes place in the darkest of woods - together in this story. No, instead, Sara is searching for her older sister Becca who went missing after possibly playing the game a year ago. It’s a great page turner, and there is one line in it that I think sums up how much emotional impact a sibling relationship can bring to a good horror story.

“You don't understand her at all. You don't understand us at all. I wanted to shine as bright as her, my sister. The brightest thing.”