Why kids LOVE (and NEED) Comedy Horror by Larry Hayes

More kids than ever are reading and watching horror. For some teens, it’s the only way to get them reading at all. But why?

When I was a kid, my cousin had nightmares every night. And not the recurring kind involving pyjamas at school. Each night some newly-minted monster was sent to terrorize his dreams. Looking back, it’s no surprise that this cousin became a horror mega-fan. He was my introduction into the world of horror too. What started off with an old copy of The Dark is Rising soon led to Alfred Hitchcock's Book of Horror Stories and Fighting Fantasy’s House of Hell. After that there was no turning back. And besides, once we’d discovered Stephen King we doubled down with horror movies too. The rocking chair scene in Salem’s Lot still gives me the creeps.

We were well and truly hooked. Gremlins and Ghostbusters were watched until the videotape snapped. We went hiking with American Werewolves on the Yorkshire Moors, got lost in The Fog and generally had a ball with Halloween. One, two and three. We faced our fears, literally saw them play out in our imaginations and on our screens. And the more we read, and the more we watched, the braver we became. By the end of our teens I could fall asleep reading a Dean R Kootz. My cousin’s nightmares faded too, even with a Freddie Kruger mask sitting blank-eyed on his bedroom bookshelf. And they didn’t return, even on the night he slept out in our local churchyard for a dare, aged 17¾. 

That, partly, explains why people of all ages love horror. We use it, books and films, to better understand and address our fundamental fears and anxieties. London Zoo offers a Friendly Spider Programme on much the same basis. In one afternoon, arachnophobes can ease and eliminate their lifelong fear simply by climbing a “Fear Ladder”. Starting on the bottom rung with a cartoon spider and gradually increasing the intensity until (rumour has it) every single person leaves the zoo having held a tarantula - furry legs and all.

When the world feels scary, we turn to horror. So it’s not a complete surprise that kids and teens of all ages are increasingly obsessed with the creepy, the monstrous, the grisly and the downright gross. It’s the way our brains turn fear, into fun. But comedy horror is much more than just therapy for anxiety. After all, just because something is good for them, doesn’t mean children will do it. Ask any teacher, parent or greengrocer. So what explains the perennial attraction of horror? What drove people to buy over 400 million copies of Goosebumps books in the 1990s and 2000s?

Since becoming a children’s author, and visiting dozens of schools, I think I’ve begun to better understand the answer. I’ve now run over a hundred creative writing workshops in schools, in an effort to fire up imaginations and get kids writing for fun. Each session sees a group collectively make up (and act out) a story – with me as narrator, translating their ideas into a chaotic, live-action “choose your own adventure”.

One thing soon stood out during these workshops. Every single story was a comedy horror. Lurching from funny to frightening and back again with each twist and turn. The kids were daring themselves, and each other, to be scarier and scarier. The more outlandish the better. And that possibly explains it. Horror is a chance for tweens and teens to push themselves, stretch their boundaries and open horizons. In a way, we’re evolved for horror. Because without that hardwired drive to push beyond safe boundaries, the human species would have died out eons ago.

The Nightmares of Finnegan Quick is my own contribution to this collective effort by writers to get kids both hooked on books, and make their world a happier, less anxious place through the joys of Comedy-Horror. It fills an under-populated bookshop slot on the horror Fear Ladder. Aimed squarely at 10 to 15-year-olds and splattered through with enough nerve-wracking horror to satisfy the grisliest of horror fans, it’s also stuffed with laughs to lighten the mood and comfort the fearful.

The idea came to me, of course, in a nightmare. Don’t ask me why I was alone, in a big old creepy house in the middle of nowhere – it the classic horror movie mistake. But I was. I had a dream that a cat brought me a dead mouse, blood and guts spilling onto the floor. And the next morning, when I opened the kitchen door, there it was - a dead mouse, blood and guts spilling onto the floor. The idea of a character whose dreams changed the world was born in that moment. Finnegan Quick’s nightmares can also change the world, but rarely in a good way. First, he dreams of a creature who snatches away his dog. The next morning the dog’s gone. No one even remembers it. There’s not even a dog bowl. Finn’s dog has been dreamt out of existence. His mum is next, and then his dad. Until the only family left is Finn’s eccentric gran. So when the creatures start coming for her too, Finn looks doomed.

But the story opens with glimmerings of hope when a mysterious girl appears in his dreams each night. She teaches him how to fight back against the creatures, with cunning and courage. And when she turns up in the school lunch queue on the first day of a new term, she changes Finn’s life forever. Together with Squid, Finn’s best friend, they learn the lesson that all horror fans have long known. That if you don’t learn to face your fears, then sooner or later, they’ll come back to bite you.

So please, if you know a 10 to 15-year-old who’s struggling to get excited about reading, or just wants to try something a bit different – toss them a comedy horror, and see what happens next. I guarantee, neither of you will be disappointed.

The Nightmares of Finnegan Quick by Larry Hayes, published by Bloomsbury Publishing is out now. The first in a new series of Comedy-Horror Adventures for 10+ and look out for The Fate of Finnegan Quick too.