Here
you go Christina, the floor, the stage, the space is yours…
THE CLAWS THAT CATCH by Christina Henry, YES
that’s me. I am so happy to be given the chance to write on the Haunted
Magazine webpage, not only am I big fan of the magazine and of the paranormal
in general I get to promote my new books for FREE, I see that as a win-win
situation. So, here goes, please enjoy!!
I love a good monster. In fact, I’ve
often said that all my favourite movies have monsters that eat people’s faces
off (this is actually true, as my top three favourite movies are JAWS, ALIEN,
and THE THING).
There’s something about a great monster
in film or stories that touches a primal nerve inside us – the part of us
that’s afraid of what hides in the dark or underneath the bed, the part of us
that see shadows moving when there’s nothing there.
I tend to think that the scariest
monsters are the ones with human faces, the ones that you think might be
friendly but are actually there to harm you. In my own book, ALICE, Alice meets
a lot of monsters that look like humans but have actually lost their humanity long
ago.
These are my personal favourite literary
monsters, the ones that have terrified (and sometimes moved) me:
5) The demon in William Peter Blatty’s
THE EXORCIST – This is one of the first books I recall that scared me down to
the bone. The very idea of a faceless evil entity that could take over your
body was incredibly frightening. Once something like that has taken over you
have no agency, no way to fight back. Physical powerlessness is so much worse,
in my mind, than being able to face and try to fight a monster.
4) The ghost in M.R. James’ “Oh Whistle
and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” – In this particular story a professor named
Parkins finds a whistle in a Templar ruin with two Latin phrases on it. One of
the phrases is translated as “Who is it that comes”. Of course, the professor
SHOULD NOT blow the whistle, and he does. The scene in the inn when Parkins
discovers he is not alone is full of brilliant suspense.
3) The creature from Mary Shelley’s
FRANKENSTEIN – It seems like an obvious choice, but the monster is iconic for a
reason. He looks monstrous but he is not, at first, monstrous at all. It is Victor
Frankenstein’s abandonment of him and the way people respond to his appearance
that makes him a killer. There are so
many themes at work in this book – among others the notion of science without guiding
morality and the idea that evil is made and not born. It’s a classic that
everyone should read.
2) “Buffalo Bill” from Thomas Harris’
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – The film version of this story was so influential
and Anthony Hopkins’ performance as Hannibal Lecter so enduring that it’s
sometimes difficult to remember that the monster they’re chasing in the book is
actually Buffalo Bill (Jame Gumb), who kidnaps women so he can remove their
skin. Buffalo Bill is the perfect example of a monster who doesn’t look like a
monster – he lures these women by using their kindness (which, incidentally,
was the same technique used by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy).
1) It from Stephen King’s IT: I’ve saved
this one for last, mostly because the way I feel about it has changed over the
years. The first time I read this book I was about 16, and I found it so frightening
that I was convinced I would never read it again. At 16 I wasn’t so far off the
age of the kids in the books – I remembered the way I felt at their age and how
an entity that could morph into anything would have scared the crap out of me.
When I was 28 I decided to read it
again, mostly because it had been a long time and I remembered how much the
book had scared me and wondered if it still would. It did, but the fear felt
less personal than it had when I was young. I was more engaged with the
characters AS characters and felt their struggle against this huge evil entity
but didn’t relate it to myself in any way.
Recently (because I am apparently a
masochist) I decided to give IT a go again. As a 41-year-old adult with a
ten-year-old son my terror response to this book has taken on a completely
different tenor. The fact that King uses a clown with balloons – a symbol of
childhood happiness – to lure children to their horrific deaths was much, much
worse for me as a parent than when I was a younger reader. The fear comes from
a place where you can’t protect your child from the imaginary monster under the
bed because the monster isn’t imaginary at all. 
It’s fascinating to me that King managed
with the same story to tap into three different veins with the same reader, and
the only thing that changed was the age of person reading. I think it really
speaks to how readers bring their own experience/biases to every book they read
and the way a book is a dialogue between the writer and the reader – a fluid,
rather than fixed, relationship.
That's me done, I hope you liked, hey Paul, yo Haunted Magazine guy, YES you snoring like a pig, you can wake up now. I am done. Thanks for having me.... can you wake up and plug my books now please.
Christina XX
Thanks Christina, I needed that little snooze. You can find more about Christina by visiting her website and she also features in Haunted Magazine issue 16, a WiP special (Women in Paranormal), http://www.christinahenry.net/
I am also duty bound to say that she has two fantastic books out. (Alice and Red Queen), joking apart they are bloody fantastic.
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