A Short, Unhelpful, Derogatory Definition of Horror

We all know that science fiction is "stories about engineers," and fantasy is "stories about secretly royal teenagers," but I haven't known of a similarly sweeping, mostly untrue generalization about horror.

And, damn it, I needed one.

After some unpleasant reading lately, and a little (very little) thought, I've come up with one: horror is "stories about assholes."

Most of the time in a horror story, the main character is an asshole. Quite often, everyone in a horror story is. And the thing-a-ma-bob doing the hacking and slashing is guaranteed to be assholish by its story function.

So, there you have it. I hope it's just as useful as similar pronouncements by people who don't like the things they're complaining about have been down through the ages.