Horror might be the most maligned genre of fiction. It's perceived as cheap, resorting to extremes to briefly excite emotion and provide titillation. Even if it doesn't include gratuitous, voyeuristic gore or sexuality, a horror novel or movie is easy to dismiss as appealing to our most primal emotions like fear or disgust, and therefore being "easy." If one contemplates the most respected works of horror, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" might come to mind, and many literary critics argue that it isn't horror at all -- it's tragic literary fiction, or, sometimes, science fiction -- the latter claim implying that even this other genre that is dismissed as childish and not being serious art is still superior to its darker cousin. Stephen King is one of the most popular and influential writers alive, and though he is widely known as a horror writer, his most respected works appear to be "The Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption," both of which, while sometimes horrifying, are difficult to classify as horror.
To be fair, many works of horror are terrible, cheap and cynical, especially horror movies, which very very often are low-budget, hastily made exploitative films made purely to lure enough teenagers and other easily bored demographics into the theater make a little over their budget without any serious attempt to make art or even something scary. The fact that many movies based on Stephen King's works have been less than great do not help this. They're sloppily made movies made purely to capitalize on a known brand name, and sometimes the stories they're based on aren't any better --when your career spans almost half a century, dozens of novels and thousands of stories, you're bound to have a few duds here and there. Another big name in horror, the early 20th century writer H.P. Lovecraft, would be hard to consider among the great creators of the Western world. While he was original for his time, his works are painfully expressive of their author's neuroses, have an unengaging style, relying too much on repetitions of words like "aeon," "eldritch" and "blasphemous" to create effect and do not hold up to 21st century social values. Even Edgar Allan Poe, a horror writer many might consider beyond reproach, has been dismissed by literary critics like Harold Bloom.
However, horror, when done properly, can be a powerful tool and has potential to be great art. If the evil force in the story is somehow connected to a real-world fear honestly experienced by the author, and if it's something universal enough to have an impact on others, it can have a great effect on its audience. When commenting on horror's precursor, the Greek tragedies, Aristotle noted that these stories are valuable in making you identify with the characters, share the fear or the pain they are experiencing in a safe context and thereby acknowledge or purge yourself of a painful or unpleasant emotion. He called this "catharsis," which comes from the Greek word for "purification."
After all, fear is one of the deepest and most universal human experiences. Feeling fear is what has enabled us to survive as a species. A story that plays on this emotion can't be powerful and beautiful -- we just need horror that is more sincere, better-crafted, more relatable and made with this principle in mind.
