{"id":61040,"date":"2020-10-26T11:04:56","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T18:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=61040"},"modified":"2020-10-26T11:04:56","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T18:04:56","slug":"renner-horror-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/renner-horror-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween horror in the (super)humanities: NAU English professor discusses her research into the scary and creepy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karen Renner<\/strong> scares pretty easily.<\/p>\n

In most professions, that wouldn\u2019t be unusual. In Renner\u2019s\u2014she studies horror media and, when given the chance to guest-edit a journal, chose evil children as the topic\u2014it\u2019s a little more surprising.<\/p>\n

Renner, an associate professor in the Department of English at Northern Arizona University, talked to NAU News<\/em> about Halloween horror: ghosts, Bigfoot, why true crime podcasts are all the rage, what you can watch for a good scare this year, the scariest movie she\u2019s ever seen, and why people just keep coming back to the horror genre in books, movies and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people are just interested in knowing if there\u2019s something beyond us,\u201d she said. \u201cIt taps into a sense of wonder\u2014what\u2019s out there?\u201d<\/p>\n

Read on to learn her thoughts on:<\/p>\n

What loving horror says about a person<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Really, it says they love horror\u2014nothing more, nothing less, Renner said.<\/p>\n

Horror is a much broader genre than many people realize. It\u2019s so much more than slasher movies full of bloody deaths. Some movies, like \u201cVivarium\u201d and \u201cStarfish,\u201d are creepy and unsettling with a vague sense of menace but aren\u2019t traditionally scary. They\u2019re just ungrounded and the viewer doesn\u2019t quite know what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

Also, what is known as prestige horror\u2014think \u201cGet Out\u201d or \u201cIt Comes at Night\u201d\u2014is becoming increasingly popular. Such movies ask viewers to consider social issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re less about the monster and really about how people respond in times of desperation and survival,\u201d she said. \u201cSome of them, I kind of want to say, are about political division, putting people together who don\u2019t immediately trust each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, some viewers are into the violence. There are a lot of reasons for that, most related to morbid curiosity. Horror is like humor, Renner said; it causes a physical reaction, and viewers aren\u2019t always fully in control of that reaction. Some people like that kind of escape.<\/p>\n

As for the people who create horror\u2014they are not creepy. Renner said the horror writers she knows are warm and kind people who have lots of empathy for their characters and the people around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are willing to go there,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes I think it\u2019s more dangerous not to think about dark stuff at all instead of thinking about it and really diving into the emotions there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why children in horror are extra creepy<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In a recent talk at the Nights of Horror virtual conference<\/a>, Renner talked about her work on killer kids, supernatural children and why we are fascinated and repelled by this archetype.<\/p>\n

In 2009, she was invited to guest-edit a special issue of a journal; the topic was left to Renner. She chose evil children. From there, her interest in the topic took off, resulting in an edited collection published as a book in 2013 and a single-authored study in 2016. It helped that the collection appeared at a time when Hollywood was kicking out movies about child villains, which led her to consider just why people are drawn to angelic-looking children who, say, kill their parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just have a really good disguise. They\u2019re assumed to be innocent,\u201d Renner said. \u201cA lot of evil children in horror movies use that to their advantage, so no one\u2019s really expecting them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stories about evil children usually offer an origin story for the child\u2019s violence\u2014an extremely gifted child is taken advantage of by the government or an adopted child is abused by their parents, for example. Evil child stories give a reason why the children became evil and in doing so ironically confirm the idea of child innocence.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more to it, though. The archetype builds on the fascination people have with real-life children who kill or commit other acts of violence. School shooters and child murderers titillate the media, the public and true crime authors, prompting them to wonder how such young children can commit such horrible crimes.<\/p>\n

Speaking of academic and true-crime approaches to juvenile homicide, Renner said, \u201cEven though these supposedly factual and scientific studies sensationalized the details, their grounding in real cases fed the popular belief that sociopathic children were everywhere, hiding behind the faces of sweet and innocent children. These beliefs were only strengthened by a flurry of fictional texts that featured cold-blooded child psychos.\u201d<\/p>\n

The role of the amateur detective\"Karen<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Renner\u2019s mother says if she could go back in time, she\u2019d pick a new career\u2014forensic science. For as long as Renner\u2019s been alive, her mother has loved true crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say she knows more about serial killers than any mom should,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That same delight in the macabre, coupled with a desire to solve a mystery, is behind much of the love of true crime shows and podcasts today, Renner suggested. She especially sees women being drawn to documentaries in which all the suspects are interviewed, their possible motives dissected. Viewers or listeners can consider emotions, figure out relationships, consider who they trust is telling the truth and potentially solve the crime.<\/p>\n

For a few people, this hobby moved beyond the living room; amateur detectives have taken to trying to solve unsolved crimes themselves. One of the best examples is author Michelle McNamara, who wrote a book about the Golden State Killer. Two months after the book\u2019s release, which was published after her sudden death, authorities arrested a man in the long-cold case.<\/p>\n

The same desire to solve mysteries drives the popularity of horror, Renner said. People like to piece together the stories\u2014who is the ghost and why did it return; if it wasn\u2019t Bigfoot that hiker saw, what was it; why is a serial killer stalking only certain victims and who\u2019s next; what is the motivation behind the monster or the zombie and how can it be defeated? That cognitive element makes the genre exciting and engaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very much structured like a mystery sometimes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The scariest movie she\u2019s seen and where you can go for a good scare<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Twenty years ago, in the middle of a bright, sunny day, Renner and a friend walked into a theater to see \u201cThe Blair Witch Project.\u201d They intentionally went during the day to avoid having to leave the theater in the dark.<\/p>\n

Two hours later, it was clear their efforts weren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the movie was over, we kind of came to and we were way down in our seats. We looked around and everyone in the theater was the same way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Renner slept with the light on for days.<\/p>\n

Although she tends more toward spooky scary movies and away from those that could be real, like serial killer movies, there are plenty for every type of viewer this Halloween, Renner said: \u201cThe Haunting of Hill House\u201d and \u201cThe Haunting of Bly Manor\u201d are smart and scary, while \u201cThe Invitation\u201d offers a non-traditional horror story in which the viewer doesn\u2019t know if the main character is paranoid and jealous of his ex-wife\u2019s new life or wisely cautious of its cultlike qualities. Small-budget films like \u201cThe Blackwell Ghost\u201d also are good for a scare.<\/p>\n

For a quicker scare, Renner turns to YouTube. Some of the scariest things she\u2019s watched lately are videos about the creepiest things caught on security cameras, the most haunted abandoned buildings and more.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s always an old favorite\u2014turn down (or up) the lights and read a little Edgar Allan Poe.<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karen Renner scares pretty easily. In most professions, that wouldn\u2019t be unusual. In Renner\u2019s\u2014she studies horror media and, when given the chance to guest-edit a journal, chose evil children as the topic\u2014it\u2019s a little more surprising. Renner, an associate professor in the Department of English at Northern Arizona University, talked to NAU News about Halloween…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":61043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}