The Church of Paranoia

Good horror to me is synonymous with atmosphere. It can be a physical atmosphere conjured up by such old standbys as full moons, darkness, graveyards, driving rain, Gothic mansions, isolated cabins, abandoned mental hospitals, lonely roads, and so on; or it can be a psychological atmosphere of fear, terror, doubt, suspicion, loneliness, and paranoia. In the latter case, the atmosphere is yet more effective when imposed over what amounts to a normal environment -- say, that of a small town.

True horror is not the radically different, but the everyday seen through frightened eyes. If it's 3 AM and pouring rain, and I have to take shelter in a rotting barn in the woods where 10 years ago, a heap of severed heads was discovered, that's supposed to be scary. If I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, the discovery that there is a serial killer in my midst makes me realize that I don't know everyone else. Not at all. And that is horrifying in a much different sort of way; the feeling is not merely shock and horror but betrayal, because I'm not supposed to be scared here. The houses of my neighbors suddenly appear sinister to me, and the quirks and idiosyncrasies of those neighbors suddenly take on new and terrifying meanings. Nothing is as it seems, and I can't trust anyone. I've been robbed of that most precious of all small-town and suburban sensations: my feeling of security.

When I read The Church of Dead Girls, two things struck me. The first was that the atmosphere of paranoia reminded me strongly of such diverse but effective works as Tami Hoag's Night Sins, the movie The Thing (Carpenter's version), The Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, and even The Crucible. In each case a precipitating incident leads to ever-increasing paranoia among a group of people; in each case, small quirks of behavior, odd habits, even unusual hobbies are misinterpreted as having sinister significance. Friendships and even familial bonds are tested and often found wanting in the atmosphere of suspicion and fear. A witch hunt atmosphere prevails, and nobody is what they seem to be.

The second fact of Church to strike me was the idea, touched upon in Psycho, that "we're all a little crazy", and that our private lives act as a sort of curtain by which we can give vent to our insanity without being subjected to public scrutiny. Take, if you will, the idea of masturbation. In private it falls under the vast heading of "what goes on with the shades pulled down." In public it is a crime and considered indicitive of a sexual fetish at the best, and a sexual deviancy at the worst. Yet the difference is merely a matter of opening a door and walking a few feet. In a sense, a lot of "crazy" behavior is simply private behavior exhibited in a public forum -- talking to oneself, for example, is not unusual at home, but is considered "crazy" on the street. The difference is not in the act, but in the location -- behind or before the curtain. So long as we behave "normally", stay within the lines, so to speak, in public, we can be as crazy as we like behind closed doors. But 'closed doors' can be a metaphor for normal-seeming behavior as well as a literal interpretation.
An unspoken thought, however hideous, takes place behind an impenetrable curtain. And so long as we keep our more deviant thoughts and feelings in the realm of fantasies rather than actions, behind the impenetrable curtain of our skulls, we remain "normal."

To me, the fascination of the serial lays largely in two areas: the first is that his outstanding quality is not his insanity, but rather the fact that his insanity has progressed beyond fantasy to the realm of action. Many people dream of committing murder, rape, arson, etc. but very few people actually do it. The second is that a serial killer is often "normal" or close to normal in everyday life. He has mastered the art of walking between the lines in his daily routine. In slasher movies, the killer is an over-the-top madman, lurching about in a stylized mask and weilding a blood-sloppy chain saw. In real life he would be loose only a matter of hours before the police shot him down. But John Wayne Gacy was a crew-cut pillar in his community, even a member of the Chamber of Commerce. And what terrifies people is not so much the murders he committed but the fact he looked so normal. His normalcy was akin to a betrayal; certainly it was a challenge to their security. One can't walk down the street after a case like that without wondering what is going on behind the closed doors of the neat little houses next door. The strength of Church lies partially in its establishment of justified paranoia, but also in the discomfort it creates by reminding the reader that the distance between themselves and the serial killer is not quite as long as they think.