Be Scared of Everything () von Peter Counter

Interviews with My Family Ouija Board: A personal essay about Ouija boards, hope, family, and human connection.

Celebration of Life: A broad survey of Aliens, The Ring, The Sixth Sense, End of Days, Scream and classic horror literature illustrates that, despite horror’s reputation as morbid entertainment, the genre has an unrivalled joie de vivre.

A World Made of Train Tracks: Three short parables about horror and futility, referencing Waiting for Godot, Salem witch trials, and memoir.
 
Please Add Me to Your Zombie Survival Network: In-depth examination of zombie media—including 28 Days Later, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, and the tabletop RPG Outbreak Undead—helps uncover the emotional truth of why we’d all prefer a zombie apocalypse to the violent disasters of our reality.
 
The FBI’s Basement Office: In December 2017 the New York Times confirmed there was a secret government program dedicated to investigating UFO sightings by military personnel. This essay examines The X-Files, the music of Blink-182, and a real UFO sighting to understand why the NYT report didn’t have a greater social impact.
 
Too-Loo: A personal essay about Metallica, H.P. Lovecraft, guitar lessons, and trying to understand the impossible.

Corporate Personhood: The monsters in our nightmares are the intellectual property of corporations like Disney, which are becoming increasingly similar to undying Lovecraftian gods.
 
The New Necronomicon: The works of H.P. Lovecraft are almost as foundational to horror as they are problematic, and this essay squares the Providence author’s role in an inclusive and diverse community of creators.

The Shattered Teacup: In the first of three essays in the book detailing horror in relationship to the post-traumatic condition, the author examines themes of belonging in Hannibal and Silence of the Lambs in parallel to the traumatic real-life event of seeing his own father shot in the chest.

On the Horror of Comedy: The relationship between horror and comedy has never been clearer than in this analysis of a famous scene in classic TV sitcom Frasier.

Manufacturing Mephistopheles: An essay about chainsaws, nuclear radiation, and secular horror films like Mandy and American Psycho that use science as a stand-in for the paranormal.

Beeps and Boops: A trip to the Haunted Mansion in Kensington, Prince Edward Island serves as the perfect illustration of why we fear robots. This essay touches on Black Mirror, The Terminator, and Fright Fest at Canada’s Wonderland.

Manifest Doom: The hostile landscapes in The Southern Reach Trilogy, The Terror, and Jeff Barnaby’s Blood Quantum reveal how horror, at its roots, is anti-colonial.

Five Litres: A short argument in favour of a new way to talk about vast quantities of blood.

Fighting Ghosts: In the second of three essays detailing horror in relationship to the post-traumatic condition, the author filters PTSD flashback experiences through the lens of ghosts and karate lessons.

100 Seconds to Midnight: An argument for being allowed to scream at work. This essay understands the absurd heroism of paranormal investigators in entertainment by relating Ghostbusters to workaday life under mounting global crisis.

Metaphysical Graffiti: Tracing the backwards message in “Stairway to Heaven” to its occult origins in an infamous magic ritual once attempted by Aliester Crowley, this essay uses personal experience and the film Hereditary to connect the dots between occult practices and self-annihilation. It’s as crazy as it sounds.
 
Silent Ruins: A celebration of rare and mysterious video game P.T.—one of the most important pieces of modern horror entertainment.
 
Where the Creepypastas Are: The Internet has given birth to a new type of monster: the creepypasta. This essay unpacks the anxieties of Slenderman, Jeff the Killer, and radical prescriptivist YouTube self-help personalities.

Broken Nightmare Telephone: A personal essay about the sleep paralysis phenomenon that brought two brothers closer together in the wake of their grandfather’s death.

Fear of the Shark: Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, and the scariest thing of all: statistics! This essay is all about why we’re scared of one of the most beautiful creatures in the sea.
 
Audient Void, Authorial Void: A laser-focused examination of the nature of authorship in found footage horror, using examples from The Blair Witch Project, Petscop, Paranormal Activity, Resident Evil 7, and the final security footage of Elisa Lam to understand how we build each other’s worlds with stories.
 
Extrasensory: On the power of visceral imagery, using examples from Misery, Gerald’s Game, Creepshow, and Chuck Palahniuk’s short story “Guts”.
 
On Madness: The third and final essay detailing horror in relationship to the post-traumatic condition. Why is it necessary to tell stories about mental illness, and how can horror provide the language and framework to communicate what sometimes seems impossible? Uses examples from The Babadook and H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Festival”.
 
Cannibal Symposium: A conversation over dinner about the ethics of consensual cannibalism.
 
Wallpaper: Using the example of legendary manga artist Shigeru Mizuki (whose children's horror artwork inspired Pokémon), this essay argues for the value of supernatural belief, even when it’s ridiculous.
 
Devil’s Nostril: Combining analysis of The Witch, The Cloud of Unknowing, and Swedish heavy metal band Ghost, the author reflects on growing up in Catholic school, his friend’s suicide, and the horror of Christian heaven.
 
Santa Claus and the Smoke Monster: How the transformations in The Santa Clause, Lost, and Interview with the Vampire frame our own brief time on Earth and help us understand the fleeting nature of identity.
 
When the Screaming Stops: Combining personal experience and criticism of Ready or Not, Bloodborne, and Nick Cutter’s The Troop, “When the Screaming Stops” is a thorough reflection on death and the process of grief in the wake of a pet’s untimely demise. This essay also references ritual magic and Stephen King’s Pet Semetary.