Feeding the Monster
Published by Faber & Faber, 2024. 256 pages
by Anna Bogutskaya

These days, way more than before, I love reading a book about the horror genre, and especially other writer’s views, thoughts, and opinions out it. Unfortunately, in my early days, it would be more like “this person doesn’t know what they are talking about”. But once I (thankfully) grew out of that phase and realized that everyone can bring something new to the conversation, especially when it gets you to think, it is always a good thing. Even when you don’t agree with them, if it makes you think about something more or even a little differently, then it’s a win.

I had picked up this new book because, well, it was on the horror genre and that’s what I do. But I didn’t have any intention of reading it right away since I have several other books I want to get to first. Then as I saw it sitting on my desk, waiting to be put away in my library, I picked it up and started browsing. Then I started reading. Next thing I know, I’m 50 pages into it.

There are different chapters that tackle different themes or elements in the genre, such as Fear, Hunger, Anxiety, Pain, and lastly, Power. Within each of these chapters, the author discusses different films and their relevance to that theme. While she does mention older films every now and then, most of what she covers are newer films. For those that think there aren’t any good horror movies being made, just watch a few that are mentioned here in this book, and you’ll be proved wrong, many times over. In fact, at the end of the book, she has a recommended watchlist. Start checking those off.

Bogutskaya goes a great job of bringing up different films and elements in them to make you think. Think about the different themes, what the filmmaker might be trying to say, and the importance or relevance to today it might have. It gives you something to chew on, to roll around and ponder what she is saying with your own thoughts on the film if you’ve seen it already. If you haven’t, then when you do, they will be in the forefront when you do get to it, to see if it fits with what you’re seeing.

The last two chapters, Pain and Power, are the ones that I found make me think the most. It’s a shame that with a lot of these current films, such as the recent The Substance, that critics say that it is a story we’ve heard many times before, about how women are treated in Hollywood. Well, maybe there is a reason we need to keep hearing that story. Maybe because things haven’t changed or changed enough. With the different examples given of what pain is, how much is too much or little enough to “walk it off”, really shows how screwed up the systems are. We’d like to think that we’ve come a long way on how people are treated in the medical field, especially women, since those dark ages, but not too sure that we’re not sliding our way back to those times. Here is where Bogutskaya makes you think about what is going on in these films, and maybe why those elements are in there.

In the chapter of power, when discussing Robert Eggars 2015 film The Witch, after showing just how hard of a life young Thomasin has had, and when she is asked the question at the end, Bogutskaya writes, “The alternative, even if Satanic or scary, is better than the reality Thomasin exists in.” Kind of starts to make one think of what evil really is, and where those boundaries are.

There are books that have a lot of facts in there to learn, which isn’t a bad thing, as long as they are accurate. But really the best kind are the ones that make the reader think. It might not be on the question of existential life and what lies beyond, but just something as simple as what you might find frightening, and why. And what that might correlate with the world or society around us. For are the ones I tend to enjoy the most. This book is one of them.