Horror is a real thing, a reaction in feeling and thought to looming doom for oneself or another, in an ugly, painful fashion. Horror includes a recognition of no escape, no way out from dire threat. An example:

“While violence in the nation’s largest transit system is rare, being shoved from a subway station’s narrow platform onto the track has long loomed large in riders’ fears.”

This sentence is part of an Associated Press article, dated March 26, 2024, about a death in the NYC subway. One person was shoved onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train by another person. The person pushed may have experienced horror seeing the train coming at him, and the train operator also, seeing the victim and realizing there was no time to stop. A witness to this killing said “he was unable to sleep” after seeing the attack.¹

The reality of horror is not fully understood except by people who’ve felt it in action, for example, in wartime or natural disaster. Horror film and entertainment can prompt a lesser emotion, involving imagination.

Halloween

Halloween is a popular holiday happening on October 31 each year, before All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2). These last two are Christian holy days started in eighth century. Halloween combines Christian elements, such as angels and devils, and traditions developed from Celtic culture, such as ghosts and masks and costumes to fend them off.²

Socially and economically, halloween is a celebration of horror and terror (for fun and money). Preparation for the Day and the rite of trick or treat requires purchase of candy and goodies, costumes and decorations. The entertainment industry provides horror movies and serial shows throughout October, focusing on the genre. In literature and reading, horror novels and short stories are promoted. The purpose here is to scare or induce horror.

A psychological and religious explanation of halloween is that it is practice for actual horror in the face of death. It has to do with fear of death.

The origin of Halloween in Celtic ritual intended to protect harvest and people from ghosts and the proximity to All Saints Day (saints are dead people) and All Souls (souls are the invisible, immortal essence of people)³ are indicators of death as the secret stimulus for this social to-do every October. Death is explicit in Mexican festival, Day of the Dead, on same days as Christian feast-days and Halloween. Death also is clear in horror fiction or horror stories based on fact, but an audience member or reader likely doesn’t make personal connection to the threat of death. As one reads a Stephen King novel or H.P. Lovecraft story or views one of the ‘Alien’ films, one does not feel endangered.

Hell

In Christian scripture⁴ and Muslim scripture,⁵ hell is the final place of punishment for the damned. Fire and brimstone, worms or maggots, are the main types of torment associated with hell. The ‘Inferno,’ the first part of the Divine Comedy by medieval poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), describes nine circles of hell, each with a kind of torture designed for certain sinners and their sins. Whether one takes these woes literally or not, “it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”⁶ As Dante begins his imaginary tour of hell, he is confronted by the infernal portal topped with a sign –

“All hope abandon ye who enter here.”⁷

Hell is horror.

The End

Notes

1. M. Rivera, N. Hicks, J. Fitz-Gibbon, ‘Witness to fatal NYC subway shove says deranged career criminal ‘timed it perfectly’ and pushed ‘with all his might’’ (New York Post: March 26, 2024); available online
2. See online discussion of halloween at history.com and britannica.com
3. The Church of the Middle Ages changed All Saints Day from the earlier date of May 13 to November 1 “for unexplained reasons (it was not a pagan festival)” says J.C.J. Metford in The Christian Year (Thames and Hudson, 1991), p. 115f and All Souls Day was logically placed a day later to accomodate the dead who had to go through purgatory, see p.116ff
4. E.g., Mk 9:42-50; Mt 18:6-9; Mt 7:13; Rev 20:10,14f; cf. ‘Heaven and Hell’ by A.T. Hanson in Alan Richardson (ed.), A Dictionary of Christian Theology (Phila.: Westminster, 1976), p. 151f, “Most modern theologians would say that hell means simply separation from God. It is not a punishment which God arbitrarily inflicts; it is what we do to ourselves.” (p. 151)
5. E.g., Sura 38:55-61; Sura 2:24; see ‘Jahannam’ by H.B. Partin in Keith Crim (ed.), Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), p. 368f, “Islamic name for hell, the place of punishment of the unrighteous . . . The Islamic term is derived from the biblical Gehenna or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem believed to be the entrance to the underworld”
6. Heb 10:31; see Heb 10:26-31
7. Dante, Divine Comedy, ‘Inferno’ Canto III, line 9 (Cary translation, 1805)