The New Weird - Horns Analysis

“But when he was swaying above the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept. He lurched in surprise, and for the second time in twelve hours he pissed on his feet.”

This book is interesting because it takes a modern approach to horror. The drunken character that has suffered past traumas is not exactly a new way of writing a character within a horror novel. Although the way the author cuts to the action within the second paragraph on the first page of this novel is a new way of bringing the audience into the story. Yes, usually there is always a hook at the beginning of a story however this hook is just “he had grown horns” without any intense suspense that had led up to this. There was no explanation of his character besides he is a drunk who pisses himself. There is no other indication of how he got into this predicament besides that. I feel as if this character who shares good and bad values all at the same time is a new trend. This idea of making the character more and more unjustifiable in their actions is a way of engaging the audience and their morals. For example, a Netflix special called “You” is a story about a stalker who kills the people who he is in love with because they eventually discover his true nature. During this show people sort of root for the stalker so there is this play on how bad is the main character before the viewer ultimately ends up wishing for that character to fail. More and more movies are having the “bad” character as the main character of the story and showing people why you should sympathize with them. Joker is a perfect example of that.