Romance and Horror--Mutually Exclusive?

[SharonBell]

Can romance be horror? Or can horror be romantic? Can horror be combined with romance? If he eats her heart, isn't it because he loves her? Or if she can't bear to be apart from him and sleeps with his corpse, isn't that romantic?

I'm trying to figure out who writes romantic horror. It doesn't seem have an association. Steven King and Dean R Koontz aren't spokespersons for it. Yet, I submit that there is such a thing as romantic horror.

What do you think? Can a killer have a happily-ever-after ending?

[GrinReaper]

How about Rose Madder by Stephen King (not one of his best, IMO)? You at least have horror and romance elements in the one story. (and a touch of fantasy)

[GrinReaper]

Or, and I'm shamed to admit I haven't actually read it, Bram Stoker's Dracula apparently had that whole sex-death thing going on, although maybe that's not romance?

[Ed]

Why would you be ashamed to admit you read Dracula?   It's one of the horror classics.

About the horror romance question - I guess it's mainly the type of thing that's going on subtext if it's in a novel.  It's probably not the type of thing to do in an obvious way, because publishers could get twitchy about taking a book, scared of possible repercussions.  There seems to be a whole section of each young generation that's in love with death, which can't be a good thing.  Much better to be in love with life

[doolols]

He was ashamed to say he hadn't actually read it. It's OK, Grin, I haven't read it either.

There's the thing going on in Coronation Street (crap UK soap) between Rosie Webster and Craig Harris - they're two Goths (or as near to Goths as soap opera guidelines allow them to be). That could be extended and extrapolated - picture one side of a Goth relationship trying ever harder to impress the other side, taking greater risks, pulling ever wilder stunts.

And there's the mass murderers Fred and Rose West - there must have been some romance between them?

[Walker]

Can romance be horror?

My last marriage.

[Ed]

Oops - sorry, I misread your post, Grin.  I've got it, but haven't got around to reading it yet.  So I'll join you in shame

[SharonBell]

My last marriage.

So did you kill the bitch?

[Walker]

My last marriage.

So did you kill the bitch?

I wanted to...but the kids were watching.

[Geoff_N]

My last marriage.

So did you kill the bitch?

I wanted to...but the kids were watching.

So that was a cross-over Romantic Horror? 

On reflection I believe Sharon has a good point. I suspect we could all give one example where sex and horror can be found in one novel - one from me is Poppy Z Brite, whose Lost Souls is a Gothic Romance where vampires are hip, deadly and into homosexuality. But the few exceptions support her contention that there is a niche here -  a void not to be avoided.

Geoff

[SharonBell]

I must claim ignorance. But I have ordered her books, to see what you mean. 

Another question: Must someone die for a story to be horror? Cemetary Dance had an article that took that as an article of faith. But, if someone is tortured, burned, abused, left hanging by a thread, isn't THAT horror? Wouldn't death be a relief? Could the torturer love the torturee? And vice versa in a twisted, horrific way? Just thinking out loud, here. No one was hurt in the making of this question...

[GrinReaper]

A man, through love for a woman, puts up with constant playing of Delta Goodrem CDs. Now *that's* horror!

[Ed]

Thankfully (by the way you put it), I've no idea who Deltra Goodrem is

I don't think somebody has to die for it to be horror - anything that horrifies the reader has got to be horror, hasn't it?  There are worse things than death.  But then, you can be horrified by films that clearly do not fit into the horror category, just as much as you cannot call every film where somebody dies a horror film. 

I wonder if the intent behind the piece is a better guide to category - if it's only purpose is to produce a feeling of fear and/or loathing in the person experiencing the work, then surely that is horror?

[doolols]

This is difficult. Characters in an Agatha Christie novel experience fear, when their mates are being bumped off, one after the other. But she's not horror. Or is she? There can be particularly brutal murders, but it might not be called horror.

From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_fiction
Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any media intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the reader. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has necessarily been the intrusion of an evil, or occasionally misunderstood, supernatural element into everyday human experience. Since the 1960s, any work fiction with a morbid, gruesome, surreal, exceptionally suspenseful or frightening theme has come to be called "horror"
There's more great stuff on the history of horror there, too.

From the Horro Writers' Association: http://www.horror.org/horror-is.htm
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives the primary definition of horror as "a painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay." It stands to reason then that "horror fiction" is fiction that elicits those emotions in the reader.
There's more in that article too.

[SharonBell]

Good links, Mr G, thanks!