Mother Nature Knows . . . Best
Dianna Sinovic
Autumn has arrived (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway). A time for the woods to transform into reds, golds, and oranges. A time for taking a jacket on a hike in the woods, using binoculars to spot migrating birds, and building a bonfire to roasting marshmallows. Nature is ours to enjoy, right?
We often view nature as “safe,” but seen through the lens of a horror or climate fiction writer, nature can also be unpredictable, life-changing, and dangerous. These days, with a rapidly changing climate, the natural world can pose an even greater threat. Stories with that theme fall into the horror sub-genre of biological or ecological horror, in which nature has the final word. Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is similar.
Even though the term eco-horror may seem new, the idea of (hu)man vs. nature has been around for hundreds of years as a plot device. The natural world can be a pretty scary place, even when it’s not depicted as evil, and especially if you think you have it all figured out. Consider the films 27 Hours or All Is Lost.
In mid-20th century films, natural horror frequently focused on creatures: Godzilla, that Creature from the Black Lagoon, giant ants (Them!). It was a way to address humanity’s fear at that time of nuclear annihilation and radiation exposure.
Creatures continue to be a common eco-horror trope because we can anthropomorphize them, from aliens (Alien) to yetis (Yeti) to sharks (Jaws)—all critters we can “fight.” Other living entities are harder to deal with (or stop) because they are so not human: plants (Little Shop of Horrors), fungi (The Last of Us), viruses (The Stand). Or they are meteorological: tornadoes (Twister), gales (Perfect Storm), snow (Avalanche), floods (The Wave).
Like life in general, humans are usually happiest when they feel in control. When they aren’t, the horror seeps in. That’s also true when a changing climate feels equally uncontrollable.
But author and poet Ashia Ajani, writing in Atmos Magazine, asks: “Even when there is a moral at the end of the tale, too much ecological horror begs the question: Should nature be conquered? Subdued?”
Ajani notes that “many of the movies recycle the same tropes: possessed creatures, gory vengeance, and supernatural phenomena that speak more to our own fear of annihilation instead of addressing the uneven wounds we’ve created all over the globe.”
Several recent novels that explore eco-horror or cli-fi include A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet; The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan, and Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy.
Naomi Booth, writing in the New York Times, adds, “In eco-horror, we witness acts of environmental violence currently hidden from sight; we might see who suffers most and who gains by that suffering.”
That’s because climate change doesn’t treat everyone equally, Ajani says. Instead it worsens existing inequities.
This is good fodder for story creation. As Booth says, “at its most effective, eco-horror compels us not to look away. It attempts to close the distance between the reader and sufferers of environmental disaster, and when it really gets under the skin.”