- What do you think scares the people that give us scary things?
You wouldn’t think that people in horror are afraid of things. They are though, and some of the things that scare them are pretty non-scary things.
Stephen King
It turns out the master of horror is scared of, none other than, cars. Cars? Yes. He talked about his fears in a 1986 interview where he revealed a fear of trucks and cars, traced back to childhood. ”They seemed so large, and I seemed so small. I had the same imagination then that I do now, except that, for a kid, everything is harder to control.” King also had some weird and somewhat darker thoughts about bulldozers from when he was a kid adding, “I would imagine what would happen to my little fingers if [the treads] started to move [over them].”
Jordan Peele
Jordan Peele started in sketch comedy before jumping into horror with his directorial debut for the move Get Out. He then released Us in 2019, a film that reflected his fear of doppelgängers. Peele told the news, “You always have to start with something that scares you […] The idea of encountering myself with no warning always just dropped my stomach out from under me, so that was the first thing I thought of.” Did you know this about people in horror?
Alfred Hitchcock
Probably the weirdest things to be scared of for the great Alfred Hitchcock and the thing that scares him, terrifies him even, is eggs. Hitchcock revealed his fear of eggs in 1963 with “I‘m frightened of eggs,” he said. “That white round thing without any holes, and when you break it, inside there’s that yellow thing, round, without any holes … Brr!” However, when cooked into a dish, apparently he could look past his fear. It turns out that one of Hitchcock’s favorite breakfast foods is quiche Lorraine. Does this surprise you about people in horror?
Shirley Jackson
As one of the most famous horror writers of the 20th century, he best known works were dubbed “great novels of the supernatural in the last hundred years,” by Stephen King himself. After her book Hill House hit the shelves, Jackson developed severe agoraphobia or the fear and avoidance of places that can cause panic or uncertainty. Her fear is shown in her work, especially in her 1962 novel, We Have Always Lived in a Castle.
For the rest about Shirley Jackson and other horror people and their phobias, watch for People In Horror And What They’re Afraid Of: Part Two! And let me know what you thought about King, Peele, Hitchcock, and Jackson in the comments.