The Assignment with Audie Cornish Horror Used to Be Escapism. Now It’s a Mirror
Oct 30, 2025
Tananarive Due, an award-winning horror writer and UCLA lecturer, dives into the evolution of horror in modern culture. She discusses how horror has transformed from cheap thrills to a reflection of systemic oppression and collective trauma. Due links her work, like The Reformatory, to contemporary fears, particularly around policing children. She explains how horror serves as both a vehicle for racial stories and a rehearsal for survival instincts. With insights into how grief intertwines with horror, Due reveals the genre's surprising depth and relevance today.
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Low-Budget Horror Enables Big Ideas
- Horror's low-budget, idea-driven nature lets indie creators make high-impact films without star power.
- Tananarive Due says clever concepts and minimal settings enable meaningful, widely seen horror.
Horror Mirrors Present Social Fears
- Contemporary horror reflects present fears like school policing and over-policing of children.
- Due links readers' curiosity about the past to present anxieties that make her novel resonate now.
Make Characters' Survival Real
- For a film to scare Due, protagonists must feel genuinely terrified for their lives.
- She uses viewer fear of characters' mortal danger as the core test of horror's success.
