The Colonial Era

What is it about the colonial era, here in the States, that seems to hold the germ of horror in it. The era seems to be the perfect one for the horror genre, and I'm not sure why. There is some echo of the past that carries over into our present psyche that leaves this nagging doubt about the safety of those days . . . demons and witches, dark forests and all seem to come down to us in some shadowy form, haunting our thoughts of this people.

The clothing alone, from their aprons to their wide brimmed hats, seems to hold some mystery of the unexplained, some lingering thought of darkness.

The religious nature of the early pilgrims, combined with their own simplicity and hardiness as they carved a living out of very dangerous wilderness, combined with a belief in the active world of the  supernatural (this was no game to them). This created a people stout and strong, but wary of a world beyond their own, where the unexplained became known as the molestation of the powers of darkness.

All this was real, and a living part of their lives, and the echo of that fear has carried down to us on some level, like the crow who remembers the sound that killed his murder.