Matt McAvoy Book Review

If you’re a horror movie fan, like I am, you’ll love Chris and Preston’s intriguing, in-depth and insightful analyses of the most famous villains, from Freddy to Jason, Candyman to Leatherface and even the shark from Jaws (though that vilification feels a little unfair to me, as an animal lover).  It is full of surprises, the biggest being the turn these essays all take: this book, perhaps a little unlike the blurb might suggest, is rather a psychologist’s guide to self-help with various mental issues, and the horror characters are rather more metaphors for the conditions: Jason is born of neglect, Pinhead and the Cenobites represent ingratitude and excess, Candyman is a symbol of discrimination, etc. (though, of course the latter is much more explicit than implied in the film).  In fact, the horror movie aspect of this book begins to appear somewhat secondary in focus when each of the chapters moves in the direction of offering self-help exercises that you can use to address your own experiences with each of the respective conditions and disorders referred to; you get the impression that the authors are simply associating the horror movie genre because they love it and want to write a book about it.  Furthermore, it is great that they did, because the fact is that this is a fantastic book and I enjoyed it a great deal. 

Chris and Preston are truly gifted analysts and creative writers, whilst also very obviously well educated in the subject of psychology from a sociological viewpoint, as well as the school of life.  They absolutely know their stuff in every respect.  Perhaps as the chapters go on they do feel a little too heavily weighted toward the self-help aspect, with their proposed exercises, affirmations, etc.  And one area in which the book non-plussed me a touch was the authors’ very thickly applied subjective anecdotes; they talk about their personal experiences a lot, more than I felt was really relevant, and at times felt rather autobiographical.  This book is at its best when the writers are dissecting the psyche of the masked maniacs with their expert analysis.

Necessary Death is wonderful, and if you are a horror movie fan it is pretty much a must-read, as it is if you are an elementary psychology or sociology student.  And, far from a cliquey-niche movie geek-fest, it is a genuinely well composed dissertation on the real-life psychological basis of the horror genre and its most successful characters.  A fantastic book, highly recommended.