[YOUR VIEWS]
"I should venture that the fascination of the weird is through a vaguely masochistic pleasure that derives delight from frightening one's self! I believe the simile is ancient that our gaze will often return to the ugliest person in a room rather than the most handsome. Perhaps it is that constant saccharine palls. I claim it is untrue that 'the beautiful, the good, is the aim of every true artist.'"
—R. H. Barlow
"The element of horror in a tale often makes the story; it gives you that weird, creepy sensation and cold chills. Thus, the greater those feelings affect us after, or during, the reading of the yarn, the greater we say the story is. Of course, if the horror part is of too intense a nature in that it causes a continued after-effect producing nervousness in the reader, then the virtue of the use of horror may be questioned. However, strong horror can be read by strong minds, or by uncomprehending minds, without damage. It would appear, then, that it depends equally upon the reader and the quality of horror used. Horror has a certain fascination to everyone; it is a thing that seems inborn in us—perhaps it is because we try to understand subconsciously, something mysterious, just beyond the conscious cognizance of the things that are known."
—Kenneth B. Pritchard
"In the horror story, one can find true beauty—beauty that is glorified from tossing seas of blackness—shining beauty that comes with cosmic fear, lurid silence, frightful death—all this and more fascinates one's appreciation of true art. 'When people read these and say that they are distasteful to the well and normal mind' then these certain people should not read them. No one is compelling them to do such. And why do we wish to read a sinister tale of evil or monstrosities? Listen, readers! Those of us who know life and have grown tired of its futile strivings, its worries, its hard realities, (and most of us have by now) are able to forget it all by steeping ourselves with the nameless terrors and evil spawns of that 'darkness visible'."
—Robert Nelson