Vocational Horror: The Tools of Its Trade

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

A device often used to generate plots is to imagine a vocational role that, given a dark twist, produces unusual, horrific goods or provides equally bizarre, terrifying services. Stephen Kings; characters include writers (“1408,” Bag of Bones, The Regulators, Misery); painters (Duma Key); politicians (Under the Dome); a shop owner (Needful Things); a former police officer (Black House) and prison guards (The Green Mile); journalists (The Colorado Kid), government agents (Firestarter), and military personnel (The Tommyknockers), among others, whose wares and services are anything but mundane—or safe.

Other writers of horror have used the same technique. Bentley Little, King's “poet laureate of horror,” is a great example. His novels' protagonists include a mailman (The Mailman), store clerks (The Store); a homeowners association (The Association); resort staff and guests (The Resort); an insurance agent (The Policy), teachers (The Academy, University); and others.

In part, such fiction—what we might designate as vocational horror—works because it is associated, as it typically is in King's works, with forces equipped with vast resources, investigative abilities, access to the general public, political power, are backed by the authority of the state, or are imbued with supernatural or paranormal power (King) or perform essential services, operate in remote locations, or, again, enjoy supernatural or paranormal power (Little).

Another reason that vocational fiction works is that it is based on a twist, or a perversion, of the normal purposes of offering goods for sale or a perversion of the normal functions of a service, as is almost always the case in Little's satirical novels, synopses of a few of which suggest the nature of his twists:

[The Mailman:] “the strange new mailman is up to something sinister, an idea bolstered as people in town start receiving increasingly disturbing hate mail” (Wikipedia).

[The Store:] “customers are hounded by obnoxious sales people, and strange products appear on the shelves. Before long . . . [is] taking over the town!”

[The Association:] “Members of the neighborhood's Homeowners' Association, a meddling group that uses its authority to spy on neighbors, eradicate pets and dismember anyone who fails to pay association dues and fines” (Publishers Weekly).

[The Resort:] “[At] the exclusive Reata, an isolated resort in the Arizona desert, . . . . unnerving encounters with strange employees, wild parties in empty rooms and bizarre sex antics in the family restaurant prompt . . . key characters . . . to think about leaving early. Yet the Reata's magnetic pull essentially brainwashes all the guests into believing that their odd experiences are normal” (Publishers Weekly).

[The Policy:] “Recently divorced Hunt Jackson, his new wife, his co-workers and his best buddy from high school . . . are continually harassed by a pesky insurance salesman [who] tries to convince them to purchase bizarre policies protecting them from the law, their bosses and even death, and if the clients refuse, inexplicable consequences usually follow” (Publishers Weekly).

[The Academy:] “Students and faculty who embrace [a school's new] charter get steadily darker and more sadistic; teachers and students who oppose the charter find strange things happening and people disappearing; and the school seems to have taken on a life of its own” (Publishers Weekly).