Why The Monsters Who Live Next Door?
When people find out I write books, they often ask me, “Are your books scary?” I always reply that it depends on what you think is scary. If you think vampires, zombies and demons are scary, then you probably won’t find my books to be too frightening. But if you think your creepy neighbor who turns out to have bodies buried under his house is scary, then hell, yeah, my books are scary!
I grew up on classic horror series like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween. These were pretty terrifying at the time but in a sort of fun way. It was a safe way to be frightened—you could scream and have a big old adrenaline dump, maybe even lose sleep later that night but you knew that you were pretty unlikely to meet up with an actual Freddy Kruger or Jason-type in real life. When I was a little older, I saw this movie called The Vanishing which starred a young Sandra Bullock and Kiefer Sutherland and it scared the heck out of me in a very real way. (Yeah, we’re going way back, that movie is over twenty years old now!) The movie is about a man whose girlfriend disappears from a gas station, seemingly without a trace. As the movie goes on, we find out that she was abducted and killed by some guy. Just a regular—albeit somewhat creepy—guy. This movie scared me more and on a much more visceral level than all those cheesy horror flicks put together. Why?
Because it’s a more realistic scenario.
In daily life, all over the world, people are abducted, people are harmed and even killed by other people. Serial killers, although rare, exist among us and to me, they’re more frightening than any zombie or demon that Hollywood could conjure up. Killers live among us and often we don’t know it until they’ve been found out. That’s the really scary part—that often the most gruesome and sadistic killers don’t seem very threatening at all. Many serial killers don’t start out as full-blown serial killers. There is a progression from small criminal acts to grievous crimes, from fantasy to reality. Most serial killers have a history of behavioral problems as juveniles such as bed-wetting, torturing animals and starting fires. As adults, they often have elaborate fantasies that they’ll try to act out—pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable until they cross the line to killing. John Douglas, a former FBI agent who helped found what most people think of as the FBI “profiling” unit (Behavioral Analysis Unit), has written many books about serial killers and often discusses how a killer can start out as a peeping tom or a stalker and eventually escalate to killing.
My novel, Aberration explores this very thing. The killer doesn’t start out as a sadistic murderer—his stalking escalates to killing. First, he watches. Then he collects items from the woman’s home. Then slowly, he begins to insert himself into her life without her knowing. Then he begins murdering people. He is so nondescript that people never see him coming. He blends in. People often don’t even remember him and cannot describe him if they were pressed on the issue. He could be anyone: the guy who walks his dog past your house every day, your pizza delivery guy, your neighbor. He could be real.
To me, the monster next door is scariest of all.
About Lisa Regan
Lisa Regan is the award-winning author of Finding Claire Fletcher, Aberration and Hold Still. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Master of Education Degree from Bloomsburg University. She is a member Sisters In Crime, Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.
Also by Lisa Regan
2 Book Lovers Reviews
Lisa Regan - October 28th, 2015
October Month of Horror - Guest Post
2 Book Lovers Reviews
2 Book Lovers Reviews