The Circle of Horror

     From The Lion King, many people have heard of the "Circle of Life," but it would appear, from our reading titled "Vampire Gentlmen and Zombie Beasts," that there may also be a "Circle of the Undead." Throughout the essay, Angela Tenga and Elizabeth Zimmerman show how the Horror genre is constantly shifting to give its audience a different experience for each different generation. It always preys upon our fears, sure, but its monsters adapt and transform in each environment; sometimes, they even cease to become monsters and evolve more into horror heroes.
     Now, this may not be because the new generation is fearing things differently, but it may rather be caused by time. As time goes on, we need new things to frighten us. If Horror only had ONE monster across the entire genre and had been using said monster since the beginning of time, it would get real old for us, as viewers, to keep feeling frightened at every creak, squeak, or whoosh. I didn't really think about that before reading this article, but the more I think about it the more I think it seems to work. Isn't part of being horrified based on not knowing what is going to happen next? Yet we already have terrifying monsters with a developed 'fear factor', so how does one put a new spin on that?
      It's interesting to read how Tenga and Zimmerman discuss the evolution of both the zombie and vampire. Everyone can see how the vampire has evolved from Dracula to Twilight, but I know I never paid as much attention to the zombie. I didn't even know that the zombie originally was more like a puppet than a brain-eating monster. In fact, they were so tame compared to how zombies are now that they were used as slaves, which just sounds crazy compared to today's zombie.
     Put it together, and an interesting circle of monsters to fear and not fear is created. If both zombies and vampires can undergo such critical changes in our culture, then what could be next? What horror creature might we see in the genre next?