Barbara Vey at Beyond Her Book has written an interesting post that I quite agree with. It kind of goes along with why people like Stephen King- he’s a fantastic storyteller. And Vey’s premise is that that is the job of both books and movies- to tell a good story. If it’s a good story, even if it’s not “your kind of story”, it’ll capture you. If it’s not, it’s not gonna grab you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the only kind of story you read, ever. Vey wrote about her experience with two different movies this week. The first, Mirror, Mirror, caught her interest because she’s been sucked into the addictive world of Once Upon A Time (okay, those weren’t exactly her words, but I’m there with her). So she was primed to like it… but found the characters unlikable and shallow, and the movie boring. Moral of that story: even if you want to like it, if the characters and plot can’t grab you, it’s not enough.

She also saw Cabin in the Woods. It’s probably unfortunate that this was billed as a horror film, since there are a lot of people who immediately dismiss a movie labeled “horror”. Vey says she “doesn’t do horror” but the story was good and the characters were interesting. She called it “funny and clever”. The fact that the story is good- that it’s not straight out gore, that the characters are relatable (and also that Joss Whedon is involved) means that even someone who assumes they can’t like horror, may be able to find something that appeals. Heck, even my mom, who is completely unenthusiastic about horror in all of its forms, finally found a movie, The Selling, that she thinks is totally great.

If you want to catch the folks who don’t like horror, you do what Cabin in the Woods, and what Stephen King, have figured out… get past the genre label and tell a fantastic story. And getting fantastic stories, however they’re billed, into the hands of readers, watchers and library lovers of all kinds? That’s what it’s all about.