fact and fiction within horror, are the two really that different?

You read a story about an unnatural creature lurking in the woods, waiting for human flesh to devour. It’s very far fetched, but it scares the pants off you nonetheless……and then you as you presumed, you find out it is fiction, and although the fear it created remains with you for a short period of time, a certain amount of relief is present from the fact that you know it is fiction.
Then……you read another story that is similar in nature, it also scares the pants off you, but this time you find out that the story is fact, it either happened, or there is evidence to show that an event of that nature did occur. This time the fear remains with you, but it stays longer than before, and you have no sigh of relief.
 
When a great mind creates a fantastic new horror plot, maybe they are creating it from something buried deep in their sub-conscious, from a story they once read of heard, and now those memories are resurfacing in the form of a new horror book or film!
Maybe, what they read or heard could have been from someone else’s mind, who did the same, heard a story once and then buried it deep in their sub-conscious, only for it to return watered down as a new piece of horror fiction, and so on and so on.

But at what point did that fiction come from factual events?

At what point did all these horror creations we see around us in films and books today as fictional creations, actually maybe exist, and still exist hidden around us in the world today?
 
The Beast of Bodmin Bay, The Ogopogo, The Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, Yeti, Mothman, The Mongolian Deathworm, Dracula, Werewolf, zombie.
 
The above are only a small selection of supposed 'myths' from the world we inhabit, but they have all at some point or another, either been featured in film, or pieces of fictional literature. Watered down, changed, and sometimes, left how the myth details the creature.
The thing is, a lot of people you speak to when asking them about these myths, will reply by saying just that, they're a myth, not real, something made up to scare people. Or something real, that has been changed to sound mythical, because the reality of the evidence at hand is un-explainable.
 
Well..........If the evidence is un-explainable, what does that tell you? It tells me two things.
That either our ability to analyse strange evidence is not quite as good as we would like to believe, Or
The evidence is un-explainable because we refuse to believe what it really is....................of supernatural or un-earthly origin.
 
The following is a piece I've put together about creature sightings. Am I making it up, or is the evidence real?

In a picturesque part of the southwest of England a creature lurks within the country side. It is a beast abnormally large and plagues the country side, occasionally attacking and mutilating animals large and small. Many animals have also gone missing over the years with no explanations as to how or why!
 
For nearly thirty years there have been dozens of sightings of the creature with suggestions that there is more than one. Some believe that the creatures are actually breeding and re-populating the area with their own kind!
 
One such sighting included a man who was on his way home from work one night driving along a dark quiet road when he couldn’t help but see out of the corner of his lights a large beast lingering at the side of the road. After the initial shock he concentrated his lights on the animal and realised it was certainly not normal. Within seconds of it staring right back at him it turned and ran off into the woods.
 
Foot prints of the animal have been found and a skull found within the area matching descriptions of the creature has also been discovered in recent years. A short amount of video footage has also been released in the last ten years and identified as authentic showing a creature lurking in long grass heading towards the woods.
 
Even the Royal Air Force has been involved in operations to try and locate any of the creatures by using advanced state of the art military equipment, unfortunately with no success.
 
As the years go on maybe the creatures will finally make themselves clear to be found. Maybe their population will grow enough to start overwhelming the country side making it impossible for them to remain hidden!

Sounds like an overly descriptive synopsis for a film or book doesn't it? Maybe that’s because I spend so much of my time writing fictional horror. But at the end of the day, whether it sounds like a fictional horror story or not. The short story is actually about 'The Beast of Bodmin Bay', and the facts within are real:

- Animals have been found mutilated continuously throughout the years.
- A 20 second video does exist showing a large black animal, and it has been authenticated.
- The description above about a sighting is a real statement from a witness.
- Reserve volunteers from the RAF have used state of the art night vision military equipment to hunt for the creature.
- Overly large paw prints have been found, and a large skull with huge fangs was found on Bodmin moor and sent to mammal experts at the British Natural History museum, who determined that the skull most certainly did not belong to any creature that could be found in the Englidh country side.
 
Now, I'm not saying that a mythical or supernatural creature does exist, or ever did exist in the English country side, although the above evidence certainly does make the eyebrows rise.
 
What I am saying though, is that films and books about similar creatures do exist, and have existed and been created for many years. Whether they are about vicious beastly creatures, zombies, vampires, werewolves, aliens, parasites, the list is almost endless! At what point in time, was the fiction we all love in this day and age, actually fact, a real, living creature that inhabited and roamed the planet?
 
Or, the real question is, if these horror tales we've been spoon fed for so many years, actually do come from fact, truth, reality..................
What’s to say they don’t still exist now? Hiding, lurking, only showing themselves when necessity calls! Maybe waiting until the time calls for them to make their presence known, making them no longer feared as a spooky story from a film or book, a story easily over come by turning then lights on and taking some deep breaths. But feared as a real, horrific form of reality, ready to pounce, devour and take over!

How many times have you heard that line in a film when one of the characters says 'What if everything we've been told over the years as stories are actually real, and we've seen so much of it in fiction, that when it really happens, we wont believe it'. Do you recognise that line? I'm sure you will, its been used in many diffferent films and books over the years, one in-particular film was 'The Faculty', a movie about a school where the faculty and students are taken over by an alien lifeform, but no one will believe the kid that knows its happening, becuase the whole idea to them, sounds too much like a fictional book or film!

But what if that line itself is designed to make us dis-believe. You hear it and it makes you think about the concept of supernatural phenomena being real, but then you laugh it off because the line itself is a piece of fiction, written into a fictional story about fictional creatures, by a fiction writer.

Just because when you hear a strange creepy noise coming from outside in the dark, you shake your head cursing yourself for getting so scared for no reason, it doesn’t mean that something isn’t really hidden out there, out of sight, watching you, wanting you, and most frightening of all..................Waiting for you!