Naomi Westerman

This is why I did it: to defeat death by demystifying the demons of death; to find out more about how different people cope with death; and make an argument for more open conversation around death, bereavement and grief, to break taboos.

Will knowledge of how we live be lost to future generations through the rise in cremation, the flames devouring history alongside flesh?

Every man dies twice, the first when is his body dies, the second is the last time someone says his name.’ We’ve been trying to find whatever way we can to deny this second death since we first evolved consciousness. Whatever we say about death and death acceptance, we can come to accept that our loved ones are dead, but we can’t accept that they are gone. Grief is psychic void space.

We use our stones, our carved marbles, our flowers, to fill the empty space that is grief

Forget the seven stages of grief, there are really two: active and passive. Acute and accepting.

The longest-lasting material is bone, not stone. Humans are frail, human bodies are frail, yet we have eternity within us

The Paris Catacombs are a popular tourist attraction containing the bones of more than six million people, underground tunnels made from walls of skulls. Sedlec Ossuary in Czechia boasts a chandelier containing one of every bone in the human body, garlanded with strings of skulls. The Hallstatt Charnel House in Austria contains the largest skull collection in the world, embellished with painted flowers, leaves, religious imagery, and
names. I’m equally touched and weirded out by their attempts to make death pretty.

What’s the message here (other than to always wear a seatbelt)? Maybe it’s that grief unsettles us – we see it take hold of people and lead them to do horrifying things or break them down completely. Grief has an intense, visceral power that pushes people past their limits, and our own lack of comfort with it is channelled into horror films

These films seek to answer the question best articulated by the poet Anne Carson. ‘Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.’

Anecdotally, all my horror-loving female friends have experienced some major loss or trauma. Is that significant, or it is simply that everyone has suffered loss and trauma? Are we drawn to horror as a way of processing those intense feelings safely? Perhaps. Perhaps it’s simply escapist to know that even if you feel that grief has shaken your world, you are still safe in your home, serial killers aren’t out to get you, zombies aren’t tearing down the doors. That things can get worse.