Be Scared of Peter Counter

Peter B. Counter is a media and technology writer based in K’jipuktuk/Halifax. He writes for his website everythingisscary.com and published Be Scared of Everything in 2020 with Invisible Publishing. His book, like so much of the horror we love, was a light in the dark for me when I discovered it. Peter was kind, thoughtful, and generous for the entire hour we talked, but the transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. 

C: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

P: Well, my name is Peter Counter. I’m a media, entertainment, and technology critic, internet writer-blogger-type person. In a previous life, I was a playwright. So, I’m the author of Be Scared of Everything which is a collection of 29 essays on horror. It’s available through an amazing independent Canadian publisher, Invisible Publishing. The book itself combines media criticism and narrative memoir and explores the horrific, the macabre, and the pessimistic. It contains essays about Ouija, the devil, sleep paralysis, H.P. Lovecraft, Metallica, Frasier. My cat died while I was writing it and so I wrote an essay about that. One about blood, cannibalism, sharks; the list goes on and on. But, yeah, in general, it’s about trying to use media criticism and my own life experiences to sort of explore that border between life and its absence. And I’d like to also point out for anyone reading this and is like “oh, heavy,” I think it’s kind of funny sometimes, too. 

C: Yeah, thank you for that. It’s true, it’s a phenomenal collection. So, first off, in your first essay “Interviews With My Family Ouija Board”—first of all, you have a family Ouija board. Is that it, in the background?

P: That’s it, that’s it right there. It’s load-bearing for my Christmas lights. It’s from the ’60s, and the Copywrite is on the board. Yeah, I found this in my Oma’s attic. 

C: That’s so amazing. So, I don’t believe in ghosts or demons or most of that stuff, and uh… I still would never play Ouija board, I’d be too afraid. How do you feel about that sort of tension in horror?

P: Well, I kind of like live in the tension of it, that’s just where I like to be. I grew up very religious, I went to Catholic school; when I was a very young child I wanted to be a priest and so I did have a very strong sense of the supernatural and paranormal because Catholicism in addition to, you know, being Christian, is also like a very spooky religion and so it’ll have allowance for all of that which I think was part of the draw for me. And I was like well, you know, it’s a form of self-love not to be too embarrassed about what you used to believe. 

And I kind of came to the conclusion—explored a bit later in the book, in the essay “Wallpaper”—speaking right now how I feel about Ouija, I really do feel like it’s probably an ideomotor response. But when I’m actually doing it, it doesn’t really matter because it’s a way of self-knowing and I’m just less confident in our ability as humans to truly definitely know certain things. So, I’m sceptical of sure-thing responses on both sides of the equation. Do I believe in ghosts? No. If I were to experience a specter in real life, and there are some anecdotes in the book as well about something like that, I would sort of try to search for an explanation, but I wouldn’t completely doubt my senses, I suppose. There are some people who you’ll talk to who are like, oh I don’t want ghosts to exist, I don’t want that stuff. I’m on the other side of the coin where I don’t believe in ghosts, but I wish that they existed, and so when I see the opportunity to sort of LARP their existence, for lack of a better word, I jump right in, like yes. Because what if they do? 

C: What if they’re real?

P: Exactly! What if? What if? Yeah, I’m pretty pessimistic in terms of human’s ability to understand reality, so I’m just open at this point. 

C: You’ve been through some pretty significant trauma and you talk about it in your book. In your essay “The Shattered Teacup” there’s a bit where you say “When you’re traumatized, everything normal seems like a deception. The moment of violence that causes trauma is unpleasant, but in my experience, the worst agony comes during the aftermath… After trauma, safety looks like a cheap illusion, and people who feel safe appear naïve for not having also realized that catastrophe can visit at any moment.” (p. 59) Can you talk a bit about the relationship between horror and trauma, whether one readies you for the other or affects the other? 

P: Well, thank you for the question, it’s very thoughtful. In terms of horror and my personal trauma… One of the things I was trying to talk about in that essay specifically with Hannibal is sort of the anti-police-procedural where it was like… A police procedural is authority porn and Hannibal is like, there is no authority but chaos, and this weird demiurge-cannibal is as close as there is to a god. So essentially, horror narratives better describe my own experience, you know? It’s natural to see yourself as the main character of your own story but when you go through trauma and you come to the “border of order,” (I always hate saying this because it rhymes), then you have to come back and you realize that it’s all affectation, it’s all a weird social contract and there’s nothing really there, but that’s not reflected in your superhero movies, your police procedurals, your romantic comedies unless they are hyphenated with horror. 

Horror has, instead of that beginning-middle-end structure that you’re taught in English class, it sort of has a different arc. Which is, I would say, really well reflected in Jeff Vandermeer’s Area X: Southern Reach Trilogy; I would even use the titles of his books to describe it. It starts with Annihilation. It shows you that life is fleeting, that destruction happens and that there is an abyss. And, usually, if you’re reading or watching a movie or playing a game you’ll see a lot of annihilation in the beginning—not necessarily of the main character, but you will see annihilation. Then, the second act, people try to control it, right? They’re trying to be like, no no no, I’m going to impose Authority onto this situation because I believe in a beginning, middle, and end. And then, that last act, where you normally have an end is actually an Acceptance that you’re sort of decentralized, you must accept that annihilation will happen. And that that is the end, which is not your traditional end. So, I would say that’s the traumatic experience for me.

​For your readers, what happened was—god, it’s a long story, but very much abridged—I was on a cruise vacation with my family over Christmas. Two days after Christmas my dad and I were walking in Costa Rica, he got shot in the chest and I had to carry his body to safety. He survived, we were stuck on the ship for a little while, and then went home. I was thinking of my life in that beginning-middle-end structure. I was also at theater school, where they tell you that when you’re in this scene or you’re in a play the reason that this is a story that we’re all seeing is because it’s the most important story that’ll ever happen to you in your life. I was nineteen years old and I thought well, my story just hit the climax. I’m in the denouement. Things are closing out. I’m living in the epilogue. Now, that’s a really dangerous place for me mentally. But then, to bring it back to horror, if you look at some really great Lovecraft stories, a lot of them are actually told from the perspective of having survived something horrible, and the narrator is trying to tell you like, I’m not crazy, I woke up in a weird drained sea and saw a giant fish guy, you’ve got to, believe me, you’ve got to believe me I’m not crazy, and then goes crazy on the page. 

I think it’s also important to acknowledge that a lot of people do enjoy horror without trauma. It’s for everybody! And they all have different ways to see it sometimes. People can think it’s fun, or funny, or thrilling, or they love the practical effect, or whatever. So there is that. 

I will say that, beyond that traumatic representation of that narrative, horror does just have a general function of providing you safe space for dark thoughts… to explore the annihilation of a person without having to be annihilated. It gets you closer to those existential borders, it gives you a surrogate person to sacrifice, someone to empathize with. 

C: Is there anything coming down the pipeline, either through Everything Is Scary, or forthcoming publications or projects? I’m waiting with bated breath. You mention in your acknowledgements that Be Scared of Everything wasn’t your idea. Anyone being a bad influence now?

P: Yeah, that admission goes out to my wonderful editor Andrew Faulkner. I was already working on something when that came in, but it was a wonderful gift because my dream has always been to write an essay collection. When I was seventeen, my brother’s girlfriend left a copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman on the coffee table and I read it and I was like ‘I didn’t know you just make a book with ideas about the things you like?!’ I was like, what? And so, I’ve always wanted that, but I’ve never really had the confidence to be able to get started, so I thank Andrew Faulkner every day, in my heart at least, for giving me that opportunity. 

But yes, to answer your actual question, right now I’m working on an essay that is set to be published in September, where I’m writing about the apocalypse. That’s an actual essay, not a blog post like on Everything Is Scary, which also has reviews. I’m writing about the new Resident Evil game for Everything Is Scary but like all passion projects, it’s a practiced discipline. Really aiming for that Kafka Award when I’m all done. 

In terms of essay collections, I am working on a new essay collection that I can’t talk too much about because I don’t want to jinx it or anything but, it is… yeah, it will have some horror essays in it, there’s a little bit more expansion but it’s still in the memoir/criticism vein. And I can’t say how long that will be; it’s still in the very, very early stages but this is hopefully not a one-off. 

C: Where could readers find more of your stuff? What do you recommend from other creators? And, uh, any last words?

P: Sure, well, for anybody who wants to read my writing, there’s of course Be Scared of Everything. If you’ve read that and you want to read more—first of all thank you very much, it’s very flattering—I have an essay about my experience leaving the Catholic church. It’s also about PTSD and angels and karate. It’s called “St. Tornado Kick” and it’s in the collection Empty The Pews, for anybody who’s interested. It’s edited by Lauren O’Neal and Dr. Chrissy Stroop. That also has some other amazing essays, including by another horror writer, Carmen Maria Machado. 

If you’ve read In The Dream House by her, that’s great too. You’ve got to read her memoir In The Dream House, absolutely amazing. Also, if you like horror and horror short stories and speculative fiction, Her Body and Other Parties. 

The works of Junji Ito, he’s my absolute favorite. Take a look at Ito’s Cat Diary for those who like horror nonfiction, or Uzumaki if people are new to his work. That’s currently being adapted for a film. Read it first, it’s going to be amazing. Cat Diary, though is nonfiction and I think it’s a really fascinating blend of horror and nonfiction. And then my friend David Demchuk’s novel Red X, which is about people disappearing in Toronto’s gay village is coming out this month so, preorder that. David is an amazing horror writer. His first book, Bone Mother, is also worth checking out but, yeah, Red X is coming out and is my most anticipated of the year. That would be the rec’s.

C: Peter this was really fantastic, I’m super grateful.

P: Yeah it was fun, and thank you, too!

Peter’s book Be Scared of Everything can be found at your favorite book retailer, independent bookshop, or online.