The Wire Appreciation No. 4677 (6433)

A better cultural observer than me could probably go on at length as to why mainstream horror -- films, fiction, that two-month-old, half-drunk carton of milk lamping at the back of your fridge next to the dead French babies -- doesn't work on lower-class urban dwellers as well as it does on their predominantly white, middle-to-upper-class counterparts; but why would you want to read an essay about that when you can see the obvious, what's right in front of your eyes, courtesy of The Wire?

Horror, at its most terrifyingly fictional or dreamlike level, benefits from a lack of reveal. Real-life horror, though, can only be experienced, seen, and it is the purest form of horror any man, woman, or child will ever know. Jaws is scary, so is Halloween. But if, God forbid, you ever find yourself in a broken elevator plunging down to your assured death, or in an airplane crashing into the ocean or earth or a, God forbid, building...If you find yourself held at gunpoint, a bullet a trigger pull away from your classification of being alive (Jack Daniels) or dead (formaldehyde)...If you are surrounded by flames, smoke, and your only survival instinct is to jump...

The Boogie Man only works in your imagination. The real Boogie Man is far more horrific, far more tragic.