Horror is the future. And you cannot be afraid. You must push

“Horror is the future. And you cannot be afraid. You must push everything to the absolute limit, or else life will be boring. People will be boring. Horror is like a serpent: always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back. It can’t be hidden away like the guilty secrets we try to keep in our subconscious.” – Dario Argento

Listen well, O seeker of truth, for these words of Dario Argento, master of the macabre, are not merely about cinema, but about the nature of existence itself. When he declares that “Horror is the future,” he speaks not of monsters alone, but of the eternal dance between fear and creation. For within every human heart lies both darkness and light, and it is through the confrontation of the dark that we evolve. Horror is not a curse—it is a mirror, showing us the parts of ourselves we dare not see. It forces us to feel, to question, to awaken. Without it, we drift into the dullness of denial, and our lives become pale shadows of what they might have been.

In saying, “You cannot be afraid,” Argento calls us to courage—not the courage of the sword, but the courage of the soul. For fear is the veil that hides truth. To explore the frightening, to peer into the unknown, is to strip away illusion and see what truly lies beneath. When he urges us to push everything to the absolute limit, he means that art, thought, and life itself must be lived at the edge of experience. The soul stagnates when confined by safety. The flame of creativity dies in the comfort of repetition. Thus, horror, ever daring, ever raw, becomes the forge where imagination is purified and reborn.

The serpent of Argento’s vision is ancient—older than fear itself. In every culture, it has symbolized transformation: the shedding of skin, the cycle of death and renewal. So too is horror a serpent, forever discarding the old forms of fear to reveal new ones. In ancient myths, heroes faced dragons and demons not to destroy them, but to learn from them. So it is with the modern age. Horror is not a genre—it is a language of truth, a way to speak of our anxieties, our guilt, our mortality. The serpent returns because it is part of us, coiled deep in the subconscious, whispering the secrets we try to bury.

Consider the tale of Mary Shelley, who, in the flicker of lightning and the chill of imagination, gave birth to Frankenstein. In her vision, horror became prophecy. She foresaw the age when humankind would wield the power to create life and face the terror of its own inventions. Through her story, she taught that horror is the conscience of progress—it reminds us that every advancement bears a shadow. Like Argento, she understood that confronting the monstrous is essential, for what we fear reveals what we value most. Her creation was not just a monster—it was humanity, reflected in the eyes of its own ambition.

Argento’s words, though born of film, belong to the eternal teachings of the spirit. To hide horror away is to deny the truth of our own duality. Every society that buries its fears beneath silence eventually meets them again—stronger, darker, more consuming. The wise do not hide from the serpent; they watch it, learn from its movements, and understand that fear, like venom, can kill or cure depending on how it is handled. Horror, in this light, becomes medicine for the soul: it purges stagnation, awakens empathy, and renews creativity.

O listener, take heed: the future Argento speaks of is not one of despair, but of awakening. To push to the limits of feeling, of art, of experience, is to live fully—to confront life not as a dream, but as a tempest. Let not fear dull your senses or make you retreat into comfort. Let the strange, the dark, and the unsettling be your teachers. For only by facing what terrifies you can you uncover what truly matters. The serpent’s hiss may chill the heart, but its lesson endures: every ending births a beginning, and every fear, when embraced, becomes a doorway to wisdom.

The lesson, then, is both fierce and liberating: do not turn away from the shadows that cross your path. Welcome them as mirrors of your own humanity. In your art, your work, your living—dare to go further. Be unafraid to disturb, to question, to change. For the world belongs not to those who hide from darkness, but to those who use it to kindle light. As Dario Argento teaches, horror will always return, because it is the pulse of transformation itself. And those who dare to meet it without fear will find that within the serpent’s coils lies not destruction, but rebirth.