It’s like being given a cake made of tofu; you may enjoy tofu, but if you bite into this, your immediate reaction is confused disgust—not because it’s bad tofu, but because it’s not what you thought it would be.
Ha! Yes, that's a perfect metaphor. Also, now I want cake.
This is a point you've noted repeatedly: that "it's horror, so it doesn't have a happy ending."
Please do not put paraphrases in quotes to make it look like I said something I didn't. I said, "I'd been asked to write for a horror magazine so a happy resolution or justice wasn't an option" and "The expectations of a horror audience dictate certain choices in storytelling, that would make them equally dissatisfied if, for instance, the story had a happy-ending."
The distinction is that your "quote" makes it look like I am saying that horror can
never have a happy ending, as opposed to talking about audience expectations of my story in specific. I can see how it is possible to misinterpret that, but still, don't put words in my mouth.
I'm a little puzzled by this in that there are a lot of stories out there commonly categorized as horror which have happy endings. The Exorcist, for example, ends with Regan free of the Daemon, Amityville Horror with the family escaping, and the typical slasher film ends with the "final girl" triumphing over whichever supernatural or deformed monster did in her friends. I'm tempted to say that more horror stories have an at least partially "happy" ending than don't, but that would require a larger survey of the field than I could do easily. Do you not consider these horror stories?
I understand why you are asking, but my answer is complicated by the fact that you are listing films rather than horror short stories. Structurally, they do have different audience expectations.
The Amityville Horror for instance, is purported to be based on a true story. Slasher films are their own distinct genre.
The Exorcist is often classified as supernatural suspense, but I think it's horror. I'd argue with you about the happy ending though, but it depends on if we're talking about the film or the novel. Film audiences demand happy endings as a general rule and the film certainly feels like it has a happy ending.. The novel, on the other hand, does not. Yes, Regan is freed from the demonic possession, but both main characters die in the process of freeing her.
That said, the defining factor of horror is that it provokes a strong negative emotion, usually dread, revulsion, or fear.
Most though not all horror stories call for a tragic ending, or a price paid. Joe Hill's novel
Heart-Shaped Box is a good example of a happy ending that comes with a price. Even those that allow the hero to triumph, usually carry the threat that the evil will rise again. However, novels and short fiction tend to be different in regard to the ending.
If you grab the latest
Year's Best Horror, you'll note that the tendency in short fiction is to end either at the failure point or with the threat of recurring evil. One of the differences between long form and short form fiction, across genres, is in the dismount. In short fiction, one
tends to stick the landing at a point of strong emotional impact and cut, whereas in long form, the audience needs a transition to ease them out of the novel.
Technically, my story actually uses the happy ending followed by recurrence of threat. Grete's goal was to find her boyfriend and, once she realized his likely situation, release him from his misery. She succeeds in that, though she pays a price. The last line, structurally, is the threat of recurring evil.
Given the length requirements, and the market that I was writing for, a full happy ending would have been unjustified for this particular story. Novel form... yeah, I probably would have tried to pull off the happy ending epilog. But novels and films are
not the same medium as short fiction.