What do you think makes horror scary?

[PhilSmith]

Admittedly my experience of horror stories is a bit limited: H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Chambers, Bram Stoker, Shelley and some of Robert Louis Stevenson's stuff (if Jekyll and Hyde can be considered horror). Since I've already dipped a toe into fantasy I figured I might as well try a genre that might be a bit closer to your hearts. What is it about horror that you like? What in particular do you think makes one story scary and another just macabre or grotesque but not actually chilling?

What do you think?

[Metatron]

Atmosphere, story line, and somewhat developed characters. For example, a hotel isn't a typical place that I would consider 'scary'...and yet cemetaries have been overdone to death to the point where it's a cliché to include them in a horror story. Making a story grotesque doesn't necessarily make it scary; there has to be something behind that. I like to be able to know what a character is thinking while another character has no idea...or vice versa.

[Nemesis]

sometimes the movie isnt scary at all, its just all the hyper surrounding it, like the exorcist apprently people scremed when the title came on, I mean a title's hardly going to eat you is it?

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

What makes a horror BOOK scary, though?

I mean, this is the Literature section.

o sorry i read the title wrong, tbh i dont find most books scary , it depends on the subject though

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

I wasn't trying to correct you! I think you bring up a good point... In movies, they can use atmosphere and mood music to freak you out. In a book, that's more difficult.

O sorry i thought you were, yer it takes a really good writer to write a book that makes you feel jumpy and stuff, like a movie can, and i havent come across one yet. Films are to hyped sometimes, like The shining i watched it expecting it to be really scary..I fell asleep half way through

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Logan Weller

definitely when the fiction you're reading could be reality. that's what scares me. also books about undercover government shit. it makes you think, and im already paranoid as fuck for many reasons.

hell your not one of those weridos that reckons everyone whos in power like the prime minister and that are all aliens and are going to take over the world and shit like that are you? (sorry i have to ask)

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

It's always interesting to have several theories about such things, even if some of them are so ludicrous you don't really believe them...

I like the one about the moon, that the first landing was a fake, that one is slightly believable, but all the alien ones i dont buy..but hey shit happens i guess

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

You think we're the only intelligent life ever? Or the most advanced intelligent life, even? I'm not saying it's likely that there are aliens that have visited our planet, but I suppose it's possible.

I have an open mind..im sure there is intelligent life apart from us out there, but i dont think we've found them or that they exsist on out planet

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

I didn't say you were closed-minded, I just stated that without full knowledge of the rest of the universe, I can't rule anything out.

I know you did say i was dont worry, and your right you can rule anything out because nobody knows much about it

[pitseleh]

Evil little kids creep me the fuck out. That's really the one thing I can point out, as far as specific characters go.

And the atmosphere of course has to be good. I like it best when there's a kind of tranquil everyday atmosphere where some things are a bit off, and then having the whole thing unravel on the poor people in the book. Like peeps mentioned, things that could theoretically happen to you. But by all means, bizarre supernatural and psychic phenomena and sea-dwelling gods could also feature.

I'm actually gonna watch an episode of Twin Peaks now. That's scary.

[Circle V]

Nothing that cannot be comprehended in some way is truly scary (though HP Lovecraft was quite successful at capturing our fear of the unknown and showing us our reflections in it.)

"Monsters" scare children and some adults because they remind us, on some level, of the literal predators that we once had to face as a species and of the metaphorical monsters that we face daily. Human monsters disturb adults because we see something of ourselves in them, and we know without doubt that they exist.

Essentially, if you can see yourself in a horror story, if you are able to read a page and say "That could happen to me tomorrow", it becomes frightening... I believe that the most effective horror stories are, at heart, entirely realistic. Good horror writers are able to make the fantastic seem familiar, and the very greatest are able to find horror in the mundane.

[DrenchedInGin]

I find subtlety more effective than extremity, especially in books. The tiny hints that something is wrong... the character who isn't behaving quite normally, the cold draught in a closed room, the odd coincidences. This is especially effective when the rest of the setting is quite normal, even comforting.

One horror story that scared me utterly was MR James' An Episode of Cathedral History. Although the reader is actually several steps removed from the action, and the language is simple and cosy, the part where a character sits on a broken tomb and stands up to discover a piece of her skirt has been torn off filled me with dread when I first read it.

Another short story that terrified me was 'The Entrance' by Gerald Durrell. Again, I think it was that sense of removal from the main action that brought it into sharp relief.

[emeraldlonewoulf]

Basically, a book becomes scary when it transports you beyond where you are comfortable. First, you must be able to immerse yourself in it. It has to draw you in enough so even if the environs are fantastic fantasy what happens is believable. Then, it forces you outside of where you feel safe within the story. It is something that stikes your most personal, innate fears. If you don't like hospitals, it might be a surgeon who doesn't prescribe enough anesthetic before surgery. If you don't like dogs, a kujo or hound of the baskervilles will scare you. If it is being dismembered or disembowelled, limbs filleted or ****, maybe stories of serial killers will do it. Horror is defined by what makes you uncomfortable, i.e., for most people, whatever they don't know about, or whatever they have had limited experience with that causes pain.

So, if you can draw on painful memories, combine that with the unexpected, and a lack of familiarity on the part of the reader , sprinkle it through with some socially deviant behavior, and you've got a good start.

[PhilSmith]

I suspect deconstruction's going to raise its ugly head at some point and I daresay already has. Still, I'm seeing a lot of valid points.

The problem with horror, I find, is that because it's pretty damn subjective and what scares one person might not necessarily scare another, there's some difficulty in communicating a feeling of terror. A book that accomplishes this shows rather than tells; but in order to do this well the reader has to be convinced to willingly suspend his or her disbelief.

Taking phobias and trying to boil them down to their most basic form -- putting the object of fear in a context that emphasises its most terrifying qualities is one way, but without an initial investment of emotion from the reader it's ultimately little more than a bit of grotesque art.

Subtlety is of course a useful tool in horror -- how many monsters and unpleasant influences did their work from the shadows? -- but again, it's just a useful too. Qithout the moment of connection between reader and scene, that reaction of fear, shock, revulsion might not be forthcoming. The scene might be stylish, certainly; enjoyable to read, perhaps, but not actually scary.

For such a universal phenomenon, fear's a tricky thing to universalise.

CircleV has put his finger on something, though. "Essentially, if you can see yourself in a horror story, if you are able to read a page and say "That could happen to me tomorrow", it becomes frightening..."

Close. Very close. Fear for oneself or potential fear for oneself is a pretty strong card to play, but it's not one that can be played that often. The only time I've seen it played successfully was in 1984. But there is another point one could extrapolate from that.

One's fears can be projected onto other characters; lately I think that's become all the more important. Get the reader interested in the people involved in the story, acquaint them with the things they do and say, the way they do and say them; make that all as real as possible, and you'll be halfway to provoking any reaction you like.

[Blushing Heliophobe]

I agree with kids being scary. Anything that is supposed to be innocent that isn't is very scary. Take Phantoms - when Patsy Cline is floating through the drains - even though that movie was not scary, it's a good example of what I'm talking about.

What really scares me are tales of the supernatural based on true stories.

When I was a kid, I found this old book full of 'true' ghost stories that had been 'verified' as true - you know, hauntings, spooks, and the like. I was forever scarred. Ever since, books and movies based on purportedly real supernatural occurances scare the hell out of me.

[ennui]

one word : clowns

(shudders)

[Wise Child]

When I was like twelve or something, I read this book, Endless Night by Richard Layman, about this group of guys who go around breaking into houses at night, killing people, ****** people, doing all sorts of fucked up stuff with the bodies etc. The guy's got a warped mind. Seriously. It was probably one of the first really twisted books I ever read, not least because it's not unimaginable that such a thing could really happen to anyone. I mean, you've only got to watch the news to know that there are people who actually do shit like that. My eyes were on stalks by the time I'd finished and I slept with my mum for three nights. I'd probably still be safely installed in her bed now, if she hadn't booted me out mumbling about "bloody kids".

[grimreaper993]

What I think makes a horror movie scary is all the subtle details that you think about and give you the creeps for hours later. Take Final Destination 3 for example, all sorts of things you don't see at first but when thought about, they scare you.

[Jacks Girl]

I think the fear you get out of reading a horror book depends mostly on how well it is written. If you can feel, see and imagine the same things that the protagonist/s do, then it makes the story seem almost alive, as if the evil in the book could reach out and grab you at any time. Ghost stories always seem to put me on edge, especially those that claim to be true. I mean, I know the majority of them are probably a load of rubbish, but there's always this nagging doubt in the back of my mind as to whether something like that could actually happen.

[Shi'ark]

Some times reading a book in a setting of place that you know well give all the atmosphere needed to get you so wrapped up, your to scared to put the book down. The Rats By James Herbert was the first horror novel that I read that was set in London. So it wasn’t just about an army of giant flesh eating, poisonous Rats where sucking the eyeballs out of people. It was about an army of giant flesh eating, poisonous Rats eating every one in the town that I lived, in the places that I know.
And to think hear as with every major city there are millions of the thing beneath are feet. You read this book and you really do think, what if?

[emeraldlonewoulf]

I think, in addition to my earlier post, that good writing can put you in the place of the characters, make you see their fears, and absorb them. So, even if you personally are not scared of dogs, if Susie in the book your reading is terrified of them, and a big, black rabid dog faces her in the story, you feel fear yourself. If the same thing were to happen in real life you might very well kick said mutt in the teeth, sending him flying into a nearby hedge. But, because the skill of the writer has put you in her place, you also become scared, for her. The threat, emotionally, becomes real for a little while.

I think fear plays against the protective instinct in people, either for ourselves or toward those who we perceive as weaker or vulnerable to the specific thing that threatens them. If that protective instinct isn't inspired, we don't feel fear. We must be led to perceive a threat, and it is all the more effective if we can be led to respond with a flight mechanism over fight. The writing has to be convincing enough that we think, along with Susie, that screaming and running would be more natural than making the mutts' teeth fly out. It becomes not our own natural reaction, but that of the character with which we are led to empathize.

[Godslayer Jillian]

I don't know how H.P. Lovecraft did it. When I read Lovecraft, I cannot leave the book just sitting there in the night. I have to cover it with something or hide it under something

[WolfMoon]

The monsters make it scary!

Geez, can't you people get anything right?

[Kirsti]

I think its the music. has anyone every played 'FEAR'? its a game for computer... it wouldnt be very scarey without the music... but the music gives me the creeps. same with horrors movies.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by WolfMoon

The monsters make it scary!

Geez, can't you people get anything right?

Well, that wouldn't explain The Silver Key or The Picture in the House which are my favorites