For Quackcast 101 we're doung horror because halloween is coming up!
So what we wanna know iiiis:
-Your Favorite horror stories/movies/books/comics
- What do you find scary?
- If you write/draw horror, how do you go
about it?
- What makes good horror that works in your opinion? What
screws it up?"
You can answer one or all of those, whatever you chose! Write it here or email a recording to me at ozoneocean at yahoo dot com.
Please, no later than the 26!!!!!!!!!!!
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
QUACKCAST 101 - needs your contribution! Subject: Horror halloweeeeeeen!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dolls, Dolls scare me. With there dead empty eyes that just stare at you and the way people play with them, like a mother trying to will a still-born to life! GERAAAAAA!!!!
As any one how has this misplesure of haveing to talk to me for any length of time knows, horror is my favourite genre! Flims, books, Games, comics I love the horror genre in all its forms! One of my favourite writen horror storys is H. P. lovecraft's The colour out of space, it has an amazing atmosphere to the story! For movies it'd be the orignial japnese Ringu, witch I feel has this wonderfull relistic way of showing the supernatural turing someones life into hell! For what makes horror work I'd guess the key thing is making the adunce beleve in the world these storys are set in, If you don't think there is any way that some guy can kill you in your dreams why would be scared if it happens to Jhonny Deep? That or dolls! Dolls are F*&king scary!
I don't watch or read horror. I don't find it scary. I find it anything in the range of boring to disgusting. And paranormal stuff makes me roll my eyes and facepalm.
I have one real life fear. It would never scare me in fiction, though. I have a very high anxiety level with electricity – especially lightling. I have recurring dreams about sentient thunderstorms trying to kill me. My job involves being outdoors a lot, so I constantly check weather forecasts. I also lead canoe tours, and clouds on a canoe day make my very nervous.
A lightning storm in a movie is just atmosphere, and I don't believe anyone has written about homicidal sentient thunderstorms. MAYBE a particularly good writer could give me a scare with a story like that, but it's doubtful.
Actually, a lot of things scare me in real life that aren't scary in movies, like city streets after dark, being alone with a stranger, riding in cars (yes, cars, dangerous things). Damn my overdeveloped ability to separate fantasy from reality!
(I also fear people who want to collect lists of my fears…)
Yahtzee's Amnesia review sums up a good example of horror, in his case horror games but the same principles apply to other mediums.
So there is basically three types of horror, the first one is kinda like a Stephen King novel. We're intruduced to the setning the characters AND THEN EVIL COMES! Pretty predictable but it kinda jumps but you aren't really affraid of it, kinda like the flash based game were you navigate through a mace only to be greeted by a flashy scary face and noise at the end.
Type two would be like the Amnesia game. You know that there is a monster, big scary ugly one and it's probably behind you but it doesn't show itself. So you start to panic, your mind takes over and you become more and more paranoid. Than it shows itself, kills you (in game at least) but you only catch glimpses of it so you are never really sure. This type is actually pretty hard to recreate in other mediums, escpecially in a comic form.
Type three is your avarage B slasher flick. It is fun on in it's own right but it's not really scary.
Oh, I forgot a fear. One that does scare me in any ficticious medium. Swarms. Especially ants, but any swarm will do. I blame nature documentaries in addition to an episode of MacGyver that scared the bejeezus out of me. I didn't realize I was afraid of that stuff until I saw it. Scary stuff. Gives me the creeps. Basically swarms of most insects or worms (but not spiders or crabs or, well, butterflies). Swarms of hummingbirds can be pretty scary too… *Shudders* I never did watch The Birds. I read a short story that inspired it. That was pretty scary. Not *A* bird, but a swarm… Terrifying.
I scare easy in horror movies and paranormal stuff. I'm not a fan. Nope.
I prefer mysterious, spooky, atmospheric, non-obvious scary stuff, because mystery is intriguing and engages your mind - not just scaring you with the vicarious fear of death or injury.
So fear of the unknown is my thing. I love that! This is why I loved and hated Dr Who when I was little - loved because of all the scary mystery (mystical space spiders, glowing gems with mind affecting powers etc), hated because of the death and the killing…
Love these posts so far! Greatly looking forward to this, since I love being scared by fiction (though being scared in real life is not fun at all).
UB, your fears ring true to me, too…swarms are scary (I would include crabs, spiders, and anything else). A swarm of ANYTHING is pretty time horrifying. Even butterflies. Imagine waking up and your walls, ceiling and floor is CAKED with butterflies.
Freakin' creepy.
Call Me Tom, dolls still scare me. I had recurring nightmares about them as a child. Granted, the dolls in my dreams were 8 foot tall monters, with horrific clown smiles on them…but it's the blank, ceramic faces that are really scary. Something about that blankness, that almost-human-but-not-quite
…right, that "Uncanny Valley" principle at work.
Agreed with ozone that the fear of the unknown…the dark if you will, is the essence of fear.
The idea that there's something out there in the dark that's going to get you.
To me, the "When a Stranger Calls" (1979) and "When a Stranger Calls Back" (1993) movies are PERFECT horror. I would even give the edge to the almost-unknown sequel actually.
…and only the first 20-25 minutes.
check it if you're alone in the dark and want to be horrified…
(just the first 25 minutes, though…hahaha. Perfection didn't last the entire film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qv6fbUc9AU
It's all about tension.
The neat thing is that blood and guts, stabbing and killing, is not really SCARY. CGI ghosts and latex rubber goblins are not scary in and of themselves.
It's the BUILDUP that matters.
In that clip, when the threat finally reveals himself, it almost doesn't MATTER what it is…it's so scary in the buildup, that ANYTHING will give you that rush, that release of tension…
Even more scary than "there's something out there", I guess, is "there's something IN here with me". In the house…in the room…
…or In one's own body (see "The Exorcist" for the ultimate example, of course).
When a Stranger Calls sounds like the old urban legend The Babysitter.
Call Me Tom wrote:The snopes entry says the movie is based on the urban legend and it's no secret. Practically every urban legend has been filmed or been a part of a film at one point or another. The whole secret is trying to figure out which came first. Snopes traces the adolecent tale to the 1960's when there were a spate of B-horror films about mystrious callers. Hitchcock and his copiers used mysterious callers going back into the 1930s but the teen angle came from the 1950-1960's teen media and teen movie.
When a Stranger Calls sounds like the old urban legend The Babysitter.
I know too much about the paranormal to face palm, I can just go through all the explanations and debunking and leave it at that. If it were really true it could be scary because the great fears boil down to loss of control. That killer in your dreams takes control of something ou thought was all yours; your dreams. It's the difference between the night terror and the lucid dream. Freddie is there hunting you down and killing you until you realize it is a dream and you have total control over it to the point of giving yourself super powers that squish Freddie like a bug, but what price victory? (plot for a half dozen movies there)
My favorite horror are the stories that have happened, the most recent example being Below. It truly and horrifically evoked the nightmare world of the World War II submariner. I had read enough to know everything and had toured three diesel-electric submarines including a real WWII U-Boat. There's no hatch you can throw open to get a whiff of fresh air like on a tank. Das Boot was terrifying.
Then there's nature goen amok. A large gizzily has terrified communities. A giant shark did shut down the Jersey shore. "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury from the Illustrated Man Imagine creating a virtual reality so real it'll kill those you don't like. Removing the buffers from the Holodeck. It has to be real adn how real is real?
That segues into the psychological horror of Poe and Lovecraft et. al. I love a good telling of a Poe story especially the Roger Corman classics. Lovecraft still has yet to be given a good screen intrepretation even Corman amde one of his weaker efforts with the strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward but I'll always fondly remember From Beyond and Reanimator.
Inexorable, unstoppable, beyond understanding and any kind of control. That is horror. Cue manical laughter.
I just recalled something - The most terrifying thing you can expereince, generally, is lucid dreaming.
Aside from bad drug trips or fever dreams, that's the closest you can get to those really awful, horrible spooky, creepy horror movies (not the blood and guts kind).
Funnily enough, blood and guts horror for me is exactly the same as realistic military movie blood and guts, or realistic blood and guts in any movie… or even real blood and guts in medical or war documentaries: not essentially scary, just horribly gross and in no way fun.
But that's just me,
Something people have said: Loss of control.
In videogames you have that when your formally invincible player character is suddenly devoid of any weapons or defence and in an unfamiliar area, where you're jumping at sounds and watching behind every corner.
Interesting stuff about the loss of control…that's what I find effective about the Lovecraft stuff…the idea that there's a paperthin barrier separating our world from…the OTHER. And the other is completely incomprehensible and mind-boggingly powerful. To see it is to go insane, and it can destroy every last one of us without even a thought.
Those Lovecraft stories have kept me awake some nights, agreed!
The fascination with ghosts is maybe…a way of facing our own mortality. That ultimate unknown.
The fantastical or fictional horrors are a pressure release valve on those real life fears and anxieties.
Bravo, your outline of the submarine-horror gave me chills. To be trapped, deep, deep underwater, in a submarine…scary stuff, and the REALITY of that situation is maybe extra scary.
(that sense of claustrophobia is powerful stuff in many a scary story or scene…remember Bilbo in the caves with that voice in the dark? Or Tommy in the Shining, in the tunnels with…something…and The Descent (the movie)…well, all these add supernatural horrors to the claustrophobia, but still…the claustrophobia is enough to creep one out, eh?
-Your Favorite horror stories/movies/books/comics
I liked Stephen King's short horror stories, the early ones in his first two collected novels. (The later ones were all bad.) A lot of them dealt with personal madness (when you can't tell reality from otherwise), the scary underbelly of the universe creeping into reality (possessions, etc) or or being so deep in a situation and basically helpless you're without options (both supernatural and otherwise). So many great stories that scared me- The Mist, the one with the ooze monster under the raft, the one with the finger coming out of the drain, the one with the teleportation as a travel method and the kid stays awake! The doctor on an island who has to amputate himself, the one about the water additive making everyone crazy…
Same thing for my favorite movies, but in those cases it also has to get the visuals and stuff right as well. And gory stuff just ruins it for me. I really like Devil's Backbone and The Orphanage, for example. In my opinion it's harder to find a good horror movie than it is to find a good scary story- maybe because stories leave more to the imagination. I do want to share that I saw Looper the other day, and although it's a sci-fi movie there's a part near the beginning which was really horrifying and scared me. People who have seen the movie probably know what it is!
- What do you find scary?
I prefer psychological horror, which is about the tension and mystery. I think those are more probably "thrillers." Once you've seen or know too much the scariness is gone. Also, I've never been scared by video games (except for some surprise-scares which don't really count). It's because I have the element of control there. I can choose what my character does or if I want to turn it off or whatever. I can appreciate a good horror game but I won't be scared by it.
Oz- are you sure you didn't mean sleep paralysis? I'd never heard that lucid dreaming was scary, in fact I think you can learn to do that and it's used as a type of therapy sometimes. However I used to get sleep paralysis a lot and it can be pretty terrifying.
Oh dear Lord - I fear getting sleep paralysis. It sounds terrifying. Did you get the hallucinations along with it?
The disorder was once called "Old Hag" apparently (creepy name for a condition; even Old creepy Hags found it creepy!); people will hallucinate either an old woman sitting on their chests, or (even more scary, maybe) will hallucinate someone in the room with them, just out of their sight.
…and of course, they are unable to move. Freakin' terrifying.
'Parently a person's muscles shut down during sleep "to prevent acting out their dreams"…or so I've read. Not sure of the veracity of that. Anyway, sleep paralysis happens when you wake up but the muscles don't come back online, right?
Yeeks!
Ok the basics:
-Your Favorite horror stories/movies/books/comics
I don't really have a favourite, so to speak, since I don't like horror for horror but I do have three stories that I really appreciate and would call them favourites:
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart"
The movie "The Others" with Nicole Kidman
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (which is not considered horror but try reading it and feeling the spiralling into insanity as that yellow wallpaper is slowly coming to life and we'll talk. XD)
- What do you find scary?
I'm not sure. I guess it depends on context.
I do have this one image though that always chills me- it's pretty simple. I plunge down into an abyss, and I look at the surface of the water as I sink, as it is getting further and further away from me, and the air I can breathe with it, and I just sink and sink and never reach even the bottom.
That is frightening to me and it translates pretty much to my fear/revulsion/non-choice of living without air- without freedom.
I would literally rather die if I can't be free and everyone else along with me, too.
- If you write/draw horror, how do you go about it?
Does Without Moonlight count as horror? Heh heh.
I very rarely write horror but when I do I play with the basic primal fears that are always there, brooding, in the depths of our souls. I also never coat it in gore. Horror doesn't need gore to be horrific. All you need is the right words, and a Mona Lisa smile.
- What makes good horror that works in your opinion? What screws it up?"
I am not sure what makes good horror… but I can say what screws it up: Gratuitous bloodshed and cheap thrills, like having someone pop from the corner of the screen while the music screeches. That's not horror, that's just frat house pranking. ;)
-Your Favorite horror stories/movies/books/comics
There was this fantasy book I read as a kid, called "Spiegelzeit" (it seems to be available in English under its literally translated title, "mirror time"), in which mirrors were something like portals to some dark, unknown realm. It really scared me of looking into mirrors for a while. It probably wasn't a very good book (I don't really remember), but it very effectively scared me. Horror movies, which mostly operate with sudden shocks or gore, usually don't scare me at all. A well built-up unsettling atmosphere, or psychological horror, will work much better for me - like some of David Lynch's movies (Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive), the first Alien, or the first season of Christ Carter's Millennium TV series. Creature horror only really works for me to the degree that it distorts familiar organic shapes, evoking images of the dissolution of bodies. The imagery of opened up bodies is naturally horrifying, and there's this sort of organic creature horror which reflects that, I think (such as in many of Cronenberg's movies, perhaps most effectively in The Fly, or Carpenter's The Thing).
- What do you find scary?
The concept of death seems entirely unfathomable to me, and therefore, the most scary, in principle.
- If you write/draw horror, how do you go about it?
You can probably extrapolate it from my previous answers: I try to create an unsettling atmosphere, where unsettling things happen over a longer period of time. On top of that, I try exploring unsettling psychological issues, which mostly have to do with the concept of identity and its dissolution. And I'm combining that with a bit of weird organic shapes (I'm really talking about Holon here, which has horror aspects).
- What makes good horror that works in your opinion? What screws it up?
I think it's as skoolmunkee said: Not knowing is crucial. We create control (or the illusion of it) through knowledge, and once that knowledge breaks down, once it's conceivable that our knowledge is essentially and crucially incomplete, whether it's knowledge about yourself or others (psychological horror) or about the world (such as the realm in the mirrors in Spiegelzeit), that creates existential horror. In the same vein, supplying crucial info about the threat in a horror story could ruin its potential for scariness.
Blood and guts horror:
I remember from talking to PitFace on this subject-
You can't deny that there's a whole massive swathe of "horror" media that has the blood, guts and gore theme. It's a genuine style and a lot of people really enjoy it. I don't think they like it for the vicarious fear of injury, I think what appeals is the tabooness and a view of a world where people being inside out is normal… It's that natural fascination you have for picking at scabs or probing wounds brought to a whole new level.
I won't go into that further because it's just speculation, but it'd be good to have someone to put this side of the horror genre.
Favorite Horror Books/TV Shows
The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series (1981-1991) by Alvin Schwartz. The stories themselves had a lot of build up, but because they were for children, they always ended on a lighthearted note. However, the pages were lined with these horribly chilling illustrations by Stephen Gammell that still give me the creeps.
I am happy Bravo1102 had mentioned Ray Bradbury as he was an author that lived and breathed the Halloween spirit. His book The October Country celebrated autumn and each story is so artfully crafted in its own unique genre that I spent many nights sleeping with the lights on because his writings haunted me to the core.
My favorite "horror" TV show at the moment has to go to The Haunted Collector where a man and his family claim to be expert ghost hunters and travel to these old colonial homes across the United States to tell the owners that some of their antiques are cursed. Long story short, they end up walking away with pretty expensive items free of charge in exchange for reduced paranormal activity in their client's homes.
What I Find Scary
I am still afraid of the dark, as shameful as it is to admit. When I was younger, I always imagined a silhouette of a human figure standing outside my doorway so I could never sleep with the door wide open. I also can not stand walking through unlit hallways in the middle of the night alone. I am not fond of mirrors (especially when they are cracked) because they are supposed to reflect ghosts at night or contain bad energy. When I lived in a 1920s apartment, a former resident stopped by and tried to give me an old mirror that supposedly belonged in the unit before I moved in. I graciously declined. 3:00 AM is known as the "Witching Hour" or "The Devil's Hour" so it is when spirits are most active, it is also a time that I am wide awake so I always have my guard up. I find basements to be one of the most terrifying locations of the home especially if there is a long decending stairwell leading into them. Lastly, white noise tends to catch me off guard as well as those static channels on television screens.
What Makes Good Horror?
Suspense: Room 1408 starring John Cusack was successful because a radio would begin to play The Carpenter's "We've Only Just Begun" song before the hauntings would start. It got to the point that I would cover my eyes as soon as I would hear the song.
Creepy Children in Burlap Sack Masks: The character Tomas from J.A. Bayona's The Orphanage fits this description, completely.
What Screws Up Horror?
Gratuitous Nudity: This might be a positive for some, but honestly, I tried watching a few of the Friday the 13th movies and there are scenes where people (mostly female) were taking off their shirts for no apparent reason before Jason Voorhees found them. In the same vein, I never understood the reason for the bathtub scene in The Shining.
First Person POV: Blair Witch Project/Cloverfield/Paranormal Activity all had this home movie feel to them.
Fake Ghost Hunter Technology: Ghost hunting has become all the rage on television and there are quite a number of programs that show the main characters using these radio transmitters and mp3 player looking devices to communicate with ghosts.
ozoneocean wrote:Hmm, rather than horror, wouldn't we call that category 'splatter'?
Blood and guts horror:
I remember from talking to PitFace on this subject-
You can't deny that there's a whole massive swathe of "horror" media that has the blood, guts and gore theme. It's a genuine style and a lot of people really enjoy it. I don't think they like it for the vicarious fear of injury, I think what appeals is the tabooness and a view of a world where people being inside out is normal… It's that natural fascination you have for picking at scabs or probing wounds brought to a whole new level.
I won't go into that further because it's just speculation, but it'd be good to have someone to put this side of the horror genre.
i think splatter can still be horror. it's just hard to call it that sometimes because it can be so lame, like when you make tons of cheap knock offs of a splatter flick that actually did well.
There are some great examples of how splatter can be horrifying though i think. i still find it hard to sit still and watch that part in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" when Sally gets hit in the head with the hammer during the scene with the family at the dinner table. or that creepy part from "Night of the Living Dead" where the little zombie girl stabs her mother to death with the trowel.
those are scenes that have really bothered people. you think about them after you see them and it makes you uncomfortable and you cant help but curl into a ball a little bit on your couch, as if the battering was so intense it hit YOU in some way. THAT is good horror.
Well said Pit-Face!
I think the reason that is good horror is because it still banks on visceral psychological fears rather than just gratuitous violence and/or bloodshed. It goes without say that splatter CAN be horror if it taps on things that humans are built to be frightened of rather than just really bloody prank attacks. I have found myself laughing at horrible situations that were trying to scare me, exactly because of the ludicrous manner of approach.
Tantz Aerine wrote:Well said Pit-Face!
I think the reason that is good horror is because it still banks on visceral psychological fears rather than just gratuitous violence and/or bloodshed. It goes without say that splatter CAN be horror if it taps on things that humans are built to be frightened of rather than just really bloody prank attacks. I have found myself laughing at horrible situations that were trying to scare me, exactly because of the ludicrous manner of approach.
Like when everyone contains about 50 gallons of blood? Or when body parts come off like people are just organ piñatas? XD
and that's just it. but i dont think it goes without saying because i've seen it generalized alot of times that "gorey horror just cant be scary" and while agree that it does take a little extra magic to get someone actually afraid, there are certainly enough flicks out there that can prove it wrong.
having said that though, there are some ridiculous movies out there like "Dead Alive" that will always have a place in my heart.
<3
Haha…you know, that's true. Very well said, you all.
I can't say that I don't find Return of the Living Dead QUITE scary in parts.
The scene in the basement creates such powerful dread (before the tarman zombie shows up)…but then it actually DELIVERS with a really freaky looking monster.
All gooey and gross, that movie is awesome (and wouldn't be nearly as effective without showing us the goods).
And "ReAnimator" is all kinds of awesome, and it shows some freaky images and ideas.
It wouldn't be the movie it is without that crazy stuff.
Not every story should be about the unseen. That would suck.
Very good point…it's all about how it's done.
Or maybe it's about tension and release…the "release" of actually seeing the monsters, blood and mayhem is what makes those stories (ok, I'm mostly thinking movies) so thrilling and fun.
Horror fiction by its very nature is gratuitous. Period. Going overboard in certain scenes is actually comforting for me so I'm not totally revulsed. Of all the splatter movies I ever saw only Renaimator ever got me to stop shoveling the chips into my face because it was that disturbing. I got over it as now I can identify most body parts as from a butcher or prosthesis.
I love the women undressing because that is an old horror trope going back forever. The victim is comfy enough to undress before the whatever gets her whether it's a guy in a gurilla suit, a bug eyed zombie, vampire or slasher. It's a classic. Though it would be nice if there was a heroine who took off her shirt who actually survived the movie. I know there are, but it just seems that way with the whole Madonna/whore thing going on. Whore undresses and must die and the Madonna is pure, remains dressed and survives. One Japanese horror flick turned this over with the survivor heroine immediately shedding her shirt in the sequel and prompty getting killed and the new heroine quite improbably remaining covered throughout.
It's really hard to do realistic splatter and real blood effects as fake blood doesn't look or behave like the real stuff and that is often done on purpose to avoid being too disturbing. There always has to be a slight bit of unreality. Something that cues the knowledgeable not to suspend their disbelief. And then there's the first thirty minutes of Saving Private Ryan. A Real time depiction of Omaha beach makes any slasher film look lame.
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