Modern Horror?

Eudaemonic · Jun 8, 2007

Primitive fears?

The unknown. Sounds where there shouldn't be sounds. Things that you can't see. Shadows flickering at the corner of your eye, but when you turn there's nothing there.

A closed door, a noise coming from behind it - your hand on the doorknob, shaking as it slowly turns.

Once you know what it is then you can be ready for it and fight it, it's the moment just before you discover what it is that's the most scary.

When I was a kid I had a nightmare that I was standing in front of a window in a lighted room. Beyond the room was an absolutely pitch dark space. I knew, the way you do in dreams, that there was something out there, a huge fierce killer dog. I knew also that any minute it would leap at the window in an explosion of glass shards and jump for my throat. In the dream, I stood at that window, waiting for the thing to leap.

(shiver)

daemon

Jack Nog · Jun 8, 2007

Maybe the old Tree outside the bedroom window on a dark and stormy night...

zahra · Jun 8, 2007

bsolah said:
Will Elliot wrote a really good clown horror novel last year called 'The Pilo Family Circus.' It's fucking twisted and creepy, and very original.

This comment in an article about the book really sparked some thoughts for me:

This sounds great! Will amazon a copy ASAP. (You see the influence you people have on me?).

Agreed about the tree, too. Also, stairs. Don't like dark stairs in the night. Old houses, like the one in my avatar. (It's a plantation house in Georgia that's been for sale for a while, and my dream is to visit it, unless I win the lottery, in which case, own it). Toys can be creepy, and empty chairs can be, especially rocking-chairs. I don't like hares; they look sinister, plus they have a reputation as being witches' disguises. And scarecrows - yikes.

And do you remember those huge old prams they used to have before mothers had to drive and stuff? They had one for sale near where I live last year, and while it was a beautiful piece of work, there was something sinister about how big it was, so big, both hood and carriage, that actually trying to see the baby would be a thing of suspense. I wouldn't like something like that in my hall (even if I did have £500 to spare and a hall big enough to take it). I got a great idea about a horror from it, though, nicely filed away.

Eudaemonic · Jun 8, 2007

And do you remember those huge old prams they used to have before mothers had to drive and stuff? They had one for sale near where I live last year, and while it was a beautiful piece of work, there was something sinister about how big it was, so big, both hood and carriage, that actually trying to see the baby would be a thing of suspense. I wouldn't like something like that in my hall (even if I did have £500 to spare and a hall big enough to take it). I got a great idea about a horror from it, though, nicely filed away.

Too right. The intrusion of the other into the everyday. It's like how lots of horror films use children's songs as background music. Nursery rhymes and musical boxes.

bsolah · Jun 8, 2007

zahra said:
...Old houses, like the one in my avatar. (It's a plantation house in Georgia...

When I think of old houses like that, I think of Wes Craven's movie Dead Birds.

I love old asylums too. I remember being taken on a tour of one at Milson Island in Sydney once and they'd dressed it up for us to look all crazy (blood on the wall, I remember a brain stabbed into the wall with a knife) and I was still in Primary School, maybe 9 years old.

Jack Nog · Jun 9, 2007

Photopraphs.

I'm not talking the ones of your kids or at your school dance, but old ones, with original black and white.

My wife and I have a few in our house of grandparents and even farther back, but sometimes, those are just spooky...

Jack Nog · Jun 9, 2007

Not even sure why I wrote this. Now when I look at it, I'm wondering about my aim. It sure applies here however.

Well for anyone just tuning in, we've gotten off the subject of modern horror and migrated to a subject that is far more useful. What Really Scares You.

In looking at modern horror, I'm going to use the example of Hostel Part II. I've haven't seen it. I haven't seen Part I, and I haven't seen any of the Saw movies. I read a review of Hostel Part II just last night and littered through out was the the honorific; horror fans. Horror Fans this and horror fans that. I feel it was misused, or rather, misrepresented.

I'm sure there are horror elements in these movies. I'm sure there is some of what we've talked about here, the build up. And while the scenes apparently pull no punches ( I hear there is a castration...) I just don't get worked up to see these kinds of films. To me, while the horror is there, it's these follow-through scenes that the populace is there for. Maybe Gorror? Can I coin and copyright that?

I want the build up the most. Read back a few posts, my friend, and you'll see that the posters in this thread have tried to rediscover what makes the horror world turn.

I think with gore, you are going to alienate a good many readers, at least in the medium of books. It is not, maybe just for me but I suspect a good many others and not just of this forum, What Really Scares You. It makes me regret the decision to buy that ten dollar hot dog and jumbo popcorn combo. In the literary world I think it has it's uses, but in my opinion, if you want to sell books, you can get farther with a hint and a promise rather than a full description of every slice and every cut.

I wrote somewhere else on this board-maybe in this post...ug my ADD-that I think Gore has it's purpose in a horror story. The proper way, and again, just my opinion, is to slip those in, best when the reader won't see it coming. I think this is the most effective way to 'catch' a reader.

Build up, build up, build up. This makes the reader squeamish. This makes the reader want to turn more lights on in the room, but they're afraid to put feet to floor for fear of the consequences. I don't think adding gore to the end of that equation is necessary. But imagine build up - followed by reprieve, maybe an interlude into a different POV and then POW! a little gore, like a quick knife strike. Used properly, the reader might have to stop their reading, rethink whether they can go on. But see, then they remember that build up, that feeling-oh so bad-from when they were children that makes them come back for more and more.

Anyway, I've made this far longer than I expected. I've stood on my soap box and maybe gotten my point across. Point, you ask? Where in all this rambling is the point?

Let me see if I can't sum up:
Gore audiences vs. Horror audiences. I think the Horror audiences outnumber the Gores by 3 to 1. I made that up. But I think it's close. Since I want to sell many, many, many books, I know what I'm writing to.

bsolah · Jun 9, 2007

Maybe a point that needs to be made is too many horror novelists are trying to replicate what they're seeing on the screen.

I happen to love the Saw and Hostel movies (dying to see Hostel II) but I think they would make terrible novels. I agree that we need to see some more suspense instead of some flat out blood and guts.

Eudaemonic · Jun 9, 2007

Agree. In horror stories I don't just want something that's going to make me feel sick - eg graphic descriptions of someone's guts being wound out on a stick - I want something that fills me with a sense of creeping dread.
You only get the latter with believable sympathetic characters and a steady build from happiness to apprehension to panic and all the stages between.

You need originality, and a disregard of film - it's a different media - less visual, more psychological.

'I am Legend' - anyone read?
anything by Clive Barker

An ominous sense of lurking, impending, inescapable doom - love it

daemon

Jack Nog · Jun 9, 2007

I Am Legend is just..phenomenal.
Barker can keep it going...

zahra · Jun 9, 2007

Jack Nog said:
Photopraphs.

I'm not talking the ones of your kids or at your school dance, but old ones, with original black and white.

My wife and I have a few in our house of grandparents and even farther back, but sometimes, those are just spooky...

Ooh, love those. The (priceless) used bookshop down my local high street sells original Victorian photo postcards, which are seriously spooky. Also, google 'memorial photographs' (images) if you really want a truly big shiver. (Warning: Might be disturbing for some)

I have a long, b&w photo of a formal dinner, taken in what has to be the 30s. It always reminds me of that photo at the end of 'The Shining'...

Anthony Ravenscroft · Jun 10, 2007

The book I Am Legend is sheer art.

The forthcoming movie I Am Legend is nothing but a remake of The Omega Man. It looks like a bad Buffy episode written for Bruce Willis.

zahra · Jun 10, 2007

Anthony Ravenscroft said:
The book I Am Legend is sheer art.

The forthcoming movie I Am Legend is nothing but a remake of The Omega Man. It looks like a bad Buffy episode written for Bruce Willis.

Now, that's scary.

Jack Nog · Jun 11, 2007

Anthony Ravenscroft said:
The book I Am Legend is sheer art.

The forthcoming movie I Am Legend is nothing but a remake of The Omega Man. It looks like a bad Buffy episode written for Bruce Willis.

I saw this movie coming out and I was all sorts of excited by it.
I saw the trailer, and have already been let down. I'll admit I'm something of a Will Smith fan, but I just don't see them doing this book justice.

JB_Finesse · Jul 8, 2007

I had a recurring nightmare when I was around 9 years old, where I was walking down bright white tile hospital corridors. I heard a "click clack" sound (which I knew was the toe claws of a steadily approaching velociraptor) behind me and started to run, not even looking back. Miraculously I found an elevator, and it opened and closed before the thing got me.

When the doors opened I was in yet another bright white tile room, but this one had tables, also bright white, but covered with guns. They were all Glocks and Uzis and such, the same shade of black against the white table. I picked one up and went cautiously forward to a "T" intersection. I turned one way and felt hot breath on the back of my neck, instantly informing me that I'd turned the wrong way. And at that point I woke up.

BlueTexas · Jul 8, 2007

JB_Finesse said:
I had a recurring nightmare when I was around 9 years old, where I was walking down bright white tile hospital corridors. I heard a "click clack" sound (which I knew was the toe claws of a steadily approaching velociraptor) behind me and started to run, not even looking back. Miraculously I found an elevator, and it opened and closed before the thing got me.

When the doors opened I was in yet another bright white tile room, but this one had tables, also bright white, but covered with guns. They were all Glocks and Uzis and such, the same shade of black against the white table. I picked one up and went cautiously forward to a "T" intersection. I turned one way and felt hot breath on the back of my neck, instantly informing me that I'd turned the wrong way. And at that point I woke up.

Recurring nightmares are no fun. But, they can be useful. Ever thought of using this one as the basis for a story?

JB_Finesse · Jul 8, 2007

Perhaps. Hospitals have always seemed been pretty creepy to me. Being trapped in one alone would be bad enough without being chased by dinosaurs.

BarbJ · Jul 9, 2007

I read a non-horror story years ago, where a schoolgirl had a fear of something grabbing her from under the bed. A dormmate hid under the bed. The girl came closer. She hesitated a bit before approaching the bed. She came closer. GRAB!

I can't remember anything else about the story, but that particular scene haunted me. I remember leaping onto my bed from a safe distance for a week or so.

zahra · Jul 9, 2007

BarbJ said:
I read a non-horror story years ago, where a schoolgirl had a fear of something grabbing her from under the bed. A dormmate hid under the bed. The girl came closer. She hesitated a bit before approaching the bed. She came closer. GRAB!

I can't remember anything else about the story, but that particular scene haunted me. I remember leaping onto my bed from a safe distance for a week or so.

My sister once grabbed me from underneath a heavy coat that was on our bannister. She'd hidden perfectly. I almost had a heart attack.

bsolah · Jul 14, 2007

Yeah, I really think some of the most horrific scenes I've seen in movies and books are from things that aren't categorized as horror.

For instance, there's this scene from Mississippi Burning that still haunts me where a man is being hanged by chains or something by the KKK. That scene not only left me feeling scared, but unbelievably angry. I want to do something like that with my writing.

wayndom · Jul 24, 2007

Legionsynch said:
I love things that are innovative. House of Leaves creeped me out for days afterwards, even if it wasn't traditional 'horror' in the gore sense.

OK, I gotta problem with this.

"Traditional horror" isn't, and never was, "in the gore sense."

Horror only began getting mixed up with gore as a result in movies like "Halloween," which, while having a minor supernatural element (the killer never dies, no matter what happens to him), are primarily gore fests.

SAW, HOSTEL, etc., are gore films, and should not be called horror. Horror is about supernatural fears, not about fear of dismemberment.

wayndom · Jul 24, 2007

Anthony Ravenscroft said:
The book I Am Legend is sheer art.

The forthcoming movie I Am Legend is nothing but a remake of The Omega Man. It looks like a bad Buffy episode written for Bruce Willis.

The original Omega Man was a remake of the original I Am Legend movie (starring Vincent Price), which was an adaptation of the novel, I Am Legend.

Modern Horror?

Eudaemonic

what? why!

Jack Nog

Brain-farts are useful too.

zahra

Was Zahra; lost profile - REBORN!

Eudaemonic

what? why!

bsolah

AW's Resident Commie

Jack Nog

Brain-farts are useful too.

Jack Nog

Brain-farts are useful too.

bsolah

AW's Resident Commie

Eudaemonic

what? why!

Jack Nog

Brain-farts are useful too.

zahra

Was Zahra; lost profile - REBORN!

Anthony Ravenscroft

Scribble, scribble, scribble

zahra

Was Zahra; lost profile - REBORN!

Jack Nog

Brain-farts are useful too.

JB_Finesse

BlueTexas

Back from self-exile land.

JB_Finesse

BarbJ

zahra

Was Zahra; lost profile - REBORN!

bsolah

AW's Resident Commie

wayndom

wayndom