What makes a good horror story?

In your opinion, what elements of a horror story/novel are the main ingredients that make it a worthwhile read?

Scary, of course.

There's a couple of elements that work for me.

First, you have to give me a character(s) that I really want to care about. I suppose that's true of all character-driven novles. Next, provide them with a near-infintely superior antagonist and place our heroes in hellacious mortal danger, a danger that mocks any mundane resolution. (I'm not saying the bad guy MUST be a psycho-superman, but that he/she has some distinct edge over the good guys.

Give our protag lots of choices, some good, some not so good, and some down-right disasterous. Every couple of chapters, leave the protag (and me) hanging over a cliff. Make them "think" their way around this evil miscreant.

One of the creepeist antagonists I can envision is a person devoid of any traces of humanity. A textbook sociopath-turned-serial killer. Animal-cunning, instinctively resourceful, and possessing a one-track mind; Destruction of the innocent. Kill, maim, and/or mutilate...whatever it takes, however necessary. Think of a Hannibal Lector/Michael Meyers clone.

Now, if you add a touch of the supernatural, something that further reduces the chances of a simple, mundane solution, I'm probably hooked.

Scary without being nauseating.

The "mind job". The story doesn't have to be gorey, but if it messes with your head, or rather, your definition of "reality", it's pretty scary.

I found the movies, The Matrix and Minority Report scarier than any horror flick. Not the movies, per se, but the -concept- behind them. The Exorcist was another one that scared the pants off me (and at least it qualified as horror).

I think the whole idea of losing "control" is terrifying, I guess, so anything that has to do with someone being thought of as crazy, when they're not, or possession, or having reality as you know it challenged, will scare the bejebers out of me!

I agree about the mind job. Making the characters convincing helps. Also the creepy factor. Anything that makes any other genre good, but with a bit of creepiness in the subject matter.

I'm more about the goosebumps and the hair standing on end, and that feeling of being followed, than I am about the "Ew!" factor!

I read this somewhere- "Throw a Grizzly in the closet"

In other words- don't have your main character simply go into his apartment and fetch the papers for his case- that's boring no matter how many great details you show in the scene. Instead, have the bad/psycho guy break into the hero's apartment- he hears a noise- almost gets caught, but makes it into the closet just intime. Now what you got is a Griz in the closet lol- The hero goes through his apartment looking for his papers without knowing that there is potential danger. Much more intense for the reader.

A great scene I just read had the murderer/psycho in their car and had a body in the back of a woman he just killed. He was going out to his usual burial spot (Unbeknownst to him, the cops had stumbled across the hillside where the bodies were buried- but they didn't know who the killer was yet) It is late at night, and he has just been through a harrowing intense time and is relishing burying th4e body. He rounds the bend & sees that the whole hillside is lit up with the police CSI's digging everywhere & he panics. He thinks about turning around, but he then thinks it might draw too much attention & look suspicious. He keeps going while one arm is over the seat and fiddling with the covering over the body. He gets up to the policeman stopping vehicles and is about to be discovered when the policeman is distracted. Absentmindedly, the cop waves him by.

Here we got two great secrets that we know but the characters don't know. We know the killer is driving the body out to the hillside that the cops are crawling over, and, we have the cops lewtting the killer go by mistake- they aren't aware that he has a body in the back. We're on the edge of our seats wondering if it's going to be the end for either the cops, or the killer (The kiler had a gun under his leg ready to kill the cop if he had to, and then to take off)

I think the key to great horror is to let the reader in on a secret that the heor isn't aware of (Like the psycho in the closet). The hero hasn't got a clue as to how close he came to dying (Say that he almost opened the closet door, but spotted the papers beside the couch just intime). Also, another key is to learn 'emotion keywords' that can heighten scenes. For horror, key words would revolve around 'anxiety, fear, horror, nervousness' etc. Using them in the right places can really help to pull a reader into the scene and give a sense of the emotion you're trying to portray.

Thanks- that was good advice- will have 5to read it over better tomorrow to digest it better. My eyes are too lazy tonight but I get what you're saying mostly.

now that I think about it- what I suggested lends itself more to suspense than it does to horror