What Scares You?

Let's get this partly rolling!

So what's really, really scary to you--both in terms of reading it and writing it?

I'm inclined toward that horrible, creepy sense that things are not as they seem--the psychological wrongnesses that can either be really subtle, or hit you over the head. That's why "haunted house" stories are usually a good spook for me, The Shining, The Haunting at Hill House, Fall of the House of Usher...all of 'em...

That sense that you can't see what's wrong on the surface, but you just know it's gonna be really bad.

Clowns. Anything with clowns. I hate clowns.

Don't even get me started on mimes.

Before this thread devolves into Heelarious joke answers like: Brittany Spears, let me chime in.

I'm terrified of being eaten. Wild carnivores, cannibals, it all freaks me out.

HConn--did you read the King short story about the stranded surgeon who starts carving off pieces of himself and eating them, in order to survive a bit longer? *shudder* Ick...

I've forgotten which collection it's in--I'll look for it and cite it tomorrow if I can find it

I've long had a theory that the real power of horror fiction lies in the direct or indirect confrontation of social/cultural taboos.

The story is "Survivor Type" from Skeleton Crew

I'd have to say anything with bugs!! I outwardly shudder when I see a movie with them and had nightmares when I read John Saul's The Homing. His descriptive narrative was too precise! :eek

The bump in the dark. The boogieman in the closet. The ghost in the attic. They build suspense.

I'll take a good old-fashioned ghost story over gore any day.

Oh, and I really enjoy the protag. feeling they are at the brink of a mental breakdown. The protag is slipping and you wonder if they will make it out okay. Suspense is key for me.

MacAl, if I read that King story, I'd fall over dead.

You know what else is scary? Blimps.

Check out that link. I haven't laughed so hard in weeks.

:ha
:rofl

That was great!

:ha OMG--that's soooo funny...partly because it sounds SO much like something that might happen to me. :ack

Psychological horror scares the crapola out of me. Oh, and anything with ghosts and haunted houses (I can never read The Amityville Horror again -- that book gave me nightmares!!). I once lived in a haunted house and I've had experiences with ghosts, so that's why I get so creeped out by stories like that.

Another thing that can be a valuable component to a horror story: Dragging suspense. I once read a short story in Dark Animus of these kids faced with a maniac holding a gun in his hands and the dragging suspense sent chills down my spine.

Spiders, snakes, deranged psychos with a God-complex...

A friend told me a plot of a crime show one night - Cold Case, CSI, I have no idea what it was.

Anyway, this girl had tried PCP and started hallucinating, and she tripped out so much she ate her friend alive.

Bleeeeeeeeegh! Creepy, creepy, creepy!

ugh--animated corpses are scary. The whole zombie-thing, or Pet Semetary--even the Lazarus story in the Bible is a little creepy, to my way of thinking...

macalic: Sometimes real life is scarier than fiction.

Real life scares me most of all. The serial killer that preys on children, the sociopath who kills for no other reason than "its fun." This includes the Jeffery Dahmers and Wayne Gaceys of the world.
Fanaticism scares me; the kind that motivates a group of people to "kill by committee" or enter into mass suicide pacts.

Madness, evil and some aspects of the supernatural.

:gone

aq

(and I don't like clowns either. John Wayne Gacey dressed up as one - shudder!)

Clowns...definitely clowns. There is a clown art exhibit in town...all things clown in both acrylic and oil. The art gallery is a scarier place right now than any haunted house!!!!

There is this huge painting of a mime outside the front entrance, I mean it is humongous...and it stares at me as I drive to work everyday. Can't wait for the exhibit to be over.

Littlecupofjoe :coffee

Re: Clowns

Okay--I'm seeing a consensus happening :-/

So what IS it that's so creepy about clowns?

Mac...

Hey Macster !!! Clowns, oh yeah, scarey..Just watch 'Killer Klowns from outer space', more funny than scarey, but still made ya go,oohhhhh !! What scares me ?? Real life, serial killers ala Dahmer, normal appearin guys than are really quite something else. Anything dead cavorting as If alive....I like that.Monsters, I likes monsters, normal critters gone out of control, like Cujo, Jumbo, stuff like that.Cannibals too !! Ewwwhhh !!!!:teeth
Love an bodyparts, Carybelle

Re: Mac...

There was that clown that came to life in Poltergist. Scared the crap out of me when I was young. My little sis collected clowns and she had one that looked exactly like it.

The one thing that scares the snot out of me in real life is wasps. I'm over my fear of roaches and spiders, but wasps... :ack

Oh, and how did we not mention crazed fanaticals yet? You know, the Unibomber, the abortion clinic bombers, or the employee that got laid off and shoots co-workers. That's scary!

(Cary, I love Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Hillariously scary!)

Not sure why clowns are scary...

I am not quite sure why clowns are so scary. There is a term for clown phobia : coulraphobia

Wasn't there a serial killer that dressed like a clown?

Eeek

Littlecupofjoe :coffee

Re: Not sure why clowns are scary...

I was fine with clowns until King's It

Re: Not sure why clowns are scary...

Holy Macaronni with Meatballs on top! I can't believe I forgot about SK's It. That is one of my all-time favorite horror movies. The laugh just freaks me out... *shudder*

Re: Not sure why clowns are scary...

I don't like clowns, either. Dunno, just something 'bout those creeps that sends me screaming. My daughter actually WATCHED Killer Klowns from Outer Space -- and she's 3!! Of course, she got scared. But at least she now knows that clowns are to be feared. Better she had Mommy around to comfort her than no one at all.

But I LOVED that scene in Problem Child where Junior torched the clown room. YEAH!!

Re: Not sure why clowns are scary...

Spook, when you get a chance, read the novel, (It) It's enough to make you go vigilante/medieval on alien killer-clowns types.

Re: Not sure why clowns are scary...

For you, LJ, I'll give a go. (I usually can't make it past the half-way mark with SK's books. From what I hear, they usually get pretty interesting right after my stopping point.)