Totally agree with Mallory - especially her last sentence. Although, to be honest, I'm not into horror - it gives me the creeps and worse still 'nightmares'.
I'm not really into horror movies either. However, I would point out that Final Destination is a good example of a supernatural movie. I'm not sure why the movie doesn't have enough star ratings on it. That's about one of the fewer movies I watch that involves supernatural spirits.
Actually if I remember that movie well there aren't no spirits, all is moved by Death itself, pretty unusual choice today (In the past Bergman made a very good movie about Death, the seven signs, but he used the traditional medieval personification of the Harvester, while in Final Destination they chose the poltergeist approach); the main problem of that movie is that it was conceived as a teen horror.
I always thought that the main problem was that it wasn't that good, and they then went on to make it again another three times.
If you ask me, what makes anything horror, is fear. If you want to write a good horror story, find something that people fear, then write about it. What makes Freddy Krueger so scary? The fact that he hurts children and attacks them where their parents can't protect them. There they covered a few different things. The fear of your children being harmed and you NOT being able to protect them, and for the child, the fear that your parents can't actually help you. That alone, is what causes the fear in that movie. Not the gore, not the characters, but parents not being able to protect their children, because that IS most definitely one of parents biggest fears. So there you go, what makes a horror story a horror story, is finding something that people 'fear' and creating a story based around that fear that creates the feeling of dread, repulsion and general bad feelings of that kind. A horror will NOT create warm fuzzy feelings, it will NOT make you smile or feel good in any way. It will leave a horrid feeling in the pit of your stomach. Another example of horror is the Saw films (yes I know, bare with me, I'm not debating the films, just making an example here). With the traps, people have decisions to make, that affect how a game will end. There are instances where they have to choose to harm themselves to survive, others have to try and either save someone else, or let them die, others have to learn to work together or die. It's all about making the right decision or the wrong decision. There they cover peoples fear of making the wrong decision. As I've shown in both examples above, they have written about a fear, and created a film/story, based on those fears that leaves feelings of dread and repulsion in the audience. So they are horror. that's my take on it anyways. We all have different opinions.
More than that, actually. The fact that the world of dreams is his domain, and you cannot stay awake and clear of him indefinitely.
That is very true, which is why is such a great example to use for a true horror piece. Because the victim will do whatever it takes to stay awake, but can't, and knows their parents CAN'T save them. It all falls back to the fear of a parent not being able to help them. If he was not in their dreams, their parents MAY have a chance to protect them, but as it is in their dreams, in HIS domain, the victims parents are powerless to protect them from him. That's what makes it all the more terrifying.
Something that has always terrified me has been inevitability. Back when platformer games were still a genre, there was always this one level where you had a wall of lava or something like it following you. Those levels were and are, in my opinion, terrifying. The wall doesn't slow down, it doesn't speed up, it just follows you in its own tempo. You cannot do anything whatsoever to stop it. It will just keep coming. Most good horror I have read comes with the knowledge that you cannot stop or defeat the antagonist, you can only run to escape for a short while.
Horror for me is not only the antagonist being scary, it's it being indestructible. No matter how you fight it, it will come back. No matter how you run from it, it will get you. Time and again you clash with it, but only you weaken. Nobody being able to help you. That's one fear. You being alone to face this monster of the night, which keeps on coming back and coming back.
For me personly, horror is the unexplained, the instant something begins to be explained, you begin to understand it, true horror is that lack of understanding, the lack of knowledge behind motives. The feels of being chased, without knowing whats there, something thats always there, but never quite there. I love horror, I tend to read horror things when ever I can, but, I've never really got the chill that I tend to get when reading personly, may be that I've simply not read the right lituriture there . For me however, something along the lines of Alien, thats the perfect set up for horror for myself, I love the first 2 films, each for different reasons, saddly, the books I've read thus far have been a let down though. Sorry to derail the topic a little here, but would anyone know any GOOD horror lituriture?
Look up Joe Hill. One of my favourite current authors, he writes beautiful fiction, which gets under the skin really well. "Heart Shaped Box" is more traditional horror, but done incredibly effectively. Also, Gary McMahon is another favourite of mine. Writes very bleak, very atmospheric, psychological horror. "The Harm" is definitely worth a read.
Another really good, disturbing type of horror is where you take something that's ordinary -- say, a dog, or a visitor, except those have already been done to death - and begin with a situation that's tame at first. But by the end of the first page or so (gotta make it quick or readers will put it down for being too slow), slip in things that are subtle enough that the characters don't notice, but that slightly disturbs the reader or makes them think twice. Then, amp things up slowly so the character is aware there's a problem, and it just progresses into a more and more threatening situation. This works best for short stories. I'm thinking "Dog" (by, I think, Joe R. Landsdale?) and "Where are you going, Where have you been" by Joyce Carol Oates. I haven't been able to find the former online, but I'm almost positive the latter can be.
To be a horror story, it only really needs all three of the following basic tropes: A loss of control over the MC’s life A fear of the unknown An overall feeling of dread This can actually apply most stories. Practically all genres have a core of horror because we love to be scared. Gore is not horror. Death is horrific, but is only 'horror' if it meets the above criteria. Today, most 'horror' is hidden in other markets, such as thriller, sic-fi or urban fantasy.
I agree with both of these. I think one of the main things about any horror fiction or film is that the antagonist, whether it be supernatural, sci-fi or whatever runs the show imo. One of the best horror films ever is Alien. From the music, the ship's atmosphere etc all of it left you in suspense. Notice in Alien you didn't see much of the actual alien itself but you knew it ran that show, it decided whether someone lived or died. Horror is so hard to do and get it right.
I love to read Bently Little. He has a great way of you feel 'helpless'. No matter what you do, you can't stop whatever is happening from happening.
