Gender: Female
Rank: Medium-in-training
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 5:41 pm
Posts: 455
In the days up to Halloween, I've been thinking about what I personally find frightening in the genre. There are plenty of horror films, games, anime, creepypasta, legends, books, and so on. But it takes a certain something to scare me, and I'm sure what I find spooky wouldn't bother somebody else, and visa versa. And what I find scary in a movie, I sometimes don't feel the same about in a game.
The concept I find scariest, especially in games, is when the threat feels realistic, and has a conscience. For example, horror games where the threats are monsters or zombies , like in Resident Evil, I don't find too scary. I suppose because they don't exist, nor do they realise what they are doing, even. In video games, I find active, aware threats, especially human ones, the scariest. Ghosts are scary, too, especially as their grudges tend to extend further than is truly necessary.
Movies, I like psychological horror. I like to feel like I don't know what is real or not. I like this element in games like Silent Hill, too.
Another thing I liked about SH was that often the other human characters had no idea what was going on either, and often didn't seem quite right. When I was playing, that made me feel perhaps even more alone than had there been no other human characters at all.
Anime and creepypasta tend to be rather cliche and gory, which doesn't appeal to me. I enjoyed the eerieness in series such as Paranoia Agent and Monster, though.
One thing I feel spoils horror is overuse of gore. I think a good horror movie or game shouldn't need excessive violence to make the viewer scared. I think it actually makes it less scary.
Anyway, what kind of horror fan are you? Do you prefer movies or games; are you a supernatural or slasher horror fan; and are you a big fan, or do you just find horror boring?