That's Just Not Scary Anymore

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Rechan

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I thought I'd start a topic of what doesn't "work" on you anymore, in terms of horror. Not necessarily tropes that you dislike, but simply fails to get any reaction whatsoever.

For me it's cannibalism. The big reveal that "They're really eating PEOPLE" isn't shocking to me anymore. The same with "we're forced to eat each other - THE HORROR" of extreme survival situations. Must have been watching Sweeney Todd a bit too much. Even tricking other people into eating human meat gets nothing.
 
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Jcomp

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I can't think of anything that doesn't work for me anymore as a reader. If it's executed well enough, it will get an appropriate reaction from me. It might be a little bit different for movies than for literature, though. Certain things are just harder to pull off convincingly and / or effectively on film. "Mirror scares" in movies, for example, are often telegraphed too obviously to elicit any reaction from me. But even in that regard I think it probably has more to do with the execution than the device itself.
 

itsmary

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Not much scares me anymore. I've seen and read so much, both in horror and elsewhere, that I'm numb to a lot of it. When I do get scared by a book or movie, it's because the writer(s) dug deep and found something identifiable for me. So I guess I agree with Jcomp -- it's not so much about concept or tropes as it is execution.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Nothing in a horror story ever scared me. That's not why I read horror. But I can't think of a trope or subject that I wouldn't love to read, if the writer was good enough. It's poor, same old, same old lack of imagination and talent than makes a subject or trope a nothing read. When someone comes along and does it better, adds a little originality, and wraps it around great characters, it's brand new again.
 

kobold

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Zombies. To get my attention right now, any story involving zombies would have to be startlingly original. They've been done to death. Pun intended.
 

kobold

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I'll modify that: stories involving a Zombie Apocalypse are the kind that have used up their originality and their accompanying scares. Maybe a story with just 1 zombie as a threat would be worth trying (note illustration on the left). Hmm.
 

cmhbob

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I never found cannibalism scary. It was always a big "eww" factor for me.

Now that I think about it, I haven't horror in a long time. The crippling scene in Misery really got me, though.
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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Very little scared me as a kid that doesn't still scare me now. Mirrors, especially at night; cockroaches; the dark, depending on the context; very sharp knives; bad things happening to teeth/eyes/fingernails; shadowy faces in dark windows; and this one I haven't found a word for yet where I'm standing in front of a really BIG thing that's hanging on something really high up--like that blue whale in the Smithsonian. I hate that thing--can't walk under it. Cannot do it. It's like a reverse-vertigo, or something.

Zombies never scared me--they're just gross. Same with any level of guts/gore. Just gross. Different type of feeling.
 

wampuscat

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Very little scared me as a kid that doesn't still scare me now. Mirrors, especially at night; cockroaches; the dark, depending on the context; very sharp knives; bad things happening to teeth/eyes/fingernails; shadowy faces in dark windows; and this one I haven't found a word for yet where I'm standing in front of a really BIG thing that's hanging on something really high up--like that blue whale in the Smithsonian. I hate that thing--can't walk under it. Cannot do it. It's like a reverse-vertigo, or something.

Zombies never scared me--they're just gross. Same with any level of guts/gore. Just gross. Different type of feeling.

I agree. The jump-out-in-front-of-me scare works as an instinctive reaction, but the things that really frighten me are psychological rather than gory.
 

JustSarah

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As someone who grew up primarily watching J Horror, dark science fiction, and American Ghost stories. The traditional ghost story doesn't really do it for me anymore.

Like if it were a poltergeist I could understand the fear. But it really takes a lot for a ghost story to do it for me. Like it needs to be in a form, where someone can't just simply remove themselves from the house.

Though I personally find ghost stories preferable to blood and guts. Which isn't scary, it's just gross. Cue the 80's teen slasher. There is no telling how many times a director killed some random person off I didn't even have time to really get to know or care.

In horror, I crave internal madness. Masked by a false happiness and joy, with a very dark underbelly. That feeling of artificialness that feels creepy only if you stare at it and analyze it long enough.
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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A jump-scare is more of a startle than a scare--it's an automatic response to a specific set of stimuli, which is why it's so reliable. It's also why I carefully put my drink/popcorn down when I see someone in a movie wandering down a dark corridor, because I know it's coming, and I'm not scared of whatever's going to jump out from the shadows, but I don't want to make a mess.

And OMG, CLOWNS!!! Always, clowns.
 

emax100

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I think we instinctively find ourselves less scared by horror stories because with increased access to international news we see floods of pure, undiluted horror coming in all over the world in real life that is often scarier than anything anyone can come up with that it makes our standards for true scares higher and higher. I think horror can be enjoyed for the entertainment factor, however even if it does not scare you.

I think good, properly timed and executed horror twists never get old even if they don't actually scare you.
 

CWHs2

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In movies, when someone reaches for something in the fridge, and the camera focuses on the fridge door, and then the person closes the fridge door, and there's a monster behind the fridge door. Or there's nothing at all.

Either scenario - not scary anymore.
 

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I'm pretty tired of ghoulish children, especially creepily singing little girls. I won't say that this or anything else can't be made scary, but I don't find it interesting or original.
 

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I loaned House of Leaves to a friend and it freaked her out. She returned it a few days later and was like... "why did you let me read this".

I've always thought atmospheric horror is the best kind :p
 
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WriterDude

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I'm pretty tired of ghoulish children, especially creepily singing little girls. I won't say that this or anything else can't be made scary, but I don't find it interesting or original.

Especially when they climb out the telly.
 

Thomas Vail

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Familiarity takes the impact out of the frightening and the shocking, which is a problem if you like to indulge in a lot of horror.

There was one scene I saw while flipping channels in Japan a while back that had a supremely telegraphed mirror-scare setup. The woman opened the bathroom mirror in a tight shot, closed it, and then there was nothing there.

Ha-ha, no scare after all, until she turned around and standing right behind her was the stringy-haired J-ghost girl. It was a pretty effective scare, because it hit right in that relaxing period for the audience.
 

jmichaelfavreau

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I thought I'd start a topic of what doesn't "work" on you anymore, in terms of horror. Not necessarily tropes that you dislike, but simply fails to get any reaction whatsoever.

For me it's cannibalism. The big reveal that "They're really eating PEOPLE" isn't shocking to me anymore. The same with "we're forced to eat each other - THE HORROR" of extreme survival situations. Must have been watching Sweeney Todd a bit too much. Even tricking other people into eating human meat gets nothing.

I actually had a scene with cannibalism in my next novel that I'm writing, put it in there when I was doing the skeletal outline. When I came back to the outline and started to write the actual story I had the same reaction as you...Boring and overdone.
 

mcv1986

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I find none of it horrifying, and I am kind of worried about that. If I can continually get publish, my main genera would preferably be horror. However, everything Ive read on the genera states that you must scare the reader. how do you do that when you yourself feel no fear? lol.

For me, horror is more of a stress release. A ghost terrorizes a family. A serial killer abducts some one. It is the entertainment I desire sense doing theses things in real life is very much frowned upon. Also, many of the horror short stories ive enjoyed the most, made no attempt at fear.

Ive been 20 yards from a cougar and it scared the hell out of me. The same event written out would not so much. sure, the writer could make it entertaining, but it would not scare me.

And of course there are aspects i try to avoid. namely theses would be Vampires, Zombies and Cannibals. The first two are way overdone and the last is just not appealing. If the only aim is to elicit the gross out factor, I'll pass. I dont do gross just for the sake of gross. I am far more tolerant of violence just for the sake of violence if its good. Good story trumps all.
 

Jamesaritchie

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I find none of it horrifying, and I am kind of worried about that. If I can continually get publish, my main genera would preferably be horror. However, everything Ive read on the genera states that you must scare the reader. how do you do that when you yourself feel no fear? lol.

For me, horror is more of a stress release. A ghost terrorizes a family. A serial killer abducts some one. It is the entertainment I desire sense doing theses things in real life is very much frowned upon. Also, many of the horror short stories ive enjoyed the most, made no attempt at fear.

Ive been 20 yards from a cougar and it scared the hell out of me. The same event written out would not so much. sure, the writer could make it entertaining, but it would not scare me.

And of course there are aspects i try to avoid. namely theses would be Vampires, Zombies and Cannibals. The first two are way overdone and the last is just not appealing. If the only aim is to elicit the gross out factor, I'll pass. I dont do gross just for the sake of gross. I am far more tolerant of violence just for the sake of violence if its good. Good story trumps all.

Done right, the fear comes not from the cougar, but from fear the cougar might kill your favorite character. Few readers live in a place where cougars are a worry, but all of them can be frightened that a favorite character is about to become Kitten Chow.

A serial killer, I think, is different. Fear a favorite character will be killed still plays a part, but while most will never have to face a cougar, anyone can be the target of a serial killer. This, I think, is a good time to work real numbers into a story. Most people don't know there are from thirty-five to fifty serial killers still on the loose at any given time.

This shouldn't frighten people, but I've found it usually does, so it's kind of a double whammy. I'm always looking for such things to work into a story.

An extremely common fear is having your children harmed. Not much scares me in real life. Not even a nose to nose encounter with a cougar or a bear, not free climbing cliffs, and not even being shot at.

But even a stray thought of someone harming my grandchildren terrifies me. True terror.

Anyway, I think you have to look at each type of situation a bit differently. You can scare the bejeebers out of readers without being scared yourself. Sometimes you make them afraid a favorite character will be killed, and sometimes you make them go check the locks on the door, or make them call to see if the grandkids are sleeping soundly.
 

Okelly65

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very little in horror books or movies scare me, but its the horror of the situation that stokes my fire.
 
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