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Horror

edited January 2011 in Suggestions
I like horror a lot, but the problem is that the quality is very sketchy. Stephen King's last short story collection, Full Dark, No Stars, for instance, was very good, but his little chapbook, Blockade Billy was just crappy. There's an author named Brian Keene who occasionally does something good, but he hasn't done anything good for quite awhile.

I recently watched both The Last Exorcism and The Devil, but was very unimpressed by either one. I won't even talk about Jonah Hex. I was a sad panda when I saw that. In my opinion, Ghost Story, both the movie with John Houseman and the book by Peter Straub, is an example of good horror. The same goes for both the book and the movie The Shining. The movie, Silent Hill, could have been good if it wanted to be, but it just didn't seem to want to be. The movie, Alone in the Dark, was one of the worst movies of all time. Slasher things, of which I consider Saw a subset, are usually really more porn than horror. Vampire stories have been forever sullied. I don't think I'll ever take another vampire seriously.

H.P. Lovecraft and Poe go without saying, and Pseudopod does a great job of horror short fiction; however, lots of horror short fiction is teh suck. A good example would be that author I mentioned earlier, Brian Keene. He has written many sucky short stories. He wrote one in which the idea was that Lazarus was a zombie, and then crowed and crowed in an afterword to the story about how original it was, to which I say, "Pfft. Most. Un-original concept. ever."

Preacher, Lucifer, and Sandman can all be kinda included in the genre, and they were all good, but House of Mystery, while a very good concept, has usually been crap.

Does anyone have any good horror suggestions?

Comments

  • Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.
  • The same goes for both the book and the movieThe Shining
    Please explain this reasoning.
  • edited January 2011
    The same goes for both the book and the movieThe Shining
    Please explain this reasoning.
    That was my mistake. I had originally included both in the bad movies/books, but I had intended for them to be in the good list.

    King has been somewhat uneven. Even some of the good stories he wrote were made into terribly bad movies. The actual story for Maximum Overdrive was pretty good. The movie, of course, was so bad it was funny. It was a very good novel, but the TV miniseries was unwatchable.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Black Swan and Let Me In were the only horror movies from this year that were actually worth watching.
  • edited January 2011
    I've personally never cared for horror because to me it is not horrifying. For the purpose of this statement, I'm stipulating all horror has a supernatural element, otherwise it is suspense.

    See, suspense is scary because there is the constant worry by the reader that what is happening in the book could happen to them. There could really be a killer, a stalker, rapist, or conspiracy. But when you start introducing things in which I do not believe -- ghosts, goblins, David Bowie, demons, benevolent Republicans, evil leprechauns -- then the "this could happen to me" fear is tossed out the window.

    By contrast, I love some science fiction and fantasy because those genres are pure escapism. They're all about the "what-ifs," not about evoking a single emotion.
    Post edited by Jason on
  • edited January 2011
    Well, as you say with science fiction, horror is pure escapism. When I read a horror book, I have no problem immersing myself in the world of the book and suspending my disbelief. In my opinion, if you can enjoy a story about magic rings, you should be able to enjoy a story about ghosts. For me, it's not so much about the "this could happen to me" fear. It's more of a fascination with how the world works in that story, and to a greater or lesser extent, how one would deal with living in the world of that story. What makes me really interested is when story characters, like the characters in It, decide to learn about whatever supernatural thing is causing the unpleasantness and then come up with solutions for handling the unpleasantness.

    Buffy was sometimes pretty good about that sort of thing, when it wasn't trying to be a pre-teen girl's idea of Dark Shadows. However, a lot of Buffy was pretty unwatchable, so I didn't actually get to enjoy the entire series.

    I think there are some Batman stories (not necessarily even the overtly supernatural ones) could fit right into the horror genre.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • You're enjoying a genre because it is fantasy, not horror. So it really shouldn't be considered horror at all.
  • Jason has an escapism fetish.
  • Jason has an escapism fetish.
    As a reporter, I've seen people mauled by wild animals, decapitated, shot, burned to death, impaled, killed by fumes, mangled and mashed beyond recognition, stabbed, and drowned. Escapism is welcomed at chez Jason.
  • burned to death
    Huh. How does that work out?
  • burned to death
    Huh. How does that work out?
    Very poorly.
  • By contrast, I love some science fiction and fantasy because those genres are pure escapism. They're all about the "what-ifs," not about evoking a single emotion.
    Funnily enough, I just listened to a speech today, recorded int he '70's. In it Isaac Asimov addresses the idea that science fiction is "pure escapism", and goes on to tell how loads of science fiction authors were way ahead of EVERYONE else when it came to the cold war. Heinlein wrote a story called "Unsatisfactory Solution" which laid out nuclear stalemate and MAD. Is that escapism? If it is, science fiction is really bad escapism!

    Check out the speech, it's on the latest episode of the Space Dogs Podcast.
  • I think the problem with horror is that many different things are classified as horror which are actually quite different. For example, there are things which are just extremely gross, gory, and violent that are called horror. There are things which just jump out and go boo! which are considered to be horror. There are fantasy stories which are considered to be horror because they contain scary monsters. Personally, I don't even put all these things in the same genre. An ultra gory Japanese film is not in the same genre as Nightmare on Elm Street, which is not in the same genre as Lovecraft. Yet, the word horror is used for all of them. I enjoy quality works in all of these different types of horror, since they can all be good in their own way. However, very few of them are actually capable of causing actual fear.
  • That's why I use many different classifications in relation to horror movies. Movies like Saw and Hostel are Torture Porn, Lovecraft is Horror, Nightmare on Elm Street is a Slasher Flick, and Ichi the Killer is a Ultra Gory Japanese Film.
  • I've been in the mood lately to watch zombie movies. I feel like its hard to find good ones, though. What are you guys favorite zombie movies (so I can go watch them)? :D
    The ones on Netflix instant look very iffy...
  • I've been in the mood lately to watch zombie movies. I feel like its hard to find good ones, though. What are you guys favorite zombie movies (so I can go watch them)? :D
    The original Dawn of Dead (Zack Snyder's remake misses most of the symbolism and such, though it has fantastic special effects and is really fun to watch). Zombieland is also awesome.
  • I've been in the mood lately to watch zombie movies. I feel like its hard to find good ones, though. What are you guys favorite zombie movies (so I can go watch them)? :D
    The original Dawn of Dead (Zack Snyder's remake misses most of the symbolism and such, though it has fantastic special effects and is really fun to watch). Zombieland is also awesome.
    Shaun of the Dead succeeds as both a parody of the genre and a great zombie movie in itself.
  • Shaun of the Dead
    I knew I forgot something! That too.
  • If you've got a PC to run it, Amnesia: The Dark Descent is horrifying.
  • American Horror Story has been pretty good. In fact, I'm beginning to like it better than The Walking Dead.

    For those of you who scoff that Horror holds no joy for you because you don't become frightened, I have to ask: Just how frightened do you want to be? Do you want to be reduced to a quivering lump and sleep with all the lights on and your head tucked under all the covers, too afraid to get up to use the bathroom? Do you think a horror story hasn't done its job if you don't end up as an inpatient at Arkham Asylum, wailing about the rat in the walls or The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young?

    On the spectrum of fright, American Horror Story definitely doesn't keep me awake nights, but every now and then there will be just this slight little shiver-inducing scene. That's really all I need to enjoy a horror story. Just that slight little shiver. I often get that from Stephen King. 11/22/63, his latest, had just a couple of that types of scenes, but the reader had to have some familiarity with King's prior work to appreciate what he was hinting at. Otherwise, it was a workmanlike time travel story with some flashes of brilliant pathos that rise above the bounds of genre. I have a suspicion that King will one day be recognized as a writer worthy of inclusion in the canon on the basis of stories like The Body, , The Green Mile, The Mist, The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon, Gerald's Game, Delores Claiborne, and a few others.
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