What Frightens You In Film and Fiction?

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Katie-Ellen

Katie-Ellen

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Sep 25, 2014
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Cause all writers read, innit.

What feels worse in stories? Things that have happened, or really could happen in real life, as in a parent's worst nightmare for instance. Jeopardy or loss. A direct threat to your safety or that of a loved one. 'Sophie's Choice' terrified me completely, and haunted me afterwards, working out what I might have done in her situation.

Things that will almost certainly never happen, but you might just experience in some way or another, and not be sure how to respond to; things to do with the Dark; things beyond our ken? Or are they actually just weird, or basically OK, so long as they're not out to harm you, or haven't the power to do so?

Is it fear of the unknown, fear of loss, fear of death?

Last time I saw 'The Exorcist', years ago on the box, it wasn't the demon who bothered me. It was just foul mouthed and ugly and could do levitation. It was a bit gross but almost funny. I knew the little girl would come out OK, but I was worried about the Exorcist himself. He was obviously in ill health, and the previous time he'd encountered Pazuzu, in the desert, he'd been young and strong.

'Silent Hill' was far worse, truly terrible. But film has a huge advantage in the scare stakes; visually and sound track.

What frightens you in fiction, which has to set about the job without those tools?

'The Fist of God' frightened me, by Frederick Forsyth. It was about the Supergun. Worry for the two Iraqi brothers particularly frightened me, after their father was murdered. I was rooting for them to make it and.....

'Jaws' by Peter Benchley. I did not want the lovely MC to get ate. I didn't want anyone to get ate, but specially not him.

Whereas Stephen King's books might frighten me to a point, then I find it goes too far, and I'm not frightened any more. 'Carrie' frightened me, because of the young girl's unhappiness, and we all know what a zoo school can be. And 'Cujo', where an innocent animal became a thing of terror due to his rabies, and trapped a mother and son in their car and it was him or them.

But what frightens you in fiction, which sets about the job without those tools?

Titles? Characters? Lines?
 
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I don't think I've come across a book or film that particularly scared me. Some just play on my mind, like the first time I watched 28 Days Later. I walked home from work the night after at 11pm and keep looking around for people to start chasing me.
Idiocracy is a startling movie, in that I can see it happening in the world now. The dumbing of society, the over-breeding of said dumb society, leading to a culture that waters its plants with energy drink. It's meant to be a comedy though, not terribly scary in itself. I can't hear the word 'electrolytes' without smiling.
Stephen King's 'It' was good for horror value, a creature can manifest itself as your worse nightmare? No wonder Pennywise is a clown!
 
For gross out factor, 'The Ruins'- a film where a group of students travel to South America, into a jungle to find a lost temple covered in freaky vines. No spoilers here, just some nasty under the skin CGI.
 
Yes, I didn't like 'It', the book or the film. I'm another one who doesn't like clowns. They seem so full of anger. And there's a really creepy, horrible bit in the book, paedophilia threatens, because It has 'got' to the father. Real life horror looms. But the ending was a let down. He over explains in some books, I tend to feel, and in the film, the giant alien spider was....well, the special effects back then aren't what they are now, fair to say.

Spiders are ferociously intelligent, and they have to be. I saw a wolf spider in the kitchen once, just saw her two fron legs, or were they her mandibles, sticking out from under the washing machine. Very gently, I pushed the brrom towards her, not to touch her, but expecting she would withdraw.
Not Mrs Wolf! She sprang out like a ninja and leapt on the broom head and ran all over it, looking, I suppose, to see if any juicy flies were caught up in the bristles. She jumped off when she was good and ready, and ran back under the washing machine.

Imagine that x 10 bigger. NOPE.

Re: The Ruins...thanks, don't know that one.
 
That I can remember, there are only two stories that I have found to be truly "frightening." A story can be suspenseful. I've read countless very good and very exciting suspense and thriller books, and probably more movies. A book or movie can be gripping and action-packed. A book or movie can be disgusting or horrific. Angels and Demons was suspenseful. Saving Private Ryan was gripping and action-packed. 13 Sins was utterly disgusting, and in every sense of the word. Schindler's List was horrific. But none of them were frightening, at least not to me. And I've never found anything in the horror section that could frighten me.

That distinction is held by only two — both movies, and both very similar in theme:
Deliverance (1972)
Compliance (2012)
These are slow, sedate, character-driven, and with no real special effects of any kind of which to speak. Both evoke a sense of utter hopelessness, and deal with sexual torture. But as it happens, both of them are at least purported to be true stories, or based upon true stories.

No, you know what it is? You sit through both of these in constant suspense and tension, waiting to see if they'll get out alright. And *SPOILER* in both of them, of course they do, but also the really don't. In both of them, you're left with a feeling of "they lived... but they almost wish they hadn't," and secretly you almost wish they hadn't, for them. There's an element of self-loathing, in them.
 
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Hmm...definitely the sound track and the not-knowing. I hate not-knowing..I have to know and i don't like being afraid but I like it at the same time. Love it hate it.

Because I am such a coward i tend to read the full synopsis of a film to work out if I like it. I watch on on that basis!
 
I don't know 'Compliance'. 'Deliverance', probably most if not all of us will know. Jeopardy, then, primal in its menace; the idea of being off your territory, and thinking you can cope fine in this exciting new territory, and finding you're way out of your depth. And then for good measure, maybe someone proposes and actually does to invade your personal territory in the most violent way, short of killing you. We get in our cars and go off here or there, and maybe don't even take a coat, or cash, or a phone. We think we're on familiar ground, and we're so used to doing all manner of things without incident, there's little thought of risk. But anything could happen, at any minute, to remind us we're not actually inside a bubble, after all.
 
Emurelda said:
Hmm...definitely the sound track and the not-knowing. I hate not-knowing..I have to know and i don't like being afraid but I like it at the same time. Love it hate it.

Because I am such a coward i tend to read the full synopsis of a film to work out if I like it. I watch on on that basis!
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I LOVE spoilers, @Emurelda. I'm much more interested in HOW it gets to wherever it's going; spoilers never spoilt if for me. Plus, as you say, forewarned is forearmed.
 
Sometimes it will be a play on a particular phobia. I am somewhat claustrophobic, and there is a passage in the Weirdstone of Brisingamen [one of my favourite books as a child] where the kids have to escape through an underground passage. It narrows to a point where their bodies can only just fit inside it. Then they have to wriggle around a corner where the passage dog-legs back on itself, like a bent elbow, going deeper underground, all the time being unable to move their arms from their sides. Even thinking about it now gives me the screaming heeby-jeebies.

More generally, I think fear comes from a sense of vulnerability. So madness is scary, because you can’t reason with psychotic people, they may want to hurt you for completely unpredictable reasons; likewise, non-human is scary, because you don’t know what is going on inside their heads and therefore cannot easily plan for it; beyond-the-grave is scary, because you can’t kill things that are already dead, i.e. cannot defend yourself; alone is scary because you have nobody to help you; etc.

The thing which presses a lot of my buttons is the horror of finding that you are alone in a world of lunatics. Hang on [looks out of window]...aaargh...
 
Ah, now you're talking.

I think the most protean thing is evil that can be neither understood or fully explained. Even if you have exposed the reasons for the horror, there should still be something you do not fully understand. For me, 'Pet Sematary' makes for a terrifying modern novel because it turns innocence into evil and is not fully explained. Also Hell House, The Haunting of Hill House and James Herbert's 'Haunted' as well as countless Lovecraft and M.R James stories, ongoing themes of the unknown and evil that cannot be destroyed make for the most terrifying fiction for me. It's my ethos for writing horror anyway.
 
Another element worth mentioning is how H.P. Lovecraft, and his contemporaries like Robert Bloch, Clarke Ashton Smith, and Robert E Howard open a story by telling you it's about horror beyond madness centered around some evil, mention some other thing as an aside, and slowly bring you around to identify with the supposed evil, only to confront you right at the end with the true horror beyond imagining — that other thing he mentioned in passing far earlier. At The Mountains of Madness is a great example of this.
 
His collection is quite substantial but yes, a shame it did not continue!

I think Lovecraft's grasp of unspeakable and incomprehensible horror was astounding. I did love (in a fun way) how he would say something was indescribable and then promptly describe it. Oh, Howard, you tease.
 
Kafka-esque scenarios.

In film, I think it was Enemy of the State (Will Smith) that really scared me.

I don't enjoy occult fiction (though have read a lot of Dennis Wheatley), but I remember reading 'The Haunting of Hill House'. There was no really explict ghosty stuff AFAIR, but the whole atmosphere and scare was in the scene-setting and the play on my mind. I reviewed it here (40+years after reading it).
 
James Marinero said:
Kafka-esque scenarios.

In film, I think it was Enemy of the State (Will Smith) that really scared me.

I don't enjoy occult fiction (though have read a lot of Dennis Wheatley), but I remember reading 'The Haunting of Hill House'. There was no really explict ghosty stuff AFAIR, but the whole atmosphere and scare was in the scene-setting and the play on my mind. I reviewed it here (40+years after reading it).
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Kafka! Another great. How could I forget about him?
 
Jason Byrne said:
Kafka! Another great. How could I forget about him?
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Way back in 1991 I flew into St Petersburg (Russia not Florida) one March evening with some colleagues to start a project. That evening we were taken out in a cab to a show. I remember thinking of Kafka as we went through dark streets, crossed canals and then went into a non-descript building in a non-descript street (classical St Petersburg) to watch a floor show (not an 'adult' show). The whole feeling of being out of control of one's environment and destiny was very, very uncomfortable.
 
I've only read a few books that have scared me, being a newbie reader to the horror genre. I started off with the obligatory Stephen King as an introduction and he does such a great job of scaring me without me realizing I'm scared. I've read his short story collection Full Dark, No Stars and the novel Bag of Bones. Both of them I would be reading, ready to put down, and then realize my hands were gripping the book so tight, my knuckles were practically see-through (ha... because I'm already so white? eh? eh? :D... this would be funnier if you guys saw me in person and knew just how pale I was *sigh*).
 
David Steele said:
I've only read a few books that have scared me, being a newbie reader to the horror genre. I started off with the obligatory Stephen King as an introduction and he does such a great job of scaring me without me realizing I'm scared. I've read his short story collection Full Dark, No Stars and the novel Bag of Bones. Both of them I would be reading, ready to put down, and then realize my hands were gripping the book so tight, my knuckles were practically see-through (ha... because I'm already so white? eh? eh? :D... this would be funnier if you guys saw me in person and knew just how pale I was *sigh*).
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Detergent adverts would love you.

'Stephen King makes me whiter than white!'

Personally if you want a real Stephen King skin crawler, I would always suggest Pet Sematary. It's disturbing for a lot of reasons and good ones too, while also being artful in its execution.
 
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Literally every movie in which the monster is revealed loses any sense of fear for me. Or when the hero walks into the haunted house with just a flash light without calling the cops. Far too often people try to set up horrific situations by relying on their characters to do things that are against human nature. It's far too easy to spend ages trying to make the horror convincing and blowing it entirely with your setup.

I think the worst horror I've seen was Jeepers Creepers, but I'm sure I could find many more. A really good parody of these bad movies was Cabin in the Woods, which is still one of my favourite movies ever.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here is my list of the most frightening movies ever made. Each one of these is guaranteed to mess you up for weeks.

Eden Lake
Kill List
Borderlands
Dead Man's Shoes

If you like your horror served with violence and humour, try

Severance
Sightseers
Tucker and Dale vs Evil

And if you can wait a year, try my next novel ;)
 
Jeepers Creepers was awful. The 'thing' was never explained, which avoids a trap, and, unlike a snuff movie, it was a tragedy. The thing killed a character, horribly, that the story had made me care about.

PS Awful as in horrible, not dire. It was rather too credible.
 
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Worse horror movie ever, IMO, Carnival of Fear/Closed for the Season. It's terrible, effects, music, acting. The story itself isn't bad, a teen girl gets stuck in an abandoned, haunted old fair ground, reliving old memories as they come to life. When a demolition worker gets run over by his own JCB, by laying there and letting it roll over him, it get laughable.
 
Nicole Wilson said:
I've only read a few books that have scared me, being a newbie reader to the horror genre. I started off with the obligatory Stephen King as an introduction and he does such a great job of scaring me without me realizing I'm scared. I've read his short story collection Full Dark, No Stars and the novel Bag of Bones. Both of them I would be reading, ready to put down, and then realize my hands were gripping the book so tight, my knuckles were practically see-through (ha... because I'm already so white? eh? eh? :D... this would be funnier if you guys saw me in person and knew just how pale I was *sigh*).
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Us "glow in the dark"s turn translucent instead of pale....lol. It's a red-head thing ( or "ginger" to those who understand).
 
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Only one movie ever gave me the willies for longer than the credits ran. "The Thing". An alien that can be anyone and you can't tell? Creepy stuff! There was one other (can't remember the title) about some teens that cheated "death", by not getting killed in a traffic accident, and "death" was trying to catch up to them. They made a lot of sequels, but the idea of trying to escape something you can't see and can't hide from is pretty terrifying.
 
Final Destination. It was pretty ingenious at first, I remember the first film was good. After that it just got ludicrous, but SAW was the same. The first film was so good and then it went to pieces as soon as they sequelised it.

I don't care how smart you are a killer, NOBODY could plan that shit that far in advance.
 
I don't really watch horror movies as I find them as uninteresting as video games, Facebook and reality TV.
I remember 'JFK' as being pretty scary though: for a time I was scared it might never end - just an infinity of me, Kevin Costner and endless video footage of a grassy knoll.
 
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Emurelda

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