I have a strong personal distaste for jump scares and...well, anything designed to give a sudden jolt of adrenaline. It's useful under some circumstances but I've had too much of that, okay, my brain doesn't want it.
I tend to avoid the entire movie genre, though I don't mind so much if other people are playing a game and I am ignoring them all. (My sister will watch an occasional livestream.)
In writing, I give the least trust to anything that looks horror-ish, I have a strong temptation to read the end just so as not to get surprised and then I probably won't read the book.
As a kid I figured anyone who liked that kind of thing had probably not spent formative years dragging their tiny baby sister away from all the snakes and crocodiles and army ants in the jungle. I know other factors complicate things, though!
Is this even responsive to the queries? I hardly know. It'd be cool if there were more treatments of horror-adjacent things like AI and immortality or whatever that didn't do the cheap shock thing though.
"spooky" for me is more kid-friendly/just slightly scary stuff ("hocus pocus", most of the disney original movies based around halloween, the charlie brown special). "scary" is like hulu's blumhouse specials. "horror" is any slasher or thriller movies.
the definitions don't really change for me. and i don't really look at specific examples. i usually watch something and then just mentally note where i'd put it and if i liked it.
i really don't like the stuff i'd put under "scary" because it seems like it swings between "yes this is actually scary" or "this isn't scary but if production adds a bunch of SFX or a story that doesn't make sense, people will love it" and both just take me out of the experience of enjoying the story. i'm not picking up a book/show/whatever-
to turn into free advertising, i'm picking it up because i want to enjoy the story presented. and it feels like a good chunk of the horror genre as a whole has gone from "tell a good story" to "go viral with plot twists, casting, name drops, or remakes because guaranteed audience who liked the original. oh and also i guess a story???"
(to answer the original question: spooky definitely means kid friendly, as much Fun Weird as anything. Scary includes both that and horror, imo, and also has associations with short stories, e.g. campfire stories. Horror is designed to gross/creep people out, and generally spams gore, phobias, and unfortunately jumpscares.)
I feel bad parroting but
ΔΕΞΑI
already laid out what I might respond,. With the small caveat that "psychological horror' is a departure from digust-based horror but stilll different enough from what would be considered 'spooky' or 'scary' to still qualify as 'horror'
All these answers are excellent. (For context, I'm working on understanding why I don't usually consume horror media because I know a lot of people do get a kick out of it, and what that kick might be and how much it might cross over with related genres that I do gravitate to.)
yorisearching
I'm with you on jumpscares and reading the ending first. XD; And definitely on there being more to horror than indiscriminate shock scenes.
No one pulls that kind of thing on library staff but in high school I found it frustrating how much humor (and horror) was just trying to scare or startle people. Especially around this time of year.
I tend to relate spookiness to the presence or feeling of the paranormal, unknown, or unknowable, overlapping with both magic and psychological horror in that something outside of mundane experience is happening and challenging the characters' grasp of reality. But that would make things 'spooky' only as long as they were unexplained.
('Creepy,' for some reason, feels more like cryptids than ghosts, if that makes sense? Things that go squish rather than things that go ooOOOOOOOoooo.)
(See also: all the SF movies consisting of lensflare, explosions, and characters failing at communicating for no reason because that's what the screenwriter thinks "conflict" means.)
(or is changing into a system inherently bad for that type of being, though in sf a lot of that is 'what if thing became bad for us!' when that's already the actual situation for huge populations and the only difference is that the main characters are white guys)
The part of your 'scary' that includes ghostly stuff overlaps with what I was thinking for 'spooky', which might or might not be scary; what's a word for Not Fun Weird? XD There's also a layer of safety between the idea of 'here's a scary story' and 'you're in a scary story' that I'll have to think about.
Spooky Action
Corroborative data is also good data! That's three for including disgust as a potential vehicle for horror, though I feel you're right that it's not the only one. Plz talk about how you frame psychological horror?
Meanwhile, here's one definition I've been playing with, based on a conversation elsewhere about the genres of Alien vs Aliens: a key way to differentiate horror from overlapping genres is that in horror, there is no reliable way to end or escape the horrific thing.
If a character survives, it's by skin-of-their-teeth luck, and even then they're usually broken in some way (injury, loss, bereavement, lasting trauma).
SF is about defining and understanding, fantasy is about expanding the possible, action is about fighting back; horror withholds agency and resolution.
Which I think always seemed boring to me because I already know there are awful things and people who can't cope with them, and I was consuming SF to learn how to not be those people? XDDDD
Coming back to this, disgust basis is any chainsaw movie; the specific dread of bone, blood, offal, puke and shit-spray; the torture is loud, repulsive, and relentless.
Anything that makes you flinch away from how awful it is rather than just jumping because startle reflex; usually the ~sobbing jibbering victims~ are close-angled tenderly over-lit spectacles, too
That sounds like the thing that separates 'scare' from 'horror' here is a visceral, physical That Piece Of You Should Not Go There Or Sound Like That reaction?
Not to make us identify with them, only to remind us they’re gagging up snot in bare distress and will never get out, they’re gonna get chopped up, gross~~~
HMMMM. Meaning, the characters have enough agency to respond to the situation in ways that affect the plot, but not enough (or the right kind) to successfully survive the horrific thing?
Exactly. If they can do anything to resist meaningfully, it’s not a horror movie. It can be a hybrid, it can be a genre-bender, but if the final girl isn’t eaten in the sequel? It was never horror.
A thought on horror and agency: In the case of horror stories where there's a survivor, I feel like I can think of a lot of stories where the survivor got there via a combo of determination and luck. In some (but definitely not all) horror stories, there's a strong "moral fable" component, and in a lot of those, the survivor will be "most moral" one.
The survivor usually fights hard to survive, but they also usually have the benefit of already being "the one the author wants to reward for being Good".
And I think YMMV, but I can think of a lot of movies where there's an implication (or direct statement) at the end that the monster is Never Truly Gone, but based on the structure of the story, it still feels like the survivor(s) "won"/"beat" the monster.
Like (and spoilers abound): - Ripley survives "Alien", in part, by being smart and practical and able to "beat" the Xenomorph one-on-one. - Nancy in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" beats Freddy by saying she's no longer afraid of him (and he comes back at the end in a "sting", but it's so tacked-on that her victory still feels like a victory to me)
- The survivor(s) in Marble Hornets survive by treating the monster like a mental illness; it won't necessarily "go away", but it can be managed and survived using medication and therapy
- The survivors in "Fright Night" beat the vampires by not giving up on their convictions, being brave, and caring about each other (...and having a gun and a wooden stake handy)
I think a lot of appeal for some horror for me is the idea that, even if a monster can't be truly Defeated Forever, it can be survived (and maybe you can protect your friends from it) by being determined/brave/resourceful/caring.
Another thought on the "moral fable" aspect of horror: Sometimes, when a movie was made during a time when certain types of people were considered "morally unacceptable", those types of people will appear in the movies as "monsters".
But then, because of the conventions of horror, those "monsters" have to be threatening, so the writers make those characters very powerful...and end up accidentally (or "accidentally") writing fun power fantasies for people who relate to the "monster".
In mainstream comedy, the "socially unacceptable" people are harmless and mocked, but in mainstream horror, those people are Powerful and Cool and Threatening, which I think might be part of the appeal of mainstream horror for some groups of people that the creators of that mainstream horror didn't necessarily like.
Like, in the movie "Re-Animator", the protagonist is kind of the Ideal 80s Man in some respects: Strong, handsome, heterosexual, smart, etc.
And then his "scary" roommate shows up in his life and effortlessly ruins it by running experiments on corpses in his basement (and sometimes the occasional murder).
But if you grab a Re-Animator fan and ask them why they like it, typically it's because they like the "scary" roommate: small, eccentric, loudly disinterested in women, probably not neurotypical...and an absolute FORCE OF NATURE that can totally disrupt the status quo.
And because a horror series typically lives and dies on the strength of its "monster", that meant that the creators had to keep bringing that roommate back for every sequel.
So now the roommate's all that /and/ narratively unkillable.
And this is a broad and sweeping generalization, but I think this might be part of why so many people like "bad" horror movies.
"Good" horror movies, especially nowadays, tend to be about making the viewer feel bad, typically as some sort of powerful metaphor for the horrors in Society (tm).
"Bad" horror movies paint a picture of a world where the scary thing is laughable/unthreatening, or where the "monsters" are relatable power fantasies for the viewer, or where the monster is defeated by the power of the writer's weird and laughable moral code. It tries to uphold the status quo or tries to make the viewer feel bad and fails.
Tl;dr: Some of my favorite horror either involves the monster being defeated/managed through determination/smarts/caring or involves the writer's Socially Conformist intentions going so horribly awry that they accidentally create something relatable to social outsiders.
(Also, I'd vote "spooky" as being a story with some of the genre trappings of horror (e.g. monsters, dark and dilapidated settings) but minimally fear-inducing, "scary" as being a story with supernatural elements (or thriller/mystery elements) that I find emotionally disturbing and fear-inducing, and "horror" as a story with at least some of the...
Bad sci-fi written by jerks: The ideal society is Just Like Me and my mainstream ideals. The people I don't like can be defeated by superior firepower.
Bad horror written by jerks: The people I don't like are overwhelmingly powerful and can't be defeated. The scariest society has lots of people who aren't like me. Wait, people who aren't like me, what are you doing. Why are you here. Why do you like this story I wrote where you're powerful and also everywhere. NOOOO.
the blumhouse specials are usually "what if X holiday or social commentary (like how SNS influencers who used to be bullies in the past can have their pasts exposed), but horror?". and yeah i see thrillers kind of overlapping with horror.
(Also, something that was said at a panel I went to at a Halloween "haunted" event convention really helped a lot of horror click for me:
To make being scared "fun" for the people who like those kinds of events (like me), the guests need to Truly, Sincerely Believe that the people running the event will keep them safe.)
(Going through a haunted event is "thrilling and exciting" rather than traumatic for these people because they know, even when there's monsters jumping out at them, that the monsters won't actually hurt them. The floor that looks rickety is actually sturdy. The prop weapons are made of rubber. The chainsaws have no blades.)
(It becomes more like a game of tag; if you're not "it", you run away because the point of the game is to not get tagged, but underneath all the adrenaline, you know that getting tagged won't actually harm you.)
(If a person who generally likes haunts goes to a haunt where they worry that the actors will actually hurt them, or that the rickety sets are actually dangerous to walk through, they won't get the high of being "excited-scared", they'll be real-scared, the kind that's potentially traumatic.)
(And to extend that out to other media: If a person's brain responds to jumpscares with a mild jolt and nothing more, watching jumpscare horror movies might be "fun-scary" for them because they know that they'll ultimately be safe. If another person's brain responds to jumpscares with full-on panic attacks sometimes, the same movie would be "real-scary"...
That's a really good point! For me it is not like a panic attack, but it's a very well trained freeze reflex so as to let the snake go away safely. In a high-stress moment everything slows down and I get super analytical. No fun in horror movies (or haunted houses).
rufus
This articulates SO MUCH of what I've been trying to figure out as both a reader and potential writer of a genre that hasn't come naturally to me. I have so many things to say and if I don't get to it today I will tomorrow night. THANK YOU.
(Another thought I had today: I think there's also a subset of horror watchers with a somewhat "macho" attitude about it, where they try to watch the most gruesome/disturbing/shocking content they can in order to prove they can. I suspect there's still some of the "fun-scared" idea at play here; no matter how gruesome the thing is, they know it's not...
...real, so the challenge is to try to desensitize themselves from reacting negatively to a thing they know won't hurt them. I theorize it might be a way to "practice"/"play at" being strong in the face of a kind of adversity they can control, and also to feel tough and get bragging rights for doing something difficult.)
To add a little bit on psychological horror: Instead of the jump-scare that comes from a movie, where it is always an external source that causes it, the scare is instead a longer effect. Sometimes it takes the entire film before the viewer understands (Session 9 is an excellent example) and then the horror comes from the viewer empathizing with the main...
...character, or even seeing horrifying aspects in themselves. And thus the scare is internal or just a disturbed feeling that lingers even after the film.
Ok let's see: On the morality-play aspect, where survival is the narrative reward for exhibiting traits the writer likes, that explains why horror has confused me so much. Because that could be anything.
Pluckiness or resilience or resourcefulness or empathy or self-interest or self-sacrifice or being The Pretty One or The Outcast or Learning To Change or whatever.
And a lot of the more moral/resilience traits are subjective and nebulous and yet are used irl to define another's value as a person: how brave do you have to be? how much stress can you take and is it a moral, personal failing if your heart gives out? if you buckle, is the situation too much or are you not enough? And there are some bad spirals there.
I've heard so much "you're never given troubles you can't handle if you Try Hard Enough and Believe!" that my what-is-actually-a-problem meter is broken.
I keep thinking about LMB saying she plots by looking at where the characters are and saying "what's the worst thing that could happen to this person at this time," and then making it happen and forcing the characters to deal with it. But my brain goes "so then an asteroid destroyed the planet and they all died," and that's Too Much Problem.
A plot challenge for the character to struggle with can't be the worst thing possible; it has to be the worst thing for who this character is at this time. LMB is a genius at that.
(And meanwhile, to have anything okay at the end of a story I have to accept that there's an okay state that's possible, wherein worst things won't just keep happening and grind everyone to powder, and we're currently living in so many simultaneous horror shows that it's hard to visualize that!)
I find plots where the mc survives Because They Know How To Fly A Spaceship much easier to outline than plots where the mc survives Because They're Worthy, because where does that assessment end?
Therapist keeps telling me I think too far into the systemic difficulties of a lot of basic everyday things and situations, and I'm like "......but I'm a writer? that's what I do???" XDD
Wrt the Socially Unacceptable As Lurking Threat side of mainstream horror, that alone is probably what loses me in a lot of movies. I am not Normal enough to relate to characters that disturbed by anyone Different From Them.
The unkillable-power-fantasy aspect is very appealing, but as a writer I'd want to skip straight to the reboot where one can root for the unkillable power fantasy openly. XD
Same as with SF where we're no longer saying "sure, the woman is damselled and love-triangled and probably fridged, but this is the only thing playing right now and at least it's got a space ship."
Back in the day, I'd put the horror back on the video store shelf because I could probably watch the same character tropes in a different movie but at least there would be a spaceship. XD;;;;;;
I really like what you said about bad horror as more comfortable because it tries to disturb the consumer and fails. In a way, that gives people a safe place to confront "you should be scared!!1!" messages received from authority/society and debunk them without fear of real-world pushback.
(and again, more later after stuff, tl;dr I clearly need to see Re-Animator, plz come over when the world is less of all this so I can watch it with you )
(Am still gathering the spoons to ponder more of what's said here but in the meantime also wondering if there are traumatized worldbuilders' support groups for writers to whom most forms of plausible conflict are now super boring and super exhausting at the same time /o\)
(this order of operations is badly written!)In the case of horror stories where there's a survivor, I feel like I can think of a lot of stories where the survivor got there via a combo of determination and luck. In some (but definitely not all) horror stories, there's a strong "moral fable" component, and in a lot of those, the survivor will be "most moral" one.
- Ripley survives "Alien", in part, by being smart and practical and able to "beat" the Xenomorph one-on-one.
- Nancy in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" beats Freddy by saying she's no longer afraid of him (and he comes back at the end in a "sting", but it's so tacked-on that her victory still feels like a victory to me)
And then his "scary" roommate shows up in his life and effortlessly ruins it by running experiments on corpses in his basement (and sometimes the occasional murder).
So now the roommate's all that /and/ narratively unkillable.
"Good" horror movies, especially nowadays, tend to be about making the viewer feel bad, typically as some sort of powerful metaphor for the horrors in Society (tm).
Again, as a sweeping generalization:
Bad sci-fi written by jerks: The ideal society is Just Like Me and my mainstream ideals. The people I don't like can be defeated by superior firepower.
To make being scared "fun" for the people who like those kinds of events (like me), the guests need to Truly, Sincerely Believe that the people running the event will keep them safe.)
On the morality-play aspect, where survival is the narrative reward for exhibiting traits the writer likes, that explains why horror has confused me so much. Because that could be anything.