The Best Type of Horror Fucks with Your Mind

I have learned that there are three main types of horror, and as my favorite internet reviewer Yahtzee stated so cleverly on his show Zero Punctuation, there's:

1) the kind where you're in a dark room and a guy in a spooky mask jumps out of a cupboard and going abloogy woogy woo

2) the kind where the guy in the mask isn't in the spooky cupboard but you know he's right behind you and he's going to go abloogy woogy woo at some point but he doesn't, and your getting more and more tense but you don't want to turn around cause you know that he might stick his cock in your eye

3) and then there's are the kind where a guy in a spooky mask goes abloogy woogy woo while standing on the far side of a brightly lit room before waking slowly over to you plucking a violin and then slapping you in the face with a tea-bone steak.

He says that number two is best because your brain is doing most of the work, and I wholeheartedly agree. When I watch or read anything horror the monster that I imagine is waiting for me in the dark corner is much more terrifying than something that stands right in my face and screams bloody murder trying to get a rise out of me.

The first time I watched the movie Paranormal Activity I couldn't sleep normally for months because I was absolutely terrified t go to bed. This movie consisted of a demon you couldn't see and two people being terrified out of their minds while lying in the comfort of their own beds. I would lie awake in my bed at night just thinking "what if that creaking I heard was the demon!" or "what if it yanks my covers off and pulls me down the hall by my foot!" I hadn't been so scared to go to bed since I was little and was afraid there were monsters under my bed. It was then that I realized, the reason I was so scared of Paranormal Activity was because it gave me the terrifying feeling I had when my mom turned off the light and set me to bed. It was fear of the unknown. The void darkness was absolutely terrifying, the horrible things I imagined were waiting to nom on my head the second I left the safely of my covers was paralyzing. And that's what i felt with this movie, only the movie took away the comforting idea that my covers were an indestructible force-field that could protect me from the nasty monsters. This is an example of successful horror that gets in your head and messes with you, staying with you long after you turn off the t.v. of put down a book. True horror can get in your mind and make you want to wash your brain of everything you just experienced before your paranoia comes back to bite you in the butt again.

In conclusion: horror that utilizes imagination for the fear factor is most effective.

Lessons from Poe

Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death is truly a masterpiece of classic horror. I learned a lot from this short story about language in horror writing, the value of foreboding terror, and the importance of atmosphere.

Poe uses a combination of words in The Masque of the Red Death to signal to his audience that they are reading a horror story. He does this from the very first lines of the story, where he instills terror in the reader by describing the symptoms of The Red Death in horrific detail. The passage reads,

"No pestilence has ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal--the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim..." (Poe, 17)

Poe's uses words like "fatal", "hideous", "blood", and "scarlet stains"to paint a very gruesome picture. These words triggers a reaction from the reader and lets the reader know exactly what kind of story they are reading. By using frightening words in his description of The Red Death, Poe creates from the very start of his story, a sense of the foreboding terror that awaits.

The Masque of the Red Death

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces. Ed. Beverly      Lawn. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print. Excerpt from The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces. New York: St. Martin's Press , 1992. 17-22.

Reasearch into Torture Devices... Yick...

I never realized how difficult reasearching my genre could be until I read this list of Top 12 (which actually includes 24) Most Gruesome Torture Devices in History. This list describes the function of these torture devices and needless to say I was sick to my stomach by the time I had finished reading. All for the sake of art right?

Top 12 Most Gruesome Torture Devices

Inspiration

For the horror aspect of my story I have been greatly inspired by the PC game Amnesia the Dark Descent. It is a physiological horror game revolving around the supernatural, torture, and a horrifying, Gothic atmosphere. The story of this game is what horrified me the most when I played it, so much so that I had to watch people playing it online just so I could enjoy the wonderfully gory story to the end. It's truly a masterpiece in horror, and has taught me the high value of atmosphere and how the mere prospect of something horrifying can scare a person much more than a monster jumping out at you. It's all about getting into your audiences mind and messing with them, if you can do that even just a little bit, you have successfully frightened them.

The torture devices used in this game are common torture devices used in medieval times. I find just the mention of their names to trigger a level of fear in me. Unfortunately the video below, only contains a few scenes including the numerous amount of torture devices in this game, but I am planning to do more research on all the torture devices for my own story.

This video highlights some of the scarier parts of the game. Some scenes are a little fuzzy, but they are short. Most of the horror is implied through atmosphere, sound, pictures, and text descriptions, meaning there is only one scene of actual torture and it's not that graphic. Still if you are easily frightened I suggest not watching this video.

Some scary scenes from Amnesia the Dark Descent

This video actually shows the monsters and exemplifies the tension that I am going to try to capture.
Searching around and scary monsters

Characteristics of the Gothic Horror Genre

I found that this article had many useful facts that will help me in my writing. I've realized with a little help from my teacher that the story I want to write revolves around a Gothic horror/Victorian setting, so this list of characteristics will help me get started.

Link to article.