# Where has Horror Gone?



## jayreddy publisher

Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear. Of course gore is scary but most books that use this as a source of fear has no storyline. What happened to true horror?


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## James Everington

Oh it's still around, but a hard sell - try the small press and self-publishers. Or the Mammoth yearly 'Best Ofs' have some proper, creeping-dread style horror.

Recently two authors who've impressed me writing proper, literary horror are Alan Ryker and Iain Rowan.


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## Tony Rabig

Check out Kealan Patrick Burke -- I don't think you'll be disappointed at all.

And you might want to look at the writer of the previous post, James Everington; so far, I've only sampled his collection THE OTHER ROOM, but it seems like the sort of book you're looking for.


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## DYB

This is true of movies also. Consider the original "Halloween" and "The Silence of the Lambs." Even "Se7en." They don't contain much blood, gore or on-screen violence. (Especially "Halloween.") All the violence in those movies happens off-screen. It's all about the power of suggestion. It's what you _think_ you saw. And then consider "Hostel" and "Saw." I'm horrified alright. But I'm not scared.


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## jayreddy publisher

Maybe I am just stuck in the past. I want something that will make me wonder, "what the heck just happened", instead of "that must be really painful". Maybe I watched too much Twilight Zone back in the day but I just want to be sitting in the bed debating whether or not I should turn the light back on.


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## DYB

Bleekness said:


> I actually liked Saw, but I hear you . Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity were pretty frightening for me. I actually went to see Blair Witch in tokyo with my girlfriend at the time (her choice to see it--not mine). After the lights went up, my GF was like "that was stupid!" while I was shivering and hiding behind my knees that had somehow come up to eye level during the course of the flick.
> 
> Point being, haven't read a horror book in a looooong time that does that.


But did "Saw" scare you? Did you have the same reaction to it as you did to "Blair Witch Project?" I remember that when "Blair Witch Project" was premiered at Sundance people were walking out of the theater in the middle of it.

jayreddy, you are absolutely right about the "what the heck just happened" vs. "that must be really painful." One is horror, the other is just an anatomy lesson. The only movie that is both gross and scary that I've seen is "Suspiria" by Dario Argento. But what's scary in it is the stuff that happens around the gore. By the time somebody's chest is ripped open you're already scared because of the music and everything else.


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## QuantumIguana

I find that gore isn't frightening. Disgusting and rather juvenile, but not frightening.


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## VincentHobbes

QuantumIguana said:


> I find that gore isn't frightening. Disgusting and rather juvenile, but not frightening.


I tend to agree.


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## jayreddy publisher

QuantumIguana said:


> I find that gore isn't frightening. Disgusting and rather juvenile, but not frightening.


It just leaves nothing to the imagination, and frankly, is not very creative. Hopefully horror will soon go back to its roots.


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## Ben White

Here it is! It was behind the couch the whole time.

There's pretty much one thing that scared me when I was a kid, and that thing was Doctor Who. I remember one particular episode in which a man had a statue in the back seat of his car, and the statue started to move, and it was the scariest thing in the entire world. I ran screaming from the room. There was another episode where a severed hand moved at the end, also very scary.

But since I was about ten, very little has scared me. I've felt tension, but that's different to fear--the Blair Witch Project was mentioned, it's a good example, watching it made me extremely tense but it didn't scare me at all. Cloverfield is another example of something that made me so tense I exhibited actual stress reactions--but again, not scary. Mostly I'm scared by real life more than 'horror'--I don't get frightened at vampires or werewolves or monsters because I know those things don't exist, but I read a Cracked article a few weeks ago about times in human history that we've come _this_ close to nuclear war and that scared the crap out of me. Accounts of racist attacks and similar horrific human behaviour scare me also, because they show just how deeply broken people can become.

Gory movies I actually enjoy, when they're done well--Braindead/Dead Alive for example. I think gore is best used as a comedic device, though, when it's played for horror it's just, y'know, not scary or tense at all.


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## Dr. Laurence Brown

I think the gore in both books and movies is an effort to capture and hold our attention. Unfortunately it's holding our attention for all the wrong reasons. Terrifying? Yes. Horror? Not so much.


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## VincentHobbes

As for movies, Hostel did a decent job of mixing gore alongside a solid concept. 

As for books, I've nearly abandoned reading horror, because I know most of it is a gore-fest.


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## Brem

Yeah I haven't really been finding any horror novels any good lately. I think with the power of gory films today, people enjoy reading gory books. Not sure how people can get into them, because they're always the same and are quite boring.


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## James Everington

Tony Rabig said:


> And you might want to look at the writer of the previous post, James Everington; so far, I've only sampled his collection THE OTHER ROOM, but it seems like the sort of book you're looking for.


Thanks man.


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## Harry Shannon

There are a lot of talented "quiet horror" authors working without always calling themselves horror writers. Peter Straub, Douglas Clegg, John Connelly, the aforementioned Kealan Patrick Burke just to name a few. It's true you may have to go to the small press to find the best stuff.


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## R. M. Reed

I'd bet you could find some great Indie horror if you looked for it.


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## Adam Kisiel

Indeed it is true. I am searching for a good Lovecraftian style horror, the only one i have found interesting was "Pale Mansion"

Cheers


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## bnapier

jayreddy publisher said:


> Maybe I am just stuck in the past. I want something that will make me wonder, "what the heck just happened", instead of "that must be really painful". Maybe I watched too much Twilight Zone back in the day but I just want to be sitting in the bed debating whether or not I should turn the light back on.


No such thing as "too much Twilight Zone."

And I am in the boat with the rest of you. Gore is boring and easy. Scare my pants off, and THAT'S talent.

A good example...The Fourth Kind scared the sh*t out of me. Not a single drop of blood in it. Not even any jump-out-and-scare-you frights. But a very creepy movie that has stuck with me for more than a year.


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## grahampowell

There's a writer named John Connolly who works in both mystery and horror. His collection of short stories, _Nocturnes_, was just absolutely terrifying, especially "The New Daughter". If you like horror short stories you gotta check him out.

Graham


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## jayreddy publisher

grahampowell said:


> There's a writer named John Connolly who works in both mystery and horror. His collection of short stories, _Nocturnes_, was just absolutely terrifying, especially "The New Daughter". If you like horror short stories you gotta check him out.
> 
> Thanks for the recommendation. I will have to check that out.


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## Sean Thomas Fisher

Have you tried Snooki's _A Shore Thing_ or seen _No Strings Attached_? Both are pretty terrifying.

Joe Hill is good too!


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## julieannfelicity

I think the problem now-a-days is that people are in a rush-rush world and true horror - the slow build up, the pacing, the true elements of horror and suspense - is too slow. Gory stuff is instant gratification. Not to mention we're all desensitized by just watching things like the News. 

Rob Zombie is a true-master of gore, but he'll even admit he loves horror and watched old classics like Nosferatu, The Blob, Night of the Living Dead, and The Body Snatcher.


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## balaspa

I wish I knew.  I hate the torture porn that has come to dominate horror in fiction and the movies.  To me, that is not horror.  People make fun of Blair Witch, but it worked for me because it left so up to the imagination.  I like that.  I try to leave a lot up to the imagination in my fiction and not rely so much on the gore.  However, to help sales, I sometimes pile on the blood.

I sometimes feel modern readers and horror fans need things shown or spelled out to them.  I mean, the original Halloween terrified me and I came away feeling it was a gore fest...but when you watch it now there is barely, if any, blood anywhere.  It's all implied.


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## Casper Parks

Not seem much in the way of new horror.


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## grahampowell

Sean Thomas Fisher said:


> Joe Hill is good too!


I have heard good things about his work from people whose opinions I respect, but haven't gotten around to reading him yet.

I think too much horror has fallen into the Vampire-Werewolf-Zombie vortex. It seems to me to be too bound by the conventions of its genre. Horror should be irrational!

Graham


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## ReneAZ

grahampowell said:


> I think too much horror has fallen into the Vampire-Werewolf-Zombie vortex. It seems to me to be too bound by the conventions of its genre. Horror should be irrational!
> Graham


That's the problem I'm finding - the vampire epidemic! I've been looking for good horror stories a la early Stephen King. All I have been finding are vampires (yawn) and stupid inane stuff.

Glad I happened into this thread! I'm going away with a nice little list of new authors to sample!

Rene


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## MichelleR

Tony Rabig said:


> And you might want to look at the writer of the previous post, James Everington...


Agree!

***​"I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud."
~Stephen King

I'm easy, possibly like Sunday morning. I like terror, horror, and the occasional gross-out.


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## MichelleR

Sean Thomas Fisher said:


> Joe Hill is good too!


Yep, although I like this anthology, 20th Century Ghosts, more than his novels. (I might like him more than his dad. Shhhhhh....)


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## J.L. McPherson

Joe Hill is the best new horror writer to hit the scene in a long, long time. I have not read all the posts here yet, but Scott Nicholson is the best indie horror writer I've read yet. Alan ryker's _Burden Kansas _ was just awesome too. Oh yeah, and Matt Hults, holy hell is he scary !


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## VincentHobbes

On my Netflix streaming, there is a horror genre.

At my local Barnes and Noble, there is not.

I'll admit, though, I watch way more horror than I read. The last decent horror novel I read was The Gathering Dead. It was a decent zombie story, and although it had some gore, it was fitting and well placed. 

As a horror lover, I don't mind gore and shock value, provided they are backed up by a good story. Often times, they aren't, which is why the horror genre is fading.


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## James Everington

I have my first Joe Hill book to crack open to page 1. and begin on the bus on the way home tonight, so I hope you're all right!


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## jayreddy publisher

James Everington said:


> I have my first Joe Hill book to crack open to page 1. and begin on the bus on the way home tonight, so I hope you're all right!


Well it looks as though I need to check out Joe Hill and The Other Room by Mr. Everington. There have been some great responses to the topic.


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## jayreddy publisher

VincentHobbes said:


> On my Netflix streaming, there is a horror genre.
> 
> At my local Barnes and Noble, there is not.


Good point Vincent. I went there last night to make sure you were correct but there is no horror section at Barnes and Noble. There is a section at Half Price Books, though. Crazy to think that horror has fallen this far.


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## kchughez

Hi J-Red,

I totally agree with you. In the past, horror books left it up to our imagination to envision the scene. And our imagination is the TOP RATED horror, bar none.

Good topic!

~KC


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## jayreddy publisher

kchughez said:


> Hi J-Red,
> 
> I totally agree with you. In the past, horror books left it up to our imagination to envision the scene. And our imagination is the TOP RATED horror, bar none.
> 
> Good topic!
> 
> ~KC


Agreed. I don't need to see it on paper or on a screen. Just in my mind where it is probably more twisted anyway.


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## Dave Dykema

Do you think it's possible horror book fans have aged and grown up (I'm talking about folks like me who were raised on Stephen King) and we haven't been replaced by a younger generation? Besides Joe Hill, is there a new, young author out there doing horror?


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## jayreddy publisher

Dave Dykema said:


> Do you think it's possible horror book fans have aged and grown up (I'm talking about folks like me who were raised on Stephen King) and we haven't been replaced by a younger generation? Besides Joe Hill, is there a new, young author out there doing horror?


I think it is very possible. Other then Joe Hill, I have been recommended to read James Everington. One of my authors, Vincent Hobbes has tried to bring back that feel as well. I am sure they are out there, just a little harder to find nowadays.


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## Holly B

DYB said:


> The only movie that is both gross and scary that I've seen is "Suspiria" by Dario Argento. But what's scary in it is the stuff that happens around the gore. By the time somebody's chest is ripped open you're already scared because of the music and everything else.


My husband and I just watched "Suspiria" the other night. And the night before that, we saw the original "Phantasm," - a movie he's been on about for quite some time. Last night we watched "Hellraiser." Thanks to Netflix streaming, I'm getting caught up on all the movies I missed as a kid and my husband is re-living his favorite past-time. 

I loved the concepts behind these movies way more than the concept (or lack thereof) of modern-day horror movies. Great CGI is no replacement for suspense and concept. I found myself missing something I never knew I'd missed. I understand my husband's draw to authors such as Stephen King (the early works) and Clive Barker. And I understand his desire to emulate the "old-school" horror. There doesn't seem to be much out there.


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## VincentHobbes

It's been awhile since I've read any horror at all, let alone horror that didn't dwell on blood and guts.

Happy to hear of some suggestions of horror authors....I'll check em' out.


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## James Everington

jayreddy publisher said:


> I think it is very possible. Other then Joe Hill, I have been recommended to read James Everington. One of my authors, Vincent Hobbes has tried to bring back that feel as well. I am sure they are out there, just a little harder to find nowadays.


Oh I'm just the (small) tip of the iceberg - there's tons of good new horror authors out there, although many are self published or published by small-press publishers. Check out Mark Samuels, Iain Rowan, Gary McMahon, Alan Ryker, Cate Gardner, Arran Polson etc. etc...


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## VincentHobbes

James....I'll check into your work.


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## MichelleR

Dave Dykema said:


> Do you think it's possible horror book fans have aged and grown up (I'm talking about folks like me who were raised on Stephen King) and we haven't been replaced by a younger generation? Besides Joe Hill, is there a new, young author out there doing horror?


I don't think it's completely dire, but perhaps you have somewhat of a point.

Here's book from a couple years ago that I enjoyed.



The critical reviews of it seem to be bothered that she perhaps went into the situation a little mentally unstable and her scary apartment made it worse -- guess they wouldn't like Haunting of Hill House either. 

For another writer from here:



I didn't love every story, but there were some really solid ones.


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## VincentHobbes

Love the suggestions and adding to my 'to read'


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## jayreddy publisher

There have been some great recommendations in many of the responses.


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## balaspa

I liked Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box quite a bit.  However, his novel Horns just seems....odd...to me.  Which doesn't mean it is bad, but I just have not dived in.

Good to know Stephen King's talents got passed down to his sons.


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## Julia Kavan

balaspa said:


> I liked Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box quite a bit. However, his novel Horns just seems....odd...to me. Which doesn't mean it is bad, but I just have not dived in.
> 
> Good to know Stephen King's talents got passed down to his sons.


I liked Heart Shaped Box - but I thought it lost it's way a bit. The beginning was very good, though. I've started Horns...and really should pick it up again....

I can't stand gore - either on film or in literature. I wasn't quite so squeamish when I was younger, but now I would rather be scared or at least left unsettled than made to want to vomit!

I write horror - and my erotic horror short was described as being 'delicately written'. Would be nice to think 'delicate horror' was the next big thing!


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## Dave Dykema

Delicate horror sounds so dainty. It made me smile.


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## David Alastair Hayden

balaspa said:


> torture porn


Well said. And I don't care for it.

The publishing market for horror collapsed at the end of the 80's. It was huge for a while then it died rapidly. Small press since then, unless your name is Steven King. Some of the writers just took a small step over into thrillers.

Modern horror in movies tends to be gore, and there's obviously an audience for that sort of thing, but I don't think any of the core audience has been scared by a movie in ages. Like many genres, it just keeps shrinking into a single core element.

But hopefully some good indies will be publishing some good horror that fits firmly in the terror category.


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## R. M. Reed

Yes, I hope someone does.


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## J.L. McPherson

I don't know, gore and torture both have their place in horror, if used when called for to drive home the plot. But I do agree that if the gore is what is supposed to be scary than the author has missed the point of what _real_ horror is about.


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## jayreddy publisher

David Alastair Hayden said:


> Well said. And I don't care for it.
> 
> The publishing market for horror collapsed at the end of the 80's. It was huge for a while then it died rapidly. Small press since then, unless your name is Steven King. Some of the writers just took a small step over into thrillers.
> 
> Modern horror in movies tends to be gore, and there's obviously an audience for that sort of thing, but I don't think any of the core audience has been scared by a movie in ages. Like many genres, it just keeps shrinking into a single core element.
> 
> But hopefully some good indies will be publishing some good horror that fits firmly in the terror category.


With the emergence of small presses, I believe horror will be reinvigorated in the next five years. Many new authors will get their shot to bring horror back to its roots. There is still hope to horror to become a genre of interest again.


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## James Bagshawe

David Alastair Hayden said:


> Well said. And I don't care for it.
> 
> The publishing market for horror collapsed at the end of the 80's. It was huge for a while then it died rapidly. Small press since then, unless your name is Steven King. Some of the writers just took a small step over into thrillers.
> 
> Modern horror in movies tends to be gore, and there's obviously an audience for that sort of thing, but I don't think any of the core audience has been scared by a movie in ages. Like many genres, it just keeps shrinking into a single core element.
> 
> But hopefully some good indies will be publishing some good horror that fits firmly in the terror category.


I'm a huge fan of horror and also lament the recent reliance on amount of claret spilled versus scaring. How John Carpenter could do Halloween but then move on to Ghosts of Mars is just depressing. Some more recent films like Insidious seem a better direction (I've not yet seen it so I don't know, but I loved the trailer).

The fact is that it's much more difficult to write a horror novel than a horror screenplay. In cinema you can get scares by many different methods and you have so many more tools to work with visually. If you write a horror novel, it's not as if you can use the turn of a page as the literary equivalent of the jump cut.

That said I think there are still plenty of writers out there who _are_ doing horror well, and the laundry list of names has been mentioned earlier in the thread. It's a shame that it's such a tough sell to big publishers, but then it's lucky that we have the Kindle store nowadays to allow this genre to revive.


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## bnapier

MichelleR said:


> I don't think it's completely dire, but perhaps you have somewhat of a point.
> 
> Here's book from a couple years ago that I enjoyed.
> 
> 
> 
> The critical reviews of it seem to be bothered that she perhaps went into the situation a little mentally unstable and her scary apartment made it worse -- guess they wouldn't like Haunting of Hill House either.
> 
> For another writer from here:
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't love every story, but there were some really solid ones.


Hey, thanks for the mention! I was wondering where my unusual flux in sales came, being so early in the month!


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## James Everington

J.L. McPherson said:


> I don't know, gore and torture both have their place in horror, if used when called for to drive home the plot. But I do agree that if the gore is what is supposed to be scary than the author has missed the point of what _real_ horror is about.


A good distinction; some horror writers, even the gory ones, are using it for a _purpose_. And I mean a purpose other than the cheap titilation of fifteen year old boys..!


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## Michelle Muto

I completely agree! I sort of stopped looking at new horror novels because it's mostly gore and slash. I want early Stephen King! I want more Haunting of Hill House! More Twilight Zone! More Dean Koontz.

I want to be scared of the things that don't carry knives, guns or other weapons. Make me afraid of the shadow, not the guy lurking in it. 

Where have all the good horror novels gone?


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## NRWick

I find myself asking the same question, especially when I browse the "horror" section of the bookstore. The only thing horrifying about the books there are how blatantly mis-catagorized they are. I have a hard time reading horror fiction, even though 90% of the movies I enjoy and watch are horror, because horror novels are just not that scary. There was this short novella I read recently and it was just so bad... it had no tension and was a bunch of really stupid gore that was trying to be shocking but really just made me roll my eyes. And this is coming from someone who likes gore. Yeah, I said it. I like gore. Love it. I liked the first Saw movie. Call me juvenile or gross, I don't care. I loved it. (I didn't, however, like that worthless piece of crap, Hostel. Fates, I wish I could get that hour and a half of my life back because it was just so dumb.) But more than that, I like to be creeped out, horrified, and disturbed. This effect just doesn't come across in many horror books I've read, so I'm ready to give up on finding any good ones.


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## VincentHobbes

NRWick said:


> I find myself asking the same question, especially when I browse the "horror" section of the bookstore. The only thing horrifying about the books there are how blatantly mis-catagorized they are. I have a hard time reading horror fiction, even though 90% of the movies I enjoy and watch are horror, because horror novels are just not that scary. There was this short novella I read recently and it was just so bad... it had no tension and was a bunch of really stupid gore that was trying to be shocking but really just made me roll my eyes. And this is coming from someone who likes gore. Yeah, I said it. I like gore. Love it. I liked the first Saw movie. Call me juvenile or gross, I don't care. I loved it. (I didn't, however, like that worthless piece of crap, Hostel. Fates, I wish I could get that hour and a half of my life back because it was just so dumb.) But more than that, I like to be creeped out, horrified, and disturbed. This effect just doesn't come across in many horror books I've read, so I'm ready to give up on finding any good ones.


Nothing juvenile about enjoying gore, because gore does fit horror. I just feel the gore must be justified . . . and that storyline should still come first.

I'm curious why you didn't care for Hostel.


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## NRWick

VincentHobbes said:


> I'm curious why you didn't care for Hostel.


Haha, oh man. The list could go on about that, but I will give you a condensed version. I was bored. When I watch horror movies, I expect some sort of tension building, some sort of relatability or sympathy for the characters, and I don't expect to have to sit through more than half the movie being about boobs and sex before getting into any remotely interesting or disturbing storyline. I'm not the sort to be uptight about boobs or sex, (like I said, I watch and love A LOT of horror movies) but when I'm forced to sit through almost an hour long wet dream, quasi-porno, in order to get to the actual "horror" part of the horror movie, I get bored and annoyed. I felt nothing for the moronic characters and I couldn't relate to them in any way, so when the torture came I found myself rolling my eyes at how absurd it was.

So, yes. That's why, in a nut shell. I'm also often amused how it always seems to be men who rave about this movie. I wonder why that is...


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## VincentHobbes

NRWick said:


> Haha, oh man. The list could go on about that, but I will give you a condensed version. I was bored. When I watch horror movies, I expect some sort of tension building, some sort of relatability or sympathy for the characters, and I don't expect to have to sit through more than half the movie being about boobs and sex before getting into any remotely interesting or disturbing storyline. I'm not the sort to be uptight about boobs or sex, (like I said, I watch and love A LOT of horror movies) but when I'm forced to sit through almost an hour long wet dream, quasi-porno, in order to get to the actual "horror" part of the horror movie, I get bored and annoyed. I felt nothing for the moronic characters and I couldn't relate to them in any way, so when the torture came I found myself rolling my eyes at how absurd it was.
> 
> So, yes. That's why, in a nut shell. I'm also often amused how it always seems to be men who rave about this movie. I wonder why that is...


Good points....and yes, I'm a man....and yes, I still liked Hostel.

Go figure


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## James Bagshawe

Perhaps part of the problem is that the horror genre is considered too corrupting for book stores to want to push it much. Whilst I think it's ridiculous that you can have an active fantasy section with plenty of claret, sex and violence, are book sellers just afraid of horror?

Stephen King is more of a brand himself than a representative of horror writing, so he's exempted from this censure, but I can't think of the last time I saw a horror section in the bookstore. Rental movies, sure, a big section. Books, not so much.


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## balaspa

For me horror is always best the more you leave up to the reader's or viewer's minds.  Well, I guess this works better in horror films.  The things I can imagine are always more terrifying than anything the filmmakers come up with.  For example, the movie SIGNS was great, up until you saw the alien at the end.  It was not nearly as frightening as the creepy sounds and the quickly-glimpsed shadowy figures, legs and hands.  In the movie The Ring, it was scarier and creepier when the little girl was NOT actually seen coming out of the TV...then she just looked like a wet girl with bad hair.


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## Brem

The last good horror book I read, was Let The Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I saw the movie first and absolutely loved it so I had to get the book. It's just one of those books that actually creeps you out. But yeah, last horror book I read that was actually good.


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## VincentHobbes

munificent said:


> Stephen King is more of a brand himself than a representative of horror writing, so he's exempted from this censure, but I can't think of the last time I saw a horror section in the bookstore. Rental movies, sure, a big section. Books, not so much.


I agree....some bookstores don't have a horror section, but they'll have a Stephen King section.


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## J.L. McPherson

VincentHobbes said:


> I agree....some bookstores don't have a horror section, but they'll have a Stephen King section.


True, it pisses me off that there is no Robert McCammon section. I believe horror will make a comeback, when the great horror writers stop letting their publishers call their work, thrillers. Dean Koontz especially ! Are you telling me that _Intensity_ was a thriller ? hell no, it's horror and one of the best written ever...I guess I'm done ranting now.


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## LeonardDHilleyII

J.L. McPherson said:


> True, it pisses me off that there is no Robert McCammon section. I believe horror will make a comeback, when the great horror writers stop letting their publishers call their work, thrillers. Dean Koontz especially ! Are you telling me that _Intensity_ was a thriller ? hell no, it's horror and one of the best written ever...I guess I'm done ranting now.


I agree with you there. Intensity was, well, INTENSE. The gore comes into play now, and this is just speculation on my part, by new writers having been exposed to so much blood and gore in films. Some believe that is supposed to be placed in their novels as well. But horror, when crafted well on the page, can make you turn on all your lights in your house. Lovecraft, Koontz, Simmons . . . .


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## JeffMariotte

Anyone who can't find a horror section in a bookstore is shopping in the wrong bookstores. The store I co-own, Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, soon-to-be Redondo Beach, and online) carries only horror, sf, fantasy, and mystery (and associated items). Borderlands in SF and Dark Carnival in Berkeley do much the same, and there are plenty of others scattered around the country and the world. Dark Delicacies in L.A. sells exclusively horror.

As for torture porn and gore-fests, that's part of contemporary horror publishing, but by no means all of it. Others have mentioned some of these writers, but here they are again, and more: Dan Simmons, Peter Straub, Joe Hill, Scott Nicholson, Christopher Golden, Conrad Williams, Robert McCammon, Sarah Pinborough, Sarah Langan, Tim Lebbon, John Connolly...these are all horror writers worth looking into, and that's just off the top of my head.

There's also a lot of good horror coming out in the YA field these days--horror that's less likely to have graphic gore than adult horror, but is just as scary.

_--- edited... no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar forum. please read our Forum Decorum thread._


----------



## MarionSipe

I've been a horror fan since I was fairly young and I've always thought that horror has to strike a chord with the reader.  Gore eventually becomes ridiculous, it reaches a point where it's no longer scary and just becomes laughable (in a queasy, wincing way).  If that's all there is to the story, it doesn't scare me.  It bores me.

Tension will drag me through the book and really make me worry for the characters.  I get so annoyed at cheap startle tactics in movies.  If the tension hasn't been built, you may make me jump, but you won't make me care.  The scenes that are truly scary for me don't usually involve a lot of blood.  The "lotion" scene from Silence of the Lambs always twists me up, and a good ghost story will make me a little worried about turning off the lights even if the ghost is never seen.

I think the best horror writers scare themselves first, and it really does translate to the page!


----------



## wildgoose

The Black Books of Horror are good.


----------



## silenceiseverything

I've been a fan of horror ever since my cousin played the intro of The Amityville Horror (the original) film on Halloween.  I was eight and ran out of the room screaming because the creepy tune and the house shaped like a pumpkin scared the crap out of me (ahh, memories).  However, I'm disillusioned at some of the new horror that's coming out today.  I'm not a fan of gore at all.  It makes me cringe.  I prefer chilling movies/stories rather than the gross-out ones.  I think the only gory book I've read was Jack Ketchum's Off-Season and I didn't really enjoy it.  I like books like The Haunting of Hill House, Let's Go Play at the Adams, Naomi's Room, Come Closer, The Exorcist.


----------



## NRWick

JeffMariotte said:


> Anyone who can't find a horror section in a bookstore is shopping in the wrong bookstores. The store I co-own, Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, soon-to-be Redondo Beach, and online) carries only horror, sf, fantasy, and mystery (and associated items). Borderlands in SF and Dark Carnival in Berkeley do much the same, and there are plenty of others scattered around the country and the world. Dark Delicacies in L.A. sells exclusively horror.
> 
> ...
> 
> There's also a lot of good horror coming out in the YA field these days--horror that's less likely to have graphic gore than adult horror, but is just as scary.


Oh my goodness, Jeff, I just wanted to gush for two seconds about how awesome MG is. I live in the San Diego area and have gone to Mysterious Galaxy on several occasions. I love this bookstore because it only carries those types of books. It's a dangerous place, though, because I find myself wanting to buy half the store. lol

Also, you are spot on about YA horror. It's getting pretty awesome and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.


----------



## VincentHobbes

J.L. McPherson said:


> True, it pisses me off that there is no Robert McCammon section. I believe horror will make a comeback, when the great horror writers stop letting their publishers call their work, thrillers. Dean Koontz especially ! Are you telling me that _Intensity_ was a thriller ? hell no, it's horror and one of the best written ever...I guess I'm done ranting now.


...it was a good rant and I agree.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

JeffMariotte said:


> Anyone who can't find a horror section in a bookstore is shopping in the wrong bookstores. The store I co-own, Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, soon-to-be Redondo Beach, and online) carries only horror, sf, fantasy, and mystery (and associated items). Borderlands in SF and Dark Carnival in Berkeley do much the same, and there are plenty of others scattered around the country and the world. Dark Delicacies in L.A. sells exclusively horror.


All these bookstores sound like independent bookstores. Unfortunately, most bookstores around the Dallas area are major retailers. Most of the independent bookstores closed after the economy went to crap, so I don't have many choices. I guess that is a topic for another forum.


----------



## Victoria J

I don't really care for horror but I will never forget hearing a audio book of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space. Scared the hell out of me. I couldn't sleep for nearly a week after hearing that. No gore anywhere in sight either.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Victoria J said:


> I don't really care for horror but I will never forget hearing a audio book of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space. Scared the hell out of me. I couldn't sleep for nearly a week after hearing that. No gore anywhere in sight either.


Ahhh....good one. Might need to re-read that one.


----------



## gryeates

I'll throw my two pennies in the ring as I'm a horror author 

I think horror is still alive and kicking, it's just had little in the way of support from legacy publishers. Whether you like them or not, the wave of horror cinema that Saw kicked off in 2004 proved there is an audience which, I think, was sadly ignored because publishers didn't want to associate with what was being called 'torture porn'. I disagree with that label myself as Saw reinvigorated my interest in the genre and started me on the road to writing my first work. That aside, I would say of the 'torture porn' films, they're just gory horror films and like every trend in the genre seen previously, some were good, some were bad and a few were stellar. The stellar ones though, in my opinion, were not Hostel or Saw - I would pick Martyrs and A Serbian Film. My reason being that both used incredibly visceral violence and abuse on screen to illustrate confrontational meta-physical and political concepts respectively. There is another film due out soon called The Bunny Game which looks similarly interesting.

Some writers that I recommend to those seeking great material would be Gary McMahon, Jack Wallen, Ian Woodhead and Quentin S. Crisp. Also for a genre that often gets pilloried for being overly white and male-oriented, check out the works of Wrath James White, Jason D. Brawn, Maurice Broaddus, Jessica Meigs, Rakie Keig, Serenity Banks and Chesya Burke. I don't select these writers to pigeon-hole them as being black or women writers, just to demonstrate that we have diversity now in a genre where it has not always been so. Lastly but not at all least, for those after a Lovecraftian kick, try W.H. Pugmire - his stuff is warped in its originality.

On the subject of gore's place in horror, I think as a few people have mentioned, it's fine if it serves the tale. I enjoy the films of Fulci as much as I do Nosferatu and I like a bit of Edward Lee as well as the suggestive chills created by Ramsey Campbell. The genre is a big place and I think there's room for all aspects and interpretations as long as a good story is being told.

Okay, that wasn't so much two pennies, maybe £1.50


----------



## JeffMariotte

NRWick said:


> Oh my goodness, Jeff, I just wanted to gush for two seconds about how awesome MG is. I live in the San Diego area and have gone to Mysterious Galaxy on several occasions. I love this bookstore because it only carries those types of books. It's a dangerous place, though, because I find myself wanting to buy half the store. lol
> 
> Also, you are spot on about YA horror. It's getting pretty awesome and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.


Thanks! Glad you like the store. I'm kind of fond of it, myself.

I'll be a Guest of Honor at the horror convention KillerCon in September, so maybe I'll be able to report back on more awesome horror discoveries after that.


----------



## Cal_Noble

As my dad taught me, there's a time and place for everything. I think that holds true with gore. The question is how much blood does it take to make you think "gore?" 

What I can't stand about the modern "horror" genre is that we've moved away from monsters. It seems a lot of horror is simply man's horror committed against his fellow man or psychological horror. Pff! Give me demons, devils, angry ghosts and some zombies. Vampires stopped being cool when they started dressing goth, dating jailbait 100 years their junior, and drinking goat's blood from the preserved bladder of a humanely euthanized alpaca.  

Brian Keene's "Ghoul" is a good read... set in the eighties, it's like a trip down memory lane.
Edward Lee's "Monstrosity" is good also. Not quite the erotic horror "Flesh Gothic" was. 
Nate Kenyon's "The Reach" was a great read. More like Firestarter than the other tropes I listed above.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

JeffMariotte said:


> I'll be a Guest of Honor at the horror convention KillerCon in September, so maybe I'll be able to report back on more awesome horror discoveries after that.


Please do. I am interested if you come across anything new and exciting.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Cal_Noble said:


> What I can't stand about the modern "horror" genre is that we've moved away from monsters. It seems a lot of horror is simply man's horror committed against his fellow man or psychological horror. Pff! Give me demons, devils, angry ghosts and some zombies.


^^This^^


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Cal_Noble said:


> What I can't stand about the modern "horror" genre is that we've moved away from monsters. It seems a lot of horror is simply man's horror committed against his fellow man or psychological horror. Pff! Give me demons, devils, angry ghosts and some zombies.


I don't think there is anything that scares me more then a good demon story. Something you can't control, but who know what horrors a demon can do.


----------



## MichelleR

I like when psychology combines with things going bump in the night. I think horror can widen cracks in someone's mental health.

One example would be Haunting of Hill House, another would be:



I think Stephen King called the latter a story about the making of a haunted house, or perhaps it was the author and King was just quoting her. The house was new and seemed to bring out the worst qualities in the inhabitants, leading to tragedy for a series of families. It's implied that the house and perhaps the land is bad, but possibly becoming worse as the body count climbs.


----------



## JeffMariotte

_The House Next Door_ is an amazing book (as is _The Haunting of Hill House_). I first read the Siddons because King recommended it so highly in his nonfiction book Danse Macabre, and it's definitely worth reading.


----------



## MichelleR

JeffMariotte said:


> _The House Next Door_ is an amazing book (as is _The Haunting of Hill House_). I first read the Siddons because King recommended it so highly in his nonfiction book Danse Macabre, and it's definitely worth reading.


I recently wrote a piece over at Red Adept about my crazy love for:


----------



## Sean Cunningham

gryeates said:


> Lastly but not at all least, for those after a Lovecraftian kick, try W.H. Pugmire - his stuff is warped in its originality.


Ah good, I've been looking through this thread specifically for anyone recommending cosmic horror. I've been working my way through all of Lovecraft's stories between reading novels, but it would be nice to see what other people have done with the ideas.

_The Translated Man_ by Chris Braak makes some use of cosmic horrror tropes, so if anyone has read that and can suggest stories in that vein I'd be interested in checking them out too.

*​
I remember seeing something about an old black and white movie in which the only special effect was someone pushing on the other side of a door with a block of wood to make it bow inwards. That was a movie about fear, not gore, which is what I like to see in horror.


----------



## Glen Krisch

I write horror that isn't over-the-top **cough-cough**.
For ebooks, I would recommend checking out Delirium's ebook line, Darkside Digital. Alongside seasoned writers like Greg Gifune, JF Gonzalez, and Tom Piccirilli, you'll find highly talented new writers like Lee Thompson, and Michael Louis Calvillo.
http://www.darkside-digital.com/authors/
There's also Crossroads Press, which has a lot of solid writers under wing.
There is a lot of horror out there right now, but for the moment, it's in the shadows. You need to look for it to find it.


----------



## R. M. Reed

Sean Cunningham said:


> I remember seeing something about an old black and white movie in which the only special effect was someone pushing on the other side of a door with a block of wood to make it bow inwards. That was a movie about fear, not gore, which is what I like to see in horror.


That might be The Haunting of Hill House, which has been mentioned in this thread. A remake a few years ago was full of CGI, but wasn't anywhere near as scary.


----------



## Plotspider

I think quite too many people are beginning to think horror is about seeing someone become eviscerated in a creative way, and perhaps they are running out of ways to creatively butcher people such that it doesn't just go over the top.  And unfortunately, people are watching horror these days (or reading it) like people look at pornography: "Skip all this story and get to the 'good' stuff.  Show me some death."    

The true effectiveness of horror was not supposed to be its realistic or outrageous portrayal of mutilation (which some people seem to think it is).  For me, however, the true brilliance of any horror is when you can get your audience to go: "What if that were happening to me?  Could I stand it?"  And if you can get the audience to NOT want bad things to happen to its main characters, that's even better.  True horror gets at mutual fears, deep down, Jungian archetypal fears down in the audience's mind.  For instance, in No Country for Old Men, the horror was not any sort of butchery or maniacal splattering of gore; it was Anton Chegur showing up and sitting there with a gun across his lap, and the audience knowing that he was going to kill whoever it was he was talking to, even if they are an unassuming housewife who's done nothing wrong at all (this movie's not horror, but it has horror moments).  In Silence of the Lambs, the truest terror was not what was shown, but the absolute dread of what Hannibal Lecter is capable of doing.  The fact they have to put him in that underground cell with all those guards means, if he ever gets loose he will do something, but what would he do?  We imagine far worse than can be portrayed.    

One of the major downfalls of horror is the interest people keep expressing in the villains and the villain's demolishing of the characters.  The villains are, after all, really unchanging and of a very limited sort (though they may wear different masks): psychopaths, greedy or lustful bastards, demons, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, beasts of a fantastic nature, unknowable Cthuhlu-types, etc.  

Most horror these days (and i speak mainly of movies), seem to think the idea of horror is merely to set up a bunch of blood-filled bodies and knock them down, like some ghoulish bowling alley.  The best horror, however, has developed characters and well-thought-out situations so that one cares when the monsters attack and one laments when the monster wins and evil is able to keep going.  Otherwise, what is horror, but pornography for the violent?  

I"m beginning to believe that horror (in the movies) IS a weird type of pornography geared towards the desires on the opposite side of the University English Major spectrum (sex vs. death).  Instead of looking for sex, horror is indeed a pornography geared towards a nature within human beings that seeks to understand that we are alive as opposed to being endangered, therefore distancing ourselves from what is on the screen.  Perhaps this is the same mentality that leads chimps to beat randomly selected members of other chimp groups near or entirely to death: they know they are part of the group that is doing the violence, and can see that they are not the ones being destroyed, therefore a sort of strange feeling of safety/security is created.  Unfortunately, while this may appeal to some primal instincts within human beings (in the same way porn appeals to another, slightly different primal instinct), this completely destroys the good parts and meaningfulness (IMO) of horror, which are the humanizing effects of facing the fear of the monster with the characters and defeating it together.  Nowadays, at least in the movies, people are rooting for the monster, therefore joining the monster's group and becoming identified with the monster.  IS that what horror should become?  Is that truly what makes horror a worthy form of literature or entertainment?  I don't know.


----------



## Adam Kisiel

Check this out:

http://amzn.com/B005AU8LHY


----------



## VincentHobbes

Plotspider....excellent post.


----------



## SJWrightAuthor

Bleekness said:


> I actually liked Saw, but I hear you . Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity were pretty frightening for me. I actually went to see Blair Witch in tokyo with my girlfriend at the time (her choice to see it--not mine). After the lights went up, my GF was like "that was stupid!" while I was shivering and hiding behind my knees that had somehow come up to eye level during the course of the flick.
> 
> Point being, haven't read a horror book in a looooong time that does that.


When my younger sister and I went to see Blair Witch project at the theater when it first came out,
halfway through the movie, during a particularly scary scene, the power went out in the entire
theater. It was freaky! There were no storms or anything like that either. Very weird. I did like
that movie. Very scary.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Plotspider said:


> I"m beginning to believe that horror (in the movies) IS a weird type of pornography geared towards the desires on the opposite side of the University English Major spectrum (sex vs. death). Instead of looking for sex, horror is indeed a pornography geared towards a nature within human beings that seeks to understand that we are alive as opposed to being endangered, therefore distancing ourselves from what is on the screen. Perhaps this is the same mentality that leads chimps to beat randomly selected members of other chimp groups near or entirely to death: they know they are part of the group that is doing the violence, and can see that they are not the ones being destroyed, therefore a sort of strange feeling of safety/security is created. Unfortunately, while this may appeal to some primal instincts within human beings (in the same way porn appeals to another, slightly different primal instinct), this completely destroys the good parts and meaningfulness (IMO) of horror, which are the humanizing effects of facing the fear of the monster with the characters and defeating it together. Nowadays, at least in the movies, people are rooting for the monster, therefore joining the monster's group and becoming identified with the monster. IS that what horror should become? Is that truly what makes horror a worthy form of literature or entertainment? I don't know.


You have some great points and insight in the post and I do agree with you on many aspects of this. First, I agree, horror has become about body counts and sick human nature. But if you want that, just watch the local news that night. We have become more twisted in a way where we want our senses to be indulged, no matter if it's taste or visual. We live for stimulating our sense. We stop and stare at the bad wreck on the highway to see how bad it is, and then scoff if it's not serious. We like our horror like we like our lives...stimulating. Is that wrong? I don't know.


----------



## VincentHobbes

SJWrightAuthor said:


> When my younger sister and I went to see Blair Witch project at the theater when it first came out,
> halfway through the movie, during a particularly scary scene, the power went out in the entire
> theater. It was freaky! There were no storms or anything like that either. Very weird. I did like
> that movie. Very scary.


Ha! That must have been scary. Yea, decent movie, tho everyone tried the same style after. Few pulled it off. I thought the movie was good as well.


----------



## Sean Cunningham

R. Reed said:


> That might be The Haunting of Hill House, which has been mentioned in this thread. A remake a few years ago was full of CGI, but wasn't anywhere near as scary.


Ah, I have seen the remake then. From memory, the scariest moment was the thunderous banging on the walls/floor/ceiling. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, it's the unseen element of it that was what made it scary.


----------



## James Everington

Lots of good stuff on this post since I last checked. I don't want to come over all Harry Met Sally, but:

Haunting of Hill House - Yes
The House Next Door - Yes
Dance Macabre - Yes, yes, yes ... - great writing about the genre. Read this for the first time, and the list of books you _want _to read will at least double.

Sean's suggestion looks interesting too.


----------



## Akincaid87

I think horror as become over the top because people have become over stimulated.  I've shown younger friends old time horror movies, classics like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist, and they were just bored.  They weren't scared at all.  It's the same with books.  I think people have become addicted to gallons of gore.  Gore is fine if used well, but it shouldn't be the crutch the story is based upon.  

I think the shift in horror movies has translated over to books as well.  I try to emulate the old style of horror in my writing.  I've been watching a lot of older horror movies and I've read stuff like H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.  I think that the ball is in the court of the indies.  We can shift the momentum back the direction it should be going.  What do you all think?


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Akincaid87 said:


> I think the shift in horror movies has translated over to books as well. I try to emulate the old style of horror in my writing. I've been watching a lot of older horror movies and I've read stuff like H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. I think that the ball is in the court of the indies. We can shift the momentum back the direction it should be going. What do you all think?


Indies and small presses will help the re-emergence of horror but many in this forum believe it is well and thriving right now.


----------



## SJWrightAuthor

Victoria J said:


> I don't really care for horror but I will never forget hearing a audio book of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space. Scared the hell out of me. I couldn't sleep for nearly a week after hearing that. No gore anywhere in sight either.


I'm going to search for that one. It sounds fantastic.


----------



## Dave Dykema

Akincaid87 said:


> I think horror as become over the top because people have become over stimulated. I've shown younger friends old time horror movies, classics like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist, and they were just bored. They weren't scared at all. It's the same with books. I think people have become addicted to gallons of gore. Gore is fine if used well, but it shouldn't be the crutch the story is based upon.


I agree with pretty much everything you said here. I've seen groups of children watching movies of a few decades ago ("Hellraiser" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" come to mind) and laughing all the way through them.

Disclosure: my current WIP does have a lot of gore, but I am trying to get more "human" elements into it.


----------



## Kevis Hendrickson

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that our culture has shifted into a 'shock me!' culture. With raunchy and over-the-top violent video games, tv shows, and movies shoved in our face all day, society has become desensitized to things that would never have been shown a decade or so before. The media is constantly trying to push the envelope with sex and violence to get a new rise out of people. As a result, there isn't very much thought going into much of the entertainment we get today. Sadly, horror is only one of many genres that suffers from creativity in this 'obscenity-driven' culture.


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked

Kevis Hendrickson said:


> The media is constantly trying to push the envelope with sex and violence to get a new rise out of people.


All I have to hear is a director or writer say the words "push the boundary" and that tells me all I need to know about that movie or book.

Not interested.

Mike


----------



## VincentHobbes

I wonder if horror will ever recover...or at the least, will it ever evolve from where it is today.


----------



## Tony Rabig

"Push the boundaries" & "Not interested."
Man, ain't that the truth -- that's my reaction exactly.  And I don't think it would be if so often the notion of pushing the boundaries wasn't solely a matter of piling on more gore and more CGI.
I grew up on sf & horror books and movies, and there hasn't been a lot in the movies in the last 30 years that did it for me the way the original HAUNTING did, or some segments of THRILLER or TWILIGHT ZONE did.
There are times when I think that a big part of the problem is that most of the people who created all the wonderful stuff referenced in books like King's DANSE MACABRE grew up on books more than movies; too many of the people these days (in the movies anyway) grew up on movies more than books and don't seem to attach enough importance to story and character over special effects.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Tony Rabig said:


> There are times when I think that a big part of the problem is that most of the people who created all the wonderful stuff referenced in books like King's DANSE MACABRE grew up on books more than movies; too many of the people these days (in the movies anyway) grew up on movies more than books and don't seem to attach enough importance to story and character over special effects.


Well said. Less and less readers these days. A dying breed.


----------



## Akincaid87

It's funny there are less and less readers when being literate is more and more essential in our world.  I'm always kind of saddened when people say they don't read much; I feel they're really missing out on a lot.  A lot of it has to do with the schools and how they teach reading, and with how people who show any kind of intelligence tend to be ostracized.  That, and it takes a lot of attention to sit down and read a book.  That's something people just don't have now.  Seems that with the net and texting and twitter and all of that that our attention spans are collectively about those of a cracked out ferret.

I think horror has gone the direction it has in some ways because of these sort of things; it's harder to play with more complex ideas (either in books or movies) if you're more concerned about keeping people's attention for more than five seconds.  That's why it's all gore and sex and "Boo! I scared you!"  It's the only way to keep asses in seats.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Akincaid87 said:


> It's funny there are less and less readers when being literate is more and more essential in our world. I'm always kind of saddened when people say they don't read much; I feel they're really missing out on a lot. A lot of it has to do with the schools and how they teach reading, and with how people who show any kind of intelligence tend to be ostracized. That, and it takes a lot of attention to sit down and read a book. That's something people just don't have now. Seems that with the net and texting and twitter and all of that that our attention spans are collectively about those of a cracked out ferret.
> 
> I think horror has gone the direction it has in some ways because of these sort of things; it's harder to play with more complex ideas (either in books or movies) if you're more concerned about keeping people's attention for more than five seconds. That's why it's all gore and sex and "Boo! I scared you!" It's the only way to keep *sses in seats.


Excellent response and well thought out. You are right in many ways. As a publisher, I'm saddened when people say they don't read much as well. They are missing out. They want the short version. They want instant fixes, and books just won't give them that. Sad.

'Boo! I scared you!' This pretty much sums up most modern horror.

Again, excellent response.


----------



## James Everington

There's been a ton of great posts and discussion on here, so thought I'd summarise the recommendations to this point. I've not put any poster's books unless they've also been recommended by someone else on here, and where people have listed an author but not a title I've not been to check or put my own views on.

Not in any specific order. Warning, may contain me.


Alan Ryker - Pulling Teeth, Burden Kansas
Iain Rowan - Ice Age
Kealan Patrick Burke - 
James Everington - The Other Room
Joel Arnold - Northwood Deep
Douglas Clegg - 
John Connelly - Nocturnes, The New Daughter
Joe Hill - 20th Century Ghosts, Heart Shaped Box
Vincent Hobbes - Endlands
Sarah Langan - Audrey's Door
Barry Napier - 13 Broken Nightlights
John Ajvide Lindqvist - Let The Right One In
Dean Kootz - Intensity
Stephen King - Dance Macabre (non-fiction discusison of the genre)
Robert McCammon  - 
Dan Simmons - 
Scott Nicholson - 
Christopher Golden - 
Conrad Williams - 
Sarah Pinborough - 
Tim Lebbon - 
HP Lovecraft - The Colour Out of Space
Gary McMahon - 
Jack Wallen - 
Ian Woodhead - 
Quentin S. Crisp - 
Wrath James White -  
Jason D. Brawn -  
Maurice Broaddus -  
Jessica Meigs -  
Rakie Keig -  
Serenity Banks -  
Chesya Burke -  
W.H. Pugmire - 
Brian Keene - Ghoul
Edward Lee - Monstrosity
Nate Kenyon's - The Reach
Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
Ann River Siddons - The House Next Door
Chris Braak - The Translated Man

Apologies if I've missed any!


----------



## jayreddy publisher

James Everington said:


> There's been a ton of great posts and discussion on here, so thought I'd summarise the recommendations to this point. I've not put any poster's books unless they've also been recommended by someone else on here, and where people have listed an author but not a title I've not been to check or put my own views on.
> 
> Not in any specific order. Warning, may contain me.
> 
> Alan Ryker - Pulling Teeth, Burden Kansas
> Iain Rowan - Ice Age
> Kealan Patrick Burke -
> James Everington - The Other Room
> Joel Arnold - Northwood Deep
> Douglas Clegg -
> John Connelly - Nocturnes, The New Daughter
> Joe Hill - 20th Century Ghosts, Heart Shaped Box
> Vincent Hobbes - Endlands
> Sarah Langan - Audrey's Door
> Barry Napier - 13 Broken Nightlights
> John Ajvide Lindqvist - Let The Right One In
> Dean Kootz - Intensity
> Stephen King - Dance Macabre (non-fiction discusison of the genre)
> Robert McCammon -
> Dan Simmons -
> Scott Nicholson -
> Christopher Golden -
> Conrad Williams -
> Sarah Pinborough -
> Tim Lebbon -
> HP Lovecraft - The Colour Out of Space
> Gary McMahon -
> Jack Wallen -
> Ian Woodhead -
> Quentin S. Crisp -
> Wrath James White -
> Jason D. Brawn -
> Maurice Broaddus -
> Jessica Meigs -
> Rakie Keig -
> Serenity Banks -
> Chesya Burke -
> W.H. Pugmire -
> Brian Keene - Ghoul
> Edward Lee - Monstrosity
> Nate Kenyon's - The Reach
> Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
> Ann River Siddons - The House Next Door
> Chris Braak - The Translated Man
> 
> Apologies if I've missed any!


Excellent list James. Good work. I have a LOT of reading to do.


----------



## Akincaid87

I recommend any fan of old time horror pick up a copy of the Necronomicon: Weird Tales by H.P. Lovecraft.  It's far from a definitive collection of his work, but it does have some of his best in there.  Also check out early Stephen King....and check out his book Danse Macabre.  Watch old horror flicks up until about the 80's or so (especially some of the ones from the 70's)

Then, once your head is full of all that craziness....start writing!  There are a lot of talented horror fans out there who know and love the genre.  Who knows? Maybe you're the next Stephen King?  

With the prevalence of indie publishing, it's easier to get your book out there than ever before.  Heck, all you have to do is know some basic Office formatting, get a decent cover (there are sites you can go to in order to make one, or you could use Photoshop,) and slap it all together into a .doc for an upload!  

I think that there are people out there who want good horror (otherwise this thread wouldn't exist.)  Maybe it's up to those same people to start forcing a change in the genre they enjoy?


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Kevis Hendrickson said:


> I think it has a lot to do with the fact that our culture has shifted into a 'shock me!' culture. With raunchy and over-the-top violent video games, tv shows, and movies shoved in our face all day, society has become desensitized to things that would never have been shown a decade or so before. The media is constantly trying to push the envelope with sex and violence to get a new rise out of people. As a result, there isn't very much thought going into much of the entertainment we get today. Sadly, horror is only one of many genres that suffers from creativity in this 'obscenity-driven' culture.


Great point Kevis. And thank you again James, you made my life easier by making the list.


----------



## Tony Richards

The biggest problem with the horror genre is -- and has been for an awfully long time -- that the majority of people tend to mix up horror fiction and horror movies, thinking them the same thing. They are, in my opinion, two entirely seperate things. I'm not saying that there aren't some good horror movies out there ... sure there are. But at least 95% that are released -- and most of them are straight to DVD -- are made purely for the money and are junk. These 'film-makers' see their primary target as being teenaged boys, and so there's nothing in the least bit subtle about their product -- nudity and gore _uber alles_, thank you very much.

Books and stories are quite different. There are some writers -- no names -- who certainly write junk for the cash. But there are also hundreds of good, creative, clever writers who are dedicated to the horror genre, many of whom I meet when I go to a World Horror Convention, and a lot of whom have only been heard of by real horror afficionados. Serious, subtle horror still lives. You just have to hunt a bit to find it.


----------



## JeffMariotte

Tony Richards said:


> The biggest problem with the horror genre is -- and has been for an awfully long time -- that the majority of people tend to mix up horror fiction and horror movies, thinking them the same thing. They are, in my opinion, two entirely seperate things. I'm not saying that there aren't some good horror movies out there ... sure there are. But at least 95% that are released -- and most of them are straight to DVD -- are made purely for the money and are junk. These 'film-makers' see their primary target as being teenaged boys, and so there's nothing in the least bit subtle about their product -- nudity and gore _uber alles_, thank you very much.
> 
> Books and stories are quite different. There are some writers -- no names -- who certainly write junk for the cash. But there are also hundreds of good, creative, clever writers who are dedicated to the horror genre, many of whom I meet when I go to a World Horror Convention, and a lot of whom have only been heard of by real horror afficionados. Serious, subtle horror still lives. You just have to hunt a bit to find it.


Thanks for pointing that out, Tony. Even in this thread, which seemed to start out being about horror fiction, movies and fiction got conflated.

I've only been to one WHC, I think, and this year is my first KillerCon. I'd be looking forward to it even if I weren't a GoH, but as it's my first GoH experience I'm especially looking forward to it.


----------



## scottnicholson

I think the problem is that "horror" only has one label.
Think of the scale of romance>erotica>porn. There's not really such a scale in horror, so it all gets stuck under the same tent. And thus "horror" automatically means chainsaws and naked teens to most people.

But I have also come to believe that the digital era has revealed the tons of niche audiences who have been deprived for so long, and many authors eager to meet them. And horror never went away. Horror doesn't live or die. Horror doesn't care. It just is.

Scott


----------



## jayreddy publisher

JeffMariotte said:


> Thanks for pointing that out, Tony. Even in this thread, which seemed to start out being about horror fiction, movies and fiction got conflated.
> 
> I've only been to one WHC, I think, and this year is my first KillerCon. I'd be looking forward to it even if I weren't a GoH, but as it's my first GoH experience I'm especially looking forward to it.


I agree they were conflated. But I guess my original point is "mainstream" horror has pretty much vanished since Stephen King's heyday, and now the "mainstream" horror is concentrated on gore. There are some great indie authors and small presses publishing good horror, but very few traditional publishers care about horror anymore. It is sad relly, because horror is my favorite genre but I have only received two horror submissions since my company was opened, and the only one published was an anthology. Horror has somewhat faded into the corner as other genres have flourished.

By the way, I am enjoying The Other Room. Thanks for that recommendation


----------



## NS

What do you think about Bentley Little? He's called the horror writer of a new millennium but I find his books more like thrillers. I read him because King praised his work.


----------



## JeffMariotte

jayreddy publisher said:


> I agree they were conflated. But I guess my original point is "mainstream" horror has pretty much vanished since Stephen King's heyday, and now the "mainstream" horror is concentrated on gore. There are some great indie authors and small presses publishing good horror, but very few traditional publishers care about horror anymore.


My most mainstream horror novels were published by Penguin in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Not exactly a small press. Bentley Little has often been published by them, too. Simon & Schuster still publishes King, Random House publishes Straub, Little, Brown publishes Simmons. The big publishers haven't turned their back on horror--they never did a lot of it, but they did some and still do. And none of those writers are doing gore. I think most of the gore fiction has, in fact, come from the smaller presses, the specialty horror presses, rather than from the mainstream publishers.


----------



## wm ollie

Natasha A. Salnikova said:


> What do you think about Bentley Little? He's called the horror writer of a new millennium but I find his books more like thrillers. I read him because King praised his work.


I like him a lot, tho sometimes I find his endings not up to par with the rest of the book


----------



## jayreddy publisher

JeffMariotte said:


> My most mainstream horror novels were published by Penguin in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Not exactly a small press. Bentley Little has often been published by them, too. Simon & Schuster still publishes King, Random House publishes Straub, Little, Brown publishes Simmons. The big publishers haven't turned their back on horror--they never did a lot of it, but they did some and still do. And none of those writers are doing gore. I think most of the gore fiction has, in fact, come from the smaller presses, the specialty horror presses, rather than from the mainstream publishers.


Not small presses by any means. Much of King's recent work has been under par to his earlier work in my opinion but I agree that none of them write gore. While I also agree the ten conglomerates never did alot of horror, the genre as a whole has lacked in substance since the early 2000's. As a bookstore owner and writer, you probably know more about what the smaller presses publish then I do, as they aren't marketed like the New York publishers, but I tend to think true horror, not shock value, is a dying art. While this forum has shifted focus from books to movies to comics, the same general themes emerge. That horror has changed, some think for the better, others for the worse. And that most new good horror is coming from small presses. I can agree with first point, but cannot give an opinion on the second as I have honestly not seen much of interest until the suggestions were made during the posts.


----------



## Glen Krisch

When he was playing, I was a huge Michael Jordan fan.  But I was a basketball fan before he arrived, and I enjoyed the game after he retired (all those many times).  I think there were people who thought they were basketball fans, but were in truth, just Jordan fans.  I think we need to make that distinction in the horror genre as well.  Horror is so much more than King.  There are millions of King fans who don't know that he is just a small fraction of the genre.  There are dozens of other quality authors putting out great work.  Look beyond King, because he is an anomaly, an outlier.  If you can't see beyond King, you are not a fan of the genre, but only the man.  There is nothing wrong with that, but making sweeping generalizations about the entire genre doesn't help anyone.  
Hope this doesn't come off as too harsh.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Glen Krisch said:


> When he was playing, I was a huge Michael Jordan fan. But I was a basketball fan before he arrived, and I enjoyed the game after he retired (all those many times). I think there were people who thought they were basketball fans, but were in truth, just Jordan fans. I think we need to make that distinction in the horror genre as well. Horror is so much more than King. There are millions of King fans who don't know that he is just a small fraction of the genre. There are dozens of other quality authors putting out great work. Look beyond King, because he is an anomaly, an outlier. If you can't see beyond King, you are not a fan of the genre, but only the man. There is nothing wrong with that, but making sweeping generalizations about the entire genre doesn't help anyone.
> Hope this doesn't come off as too harsh.


Very good point, and yes, a good horror reader finds good horror. But I'm not sure if that's the point of this thread or not. It seems that everyone is saying good horror is getting harder to find, not that it doesn't exist.

For example, there is no horror section in my local Barnes and Noble Yet, there is a Stephen King section.

The genre of horror is disappearing from the public...from the shelves....from the mainstream.

As others have stated, they've turned into a Mystery/Thriller or something else, but not horror.

I also agree with many of the posts that horror movies direct consequences.


----------



## James Everington

jayreddy publisher said:


> By the way, I am enjoying The Other Room. Thanks for that recommendation


I'd also like to thank whoever made that recommendation...!


----------



## MichelleR

James Everington said:


> I'd also like to thank whoever made that recommendation...!


You mentioned earlier on that you were about to start Joe Hill. Verdict?


----------



## Jan Strnad

A lot of "horror" has to be labeled as something else...a "supernatural thriller" or whatever...because the genre is generally despised by mainstream readers.

There was a thread recently here or on MobileRead where people were asked "which genre will you not ever buy?" and the leader was horror. Even though Stephen King is a bestselling author.

I think that a lot of people just don't like the blood'n'gore stuff and expect anything labeled as "horror" to fall into that category.


----------



## J.L. McPherson

scottnicholson said:


> I think the problem is that "horror" only has one label.
> Think of the scale of romance>erotica>porn. There's not really such a scale in horror, so it all gets stuck under the same tent. And thus "horror" automatically means chainsaws and naked teens to most people.
> 
> But I have also come to believe that the digital era has revealed the tons of niche audiences who have been deprived for so long, and many authors eager to meet them. And horror never went away. Horror doesn't live or die. Horror doesn't care. It just is.
> 
> Scott


Damn Scott, that last line almost brought a tear to my eye...


----------



## James Everington

MichelleR said:


> You mentioned earlier on that you were about to start Joe Hill. Verdict?


Hi Michelle - I finished it today, funnily enough. I thought it was very good, a proper page-turner. Some great horror imagery - the scribbles over the eyes for example. There were a few bits that didn't seem to dovetail with the rest quite right, and it was _very_ Stephen King. But overall yes, a really good book.

I will try his short story collection next.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

VincentHobbes said:


> Very good point, and yes, a good horror reader finds good horror. But I'm not sure if that's the point of this thread or not. It seems that everyone is saying good horror is getting harder to find, not that it doesn't exist.
> 
> For example, there is no horror section in my local Barnes and Noble Yet, there is a Stephen King section.
> 
> The genre of horror is disappearing from the public...from the shelves....from the mainstream.
> 
> As others have stated, they've turned into a Mystery/Thriller or something else, but not horror.
> 
> I also agree with many of the posts that horror movies direct consequences.


This is exactly the point I have been trying to state. Horror is disappearing from the mainstream. It goes beyond King and Straub. In Dallas, most of the independent bookstores have vanished, and with them, so has the horror section. The genre as well as the market has changed.


----------



## J.L. McPherson

James, oddly enough, the first time I read Joe Hill's short story collection, I had no idea who he was. I came across it at the library and picked it up. I have been a fan ever since. One of the short stories has stuck with me for a while, _Abraham's Sons_. I decided to Google Joe Hill and see if this amazing new horror writer had any other books out and that's when I discovered he was Stephen King's son. As good as _Hart Shaped Box _ was, I think I like his short stories even better.


----------



## Akincaid87

I find it funny that horror as a book genre is fading but horror in the movie theater is doing just fine.  Books, movies, comics...I tend to lump them into similar categories because while the medium is different, the goal is to tell a good story.

I think that in horror, gore has its place.  Yes, people have grown to rely on it too much, but I think that the shock value is part of horror both on the screen and on the page.  

It is telling though that the stories that have stuck with me the longest (IT, The Telltale Heart, the Cask of Amontillado, 'Salem's Lot, Re-Animator, Call of Cthulu) featured a minimal amount of gore, while the movies that have stuck with me the longest (the Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, the Grudge (and Ju-On) among others) are a mixed bag of gory and not. 

Gore does not a bad story make, nor does it make a good story.  It's simply a tool to be used, or not, as the story demands.  

I used little gore in my first book, but in the second one I'm working on there are a few stories that have lurid descriptions of death that involve a lot of gore.  I don't linger on it, but neither do I skirt the details.  Horror is a lot of times about showing what people don't like to see; about hitting them where they least expect it.  

Sure King doesn't do gore all the time, but I'm reading a story from Just After Sunset where a guy is trapped in a port-a-john and THAT grossed me out.  It's meant to be a visceral experience, after all.  

Gore itself isn't scary, but gore (and other visceral or gross things) used well in a taut story with a premise that hits a primal fear?  You got yourself a good story there, in my opinion.


----------



## ccjames

Ya'll are making me want to run to my B&N just to check if there isn't any horror section. Please don't say it's true.


----------



## VincentHobbes

ccjames said:


> Ya'll are making me want to run to my B&N just to check if there isn't any horror section. Please don't say it's true.


Ha! You should, and report back. It doesn't exist in my town.


----------



## Plotspider

Jan Strnad said:


> A lot of "horror" has to be labeled as something else...a "supernatural thriller" or whatever...because the genre is generally despised by mainstream readers.
> 
> There was a thread recently here or on MobileRead where people were asked "which genre will you not ever buy?" and the leader was horror. Even though Stephen King is a bestselling author.
> 
> I think that a lot of people just don't like the blood'n'gore stuff and expect anything labeled as "horror" to fall into that category.


Perhaps here are some suggested categories (and I'll not probably hit all of them):

Gore: Choppy, chainsawy, stuff with teenage girls screaming and maniacal masked people wanting to stab them with knives, etc. Blood over character and plot, etc. Creativity devoted mostly towards how people are set up and then killed.

Terror: The bump in the night, ghosts, supernatural forces type horror, akin to such movies as Poltergeist or Blair Witch

Eldritch Horror: H.P. Lovecraft and his various imitations.

Slimy Horror: Not so much gore, but disgusting fare where tentacles and drool and all sorts of slimy things are most prevalent.

Psychological Horror: Parts of the Hannibal Lecter stuff, where the lines between good and evil are seriously blurred or even lost and people begin to fear not only what the villain might do, but what they themselves might be willing to do in the same scenario.

Tragic Horror: The kind of stuff where the characters are good people, and they deserve to live, but will not live, or they'll make horrible choices to get through horrifying situations and their lives will end up...horrible.

Disease or Contagion Horror: Horror which focuses on contagion or disease as its primary fear element, where you catch evil and can't get rid of it. Along these lines, we might have something like "cult" or "self-threatening" horror, where a person's self-hood is threatened more than anything else.

Occult Horror: Characters dabble with demons or the paranormal and are punished severely for it. Closely related to terror, but mostly about the forces beyond the pale which are demonic or angelic and dangerous to get involved with.

Moralistic Horror: Stuff that teaches an over-the-top lesson to people by showing what happens when one meddles with something. Some of these may be running together and I'm only creating a draft list. SUGGESTIONS?


----------



## R. M. Reed

Tragic Horror: The kind of stuff where the characters are good people, and they deserve to live, but will not live, or they'll make horrible choices to get through horrifying situations and their lives will end up...horrible.  
---
That could be my biography.


----------



## Shaun Jeffrey

I think horror is a large umbrella and I actually like the variety that such a broad covering can encompass.


----------



## James Everington

Ambiguity Horror: where the reader is uneasy because they're unsure if what is happening is real, or just in the narrator's mind e.g. The Turn Of The Screw


----------



## WriterCTaylor

Can I answer from the point of view of a first time published horror novelist? I tried to write with suspense in order to keep the reader guessing when the next plot surprise would come. I was descriptive without relying on gore. I had a story line and relied on the story, rather than descriptions of blood and guts.
As I said, this is my first published novel, but I too have grown weary of the blood and guts we see and read about. Perhaps it is a sign of the times. Violence seems to be accepted in many parts of society, and the bloodier the better. There are others like us, who prefer quality, story lines and originality. Hopefully I have achieved that in my first effort The Day Of Legion. Time will tell I guess.

_[edited. No self promotion outside the Book Bazaar, please! Thanks! Betsy, KB Mod]_


----------



## greenpen

jayreddy publisher said:


> Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear. Of course gore is scary but most books that use this as a source of fear has no storyline. What happened to true horror?


I try and write those sort of stories myself. Too much gore and too little characterisation are a big turn off. I'd rather that you felt for the characters than anything else.


----------



## greenpen

ReneAZ said:


> That's the problem I'm finding - the vampire epidemic! I've been looking for good horror stories a la early Stephen King. All I have been finding are vampires (yawn) and stupid inane stuff.
> 
> Glad I happened into this thread! I'm going away with a nice little list of new authors to sample!
> 
> Rene


My thoughts exactly. To date I have kept well away from vampires and zombies as I feel they have been done to death. Done a couple of vore short stories recently. I don't think there's too much of that floating around and I intend to make it my own if possible


----------



## greenpen

MichelleR said:


> Yep, although I like this anthology, 20th Century Ghosts, more than his novels. (I might like him more than his dad. Shhhhhh....)


I thought his heart shaped box was a bit ridiculous. The premise was OK, but a ghost driving a car


----------



## greenpen

Brem said:


> The last good horror book I read, was Let The Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I saw the movie first and absolutely loved it so I had to get the book. It's just one of those books that actually creeps you out. But yeah, last horror book I read that was actually good.


I wouldn't bother with his other book _Harbour_ which is difficult as he is constantly changing viewpoint and timeline so you don't know who is doing what in which time, past or present. And the storyline is just ridiculous. You get to the end and feel totally unsatisfied. I wish I could get my time and money back on that one. Makes me feel like not bothering with him again.


----------



## greenpen

J.L. McPherson said:


> True, it pisses me off that there is no Robert McCammon section. I believe horror will make a comeback, when the great horror writers stop letting their publishers call their work, thrillers. Dean Koontz especially ! Are you telling me that _Intensity_ was a thriller ? hell no, it's horror and one of the best written ever...I guess I'm done ranting now.


But Dean himself insists he is not a horror writer, even though he was our first HWA president, so who is to blame?


----------



## greenpen

Victoria J said:


> I don't really care for horror but I will never forget hearing a audio book of Lovecraft's The Colour Out Of Space. Scared the hell out of me. I couldn't sleep for nearly a week after hearing that. No gore anywhere in sight either.


Have you tried Librivox? http://librivox.org/ Mind you, some of the readers are pretty dire, but it's free.


----------



## Kitchen Witch

I think horror has suffered a lot from the way our lifestyle has changed. People nowadays expect everything to be fast and to the point, and you can see how this influences the fiction we create. Take a movie from the '60 : you'll likely find it drawn-out, with pointlessly long sequences. Dialogue in films has changed much, too, with people barking shorter and shorter sentences at each other - I know, I'm a translator and deal with this stuff.

And yet a good horror story relies on tension build-up, on the atmosphere of menace and fear that does not just pop out of a can. If we don't care about the characters, then whatever happens to them doesn't have the same sting, either. All these things take time to evoke, especially in writing where we don't have music, colours and all this. So creators nowadays try to speed things up, with detrimental effect sometimes.

Lovecraft was good at this, I agree, but precisely because he took his time with things, he didn't rush the action.


----------



## greenpen

jayreddy publisher said:


> Indies and small presses will help the re-emergence of horror but many in this forum believe it is well and thriving right now.


It's never gone away, it's just lurking in some dark corner until you pass by one dark and stormy night


----------



## WriterCTaylor

Bleekness said:


> I actually liked Saw, but I hear you . Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity were pretty frightening for me. I actually went to see Blair Witch in tokyo with my girlfriend at the time (her choice to see it--not mine). After the lights went up, my GF was like "that was stupid!" while I was shivering and hiding behind my knees that had somehow come up to eye level during the course of the flick.
> 
> Point being, haven't read a horror book in a looooong time that does that.


Paranormal Activity had promise, real promise, but it fizzled at the end for me. The whole movie was about suggestion, then the end when the girls face turned to a demon spoiled it for me. I don't know if that was originally a book, but it would be hard to write that type of suspense and fear. Maybe that is why a lot of you are saying you haven't read a good horror in a long time. Maybe movies have spoiled you?


----------



## ColinJ

WriterCTaylor said:


> Paranormal Activity had promise, real promise, but it fizzled at the end for me. The whole movie was about suggestion, then the end when the girls face turned to a demon spoiled it for me.


To be fair, the original ending to that movie, that was on the print that screened at festivals, was far more chilling.

The 'demon face' ending was ordered by Steven Spielberg when his studio bought the film. So a genuinely poignant gut-punch of an ending was now reduced to some very lame, contrived "Boo!" scares.

If you're curious, in the original version...



Spoiler



...Katie gets out of bed and sleepwalks downstairs. After a few moments we hear horrific screaming from below. Micah jumps up and runs downstairs, where we hear them both screaming and a struggle.

Suddenly it all goes silent and after an agonising wait Katie slowly shuffles back into the bedroom, blood on her clothes and a knife in her hand.

She drops the knife and then sits on the floor and that creepy time-lapse thing happens where she is just sitting there for what seems like a whole day.

Eventually some cops come into the house and are calling out, but she still sits there. As the cops find what happened downstairs and their calls intensify Katie seems to finally snap out of her fugue and picks up the knife.

She stands, knife in hand, as the police come up the steps and appear in the hallway outside the bedroom, guns drawn. They see her with the knife and shout at her to drop it.

Still somewhat dazed she takes a step towards them and they shoot her dead.

Credits.


----------



## gregoryblackman

There's nothing worse than fake reality tv...except fake reality movies.  Give me Insidious or something any day over Paranormal Activity....well, if we HAVE to pick something recent


----------



## Plotspider

gregoryblackman said:


> There's nothing worse than fake reality tv...except fake reality movies. Give me Insidious or something any day over Paranormal Activity....well, if we HAVE to pick something recent


Wow, that would be a lot better than the ending that was there, though the ending there was not bad. I kind of liked Paranormal activity, even though it had the problem of 'hold the camera at all costs' syndrome, common to other movies of this type.

But, I agree, a carefully constructed and well-done horror is better than fake reality shows. The problem is: who's doing good horror movies these days? We keep getting Micheal Myers remakes these days. Where are the Silence of the Lambs and the Sevens and the things that really creep people out? I haven't seen many movies come out lately that work in terms of good, intellectual horror. Has anyone else? Maybe I'm just not remembering something.


----------



## J.L. McPherson

WriterCTaylor, I just realized that we use the same cover artist !


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Plotspider said:


> Wow, that would be a lot better than the ending that was there, though the ending there was not bad. I kind of liked Paranormal activity, even though it had the problem of 'hold the camera at all costs' syndrome, common to other movies of this type.
> 
> But, I agree, a carefully constructed and well-done horror is better than fake reality shows. The problem is: who's doing good horror movies these days? We keep getting Micheal Myers remakes these days. Where are the Silence of the Lambs and the Sevens and the things that really creep people out? I haven't seen many movies come out lately that work in terms of good, intellectual horror. Has anyone else? Maybe I'm just not remembering something.


As far as movies go, I can't remember the last good intellectual horror movie I have seen. But like I have said, I haven't watched or read much horror in the last couple of years, as I had almost given up on the genre. I have to say there have been some great posts and recommendations though, that I will check out. Maybe good horror has been right under my nose this whole time.


----------



## Tony Rabig

James Everington -- believe the first recommendation on the thread for THE OTHER ROOM came from me (and if real life will stop cutting in on my reading time, I may actually get a chance to finish the rest of the stories myself this week...); you're more than welcome.

But another recommendation:

Apologies if anyone's dropped this name already and I just overlooked it: Fritz Leiber, who was a pioneer and master at bringing horror into the contemporary urban setting.  Stories like "Smoke Ghost," "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," "The Black Gondolier," "The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity," "Belsen Express," and novels like CONJURE WIFE are not to be missed.  His collections SMOKE GHOST, THE BLACK GONDOLIER, and FRITZ LEIBER: SELECTED STORIES, and a number of his novels are available for the Kindle.  Leiber's gone now, but the work is there, and much of it reads as fresh and new today as it did when it was first written.


----------



## James Everington

Then thank _you_ Tony - hope you like the rest.

I've only read a couple of Leiber stories but they did impress me - 'Smoke Ghost' & 'Girl With Hungry Eyes'. Didn't know his books were on Kindle, thanks (hopefully they are in the UK too). I did read the blurb for Conjure Wife a while back and it didn't grab me - sounded a bit old fashioned in a men-scared-of-women way. But maybe I should reconsider.

James


----------



## Todd Young

I don't usually read horror, but I've just finished Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's a Swedish novel, and it was excellent.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Tony Rabig said:


> James Everington -- believe the first recommendation on the thread for THE OTHER ROOM came from me (and if real life will stop cutting in on my reading time, I may actually get a chance to finish the rest of the stories myself this week...); you're more than welcome.
> 
> But another recommendation:
> 
> Apologies if anyone's dropped this name already and I just overlooked it: Fritz Leiber, who was a pioneer and master at bringing horror into the contemporary urban setting. Stories like "Smoke Ghost," "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," "The Black Gondolier," "The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity," "Belsen Express," and novels like CONJURE WIFE are not to be missed. His collections SMOKE GHOST, THE BLACK GONDOLIER, and FRITZ LEIBER: SELECTED STORIES, and a number of his novels are available for the Kindle. Leiber's gone now, but the work is there, and much of it reads as fresh and new today as it did when it was first written.


You are correct. Thank you for the recommendation.


----------



## MichelleR

James Everington said:


> I will try his short story collection next.


I wonder what you're going to think of a story called Pop Art.


----------



## James Bagshawe

Todd Young said:


> I don't usually read horror, but I've just finished Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's a Swedish novel, and it was excellent.


Not that there is anything wrong with _Let the Right One In_, but would that book have been anything at all without the movie to back it up? I'm going to earn some dislikes by saying I found that movie very dull indeed, and prefer my suspense injected into a plot that moves at a pace beyond the glacial.

How does one get noticed in the horror scene these days? Most people are referencing movies or heavily publicised authors. Not all, of course (James Everington's list was thorough), but in general the problem with horror is that tweens and splatterhouse movies have pilfered it.

More than half this thread - myself included - have a vested interest in keeping it going, but the only thing that would _truly _revivify the genre would be a change of heart by the publishing 'cognoscenti' that says horror - true horror - is death at retail. How did that even come about? "Ok guys, we have a few authors here who sells books by the truckload. Obviously the genre they write in is moribund and not commercial."


----------



## Akincaid87

I just find it funny that horror as we know it has been co-opted into other genre's, and a lot of it has been toned down for YA lit.  I think horror has been tamed and made safe by a couple of generations of folks who simply can't handle the shock value.  On the other hand, I showed some old horror to a friend of mine who's five years younger than me, and she found it boring! (we watched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which relied on build up to do its work.)  

I think horror, as someone here said, is suffering from that "I want it now!"  syndrome.  We live in a strange time, where it seems people want to be shocked and offended, and you have those who are shocked by every little thing that happens, and another class of people who are shocked by nothing.  I think it's a media overload.  That, and we're used to showy horror, stuff that's in your face rather than under your skin.  

Oh and the old monster motifs are overused or bastardized.  I won't see vampires as scary anymore because I'll be imagining them sparkling and playing piano 0_o


----------



## Kitchen Witch

Well, paying piano can still be scary and creepy as hell. That's the point that "new" horror is missing, in my opinion. There's just a bunch of themes perpetuated ad nauseam : gore, rape and screaming blondes. It really does get old after a while.

One of the scariest movies I saw was "The Sign of Four" - an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes mystery. Now, Conan Doyle hardly counts as horror and the story itself was a straightforward mystery, but the way it was adapted made it really damn frightening.


----------



## Adam Pepper

Tony Richards said:


> The biggest problem with the horror genre is -- and has been for an awfully long time -- that the majority of people tend to mix up horror fiction and horror movies,


I couldnt agree more, Tony. Even here, amongst authors and readers the majority of knocks horror is taking are related to the movies. Imagine what the general public thinks.

My feeling about horror fiction is actually the exact opposite of what people are saying here. It became too safe. Too predictable. Too easily identified (and dismissed).

The best horror in my opinion is edgy, takes risks, pushes the envelope and blends genres together. Whether it's gory or not is not a primary concern in and of itself.


----------



## balaspa

In a way I agree with what Adam said above.  However, the recent new fiction I have read seems to have followed the trend in movies, with emphasis on torture and excess violence.  I remember being terrified reading The Exorcist, and there is actually very little violence in it.  While there is violence in King's The Shining, there it not nearly as much as most people probably think.  If a story can seep in your subconscious, keep you on the edge of your seat and make you want to keep the lights on all night...it works, but few recent horror novels have done that for me.


----------



## Tracy Sharp

Have you read Ronald Malfi's Snow? Very good.


----------



## James Everington

There's a point of view (which I somewhat agree with) that a lot of the best horror fiction is in the short story form. There's quite a few authors whose best work I'd say was their short stories, and I find it hard to think of a good author in the genre who hasn't at least dabbled in short stories.

So I wonder if the commercial (rather than artistic) decline in horror fiction is related to the commercial decline in short fiction in general?


----------



## MichelleR

James Everington said:


> There's a point of view (which I somewhat agree with) that a lot of the best horror fiction is in the short story form. There's quite a few authors whose best work I'd say was their short stories, and I find it hard to think of a good author in the genre who hasn't at least dabbled in short stories.
> 
> So I wonder if the commercial (rather than artistic) decline in horror fiction is related to the commercial decline in short fiction in general?


I think you have a point, and it's why I'm hopeful. Short stories and novellas are viable again in a way they haven't been in a good long while. Horror writers, writers in general, used to have a long list of magazines they could query. Now there's self-publishing. Even for the traditionally published, I think there will be spillover as readers relearn or learn for the first time how to enjoy them.


----------



## NS

James Bagshawe said:


> Not that there is anything wrong with _Let the Right One In_, but would that book have been anything at all without the movie to back it up? I'm going to earn some dislikes by saying I found that movie very dull indeed, and prefer my suspense injected into a plot that moves at a pace beyond the glacial.
> 
> How does one get noticed in the horror scene these days? Most people are referencing movies or heavily publicised authors. Not all, of course (James Everington's list was thorough), but in general the problem with horror is that tweens and splatterhouse movies have pilfered it.
> 
> More than half this thread - myself included - have a vested interest in keeping it going, but the only thing that would _truly _revivify the genre would be a change of heart by the publishing 'cognoscenti' that says horror - true horror - is death at retail. How did that even come about? "Ok guys, we have a few authors here who sells books by the truckload. Obviously the genre they write in is moribund and not commercial."


The movie didn't do anything for me. And they changed the secondary idea. They actually threw it away and it made the film kind of... cute. Ending at least. But I watched American version.


----------



## Shaun Jeffrey

Adam Pepper said:


> The best horror in my opinion is edgy, takes risks, pushes the envelope and blends genres together. Whether it's gory or not is not a primary concern in and of itself.


Excellent point.

Ask a group of people what 'horror' is and they'll all probably give a different answer, because it covers a wide base. I like that there's so much variety out there, from quiet horror to explicit. People keep saying that horror is dead, but I was around when it was at its height, and although its not as abundant now, it's never gone away. You just need to know where to look as many books that could be classed as horror are given a different label. But it's still alive and kicking.


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## PatrickWalts

Speaking of gore, I've noticed that people judge the quality of a horror film by its gore content. 
"So was such-and-such movie any good?"
"Aw, man, the kills were sorry. Hardly any gore at all. I don't understand how they can even call that _horror_."

As if gore is synonymous with good horror. For me, horror is primarily about atmosphere. I want to feel like I'm there, like I could just reach out and touch the scenery, smell the cold night air, hear the crickets chirping and the owls hooting, feel the subtle sense of impending danger lurking in the darkness... That's horror, to me. Gore is fine if it serves the plot, but gore for the sake of gore isn't scary. It's all of the things leading up to the gore.


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## hakimast

You always have Steven King!


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## Plotspider

To quote from idiocracy: "once, we had movies that were written so that you cared whose a** it was and why it was farting, and I think that day can come again."  

I reiterate that if people don't care about the characters getting obliterated, then the gore will never really be enough.  Good horror...horrifies.  It makes us feel for the characters that are dying.  When we actually don't want the blonde chick in the underwear to die, but she does anyway, and we realize that if we were in that situation, it would probably happen to us, too, i think that's good horror.  Like you said, immersion is important, but it's also important to give a crap about the characters.  Otherwise, the characters are just video game things that don't matter.


----------



## Tony Richards

MichelleR said:


> I think you have a point, and it's why I'm hopeful. Short stories and novellas are viable again in a way they haven't been in a good long while. Horror writers, writers in general, used to have a long list of magazines they could query. Now there's self-publishing. Even for the traditionally published, I think there will be spillover as readers relearn or learn for the first time how to enjoy them.
> 
> Horror still has many more hard print anthos and mags than a lot of other genres. If you're a crime writer, your choices are extremely limited. Horror has Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, Black Static, loads of other smaller mags, and countless anthos every year. It's just a shame that Stephen King's Horror Magazine (from the same house as Asimov's SF) never took off.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Plotspider said:


> To quote from idiocracy: "once, we had movies that were written so that you cared whose a** it was and why it was farting, and I think that day can come again."
> 
> I reiterate that if people don't care about the characters getting obliterated, then the gore will never really be enough. Good horror...horrifies. It makes us feel for the characters that are dying. When we actually don't want the blonde chick in the underwear to die, but she does anyway, and we realize that if we were in that situation, it would probably happen to us, too, i think that's good horror. Like you said, immersion is important, but it's also important to give a crap about the characters. Otherwise, the characters are just video game things that don't matter.


Great points.


----------



## PatrickWalts

julieannfelicity said:


> I think the problem now-a-days is that people are in a rush-rush world and true horror - the slow build up, the pacing, the true elements of horror and suspense - is too slow. Gory stuff is instant gratification. Not to mention we're all desensitized by just watching things like the News.
> 
> Rob Zombie is a true-master of gore, but he'll even admit he loves horror and watched old classics like Nosferatu, The Blob, Night of the Living Dead, and The Body Snatcher.


When I browse Netflix for horror movies, I read the negative reviews. If a bunch of people are saying, "This starts out sooooo slow hardly any gore at all not scary" That piques my interest. It's called pacing, people. There should be a buildup. Not horror-related, but I post regularly on a Star Trek forum. The advent of the 2009 movie proved very divisive, and still generates lots of discussion. There are people who think it's far superior to "The Wrath of Khan" because "There's more action! It moves faster! It's more exciting." Jeez. Does plot matter at all anymore?

_edit -- no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar_


----------



## PatrickWalts

julieannfelicity said:


> I think the problem now-a-days is that people are in a rush-rush world and true horror - the slow build up, the pacing, the true elements of horror and suspense - is too slow. Gory stuff is instant gratification. Not to mention we're all desensitized by just watching things like the News.
> 
> Rob Zombie is a true-master of gore, but he'll even admit he loves horror and watched old classics like Nosferatu, The Blob, Night of the Living Dead, and The Body Snatcher.


Oh, and I love Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects. He's definitely a horror film connoisseur, and it shows. I wish he'd do more original stuff rather than these Halloween remakes.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Plotspider said:


> To quote from idiocracy: "once, we had movies that were written so that you cared whose a** it was and why it was farting, and I think that day can come again."
> 
> I reiterate that if people don't care about the characters getting obliterated, then the gore will never really be enough. Good horror...horrifies. It makes us feel for the characters that are dying. When we actually don't want the blonde chick in the underwear to die, but she does anyway, and we realize that if we were in that situation, it would probably happen to us, too, i think that's good horror. Like you said, immersion is important, but it's also important to give a crap about the characters. Otherwise, the characters are just video game things that don't matter.


Idiocracy. How brilliant is _that _movie? I wonder how many heads it just soared over, people who watched it and thought, _This is stupid._


----------



## Plotspider

Star Trek movies have never been better than the Wrath of Khan.  The new Star Trek movie was a cheap Hollywood cash in, IMHO.  For goodness sake, they just recycled the main character from Nemesis to blow up...well, somewhere (no spoilers, but I would recommend watching it on netflix).  The irony of this new Star Trek was that the actors nailed the characters as they were portrayed by other actors.  They were imitating the other actors well enough, but the plot of this new Trek is infuriating and silly (and I'm not even that big a fan of the series, really).  They do not bring out the strengths of each character, and greatly disrespect them.  Why does Kirk have to be there for Spock to be awesome?  Why does Kirk have to teach Scotty how to do things?  These characters were awesome by themselves, and they shouldn't have to have Kirk teach them what to do.  And Kirk's motivation for being on the Enterprise was...it's just the way things should be.  Blek!  

Now, to make this post relevant.  It is exactly the pacing in the Wrath of Khan that makes it such a good movie, and what horror movies should pay attention to.  The ear maggots?  Holy crap that scared me to death when I was younger and saw this movie.  They bore into your friggin' brain.  I didn't even know who Khan was, but that scene where he shows up was pure dread, pure terror.  Throughout the movie, he is so well developed and so frightening.  When he shows up suddenly in the nebula and attacks, it really is a frightening scene.  The characters, all of the characters, are incredibly well-developed, and you care what happens to them.  Even the scene where Scotty's nephew gets killed is rather touching, but the reason it does not have the impact it should, is because that character is barely developed.  That kid should have been shown staying at his post.  When Spock dies, it is distressing to the fans of the show.  Why?  Because the fans know Spock and care for him.  Horror movies should take time to develop their characters.  The truly horrible monsters/killers are those that hurt or kill things we want left alone, the ones that come into lives like a bull through a museum of priceless antiques.  Horror movies (and I write about movies because I like them and want them to be better) nowadays are like watching someone beat up a pile of garbage with a baseball bat: oh sure, the monster gets his jollies out or whatever, but who cares about the garbage.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Plotspider said:


> Star Trek movies have never been better than the Wrath of Khan. The new Star Trek movie was a cheap Hollywood cash in, IMHO. For goodness sake, they just recycled the main character from Nemesis to blow up...well, somewhere (no spoilers, but I would recommend watching it on netflix). The irony of this new Star Trek was that the actors nailed the characters as they were portrayed by other actors. They were imitating the other actors well enough, but the plot of this new Trek is infuriating and silly (and I'm not even that big a fan of the series, really). They do not bring out the strengths of each character, and greatly disrespect them. Why does Kirk have to be there for Spock to be awesome? Why does Kirk have to teach Scotty how to do things? These characters were awesome by themselves, and they shouldn't have to have Kirk teach them what to do. And Kirk's motivation for being on the Enterprise was...it's just the way things should be. Blek!
> 
> Now, to make this post relevant. It is exactly the pacing in the Wrath of Khan that makes it such a good movie, and what horror movies should pay attention to. The ear maggots? Holy crap that scared me to death when I was younger and saw this movie. They bore into your friggin' brain. I didn't even know who Khan was, but that scene where he shows up was pure dread, pure terror. Throughout the movie, he is so well developed and so frightening. When he shows up suddenly in the nebula and attacks, it really is a frightening scene. The characters, all of the characters, are incredibly well-developed, and you care what happens to them. Even the scene where Scotty's nephew gets killed is rather touching, but the reason it does not have the impact it should, is because that character is barely developed. That kid should have been shown staying at his post. When Spock dies, it is distressing to the fans of the show. Why? Because the fans know Spock and care for him. Horror movies should take time to develop their characters. The truly horrible monsters/killers are those that hurt or kill things we want left alone, the ones that come into lives like a bull through a museum of priceless antiques. Horror movies (and I write about movies because I like them and want them to be better) nowadays are like watching someone beat up a pile of garbage with a baseball bat: oh sure, the monster gets his jollies out or whatever, but who cares about the garbage.


Yeah, pretty much. What you said. The pacing on TWOK is brilliant. It slowly builds up to this incredible climax, all the while taking the time to develop the characters so that by the end, you really feel as if you've gotten to know them. Pretty much everything about the film is awesome. I just roll my eyes whenever I see people praising the newer film as being far superior to TWOK. The Search for Spock is great, too. Actually, that whole unofficial trilogy of 2, 3 and 4 is awesome. I enjoyed the new movie for what it was, but all this "Star Trek is BACK" hype is dumb. You can't recreate that chemistry that the three main actors from the original series had, no matter how well the new actors are able to imitate their mannerisms.


----------



## Serenity

I suggest you all looking into Apex Book Company's books.  Apex produces Sci-Fi, Horror, and Dark Fantasy.  I've met many of the authors who publish with Apex and read some of the short stories.  Apex does a lot of anthology publishing.  If you're looking for something to wet your palate, try Apex Magazine or one of the novels.


----------



## Steve Vernon

Kealan Patrick Burke
Harry Shannon
Greg Gifune
Gary Braunbeck
Ronald Malfi
Ligotti

to name a few...


----------



## VincentHobbes

Serenity said:


> I suggest you all looking into Apex Book Company's books. Apex produces Sci-Fi, Horror, and Dark Fantasy. I've met many of the authors who publish with Apex and read some of the short stories. Apex does a lot of anthology publishing. If you're looking for something to wet your palate, try Apex Magazine or one of the novels.


I'll check em' out...


----------



## Glen Krisch

Nice list, Steve.


----------



## belindaf

I'm going to go ahead and second the Kealan Patrick Burke comment. He's very talented and writes some great horror, not gore. I'd also say Joe Schreiber (Chasing the Dead, Eat the Dark, and No Doors, No Windows) and indie authors Thomas Amo (An Apple for Zoe) and R.A. Evans (Asylum Lake) are well worth reading. I prefer dread over gore any day.


----------



## NS

Was Jack Ketchum mentioned here? What do you think about him?


----------



## balaspa

I am very glad I came back to this forum topic to see what had been posted. Thanks for the list.


----------



## JeffMariotte

Natasha A. Salnikova said:


> Was Jack Ketchum mentioned here? What do you think about him?


Ketchum's a great writer, but not for those who are trying to avoid gore. He's not as extreme as some, but he can be pretty uncomfortable.


----------



## mscottwriter

I second the vote for Apex publishing.  They're definitely worth checking out.

I've stopped reading horror for the very reasons people have been pointing out.  (Same thing for horror movies, brrr!)  I recently read a terrific book called "Generation Loss" by Elizabeth Hand.  It wasn't horror per se (no monsters, demons, etc.), but it really creeped me out.  Like Stephen King, Elizabeth Hand made the state of Maine seem *so* creepy!


----------



## PatrickWalts

JeffMariotte said:


> Ketchum's a great writer, but not for those who are trying to avoid gore. He's not as extreme as some, but he can be pretty uncomfortable.


Well, I think what we were saying earlier in the thread(I can only speak for myself, of course)was that it's not the presence of gore that bothers us, but the lack of character development that would make us care when someone is brutally butchered.


----------



## Harry Shannon

Seems to me that unless it's homage to 80's horror cheese (which I adore) it should be _a good novel that happens to be in the horror genre_...believable people under terrifying pressure trying to maintain and even strain. That's more difficult than most people imagine. Richard Matheson used to do it brilliantly, and that's exactly why classics like "I Am Legend" still work, as tired as the tropes have become. John Connelly often writes horror disguised as crime fiction. If I've made my point (may not have, no coffee yet) good writing makes the genre almost irrelevant. It's just a way to tell as story about human beings, or has Clive Barker once observed, just another way of writing about the divine.

By the way, thanks Steve. It was nice to see my name pop up!


----------



## Plotspider

Does anyone else feel like CGI takes something out of the horror?  For me, the fact that something was actually there in the movies, interacting with the characters, was scarier.  Predictions?  Will CGI actually improve to the point where an audience can be, temporarily, fooled into believing it?  

OF course, CGI really doesn't matter for books, but then again, I wonder if it is scarier to read horror from a physical copy of a book than a kindle book?  I wonder if anyone's considered the psychological ramifications of such?  

Thoughts?


----------



## balaspa

For you horror movie fans, I just watched "Insidious."  There were parts I found a tad silly (especially toward the end), but up until that point it was suitably creepy.  Doors opened, things were seen quickly out of the corner of the eye.  That's the kind of stuff I love in horror.  I just kind of wish they hadn't gone a little too out there at the end...it seems filmmakers always take it a little too far.


----------



## Harry Shannon

Agree with both of those posts, CG generally ruins it for me and Hollywood always seems to want to go far enough over the top to wreck genuine suspense. 

"Winter's Bone" was an amazing horror film in its own way, if you love good writing, great acting and true creepiness don't miss it.


----------



## Thalia the Muse

Huh, I didn't find Winter's Bone to be horror at all. GREAT movie, though!

Has anyone read Laird Barron? He's a young up-and-comer who seems to be more on the creepy/elegant side. Also, Susan Hill, Audrey Langan, Caitlin Kiernan, Tananarive Due (I really liked The Good House). I love Elizabeth Hand and wish she'd write more outright horror -- most of her stuff is more on the creepy/pretty/dreamy side, but the stories "Cleopatra Brimstone" and "The Prince of Flowers" are scary.

I also wish that Stephen Dobyns would write another horror novel -- The Church of Dead Girls was fantastic.


----------



## R. M. Reed

CGI has made fantasy and superhero movies much better, but it is bad for horror. Anyone else here old enough to remember watching a horror film when something happened and you had no idea how the filmmakers did it? You saw something you thought impossible. Then other films would use the same technique and it would lose its effectiveness. Now, everything is CGI and we never get those moments.


----------



## Thalia the Muse

There is something very effective about how CONCRETE practical effects are, too. I don't think that something like Pumpkinhead would have been as effective in CG.

Bizarrely enough, I just saw a book trailer for a YA book published by Disney that was both creepy and made good use of practical effects!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV7sgBpx0oc

If that ending were done with a computer, it would lack the weight of reality, I think.


----------



## Plotspider

Some fantasy movies are not improved with excessive CGI.  I had one of those moments with Harry Potter 7.1 when SPOILER OMITTED died.  Whatever it was they used, either CGI or a puppet, it looked absolutely real and actually there.  But there are a lot of CGI effects in fantasy and superhero stuff that just looks like I'm playing a video game, or watching someone play a video game.  This was the reason I did not go see Green Lantern.  I can watch people play video games on You Tube for 10 dollars less.  I don't know, there's just something...too regular or too controlled...about CGI, even the scenes of garbage flying through the air, that diminishes its effect.  I get the sensation they could have gotten the shot every time, when real stuff you have to do right the first time or don't get it.  I don't know.


----------



## DianaTrees

I've seen a couple of words pop up throughout this discussion that I ascribe to horror: uncomfortable, and creepy. I would add "disturbing."

One of the last books that truly disturbed me was by Poppy Z Brite - Exquisite Corpse. I'm re-reading the book, and it's having the same effect. Creepy and disturbing. I love every minute.

Typically I don't like books about serial killers. Indeed, I go out of my way to avoid them. But the way that Brite (and sometimes Koontz) give you passage into the mind of the psychotic is truly amazing.

To me that's horror: To be stuck in the mind of something so totally alien you want to stop reading, yet caught by words so beautiful that you can't put down the book.


----------



## Plotspider

I agree with you about Koontz...sometimes.  Watchers is by far my favorite Koontz book, and it's largely because the bad guys stuck in my head.  This may have been because I was about sixteen or seventeen when I read it, but I remember convincing myself before bedtime: the serial killer is not real, and even if he was, he would have no reason to come to my house, because he lives way out west and I live east, and I haven't done anything.  That, to me, is the sign of a true horror created in any genre: when the reader has to convince themselves that either the monster is not real, or it would have no business coming after them.  

Phantoms was interesting, too.  I think he lost me with monster squirrels or something like that.  Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (The only King I've ever managed to get all the way through, mainly because I saw the movies of them) was a rather trippy and very enjoyable book, and pretty creepy on top of that.  Very compelling.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

_posts mentioning books you've written, are writing, or mean to write will be edited to remove such self promotion.  _


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## PatrickWalts

Plotspider said:


> Does anyone else feel like CGI takes something out of the horror? For me, the fact that something was actually there in the movies, interacting with the characters, was scarier. Predictions? Will CGI actually improve to the point where an audience can be, temporarily, fooled into believing it?
> 
> OF course, CGI really doesn't matter for books, but then again, I wonder if it is scarier to read horror from a physical copy of a book than a kindle book? I wonder if anyone's considered the psychological ramifications of such?
> 
> Thoughts?


Yes! Thank you! CGI has no place in horror movies, as far as I'm concerned. It's great in sci-fi/fantasy/superhero flicks, but it absolutely ruins the atmosphere of horror films. I'd go one step further and say that it's kind of iffy in action movies as well. The CGI blood in "the expendables" was just awful.


----------



## Harry Shannon

My two cents again. Horror is more of an emotion than a genre. Great writing creates a gnawing sense of dread, the feeling you are surrounded by monsters, and Winter's Bone has that. The payoff is horrific, though I won't wreck things for anyone by wandering into a spoiler. As Clive Barker said, it is a way of writing about the divine, and the daughter's character proves that point as well. I know it is a stretch, but made the point to say that if well done horror crosses into other genres easily, particularly crime, mystery and thriller. It doesn't need to be supernatural and is often better that way.

CG is like going for the gross-out, IMHO. It's usually so over the top it's either funny (intentionally or unintentionally) or just woefully inneffective. A simple, dark story can create a deeper sense of dread without showing much of anything. That kind of horror creates the emotion within us, using images based on errie shadows within our own memories, and generally works wonders.

Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian may be one of the most powerful horror novels of the 20th Century and it was disguised as a western. It achieves a remarkable sense of creepiness and terror by virtue of the writing and the situation the boy finds himself in, which was based on fact. It's realistic in terms of gore but the dread comes from that steadily growing feeling of being in the grip of evil that is all too human.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Harry Shannon said:


> My two cents again. Horror is more of an emotion than a genre. Great writing creates a gnawing sense of dread, the feeling you are surrounded by monsters, and Winter's Bone has that. The payoff is horrific, though I won't wreck things for anyone by wandering into a spoiler. As Clive Barker said, it is a way of writing about the divine, and the daughter's character proves that point as well. I know it is a stretch, but made the point to say that if well done horror crosses into other genres easily, particularly crime, mystery and thriller. It doesn't need to be supernatural and is often better that way.
> 
> CG is like going for the gross-out, IMHO. It's usually so over the top it's either funny (intentionally or unintentionally) or just woefully inneffective. A simple, dark story can create a deeper sense of dread without showing much of anything. That kind of horror creates the emotion within us, using images based on errie shadows within our own memories, and generally works wonders.
> 
> Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian may be one of the most powerful horror novels of the 20th Century and it was disguised as a western. It achieves a remarkable sense of creepiness and terror by virtue of the writing and the situation the boy finds himself in, which was based on fact. It's realistic in terms of gore but the dread comes from that steadily growing feeling of being in the grip of evil that is all too human.
> 
> I'd put it this way: A guy with a pillowcase over his head the lurks around in the dark, stalking and killing people is far scarier than a CGI monster that couldn't possibly exist in real life. The pillowcase guy is a genuine threat to your well-being. You see his handiwork and think, "That could happen to _me_."


----------



## Shaun Jeffrey

Real life peril will always be scarier because it's something that could feasibly happen to each and every one of us. That's what makes it scary. From a nutter with a gun to a terrorist with a bomb, these people are out there.


----------



## DianaTrees

I remember Koontz's Watchers. That was the one that made me swear off serial killers. That story was too close to real. I also remember Barker's Hellraiser, and thoroughly enjoyed it. For me, that was surreal - far beyond the realm of possibility, yet so well written that suspension of disbelief was easy.

I like my monsters a little unbelievable and not too close to reality. Combine an unreal monster with a talented writer, and you've got a tale worth reading. Even if it strays into gore.


----------



## Plotspider

DianaTrees said:


> I remember Koontz's Watchers. That was the one that made me swear off serial killers. That story was too close to real. I also remember Barker's Hellraiser, and thoroughly enjoyed it. For me, that was surreal - far beyond the realm of possibility, yet so well written that suspension of disbelief was easy.
> 
> I like my monsters a little unbelievable and not too close to reality. Combine an unreal monster with a talented writer, and you've got a tale worth reading. Even if it strays into gore.


Okay, so since this is a horror thread, why not discuss what exactly we find scary. Is it nutters with guns? Is it surreal monsters? Is it the threat of horrible things to come?

For me, it is being trapped in a dark, tightly enclosed area without the ability to move and knowing you will die there. I have not seen that latest movie about the guy buried alive with a cell phone. That's too horrible for me to imagine. One day, maybe I'll face it. Kill Bill 2 kept me away for almost a year before I forced myself to watch it and get through that scene. So, what is it for the rest of you? Curiosity abounds.


----------



## Adam Pepper

Harry Shannon said:


> _a good novel that happens to be in the horror genre_


I agree Harry. It's a funny thing that seems to have happened. There are a lot of great horror novels, that have been labeled something other than horror. And perhaps some crappy, formulaic and uninspiring novels that have been marketed as horror.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Adam Pepper said:


> I agree Harry. It's a funny thing that seems to have happened. There are a lot of great horror novels, that have been labeled something other than horror. And perhaps some crappy, formulaic and uninspiring novels that have been marketed as horror.


"Thriller" is probably the word most often used as a label, I would think. Maybe "suspense."


----------



## DianaTrees

Plotspider said:


> Okay, so since this is a horror thread, why not discuss what exactly we find scary. Is it nutters with guns? Is it surreal monsters? Is it the threat of horrible things to come?
> 
> For me, it is being trapped in a dark, tightly enclosed area without the ability to move and knowing you will die there. I have not seen that latest movie about the guy buried alive with a cell phone. That's too horrible for me to imagine. One day, maybe I'll face it. Kill Bill 2 kept me away for almost a year before I forced myself to watch it and get through that scene. So, what is it for the rest of you? Curiosity abounds.


Truly scary? I'm think that what really scares will be far too mundane for folks. I dread getting old and being forced out onto city streets to beg and eke out a living. To me, that's the ultimate horror: to be old and have nothing - living on the streets as a bag lady. To make it worse, I'd be sane. Without a psychosis to wrap around me, I'd have to face each and every gritty day in all its gray reality.


----------



## Tony Rabig

What do I find truly scary?

Well...
Wasps.  Who can say why?  Never been stung that I can remember.  But I react to the sight of a wasp close by the same way a panicky swimmer would react to a fin cutting the water and heading his way.  When I lived in Chicago, I once went downstairs into the alley after hearing a scream -- I wasn't half as twitchy going into the alley as I am if there's a wasp in the room.

Go figure.


----------



## Harry Shannon

Anything bad happening to a child.

Helplessness.

Dentists and needles are easier to face than they are to think about!

The last time I had surgery at 60, when I really realized I might not wake up.

Not having made any difference in this world.

Sadism.


----------



## Shaun Jeffrey

Truly scary:

Going blind.
Being dropped in the ocean in the middle of nowhere.
People with knives.
People in general.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Every time this thread pops up the song "Where have all the flowers gone" starts playing in my head.  Except "flowers" is replaced by "horror."


----------



## Plotspider

DianaTrees said:


> Truly scary? I'm think that what really scares will be far too mundane for folks. I dread getting old and being forced out onto city streets to beg and eke out a living. To me, that's the ultimate horror: to be old and have nothing - living on the streets as a bag lady. To make it worse, I'd be sane. Without a psychosis to wrap around me, I'd have to face each and every gritty day in all its gray reality.


Hey, that's not mundane at all. It's the subject of one of my favorite movies growing up, ironically a PG horror based on a Ray Bradbury story: "Something Wicked This Way Comes." I miss Disney's bolder days with creepiness like that. That scene where the man's life is being narrated away is absolutely gold.

As for wasps? White Anglo-Saxon Protestants? Brrr (just kidding, as I am one). No, I really could see how wasps could be kind of freaky. They're mean, ugly to look at, and vicious when their nest is disturbed. The others mentioned so far have been on my top-ten list (blindness particularly).


----------



## PatrickWalts

Tony Rabig said:


> What do I find truly scary?
> 
> Well...
> Wasps. Who can say why? Never been stung that I can remember. But I react to the sight of a wasp close by the same way a panicky swimmer would react to a fin cutting the water and heading his way. When I lived in Chicago, I once went downstairs into the alley after hearing a scream -- I wasn't half as twitchy going into the alley as I am if there's a wasp in the room.
> 
> Go figure.


When I was five, my mother was working out in the garden and I was trying to help her, in my own little kid way, and I stepped in a pile of brush that was full of the things. They crawled up my pant leg and stung the hell out of me. I remember that incident so vividly, as if it happened yesterday. Even now, at 30, when I see a wasp it freaks me out.


----------



## Plotspider

PatrickWalts said:


> When I was five, my mother was working out in the garden and I was trying to help her, in my own little kid way, and I stepped in a pile of brush that was full of the things. They crawled up my pant leg and stung the hell out of me. I remember that incident so vividly, as if it happened yesterday. Even now, at 30, when I see a wasp it freaks me out.


I actually raised a nest of wasps in a jar one time, to see if I could do it. When they hatched, and I realized that I could not probably keep them alive, I released them. They were not grateful, and immediately turned on me and stung me. I have to admit, even as an eleven year old (or so), I was pretty angry with these things I had hatched and which attempted to kill me in return. No, I did not expect them to be my minions or anything, but I wanted to see what they would do. Sometimes, little kids are dumb, or at least, sometimes I was as a little kid.


----------



## Thalia the Muse

No good deed goes unpunished! Although wasp minions would be pretty awesome.


----------



## bnapier

One thing that continues to scare me to this day is sleep paralysis.  It has not affected me as badly as it did several years ago, but it's a horrifying ordeal.  This is something I have tried to write about it my own horror but can't quite capture it.


----------



## Plotspider

bnapier said:


> One thing that continues to scare me to this day is sleep paralysis. It has not affected me as badly as it did several years ago, but it's a horrifying ordeal. This is something I have tried to write about it my own horror but can't quite capture it.


Do you mean where a person is asleep and knows something awful is happening to them in the waking world? Or do you mean where a person is paralyzed by anesthesia, but still sensitive to the pain? I've heard that happens and is horrifying. Either one is pretty frightening.


----------



## JeffMariotte

Moths are absurdly scary. And when you squash them you get moth dust, which is worse. Clowns. Real people. Very, very tight spaces that you don't know if you can get out of. Extreme poverty.


----------



## Tony Rabig

Just an fyi, as it might appeal to the folks on this thread.

Smashwords today listed Charles L. Grant's first Oxrun Station novel, HOUR OF THE OXRUN DEAD, as an ebook coming from Bob Booth's Necon Press (which means it's probably going to be in the Amazon Kindle store as well in a few days).  I sent an email asking if other Grant titles might be in the works -- naturally, five minutes after sending that inquiry, what do I see in the "Coming Soon" section but The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant.  Don't know yet if that's going to be in multiple ebooks or in one massive release, but hot damn, that'll be nice to see.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Tony Rabig said:


> Just an fyi, as it might appeal to the folks on this thread.
> 
> Smashwords today listed Charles L. Grant's first Oxrun Station novel, HOUR OF THE OXRUN DEAD, as an ebook coming from Bob Booth's Necon Press (which means it's probably going to be in the Amazon Kindle store as well in a few days). I sent an email asking if other Grant titles might be in the works -- naturally, five minutes after sending that inquiry, what do I see in the "Coming Soon" section but The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant. Don't know yet if that's going to be in multiple ebooks or in one massive release, but hot d*mn, that'll be nice to see.


Are you really Charles L. Grant with a fake name? Self promotion! Shut down this thread, mods! We can't take any chances! Lol.


----------



## Plotspider

PatrickWalts said:


> Are you really Charles L. Grant with a fake name? Self promotion! Shut down this thread, mods! We can't take any chances! Lol.


Be careful what you wish for. You might get your wish. I like this thread.

Irony abounds, as usual. I actually have a breed of demon in my stories called a "Moth," though they have yet to make an appearance in my fiction. They come from the Bible verse: "Store away your treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy them" (Gullage very paraphrased edition). No, this isn't self promotion as it has nothing to do with a product yet (thank you very much). I just never have heard of someone being afraid of moths before, but considering their flurrying about, I could understand it, and considering some are poison and have big eye patterns on the backs of their wings, and given what China Meiville did with them....Yikes!

Are clowns over used? I'm losing my fear of them because everybody seems to be afraid of them. I dunno. Lack of control (Poverty, claustrophobia, etc.) seems to be a common theme.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Plotspider said:


> Be careful what you wish for. You might get your wish. I like this thread.
> 
> Irony abounds, as usual. I actually have a breed of demon in my stories called a "Moth," though they have yet to make an appearance in my fiction. They come from the Bible verse: "Store away your treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy them" (Gullage very paraphrased edition). No, this isn't self promotion as it has nothing to do with a product yet (thank you very much). I just never have heard of someone being afraid of moths before, but considering their flurrying about, I could understand it, and considering some are poison and have big eye patterns on the backs of their wings, and given what China Meiville did with them....Yikes!
> 
> Are clowns over used? I'm losing my fear of them because everybody seems to be afraid of them. I dunno. Lack of control (Poverty, claustrophobia, etc.) seems to be a common theme.


I never realized people thought clowns were scary until I was older. I always just thought they were lame and stupid. Unless it was the Joker.


----------



## James Everington

Tony Rabig said:


> Just an fyi, as it might appeal to the folks on this thread.
> 
> Smashwords today listed Charles L. Grant's first Oxrun Station novel, HOUR OF THE OXRUN DEAD, as an ebook coming from Bob Booth's Necon Press (which means it's probably going to be in the Amazon Kindle store as well in a few days). I sent an email asking if other Grant titles might be in the works -- naturally, five minutes after sending that inquiry, what do I see in the "Coming Soon" section but The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant. Don't know yet if that's going to be in multiple ebooks or in one massive release, but hot d*mn, that'll be nice to see.


Brilliant; he's one of those names I've heard of, but because hard to get hold of I don't think I've ever read any. Yet more money to be spent I think...!


----------



## bnapier

Plotspider said:


> Do you mean where a person is asleep and knows something awful is happening to them in the waking world? Or do you mean where a person is paralyzed by anesthesia, but still sensitive to the pain? I've heard that happens and is horrifying. Either one is pretty frightening.


No, this is where you wake up quite suddenly, as if you've had a bad dream and simply can not move. There's also a feeling of intense dread accompanying it. At the worst times, you actually feel as if there is someone else in the room with you. It sounds horrifying (and it is) but it's more common than you might think. In researching it, I discovered that hundreds of year ago, sleep paralysis was blamed on succubi.


----------



## mscottwriter

Being helpless is definitely in my top 10 scary things list.  Also, I don't like reading about things that are too realistic (never been a fan of "Silence of the Lambs"  )

Also, hospitals, windowless vans, strange citys, parking structures, and roller coasters.

Strange...did anyone say that zombies or vampires scared them?  If they did, I missed it.


----------



## Plotspider

bnapier said:


> No, this is where you wake up quite suddenly, as if you've had a bad dream and simply can not move. There's also a feeling of intense dread accompanying it. At the worst times, you actually feel as if there is someone else in the room with you. It sounds horrifying (and it is) but it's more common than you might think. In researching it, I discovered that hundreds of year ago, sleep paralysis was blamed on succubi.


I think it still is in many Christian churches blamed on demonic influence of some sort. I'm not so sure, in every instance, that this is a wrong thought. But I would be very interested to find out what, if anything else, causes this condition. I woke up in my first apartment at one point and believed someone was in the room with me, but I wasn't paralyzed. Interesting.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

There is something about an evil child that just completely freaks me out. Cockroaches. Oh yeah, and catheters.


----------



## bnapier

Plotspider said:


> I think it still is in many Christian churches blamed on demonic influence of some sort. I'm not so sure, in every instance, that this is a wrong thought. But I would be very interested to find out what, if anything else, causes this condition. I woke up in my first apartment at one point and believed someone was in the room with me, but I wasn't paralyzed. Interesting.


There are tons of theories. One is that your brain has simply woken up too fast and can't properly alert your body. Another is that you've just been the victim of alien abduction.


----------



## Tony Richards

I've just been looking near the end of this thread, at the posts about what really scares people. And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm amazed how many people are afraid of clowns. Clowns? WHY It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense ... but then I guess fear isn't sensible in those terms.


----------



## Thalia the Muse

I've read a fair amount about sleep paralysis -- I had some episodes of it in college, it was awful! The thinking is that you have a mechanism that keeps you from moving around and acting out your dreams while asleep, which is what keeps most of us from sleepwalking and so forth. For some people, it doesn't always switch off properly when they awaken from a deep sleep, so you're lying there mostly awake but can't move, and you may continue to have dreamlike hallucinations for a few seconds. So it's a benign natural phenomenon, a side effect of how our brains are set up -- but really unpleasant!


----------



## Plotspider

Thalia the Muse said:


> I've read a fair amount about sleep paralysis -- I had some episodes of it in college, it was awful! The thinking is that you have a mechanism that keeps you from moving around and acting out your dreams while asleep, which is what keeps most of us from sleepwalking and so forth. For some people, it doesn't always switch off properly when they awaken from a deep sleep, so you're lying there mostly awake but can't move, and you may continue to have dreamlike hallucinations for a few seconds. So it's a benign natural phenomenon, a side effect of how our brains are set up -- but really unpleasant!


A couple times, when I was sick, I tried to wake up from some really bad dreams, and thought I was awake, but I couldn't make my eyes open. Maybe that was something like it, from what you are saying on the subject.

As for the clowns thing, I think that's because they are supposed to be funny, but seem so weird. Face paint, odd colored hair, perpetual and vacant smiles (no matter what they happen to be doing). Not to mention their rambunctious, unpredictable, and seemingly dangerous antics sometimes.

A lot of people seem to think children's entertainment figures, bent to something malicious or wicked, become terribly creepy. I dunno. Loving the thoughts so far, though.


----------



## JeffMariotte

PatrickWalts said:


> Are you really Charles L. Grant with a fake name? Self promotion! Shut down this thread, mods! We can't take any chances! Lol.


Okay, I just added long-deceased authors returning from the dead to haunt Kindleboards to my list of things that scare me... : )


----------



## PatrickWalts

JeffMariotte said:


> Okay, I just added long-deceased authors returning from the dead to haunt Kindleboards to my list of things that scare me... : )


I know for a fact that Edgar Allen Poe is a big-time lurker around here...


----------



## R. M. Reed

I met a very nice lady a few months ago who wouldn't drive on any road that was elevated above the ground. In L.A. that is a lot of them. I didn't ask about bridges, or mention to her all the places where you don't know you are elevated a little. People are capable of creating all kinds of fears in their minds.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Tony Richards said:


> I've just been looking near the end of this thread, at the posts about what really scares people. And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm amazed how many people are afraid of clowns. Clowns? WHY It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense ... but then I guess fear isn't sensible in those terms.


The movie IT


----------



## Plotspider

VincentHobbes said:


> The movie IT


The movie It? If you want to cure your fear of clowns, particularly if it is caused from this movie, go and watch Doug's review of It on That Guy With The Glasses website. His review of this movie basically destroyed any credible horror it may have had in it.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Plotspider said:


> The movie It? If you want to cure your fear of clowns, particularly if it is caused from this movie, go and watch Doug's review of It on That Guy With The Glasses website. His review of this movie basically destroyed any credible horror it may have had in it.


I personally thought the movie was good. I'll add, it wasn't just the movie, just the fact that clowns are creepy. I dunno, something about them just isn't right. I also am freaked out by mimes.


----------



## Plotspider

Now that I've seen Winter's Bone, I think Meth is one of the scariest things I've ever heard of.  I have a phobia, as it turns out, of being forcibly addicted to something like that.  Drugs are BAD!!!


----------



## indiebookslist

Watched a documentary on Meth...following around two parents addicted to it. Just horrible. They try to scratch their own faces off when they are high.

Not enough modern horror taps into primal fears. Then again, modern technology makes some fear obsolete...As my wife mentioned the other day, in the age of the cell phone, someone calls animal control or a neighbor with a gun, and Cujo is an afterthought.

I went to see Gothika, and it wasn't a very scary movie. The scariest, creepiest part of the film (and you have to remember that this was awhile back) was a scene in a hallway: Just dead silence, with a stereo mix of flickering fluorescent bulbs.

Horror should be atmospheric. You shouldn't need a plastic sheet and a butcher's getup to read the book, or watch the film.

Also, yet another vote here for Scott Nicholson. Great writer.


----------



## MichelleR

Scariest: losing loved ones, being old and alone. Being childless, an only child, and married to a guy who is 13 years older doesn't help.

Clowns are pretty scary. When I was very young, the guy downstairs was very tall and took the liberty of spanking me at least once. At her was a volunteer clown.  Then there was Pennywise. So, yeah. 

I don't understand anyone, even aside from his name being an anagram for Satan, who isn't a little scared of Santa. 

Aliens, but I don't read about them.

Demonic possession.

Then, to some extent, the usual suspects -- ghosts, haunted houses, knife wielding sociopaths with mommy issues...


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Plotspider said:


> Now that I've seen Winter's Bone, I think Meth is one of the scariest things I've ever heard of. I have a phobia, as it turns out, of being forcibly addicted to something like that. Drugs are BAD!!!


Agreed. Pretty good movie by the way even though there was no action at all.


----------



## mscottwriter

> Clowns? WHY It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense ...


There was Pennywise, but there was also that dreadful clown in "Poltergeist" that hid under the little boy's bed. That thing freaked me out for weeks.

And a big *yes* to frightening aspects of meth.

(Thalia, interesting comments about sleep paralysis. I've had that a few times as well, and hate it!)


----------



## Harry Shannon

Congress is starting to scare me to death. Not kidding.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Harry Shannon said:


> Congress is starting to scare me to death. Not kidding.


No kidding. It is scary how totally disconnected they are with reality.


----------



## James Everington

I like the kind of horror where the _really_ scary thing is not the 'monster' but the idea that reality itself might not be as stable as we think; the paranoia that something, somewhere is not quite right...


----------



## Tony Richards

I think that this goes to the heart of most good horror, James. I once described the genre as 'something happening to someone that they _very definitely_ weren't expecting when they woke up that morning.' Everyday reality goes rather wrong, in other words.


----------



## Plotspider

Tony Richards said:


> I think that this goes to the heart of most good horror, James. I once described the genre as 'something happening to someone that they _very definitely_ weren't expecting when they woke up that morning.' Everyday reality goes rather wrong, in other words.


I agree whole-heartedly. But I wonder. One of the hardest things in my mind to do with horror is the climax and denouement. At the climax, all must be revealed (or must it?) even in horror. I'm asking this of authors. What do you think? How does one maintain the creepy, not-quite-right, feeling in a work while at the same time creating a pay off? In even some of the best horror stuff I've read, the pay off in the story is one of the worst parts of the story. The build up can be awesome, but when the monster comes out and is confronted, it loses...something. Authors, what are your opinions?


----------



## JeffMariotte

I think some of the best endings in contemporary horror were Clive Barker's, when he was writing flat-out horror tales. He sympathized with the monsters--the outsider--so the story wasn't built around the old "preserve the status quo at all costs" mentality so common in much horror fiction.


----------



## WriterCTaylor

Try the small press and independent publishers out there. Some really try to get quality horror out there and a lot of them are in a format suitable for your Kindle. Google and you'll find them.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

**** friendly reminder:  authors, we're in the Book Corner so please refrain from mentioning your own books but, rather, address the question from the point of view of yourself as 'reader'.  You can, of course, address your own approach in the Writer's Cafe.  ****


----------



## Amy Corwin

I agree, and that's why I prefer older forms of horror stories, because those authors seemed to understand this: your "monster" is never as horrible as the reader's imagination of "what that monster MIGHT be". And it shouldn't be about the monster (unless the monster is the hero). What it's about is the hero or heroine and how the horror works on that person's psyche. Whether that person can rise to the occassion or it takes them under. That's why I always come back to "The Haunting of Hill House" as the best the genre has to offer. You don't know what really walks the halls of Hill House, but whatever it was, it found Eleanor's weaknesses and worked off them.

It seems like most horror writers today just use "stock characters" that they kill off in a number of gruesome ways, with the "gruesome ways" being what the story is about. That's one thing I have to say about S. King, whether you think he's a great writer or not, he understood that it's about the people and the impact the situation has on those people. It's not about the blood.

Just my thoughts (and wishing I could find another books like "The Haunting of Hill House". Although King's "The Shining" is pretty darn good, too.)



Plotspider said:


> I agree whole-heartedly. But I wonder. One of the hardest things in my mind to do with horror is the climax and denouement. At the climax, all must be revealed (or must it?) even in horror. I'm asking this of authors. What do you think? How does one maintain the creepy, not-quite-right, feeling in a work while at the same time creating a pay off? In even some of the best horror stuff I've read, the pay off in the story is one of the worst parts of the story. The build up can be awesome, but when the monster comes out and is confronted, it loses...something. Authors, what are your opinions?


----------



## Harry Shannon

The individual imagination creates the best monsters. What's just off the page frightens. What is glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, or sensed from behind the short hairs trembling at the back of your neck. I adore pulp horror for its humor, but if you want to scare me, make me feel out of control of events, wondering what is out there and what may happen next--and then leave me that way for a few pages. When Stephen King is on his game he's a master of that technique, as was Richard Matheson.


----------



## Plotspider

For a moment there, I thought you were talking about The Haunting of Hill House the movie.  Wow, did that movie suck.  I guess the book was much better.  Anyway, I read a book about brains from space that, at the time, was quite frightening, actually.  It was entitled Them.  I think I may have mentioned this on this thread before, but am not sure.  The 'space brains' were not the scariest part by far.  It was what they could do to people.  They could take over people's minds and make them do things they might not otherwise do.  Frankly, I found this to be a bit frightening (kind of like Village of the Damned).


----------



## James Bagshawe

Everyone is frightened at the thought of losing control. This goes beyond horror into real-world fears of dementia and madness. If you lose your grip on reality, your mind can conjure all manner of unpleasant things to replace it. Our dreams do this to us all the time.

Impotence in the face of a threat is one of the great mainstays of horror. When the monster/threat is an invincible opponent early on in a book, it is far more frightening than when the hero is doing his best to kick a** later on. For me, that's why short stories in this genre do so well. There is no problem closing a short story with a despairing, total loss. This is far less acceptable in a novel, and as a result many horror novels end weakly.


----------



## Joseph DiFrancesco

I so agree, Jay.

I have always been a firm believer of less is more when it comes to good horror.  

Think about it - in Silence of the Lambs you hardly saw Lecter's brutality - only heard about it, really.  So, when you finally see this sophisticated, overeducated little man and realize he's the source of so much cruelty and violence, it's disturbing on many deep levels.  We don't need to see much.  Just listen and imagine.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Joseph DiFrancesco said:


> I so agree, Jay.
> 
> I have always been a firm believer of less is more when it comes to good horror.
> 
> Think about it - in Silence of the Lambs you hardly saw Lecter's brutality - only heard about it, really. So, when you finally see this sophisticated, overeducated little man and realize he's the source of so much cruelty and violence, it's disturbing on many deep levels. We don't need to see much. Just listen and imagine.


Exactly. It is amazing how scary one's imagination can be.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Alfred Hitchcock basically never showed anyone actually getting hurt, much less killed. 

But boy was he good at using shadows and sounds to freak you out!


----------



## James Everington

Joseph DiFrancesco said:


> I have always been a firm believer of less is more when it comes to good horror.
> 
> Think about it - in Silence of the Lambs you hardly saw Lecter's brutality - only heard about it, really.


Reminds me of Dracula too - you see him scary and powerful at the start, and then he almost disappears for half the book - you're aware he's in the background, manipulating, but it's ages before he actually reappears.


----------



## JeffMariotte

Plotspider said:


> For a moment there, I thought you were talking about The Haunting of Hill House the movie. Wow, did that movie suck. I guess the book was much better.


The book is great--but so was the original film adaptation. If you haven't seen that, you've missed one of the most terrifying horror movies of all time. And one of the most subtle. The remake was a travesty, the original brilliant.


----------



## R. M. Reed

Often the end of a horror story is "we killed the monster/slasher/whatever so everything returns to normal and we're happy again." The ending can be more effective and still maintain a horror tone if it is clear that what happened has changed the people and they will never be the same. Anyone who really goes through a horrible situation knows that it doesn't end when the immediate threat is over.


----------



## ThomasSandman

R. M. Reed said:


> Often the end of a horror story is "we killed the monster/slasher/whatever so everything returns to normal and we're happy again." The ending can be more effective and still maintain a horror tone if it is clear that what happened has changed the people and they will never be the same. Anyone who really goes through a horrible situation knows that it doesn't end when the immediate threat is over.


\

good point


----------



## PatrickWalts

Ann in Arlington said:


> Alfred Hitchcock basically never showed anyone actually getting hurt, much less killed.


The brilliant part is that you _think_ he did. Kind of like what Tobe Hooper did with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The parts filled in by your imagination are much more brutal and gory that what was actually shown onscreen.


----------



## Spitzbub

PatrickWalts said:


> The brilliant part is that you _think_ he did. Kind of like what Tobe Hooper did with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The parts filled in by your imagination are much more brutal and gory that what was actually shown onscreen.


So true. Where I learned this was Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear. It stirred a brouhaha about screen violence because in the beginning of the movie Robert De Niro's convict bites a man's face. But if you watch carefully, the rest of the movie is tame&#8230; tame but taut, because that single instance of violence establishes for the rest of the story what the man is capable of.

James' reference to Dracula is another great example of putting the Vile in Villain early on, and letting the reader's imagination do a lot of the heavy lifting thereafter.

Fun discussion!

John


----------



## PatrickWalts

Nothing scares me more than the idea of somebody peeking in the window late at night.  I once had a friend who came over unannounced, pretty late, and he pressed his face to the window to look in and see if anybody was up because he didn't want to ring the doorbell and get anybody out of bed.  I thought I heard something, so I pressed my own face to the window and found myself staring right into his eyes.  I thought I was going to have a heart attack.


----------



## Plotspider

PatrickWalts said:


> Nothing scares me more than the idea of somebody peeking in the window late at night. I once had a friend who came over unannounced, pretty late, and he pressed his face to the window to look in and see if anybody was up because he didn't want to ring the doorbell and get anybody out of bed. I thought I heard something, so I pressed my own face to the window and found myself staring right into his eyes. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.


That's a good way to get someone killed. Tell your friend to be careful.


----------



## VincentHobbes

Plotspider said:


> That's a good way to get someone killed. Tell your friend to be careful.


Yea, no kidding....especially here in Texas


----------



## Ann in Arlington

PatrickWalts said:


> Nothing scares me more than the idea of somebody peeking in the window late at night. I once had a friend who came over unannounced, pretty late, and he pressed his face to the window to look in and see if anybody was up because he didn't want to ring the doorbell and get anybody out of bed. I thought I heard something, so I pressed my own face to the window and found myself staring right into his eyes. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.


I'm guessing you're not the target audience for this commercial:


----------



## PatrickWalts

Plotspider said:


> That's a good way to get someone killed. Tell your friend to be careful.


There was another incident where I was lying on the couch, in the dark, watching a movie at 2 or 3 AM. I heard a scuffling noise outside the window behind me, and then a very faint "tap tap tap tap." It scared the shit out of me. I went outside with a baseball bat, ready to bash someone's skull in. A cop drove by, saw me out in the yard, and apparently it had happened to someone else. Probably just some kid screwing around, but guess what, I would have broken his legs anyway. Little bastard. Lol. Of course, it could also have been someone scoping out houses to see if anyone was home so he could break in. Either way, that kind of thing really freaks me out. Reminds me of the vampire kid looking in the window in 'Salem's Lot."


----------



## Sean Thomas Fisher

Joseph DiFrancesco said:


> I so agree, Jay.
> 
> I have always been a firm believer of less is more when it comes to good horror.
> 
> Think about it - in Silence of the Lambs you hardly saw Lecter's brutality - only heard about it, really. So, when you finally see this sophisticated, overeducated little man and realize he's the source of so much cruelty and violence, it's disturbing on many deep levels. We don't need to see much. Just listen and imagine.


This reminded me of Insidious, which we rented a few weeks ago. I don't think we saw one drop of blood get spilled during that entire movie and I haven't gone into the basement by myself ever since, no matter how many times I hear that little girl crying down there through the vents. I just toss some _Twilight_ books down the stairs, slam the door and lock it and go on about my business.


----------



## Harry Shannon

Now I HAVE to see that movie!


----------



## Geoffrey

Ann in Arlington said:


> I'm guessing you're not the target audience for this commercial:


I would have screamed like a 5yo girl and then set the dog on him.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Harry Shannon said:


> Now I HAVE to see that movie!


Insidious? Yeah, I watched it last week, and it really impressed me. One of the best horror films I've seen in quite awhile. Very original. I expected it, based on the marketing campaign, to be about some evil little kid, which has been done to death(but I still love that kind of stuff, so I watched it anyway), but that's not what it's about at all. I think some studio execs probably watched it and panicked, thinking _We can't sell this! Let's make people think it's an Omen ripoff! Put a kid with glowing eyes on the poster!_


----------



## PatrickWalts

Ann in Arlington said:


> I'm guessing you're not the target audience for this commercial:


Lol. My wife hates those commercials with a passion.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

I've never met anyone who thought those "King" commercials were anything but creepy and disturbing. . . . .


----------



## PatrickWalts

Ann in Arlington said:


> I've never met anyone who thought those "King" commercials were anything but creepy and disturbing. . . . .


The worst commercial of all time is that Quiznos one where the guy who plays Sheldon from Big Bang Theory is talking about being raised by wolves. It then shows him nursing from a wolf's nipple. I never ate at Quiznos again.





Why they didn't just abandon it entirely is a mystery to me. Why would you put something so gross in a food commercial? Yeah, that really makes me want to run out and buy a sandwich.


----------



## R. M. Reed

Wolf puppies! The second version is cute.


----------



## MichelleR

I didn't realize that was Sheldon! Well, because I didn't know him as Sheldon when the commercial came out.

Just like Tony Hale, from Arrested Development was in this classic:





To almost get this back on topic ... it's Buffy!


----------



## JeffMariotte

When we bring Burger King "The King" commercials into the discussion, we've veered into areas too terrifying for words.

Now Jack in the Box commercials with Jack--those are classics.


----------



## indiebookslist

Those Burger King commercials are nightmarish. Instead of a entire generation scared of clowns, our progeny will be frightened of an oversized, plastic king.


----------



## JeffMariotte

I would take refuge behind Ronald McDonald if I saw that King coming near me.


----------



## Plotspider

Talking about Quizno's, I thought those singing rats with wiggly eyes (I can't remember their names) "We love the subs!" were rather disturbing.  

The Burger King, when he showed up at the window, well, they should have made a movie out of that.  Someone dressing up like the Burger King and putting people in hamburgers...for years.  And then we find out.  Don't think Burger King would sponsor that movie, though.  

Wendy's had one commercial where the cartoon Wendy looks demented.  Not sure what they were advertising, a salad or something, but it looked rather crazy.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

When the thread started I never thought we would come around to tv commercials. Glad I don't have time to watch tv if these are the commercials that people spend thousands to produce.


----------



## Tony Richards

I've participated several times, and never thought this thread would end here either. Or has it even ended? Round and round and round it goes, and where it ends nobody knows.


----------



## PatrickWalts

Plotspider said:


> Talking about Quizno's, I thought those singing rats with wiggly eyes (I can't remember their names) "We love the subs!" were rather disturbing.
> 
> The Burger King, when he showed up at the window, well, they should have made a movie out of that. Someone dressing up like the Burger King and putting people in hamburgers...for years. And then we find out. Don't think Burger King would sponsor that movie, though.
> 
> Wendy's had one commercial where the cartoon Wendy looks demented. Not sure what they were advertising, a salad or something, but it looked rather crazy.


I like disturbing things, but I don't like to associate those things with food. Show me the food, not a maggot-ridden corpse with CGI worms in little tophats crawling out of its eye sockets and singing about how great Sonic's new Chicken fried Steak sandwich is.


----------



## ThomasSandman

Tony Richards said:


> I've participated several times, and never thought this thread would end here either. Or has it even ended? Round and round and round it goes, and where it ends nobody knows.


i'm quite enjoying this thread!


----------



## Plotspider

ThomasSandman said:


> i'm quite enjoying this thread!


Me, too. Going back to horror literature, however, I wonder what sorts of situations are truly horrifying (monsters not included)?

Anyway, be interested to see.


----------



## ThomasSandman

Plotspider said:


> Me, too. Going back to horror literature, however, I wonder what sorts of situations are truly horrifying (monsters not included)?
> 
> Anyway, be interested to see.


this thread got humorous but i'll say that horror has changed. thing is monsters and the unexplained scare me more than for example a killer in the woods. excorcist freaked me out, both the book and the movie.


----------



## Tony Richards

ThomasSandman said:


> this thread got humorous but i'll say that horror has changed. thing is monsters and the unexplained scare me more than for example a killer in the woods. excorcist freaked me out, both the book and the movie.


'The unexplained' is the important part, here. For instance, Jaws was terrifying ... until you saw the rubber shark.


----------



## Plotspider

Tony Richards said:


> 'The unexplained' is the important part, here. For instance, Jaws was terrifying ... until you saw the rubber shark.


The exorcist was quite disturbing to me. Not terrifying, exactly, but very disturbing. Of course, sequels ruin it. And giving the demon a stupid name like that. It was much scarier when it was just some random demon, or maybe even the devil himself, instead of a named entity. That turned it into a movie monster, rather than some eldritch terror.


----------



## ThomasSandman

Plotspider said:


> The exorcist was quite disturbing to me. Not terrifying, exactly, but very disturbing. Of course, sequels ruin it. And giving the demon a stupid name like that. It was much scarier when it was just some random demon, or maybe even the devil himself, instead of a named entity. That turned it into a movie monster, rather than some eldritch terror.


probably the scariest movie i've ever seen. never saw the second cause i know what holloywood can do which is ruin a good thing.


----------



## GerrieFerrisFinger

James Everington said:


> Oh it's still around, but a hard sell - try the small press and self-publishers. Or the Mammoth yearly 'Best Ofs' have some proper, creeping-dread style horror.
> 
> Recently two authors who've impressed me writing proper, literary horror are Alan Ryker and Iain Rowan.


Yes! Ryker and Rowan are great.
OTOH, most reeping dread horror is giving way to slasher horror and that's too bad.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Now we are back to horror. Lol. I agree with the majority of the previous comments, but have been shown by many in the forum the horror isn't dead and not all gore. It will be interesting to see where we go from here in the genre, but I still have hope.


----------



## Dave Dykema

I'm about halfway through a book about cinematic horror, "Shock Value" by Jason Zinoman. It traces the birth of the modern horror movie of the 1970s. I know it's not about writing (although several of the films are based on novels and there are a lot of bits about story elements) I thought you guys might find it interesting.


----------



## belindaf

It's here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kindle-Dark-Horror-Mystery-and-Thriller-Freebies-and-Cheapies/134002546697327

Daily FREE and cheap reads, 4 stars or higher, for your Kindle. Like us and enjoy!


----------



## VincentHobbes

Dave Dykema said:


> I'm about halfway through a book about cinematic horror, "Shock Value" by Jason Zinoman. It traces the birth of the modern horror movie of the 1970s. I know it's not about writing (although several of the films are based on novels and there are a lot of bits about story elements) I thought you guys might find it interesting.


Interesting....thanks for posting.


----------



## Tony Richards

jayreddy publisher said:


> Now we are back to horror. Lol. I agree with the majority of the previous comments, but have been shown by many in the forum the horror isn't dead and not all gore. It will be interesting to see where we go from here in the genre, but I still have hope.


People who think that horror is all gore -- and there are plenty of them out there -- have slasher movies and the like in mind and have most likely never read a single page of an actual horror novel. The genre is still very much with us, in a wide variety of forms.


----------



## Krista D. Ball

I have to pipe up and recommend a micro local horror publisher (local to me) - Northern Frights. They only have a handful of books, but they are well on the weird side of horror. http://northernfrightspublishing.webs.com/

I read the Oz anthology. I'm about to read the Alice story next...


----------



## WriterCTaylor

Plotspider said:


> The exorcist was quite disturbing to me. Not terrifying, exactly, but very disturbing. Of course, sequels ruin it. And giving the demon a stupid name like that. It was much scarier when it was just some random demon, or maybe even the devil himself, instead of a named entity. That turned it into a movie monster, rather than some eldritch terror.


I have to agree there. That movie was so slow, but when it got going you could forgive it. I agree with your comment about the sequel/s. The original was scary when it started, especially during the exorcism. It was suggestive as well. It made you think, is that the devil? The second one was just stupid. The same goes for Poltergeist. The first one, although a bit corny now, was good. The second was just ridiculous.


----------



## rjspears

As far as books go, I think I've only read two, maybe three, books that frightened me while I was reading them.
1) Stephen King's --Salem's Lot - I started worrying if those bloodsuckers were really out there
2) Thomas Harris -- Silence of the Lambs - When Hannibal escaped, I actually said out loud, "He's out there."

--
rjspears


----------



## brianrowe

I too am always on the look-out for horror fiction that relies more on suspense and psychological terror than blood and guts. Any suggestions?


----------



## Harry Shannon

There are great horror writers working, from pulp to literate and a mashup of both. Several of my favorite mystery authors use overtones of horror. Off the top of my head John Connelly, and his great Charlie Parker series. Even James Lee Burke has leaned that direction in a few of his novels. Horror is all around us, and a smart author knows how to sprinkle it into almost anything literate.


----------



## Michelle Muto

LOL! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the BK commercials were a bit freaky.

I think horror might be coming back. Hopefully, there will be more of the older King/Koontz novels/movies and even the Twilight Zone and Hitchcock type. Well, at least those are MY favs. Speaking of horror, it'll be interesting to see what that new show, An American Horror Story, will be like. *fingers crossed*


----------



## jimbronyaur

Horror and gore are two different scares... sadly, the gore factor is easier to produce.  You just chop a limp off.  To create real horror you have to focus on a story and build it in a way that makes it real and scary.  I always said some of the scariest scenes in movies is when nothing happens... when the suspense is building.  Take Friday the 13th Part 2... that first ten minutes of the woman walking around her apartment - WOW, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for Jason!  haha

-jb


----------



## Elizabeth Black

That King in those Burger King commercials was super creepy. I'd prefer the Geiko caveman over him, even with all the emo whining.

Horror has definitely made a comeback but part of the problem for me is all the influence of reality shows like "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures". We get movies like "Paranormal Activity" which wasn't all that scary. Hopefully the movie trend won't affect books or graphic novels. I do prefer the atmospheric horror like Michael McDowell's "The Elementals" or Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting Of Hill House" to splatterpunk and gore but I do like gore every once in awhile if it's done well.


----------



## yingko2

I much prefer the classic spooky horror and that's what I strive to write. Not a fan of gore. I like ghosts, supernatural suspense. What's not seen is often much scarier than what is.
Cheers,
Howard

_sorry, no self promotion allowed outside the Book Bazaar. _


----------



## Robert S. Wilson

There's plenty of awesome horror out there that doesn't just focus on gore. At least in books. With movies it's rare these days. Where do you look for horror?


----------



## Charrlygrl

This is a great thread. I have all these sticky notes I've been scribbling so I can try to track down some of these books.

The things that scare me are:

*The Unknown:* for instance, while reading IT I was truly spooked out with what I was imagining, then at the very end a big spider shows up...that was a let down. I know it was more than just a big spider, but. Another example: in Paranormal Activity there was a scene where 'something' was pounding on the door so hard the door was bowing inward in the middle. TOTAL CREEPOUT for me.

*Clowns*: Pennywise. "They all float down here". Nuff said.
*
Roaches*: ever see that scene in one of the Creepshow movies where the roaches have infested the bed but you cannot see them? You only see the bedspread shifting with their movements....ewwwwwww


----------



## HeyDrew

Horror in literature has always been a lot like the horror section at a video store.  About 10 boxes with gore and severed limbs to the 1 box without.  I remember going to my local video store and just turning the covers over to see what nastiness was on the back.  Got a lot of movies that way.  Re-Animator, Make Them Die Slowly, Dead/Alive, etc.  As a kid we'd have sleepovers and see who would wuss out first.

Then we rented Jacob's Ladder which had very little gore in it and it scared us more than anything else.  

Twenty years later that's the kind of stuff I like.  The stuff that gets beneath the skin and never goes away.  I've read every pervasion possible, and frankly if it's going for gross out it better be as well written and comically entertaining as American Psycho was or I won't finish it.  But if it's going for character and atmosphere and creeps, if it can get beneath my skin and make me, an atheist, scared of the dark... I won't forget it.


----------



## Jack Wallen

Been a fan of horror since I was a child. At least with film, I have to agree with you. I've grown so weary of "Torture Porn" and long for the days when scary really worked over the imagination.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Robert S. Wilson said:


> There's plenty of awesome horror out there that doesn't just focus on gore. At least in books. With movies it's rare these days. Where do you look for horror?


I no longer doubt there is good horror without gore, but some of the points made throughout this thread are these.
1. Horror is no longer mainstream as it was.
2. Horror is not a genre in bookstores anymore. (unless you go to an indie bookstore)
3. Horror movies have hurt the image of horror books.
4. Plus there is a ton of suggestions about new horror writers throughout the thread.

While there might be a ton of good horror out there, there is much more "crap" to filter through nowadays. It is not as easily accessible as it was in the 80's and 90's and all indie bookstores in my area closed during the economy collapse (horror isn't a genre in the other big retail chains). That being said, this thread has given me some new insight to the genre and some names to keep an eye on.


----------



## Sean Sweeney

I read a good horror book the other day: The Eyes of the Dead by G.R. Yeates. Descriptive and chilling. Takes place in World War 1.


----------



## James Everington

Interesting... I've always wondered why there's not more horror set in the trenches of WW1. It seems a natural enough setting, with the genuine dread and horror providing an interesting backdrop.


----------



## SOULADREAM

An interesting question and a thought-provoking thread. My initial experience with my Kindle titles belies the premise, however. I like to write in all types of genre, horror, Sci-Fi, history, fantasy and romance - and it is my horror titles that are selling best. This was the case before the current run up to Halloween.

As has been mentioned, horror is with us daily on the News. Nothing can be much worse than starvation and anarchy in Somalia, nuclear disaster in Japan, biblical floods in China and Colombia and so on. Natural disasters show us just how puny we humans are in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps in a way, we look to fictional horror to take our minds off the real thing. No matter how unsettled a book can make us feel, we know it is fiction. It can be impossible to come to terms with real-life events like mass shootings in the schoolyard or dehumanised child soldiers gunning down members of their own families as has happened in the Congo and other places like Sierra Leone. I even saw a TV program about one soldier from there bragging that he had eaten the heart of his former enemy - triumphalist cannibalism. It seems hard for we writers to compete with that!

The best horror stories are reflections of real life, perhaps through a glass darkly or via a warped mirror, but they nevertheless tell us something about ourselves. The very first modern zombie classic Dawn of the Dead was set in a shopping mall. Nothing is more puerile and ultimately more worthless than rabid consumerism - I shop therefore I am. The zombies who ignored the consumer goods as they consumed the last human survivors of the Apocalypse at least had the excuse that they were dead. As Voltaire once said as he tried to come to terms with the idea of a kindly Supreme Being after an earthquake in Portugal that killed lot of innocent people: "God's only excuse is that he doesn't exist." Real horror exists everywhere - no matter what we try to tell ourselves.

The best Zombie stories also have humor in them because it relieves the tension and is a counterpoint to visceral terror. Not only that, it can lead to a false reassurance which the next dose of literal unmitigated horror can exploit. Last weekend I read a newspaper article about doctors on emergency duty. They were all glad that they had dissected corpses as students because it prepared them for the mangled bodies that came into the wards after particularly bad road accidents. They had giggled over the volunteer dead whose bodies they explored years before and they morbidly joked now of the victims of our hectic modern life - because if they didn't laugh, they would cry. Or even worse, they would have a nervous breakdown and be unable to function as surgeons at all. The human machine is highly strung. Like the German tanks of WWII they are over-engineered, not in terms of nuts and bolts, but in terms of sympathy and empathy. Only by 'switching-off' can the surgeon properly perform. A good horror story both scares and calms us, because ultimately, we know it isn't real.

So I don't think horror is dead. The zombies in my stories are, but then again they are not because I try to make the reader have sympathy for even them. Even the dead once loved, nurtured, and had dreams of fulfilment and happiness. What is most horrifying is how swiftly our winged passage is across this Earth. As Marlon Brando said when he turned eighty: "Nah, what was all that about?" When we die we will be worse off than any zombie. We will vanish into the maw of oblivion from which, like the inside of a Black Hole, there is no escape... ever. Or as the graffiti said on the walls of Berlin in April 1945; "Enjoy war - peace will be awful". Or rather, enjoy life - for death is forever.


----------



## Douglas E Wright

My favourite is quiet/atmospheric horror. Something that sneaks up and bites. I think some of this thread is right, people want action now, not the slow build of earth percolating to the top of a grave. 

My favourites at the moment are: Susan Hill (Woman in Black & Mist in the Mirror), Joe Hill, (Twentieth Century Ghosts) & Charles L Grant (The Tea Party & the person who first coined the phrase 'Dark Fantasy')


----------



## VincentHobbes

SOULADREAM said:


> An interesting question and a thought-provoking thread. My initial experience with my Kindle titles belies the premise, however. I like to write in all types of genre, horror, Sci-Fi, history, fantasy and romance - and it is my horror titles that are selling best. This was the case before the current run up to Halloween.
> 
> As has been mentioned, horror is with us daily on the News. Nothing can be much worse than starvation and anarchy in Somalia, nuclear disaster in Japan, biblical floods in China and Colombia and so on. Natural disasters show us just how puny we humans are in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps in a way, we look to fictional horror to take our minds off the real thing. No matter how unsettled a book can make us feel, we know it is fiction. It can be impossible to come to terms with real-life events like mass shootings in the schoolyard or dehumanised child soldiers gunning down members of their own families as has happened in the Congo and other places like Sierra Leone. I even saw a TV program about one soldier from there bragging that he had eaten the heart of his former enemy - triumphalist cannibalism. It seems hard for we writers to compete with that!
> 
> The best horror stories are reflections of real life, perhaps through a glass darkly or via a warped mirror, but they nevertheless tell us something about ourselves. The very first modern zombie classic Dawn of the Dead was set in a shopping mall. Nothing is more puerile and ultimately more worthless than rabid consumerism - I shop therefore I am. The zombies who ignored the consumer goods as they consumed the last human survivors of the Apocalypse at least had the excuse that they were dead. As Voltaire once said as he tried to come to terms with the idea of a kindly Supreme Being after an earthquake in Portugal that killed lot of innocent people: "God's only excuse is that he doesn't exist." Real horror exists everywhere - no matter what we try to tell ourselves.
> 
> The best Zombie stories also have humor in them because it relieves the tension and is a counterpoint to visceral terror. Not only that, it can lead to a false reassurance which the next dose of literal unmitigated horror can exploit. Last weekend I read a newspaper article about doctors on emergency duty. They were all glad that they had dissected corpses as students because it prepared them for the mangled bodies that came into the wards after particularly bad road accidents. They had giggled over the volunteer dead whose bodies they explored years before and they morbidly joked now of the victims of our hectic modern life - because if they didn't laugh, they would cry. Or even worse, they would have a nervous breakdown and be unable to function as surgeons at all. The human machine is highly strung. Like the German tanks of WWII they are over-engineered, not in terms of nuts and bolts, but in terms of sympathy and empathy. Only by 'switching-off' can the surgeon properly perform. A good horror story both scares and calms us, because ultimately, we know it isn't real.
> 
> So I don't think horror is dead. The zombies in my stories are, but then again they are not because I try to make the reader have sympathy for even them. Even the dead once loved, nurtured, and had dreams of fulfilment and happiness. What is most horrifying is how swiftly our winged passage is across this Earth. As Marlon Brando said when he turned eighty: "Nah, what was all that about?" When we die we will be worse off than any zombie. We will vanish into the maw of oblivion from which, like the inside of a Black Hole, there is no escape... ever. Or as the graffiti said on the walls of Berlin in April 1945; "Enjoy war - peace will be awful". Or rather, enjoy life - for death is forever.


Good sir, I applaud you for your response to the topic at hand.

Well done; nicely thought out.


----------



## Amy Corwin

Douglas E Wright said:


> My favourite is quiet/atmospheric horror. Something that sneaks up and bites. I think some of this thread is right, people want action now, not the slow build of earth percolating to the top of a grave.
> 
> My favourites at the moment are: Susan Hill (Woman in Black & Mist in the Mirror), Joe Hill, (Twentieth Century Ghosts) & Charles L Grant (The Tea Party & the person who first coined the phrase 'Dark Fantasy')


I so totally agree with you!
I love understated horror. I've written down your favorites and am going to be looking them up for my kindle  I'm like a junkie for horror during October and November, and I've already dashed through several of the books already so I need to get a few more . And although I don't care for present tense in novels, I just finished "The Sentinel" and it was pretty darn good. The author also uses humor as a counterpoint to the horror--you have to release the tension somehow--and I really like that. Someone else on this thread talked about ER doctors and humor, and I have to admit, I will use humor when I'm scared. Or even when I'm not scared.  It is definitely a coping mechanism.


----------



## Douglas E Wright

Amy Corwin said:


> I so totally agree with you!
> I love understated horror. I've written down your favorites and am going to be looking them up for my kindle  I'm like a junkie for horror during October and November, and I've already dashed through several of the books already so I need to get a few more . And although I don't care for present tense in novels, I just finished "The Sentinel" and it was pretty darn good. The author also uses humor as a counterpoint to the horror--you have to release the tension somehow--and I really like that. Someone else on this thread talked about ER doctors and humor, and I have to admit, I will use humor when I'm scared. Or even when I'm not scared.  It is definitely a coping mechanism.


Amy, you will find a ton of stuff from Charles Grant. His estate is just beginning to release his work in the digital form. I went to a second hand book store yesterday and picked up The Tea Party & The Last Call of Mourning. He also edited a lot of anthologies in addition to his books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_L._Grant.

Kealan Patrick Burke edited an antholgy dedicated to Charlie a couple years ago which includes Steven King, call 'Quietly Now,' which was nominated for a Bram Stoker award. It has long been sold out. http://www.amazon.com/Quietly-Now-Anthology-Tribute-Charles/dp/B0013HW8OU


----------



## balaspa

I think there is some quality horror showing up, of all places, on TV these days.  I have become a fan of "American Horror Story" on FX.  It has a bit of a Twin Peaks vibe, is incredibly demented, manages not to go too heavy on the gore, and be genuinely creepy at times.  

I also happen to like "The Walking Dead" although it sure heaps on the gore and I am, quite frankly, about as sick as you can get with the zombie genre.  At the same time, having both shows in a long form format means they can focus on the characters and story instead of just shocking for the sake of shocking.


----------



## VincentHobbes

balaspa said:


> I think there is some quality horror showing up, of all places, on TV these days. I have become a fan of "American Horror Story" on FX. It has a bit of a Twin Peaks vibe, is incredibly demented, manages not to go too heavy on the gore, and be genuinely creepy at times.
> 
> I also happen to like "The Walking Dead" although it sure heaps on the gore and I am, quite frankly, about as sick as you can get with the zombie genre. At the same time, having both shows in a long form format means they can focus on the characters and story instead of just shocking for the sake of shocking.


I had a friend just yesterday tell me about American Horror Story....sounds interesting. And I've heard nothing but great stuff about The Walking Dead....need to take some time and watch both.


----------



## Dave Dykema

I'm on the fence with "American Horror Story," mainly because it hasn't scared me yet. I like its weird vibe, but my viewing time is limited (even in the days of DVR) and I'm not positive I want to commit to it. I will still watch it this week though, and see where things go.

I'm a big "Walking Dead" fan, but have yet to see the recent season premiere yet. I have heard that the gore quotient has been upped though, which is kinda disappointing.


----------



## Tony Richards

I'm from the UK, and had never even heard of "American Horror Story" up until this point. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip.


----------



## balaspa

See, I look for a good "creep" factor more than a good scare.  I mean, someone jumping out of the dark and yelling "BOO" at me can scare me.  If it's suitably creepy, it will stick with me...haunt me...lurk with me.  And that's what I like.  I think American Horror Story is headed that way.  Some of it (that room full of mirrors, for example) is already there.


----------



## yingko2

I much prefer the creepy spooky supernatural type horror myself. What you can imagine is usually far scarier than the gross out, and the gross out gets old fast. Folks get jaded to it, which is not good for any book. Concentrating on the story and the spook elements of the tale, building the terror in the readers mind is much more fun! It's also harder to write. 
Cheers,
Howard


----------



## Thomas D. Taylor

jayreddy publisher said:


> Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear. Of course gore is scary but most books that use this as a source of fear has no storyline. What happened to true horror?


I think the reason for this largely has to do with publishing houses wanting to make a buck instead of turning out quality. The movie industry is not exempt from this kind of thing either. This is why we have the "Saw" series of movies.

I've inserted some gore into my most recent anthology, but only where necessary. I much prefer story to gory. There are pluses and minuses to writing this way.

One plus is that those who are tired of gross-out will be happy to read something different for a change, but the downside is that people who have been conditioned to like gore will be disappointed when they discover my anthology isn't drenched in it.


----------



## Harry Shannon

Another vote for Charles Grant if you enjoy "quiet" horror, and the Kealan Patrick Burke anthology was excellent indeed. There's a lot of great stuff out there.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Harry Shannon said:


> Another vote for Charles Grant if you enjoy "quiet" horror, and the Kealan Patrick Burke anthology was excellent indeed. There's a lot of great stuff out there.


Agreed. It is a little harder to find but there have been some great suggestions in this thread.


----------



## J.L. McPherson

VincentHobbes said:


> I had a friend just yesterday tell me about American Horror Story....sounds interesting. And I've heard nothing but great stuff about The Walking Dead....need to take some time and watch both.


The Walking Dead kicks ass !

I just finished reading Bentley Little's novel, _The Resort_, and let me tell you, the dude is outstanding. I had never even heard of him until this thread. _The Resort _ was one of the best horror stories I've read in a long while. Good stuff !


----------



## Harry Shannon

Try some early works by Tom Piccirilli (mostly does crime these days, but started in horror). If you enjoy The Walking Dead, there are a ton of new zombie novels out there. Look up Steven W. Booth, Brian Keene, Jonathan Maberry and the novels released by Permuted Press, which specializes in end of the world stuff.


----------



## PatrickWalts

J.L. McPherson said:


> The Walking Dead kicks *ss !
> 
> I just finished reading Bentley Little's novel, _The Resort_, and let me tell you, the dude is outstanding. I had never even heard of him until this thread. _The Resort _ was one of the best horror stories I've read in a long while. Good stuff !


I watched the first three episodes of The Walking Dead on Saturday, and I thought it was great. Mainly because it wasn't _really _about zombies, which are totally played out at this point, but about how people behave during a crisis.


----------



## bnapier

I picked up "Pig Island" by Mo Hayder at the library the other day, solely for the description on the back cover.  It's a GREAT book, but one of those that could have ended about 100 pages earlier and been even better.  Regardless, I highly recommend this one.


----------



## mark1529

Tony Richards said:


> I'm from the UK, and had never even heard of "American Horror Story" up until this point. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip.


tony i believe it's on "fx" in the states


----------



## Adam Riser

I think the horror genre can make a comeback. It will take a lot of good writers who not only have original voices, but who also who know the history of the genre (and not in an academic, deconstructionist way, but in a natural, enthusiastic way) and recognize that horror is about the way mortal beings deal with evil.

I also think a lot of what makes classic horror great is the mystery element. In the Exorcist, you don't have everything explained to you. You don't know whether or not the demon possessing Regan had alcoholic parents in hell, or what its motives are aside from its desire to destroy human life in the name of evil. It's that, along with other aspects of the storytelling, which makes it scary.

So, yeah. I think that horror will be saved by writers who have respect for the genre and its history, a strong, individualistic view point, an understanding that horror is about evil and the way in which people react to it, and who embrace the suspense/mystery element that plays a strong part in horror (what is left to the imagination is often times as frightening as what is visible).

My $.02.


----------



## Alan Ryker

If you want some subtle, character and language driven horror, check out James Everington's new novella The Shelter:


A lot of horror is in the language, and it's dead on here.


----------



## Guest

The good stuff was getting banned or causing people to complain, so the bigger publishers, who are most interested in wide marketability without pissing anyone off (this = money) have started publishing less. It's a shame. Horror is what got me reading in the first place. I rarely read it now because there isn't much out there that interests me. I _am _liking Jack Ketchum, a recommendation that came to me through my business partner (Rudy), though the content in some of those books is extreme (that said, the tension comes from the story/characters). There's a lot of great horror out there, if you ask me. It's just not being published--that's the problem. I don't think it's because readers don't want to read it, either. Some may say horror books aren't "selling" right now, but it makes me wonder how much of that is because horror books aren't really available for sale as much these past few years. Sometimes cycles start, and they're hard to break. If you find anything good out there, please let me know. Good horror (I like the SPOOKY kind, personally) is hard to come by these days... maybe in part because it's hard to find horror in general. Even with movies--it's all violence, nothing more. I miss what horror used to be. I would read it more if more of it was out there again. As it stands, aside from Rudy's work (which I love) I haven't read any horror since I was a teen. Only because I wasn't able to find what I was looking for in the genre anymore--not because I lost interest.

--Yours in Books--
Shana


----------



## Guest

adamriser34 said:


> I think the horror genre can make a comeback. It will take a lot of good writers who not only have original voices, but who also who know the history of the genre (and not in an academic, deconstructionist way, but in a natural, enthusiastic way) and recognize that horror is about the way mortal beings deal with evil.
> 
> I also think a lot of what makes classic horror great is the mystery element. In the Exorcist, you don't have everything explained to you. You don't know whether or not the demon possessing Regan had alcoholic parents in hell, or what its motives are aside from its desire to destroy human life in the name of evil. It's that, along with other aspects of the storytelling, which makes it scary.
> 
> So, yeah. I think that horror will be saved by writers who have respect for the genre and its history, a strong, individualistic view point, an understanding that horror is about evil and the way in which people react to it, and who embrace the suspense/mystery element that plays a strong part in horror (what is left to the imagination is often times as frightening as what is visible).
> 
> My $.02.


This is well said


----------



## Thalia the Muse

> Even with movies--it's all violence, nothing more. I miss what horror used to be.


There've been a fair number of small, creepy, not-very-gory movies in the last few years that have gotten a huge build out of word of mouth. I don't think horror is dead on film. Off the top of my head, there's Insidious, Let the Right One In (OK, that's pretty gory in parts), Session Nine, House of the Devil, Paranormal Activity (haven't seen the sequels), and some good J horror as well.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Adam Riser said:


> I think the horror genre can make a comeback. It will take a lot of good writers who not only have original voices, but who also who know the history of the genre (and not in an academic, deconstructionist way, but in a natural, enthusiastic way) and recognize that horror is about the way mortal beings deal with evil.
> 
> I also think a lot of what makes classic horror great is the mystery element. In the Exorcist, you don't have everything explained to you. You don't know whether or not the demon possessing Regan had alcoholic parents in hell, or what its motives are aside from its desire to destroy human life in the name of evil. It's that, along with other aspects of the storytelling, which makes it scary.
> 
> So, yeah. I think that horror will be saved by writers who have respect for the genre and its history, a strong, individualistic view point, an understanding that horror is about evil and the way in which people react to it, and who embrace the suspense/mystery element that plays a strong part in horror (what is left to the imagination is often times as frightening as what is visible).
> 
> My $.02.


You make some solid points.


----------



## Tony Richards

Thalia the Muse said:


> There've been a fair number of small, creepy, not-very-gory movies in the last few years that have gotten a huge build out of word of mouth. I don't think horror is dead on film. Off the top of my head, there's Insidious, Let the Right One In (OK, that's pretty gory in parts), Session Nine, House of the Devil, Paranormal Activity (haven't seen the sequels), and some good J horror as well.


It's not film that's the problem ... it's books, although horror is making some kind of slight comeback with the big 6 US publishers.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Tony Richards said:


> It's not film that's the problem ... it's books, although horror is making some kind of slight comeback with the big 6 US publishers.


I agree. I hope it does make a comeback.


----------



## ThomasSandman

someone responded earlier about the walking dead and i'm a huge fan of it too. nice to see horror still alive in movies


----------



## jayreddy publisher

ThomasSandman said:


> someone responded earlier about the walking dead and i'm a huge fan of it too. nice to see horror still alive in movies


It is doing real well in the movies.


----------



## Robert S. Wilson

I really think anyone who thinks horror has died down hasn't been looking hard enough. Look at work by authors like Laird Barron, Joe Hill, Brian Keene, and nameless others. There's tons of good stuff out there for those who take the time to look for it.


----------



## ThomasSandman

Robert S. Wilson said:


> I really think anyone who thinks horror has died down hasn't been looking hard enough. Look at work by authors like Laird Barron, Joe Hill, Brian Keene, and nameless others. There's tons of good stuff out there for those who take the time to look for it.


I dont think anyone has claimed that. its more of a matter that horror is harder and harder to find. as other people have said, many bookstores don't even have a horror section anymore.


----------



## Robert S. Wilson

Here's the first post of this thread: "Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear. Of course gore is scary but most books that use this as a source of fear has no storyline. What happened to true horror?"


----------



## Tony Richards

ThomasSandman said:


> I dont think anyone has claimed that. its more of a matter that horror is harder and harder to find. as other people have said, many bookstores don't even have a horror section anymore.


Absolutely. Leisure Books -- an imprint of Dorchester -- specilize in horror, of course. But most of the big houses who claim to be publishing it are actually just putting out urban fantasy (nothing wrong with that in itself) and vampire chicklit. The good news is that a big 'small' press like Dark Regions has recently got a distribution deal which puts their product in some bookshops. If more independent presses were to do this then we might see something of a horror revival.


----------



## monkeyluis

I'm reading The Strain right now. I can't stop turning the pages, or swiping to the next page.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Robert S. Wilson said:


> Here's the first post of this thread: "Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear. Of course gore is scary but most books that use this as a source of fear has no storyline. What happened to true horror?"


We moved past that about 300 posts ago. The point is unless you go to a specialty shop, there is no horror section. It is not as mainstream as it once was but there have been some suggestions that I've checked out. Go to your local brick and mortar store and find me the horror section. What is mainstream is horror movies, most of which are only gore. Again there have been some suggestions I have followed up on.


----------



## Robert S. Wilson

Yeah, I see that. Would help if this thread weren't so long. Who wants to read through 13 pages of replies just to get caught up with a thread? Who has time for that? If you're going to change topics why not start a new thread instead of making a ridiculously long one that covers multiple topics?


----------



## ThomasSandman

Robert S. Wilson said:


> Yeah, I see that. Would help if this thread weren't so long. Who wants to read through 13 pages of replies just to get caught up with a thread? Who has time for that? If you're going to change topics why not start a new thread instead of making a ridiculously long one that covers multiple topics?


13 pages means it's a good thread and i've quite enjoyed it. The thread starter didn't change the topic, those who contributed did.


----------



## ThomasSandman

Tony Richards said:


> Absolutely. Leisure Books -- an imprint of Dorchester -- specilize in horror, of course. But most of the big houses who claim to be publishing it are actually just putting out urban fantasy (nothing wrong with that in itself) and vampire chicklit. The good news is that a big 'small' press like Dark Regions has recently got a distribution deal which puts their product in some bookshops. If more independent presses were to do this then we might see something of a horror revival.


Exactly! Sad that small presses have to do all the work, but I'm grateful for them. I just downloaded James Everington who i've heard many good things about on kb. i hope we do see a revival!


----------



## Robert S. Wilson

ThomasSandman said:


> Exactly! Sad that small presses have to do all the work, but I'm grateful for them. I just downloaded James Everington who i've heard many good things about on kb. i hope we do see a revival!


Yeah, I'm just not used to long threads in a forum format I guess. Speaking of, if anyone around here is on Facebook, checkout the Kindle Horror Books group http://www.facebook.com/groups/kindlehorrorreading/
There's over 200 members all readers and writers of horror. It's a really great group. I would probably have more time to read and post here if I weren't always over there.


----------



## ThomasSandman

Robert S. Wilson said:


> Yeah, I'm just not used to long threads in a forum format I guess. Speaking of, if anyone around here is on Facebook, checkout the Kindle Horror Books group http://www.facebook.com/groups/kindlehorrorreading/
> There's over 200 members all readers and writers of horror. It's a really great group. I would probably have more time to read and post here if I weren't always over there.


I'll have to check that out.


----------



## James Everington

Robert S. Wilson said:


> Yeah, I'm just not used to long threads in a forum format I guess. Speaking of, if anyone around here is on Facebook, checkout the Kindle Horror Books group http://www.facebook.com/groups/kindlehorrorreading/
> There's over 200 members all readers and writers of horror. It's a really great group. I would probably have more time to read and post here if I weren't always over there.


Ahhh, so you're _that_ Robert Wilson...

Hello!


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Robert S. Wilson said:


> Yeah, I'm just not used to long threads in a forum format I guess. Speaking of, if anyone around here is on Facebook, checkout the Kindle Horror Books group http://www.facebook.com/groups/kindlehorrorreading/
> There's over 200 members all readers and writers of horror. It's a really great group. I would probably have more time to read and post here if I weren't always over there.


Thanks for the recommendation.


----------



## Steverino

I really enjoyed _House of Leaves_, a sort of metafictive haunted house story. Mindbending, odd, a bit chilling, no gore.


----------



## NS

Steverino said:


> I really enjoyed _House of Leaves_, a sort of metafictive haunted house story. Mindbending, odd, a bit chilling, no gore.


I've heard about this one. Got to check it out.


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Natasha A. Salnikova said:


> I've heard about this one. Got to check it out.


I am going to do the same.


----------



## mark1529

Thank you I'll check that out as well

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk


----------



## B.A. Spangler

Never been a fan of the Gore – big fan of traditional Horror. 

I think it is still around. I use the Amazon Previews, Sample Chaps and reviews to help me filter out the gory gore gore stuff.

One thing that would help is if Amazon, and others, reworked their Categories to better accommodate the traditional horror vs the shock gore.


----------



## Jonathan Winn

I don't think we'll ever answer the question "Where has horror gone?"  Like most things, it's subjective.  I love a good scare, but find myself a bit bored when it comes to blood and flesh being ripped and all that stuff (not that I don't have moments of that in my own book).  If the gore is there to be gory, it's silly.  If the gore is in context and is a result of something that had been building up, it's not so bad.

The great thing about this Thread, one I've been reading for the past couple of days, is one amazing suggestion after another when it comes to who's writing great horror! 

Plus I finally came to realize that if you want a good scare, look to indie publishing.  I fear the traditional publishers are looking a bit too hard at the bottom line and worried about profits to invest too much in really good horror.

Thank goodness I self-published!  

P.S. And can we give those teenage vampires and werewolves and wizards a rest?


----------



## flipside

Personally, I'd recommend the nominee list of the Shirley Jackson Awards for different kinds of horror.


----------



## James Everington

For a vast (and I do mean _vast_) anthology of interesting horror fiction, check out The Weird. Over 100 stories (some in their first English translation) and over 1000 pages if you buy the print version.

I consider myself pretty well read in the genre, but there's plenty of stuff in it new to me. The introduction about the evolution of the 'weird tale' is pretty interesting too.


----------



## bnapier

Just read an interview with King where he said his book Doctor Sleep (a sequel to the Shining) is due next year and is a return to, as he out it, "balls to the wall" horror.  So we shall see...


----------



## James Everington

bnapier said:


> Just read an interview with King where he said his book Doctor Sleep (a sequel to the Shining) is due next year and is a return to, as he out it, "balls to the wall" horror. So we shall see...


I really hope so. I love The Shining though, so have some reservations...!


----------



## flipside

James Everington said:


> For a vast (and I do mean _vast_) anthology of interesting horror fiction, check out The Weird. Over 100 stories (some in their first English translation) and over 1000 pages if you buy the print version.


A thousand pages with double columns!


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Wow. This thread has been resurrected. I have read plenty of good horror from indie authors over the past few months. I appreciate everyone's suggestion.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

jayreddy publisher said:


> Wow. This thread has been resurrected.


Well, that's what happens with horror. . .just when you think the monster is dead, it comes back to life.


----------



## Tony Rabig

I'll give an enthusiastic second to James Everington's recommendation of _The Weird_ -- it's a terrific collection, worth the price of admission just for the stories by Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Charles Beaumont, and Dennis Etchison.

Another terrific collection is the two-volume, unfortunately not available as an ebook, _Century's Best Horror Fiction_ edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance. One story for each of the 100 years with no author represented more than once; the set's out of my price range, but I've read a lot of the selections over the years and Pelan's put together one heckuva book.

And if you're looking for current indie horror, you could do a lot worse than the Penny Dreadnought collections from James Everington, Iain Rowan, Aaron Polson, and Alan Ryker. Some _nice_ stuff there.


----------



## AnnHaines79

I'm a massive fan of horror, be it traditional or more gore and shock. Have found some great up to date recommendations here so thanks. The books I'm going to mention now though are the oldies but goldies, they may not be gory but if you fancy a good chill I loved them. To start with Susan Hill, Woman In Black seems to be the most popular and it is great, but I love The Man In The Picture. She has so many others and honestly they are all worth checking out. The other mention is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, its a real tention builder and I loved reading it. These are, I guess, more traditional chillers than anything but they are so worth the mention. I write for the young adult genre and my books are written with supernatural and fantasy (no vamps or werewolves though I'm afraid) in mind. I try not to go to easy on them when it comes to the scares or deaths etc but I must admit, reading good chilling books has helped me find a way around too much gore, just to even it out a bit. So anyway check them out!!

Happy Reading


----------



## Tony Richards

Ann in Arlington said:


> Well, that's what happens with horror. . .just when you think the monster is dead, it comes back to life.


Love it!


----------



## FrankZubek

@ bnapier I too am looking forward to Doctor Sleep though I don't understand why we have to wait until 2013 Isn't he doing anything for this Fall?

Anyway you might be interested in this link
All updated news about King

http://www.liljas-library.com/


----------



## Derek Clendening

James Everington said:


> Oh it's still around, but a hard sell - try the small press and self-publishers. Or the Mammoth yearly 'Best Ofs' have some proper, creeping-dread style horror.
> 
> Recently two authors who've impressed me writing proper, literary horror are Alan Ryker and Iain Rowan.


_The Monster Book of Zombie_, edited by Stephen Jones is quite good, though I don't know if there's a Kindle version.


----------



## bnapier

FrankZubek said:


> @ bnapier I too am looking forward to Doctor Sleep though I don't understand why we have to wait until 2013 Isn't he doing anything for this Fall?
> 
> Anyway you might be interested in this link
> All updated news about King
> 
> http://www.liljas-library.com/


That's a good question. I know we have the new Dark Tower next month, but apparently no fall release for King that I've heard of.


----------



## Griffin Hayes

I'm sure that movies like Saw and hostel which are based entirely on gore have given its use a rather bad name. Personally, I don't have a problem with gore when its used at the right time and place and more importantly, if the scene requires it. Making readers barf just because you can isn't good enough. As we all know, gore isn't scary, it's gross. But like any good recipe, the trick is to throw in the right ingredients at the right time. Too much of anything will spoil the taste, literally.


----------



## James Everington

I've just read 'The Mill' by Mark West (it's a novella that was previously available as a chapbook I think, but is now available as an ebook from Greyhart Press).

Good stuff, if you like things of that length - the ending managed to be both genuinely creepy and moving, which is a rare achievement.


----------



## balaspa

Here's the thing for me.  I cannot recall the last horror novel that actually scared me.  Yes, I have read plenty of good stories, but something that really made me stay up late and check the doors 18 times?  Not in a very long time.


----------



## Phyllis Lily Jules

I think our horror books are a way for us to deal with deeply disturbing issues, but at arm's length instead of penetrating our heads. We think it's all out there, not really touching us except to stir our own imaginations a bit. But there's nothing in a horror book that doesn't exist in the real world. And then some. We spiff up the monsters a bit so that we don't recognize them walking our streets. Or in my case, living alongside me, selling a lemonade diet. We get nicely distracted by our entertainment, so very gory and inhuman these days, while hoping we don't feel the real monsters among us. For the real horror, move to nonfiction...


----------



## B.A. Spangler

I like what has been said – horror for me is in trying to wrap my mind around an impossible situation.

At times, I do like adding in the suspense and thriller aspects and some elements of paranormal or the supernatural.

But, I do wish the Genre (especially Amazon's categories) would split with vamps, werewolves, zombies and even Gumby, in its own category. Small change would make browsing a bit easier.


----------



## Tony Richards

But, I do wish the Genre (especially Amazon's categories) would split with vamps, werewolves, zombies and even Gumby, in its own category. Small change would make browsing a bit easier.
[/quote]

Good point. Not that I've anything against werewolves, vamps, etc., but a lot of that stuff these days is _romance_ fiction, not horror, and should be categorized separately.


----------



## JeffMariotte

Tony Richards said:


> Good point. Not that I've anything against werewolves, vamps, etc., but a lot of that stuff these days is _romance_ fiction, not horror, and should be categorized separately.


Actually, a lot of the vampire, werewolf etc. romance fiction is categorized under Romance on Amazon (they have their own subsections under the Romance category). What's all mixed up with horror is the genre known as urban fantasy, which does have a large romance aspect to it--mostly seems to be about leather-clad women alternately killing monsters and having sex with them. But (to me) the focus of these is not scaring the reader, which ought to be the focus of horror (since as a category, its one defining characteristic is the emotional effect it's trying to achieve).

In my bookstore--in addition to writing books, I sell 'em--we keep horror and urban fantasy/paranormal romance separated out.


----------



## James Everington

JeffMariotte said:


> In my bookstore--in addition to writing books, I sell 'em--we keep horror and urban fantasy/paranormal romance separated out.


Oh I much prefer that to lumping them altogether on the shelves.


----------



## Carl Ashmore

Too much shock and gore - bring back old school horror!


----------



## nathanieltimothy

I totally agree with you thanks for such a nice information


----------



## nathanieltimothy

I think the gore in both books and movies is an effort to capture and hold our attention. Unfortunately it's holding our attention for all the wrong reasons. Yes or no ..


----------



## jayreddy publisher

Another recommendation is any horror story by Allison M. Dickson. She is a great up and coming author.


----------



## James Everington

jayreddy publisher said:


> Another recommendation is any horror story by Allison M. Dickson. She is a great up and coming author.


Thanks for recommendation; will check out some of her stuff.


----------



## D. Nathan Hilliard

I think gore is only effective if it serves a purpose or logically belongs in the situation. 

Also, CGI is something that has made a lot possible in science fiction, but should be kept away from horror movies with a vengeance.


----------



## Gone To Croatan

D. Nathan Hilliard said:


> Also, CGI is something that has made a lot possible in science fiction, but should be kept away from horror movies with a vengeance.


CGI is SF's gore: sure, the technology now exists to show it, but should you? I don't watch many 'big' movies any more because so many directors seem to spend more time on the CGI than the story or acting.

I think the reason the gore movies of the 80s worked was that it was clearly fake so it turned the story into a comedy. Today it's just an attempt to gross people out, which doesn't really interest me.

Similarly, while I write moderately gory horror stories, the intention is to show the effects on the characters, not to make the reader put the book down in disgust.


----------



## James Everington

Two new suggestions I've read recently:

Martyrs & Monsters - short story collection by Robert Dunbar
They're Waiting - short story by Tony Rabig

Anyone liking good, creepy, intelligent and literate horror would be well advised to check out these ones...


----------



## Tony Richards

James Everington said:


> Two new suggestions I've read recently:
> 
> Martyrs & Monsters - short story collection by Robert Dunbar
> They're Waiting - short story by Tony Rabig
> 
> Anyone liking good, creepy, intelligent and literate horror would be well advised to check out these ones...


Thanks for the recommendation, James.


----------



## joeyjoejoejr

What really scares the bejeebus out of me is the uncanny and the creepy which are used to great effect in Japanese and Korean horror movies and their US remakes (The Ring).  A creepy girl coming out of a TV moving in an odd jerky fashion, the same little boy appearing on every floor as you are going down in an elevator, those things keep me awake at night in ways gore just never could.  Does anyone know if there are any authors, Japanese or otherwise, that have managed to capture that on the printed (einked) page?


----------



## balaspa

Thankfully, horror is still alive and well.  Thanks to Kindle, I have found writers who are still doing it right.  Scott Nicholson, for example, has lots of great horror novels out and available for Kindle.


----------



## James Everington

joeyjoejoejr said:


> What really scares the bejeebus out of me is the uncanny and the creepy which are used to great effect in Japanese and Korean horror movies and their US remakes (The Ring). A creepy girl coming out of a TV moving in an odd jerky fashion, the same little boy appearing on every floor as you are going down in an elevator, those things keep me awake at night in ways gore just never could. Does anyone know if there are any authors, Japanese or otherwise, that have managed to capture that on the printed (einked) page?


Well, being overly-literal, The Ring was based on a book by Koji Suzuki. I haven't read that one, but I did read a collection of his short stories which was... okay. Not amazing but not dreadful.

Be in more general terms of favouring creepiness over gore, I think lots of the best authors mentioned above take this approach: Ramsey Campbell springs immdiately to mind.


----------



## Tony Rabig

James Everington said:


> Two new suggestions I've read recently:
> 
> Martyrs & Monsters - short story collection by Robert Dunbar
> They're Waiting - short story by Tony Rabig
> 
> Anyone liking good, creepy, intelligent and literate horror would be well advised to check out these ones...


Thanks for the heads-up on Robert Dunbar -- will be checking out _Martyrs & Monsters_ and some of his others; am I remembering wrong or had you recommended his book _Willy_ (another one of thousands I haven't gotten around to reading yet...) a while back?

And thanks for recommending "They're Waiting;" glad you enjoyed it.


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## MrJoecat

I have a theory on why horror has gone this way, and it's linked (unfortunately) with: Hollywood.  Movies in the last 10-15 years have gotten more visual, as a way of showing us what they can do now with CGI. Storyline has suffered, and as we've gotten used to all kinds of graphic, gory scenes the shock value has lessened, so they are always trying to come up with something new. Good, atmospheric ghost stories (such as last winter's remake of "The Woman In Black") are being rarer, while movies like "Saw" and others are now the norm. As a result, new and up and coming authors feel this is what sells, and this is what people want, so it's reflected in their stories. They're writing their stories almost as if they're visualizing a Hollywood movie in their minds rather than writing a good story for it's own sake. It's a vicious cycle that's hard to break out of, and I think it's only going to grow worse in the coming years rather than better. Anyone else have any ideas?


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## James Everington

Tony Rabig said:


> Thanks for the heads-up on Robert Dunbar -- will be checking out _Martyrs & Monsters_ and some of his others; am I remembering wrong or had you recommended his book _Willy_ (another one of thousands I haven't gotten around to reading yet...) a while back?
> 
> And thanks for recommending "They're Waiting;" glad you enjoyed it.


Tony - there's a review of both _Martyrs & Monsters_ and your very own _They're Waiting_ (plus _Off The Record_ which is none horror) a few posts down on my blog, did you see that? And yes, I did mention Dunbar's _Willy_ previously; to make that sentence even more Carry On, he also has a novella called _Wood_


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## Alexandra Sokoloff

Joecat, you're probably right that Hollywood's run of torture porn after the success of SAW had some influence on the level of gore in horror books. It's actually why I backed away from screenwriting and wrote my first book - I was being pressured to write things I will not write.

But the problem actually started way before that - when you talk to the top authors in the genre, and agents and publishers, they all say basically the same thing - that when King his so VERY big in the seventies, publishers pumped out a massive wave of copycat horror that was sub par and it burned out the field so badly it still hasn't recovered.  Elegant horror still isn't being published (much) because in the public mind, horror is dreck.

And I've seen another problem - that horror fans have not been supportive of authors and books the way that, say, paranormal fans are. There is a huge difference in mindset: horror readers boast about scoring 1 cent used books of their favorite authors, while paranormal fans buy hardcovers from their favorites on the very first day of release, and blog about the books they love, and review the authors. It's a lot because of those loyal readers that that paranormal genre has become the powerhouse it is.

But Kindle and e readers are the obvious place for horror to find a niche again. I hope!!


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## Tony Rabig

James Everington said:


> Tony - there's a review of both _Martyrs & Monsters_ and your very own _They're Waiting_ (plus _Off The Record_ which is none horror) a few posts down on my blog, did you see that? And yes, I did mention Dunbar's _Willy_ previously; to make that sentence even more Carry On, he also has a novella called _Wood_


Hadn't seen 'em yet -- I've not been keeping up much with blogs, FB, Goodreads, or much of anything very well except a bit of the reading backlog for the last several weeks. Thanks for the nice review on your blog, and to both you and Greg for the kind words at Goodreads.

And for horror fans -- oldies but goodies now available for the Kindle in Fritz Leiber's collection Horrible Imaginings.


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## Tony Richards

Tony Rabig said:


> And for horror fans -- oldies but goodies now available for the Kindle in Fritz Leiber's collection Horrible Imaginings.


Anything by Leiber's always welcome. Hopefully, he's now reaching a new generation of (soon to be) avid fans.


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## John S

Hi all,

Newbie here, writer of horror/dark fantasy in Boston.  Interesting comments.

I just wanted to add that my favorite kind of horror is the one that is the most difficult to pull off, and that is supernatural horror.  Adding to the points above, I think the trend for 'realism' is what fuels the SAW and other torture movies.  The movies are tough and cynical, as if the movie makers are afraid the audience will laugh at them if they attempt something like a supernatural occurance which fails.  (Which is why THE EXORCIST was such a hit, at least in part--it tried and succeeded where so many films tried and failed.)  When people watch a horror movie, especially young people, they like to be able to say "That looks so fake" or "I saw that coming."  But with realistic gore showing knives plunging into people, it's much closer to real life than, say, a ghost or alien creature.

The word I associate with my favorite horror is 'dread' because it is not about what is happening right now, on the page or on the screen, but what we fear is around that corner or behind that door.  Another word that I apply to my favorite horror is 'awe,' which is an element not commented on often enough, I think.  For me the great example of a movie moment of awe is the sight of the alien derelict ship in ALIEN--when I saw that the week it premiered, the 14-year-old me was hunched forward, eyes squinting, wondering what that was, how it got there, who piloted it...and of course at the same time I was a little scared to find out.  Another movie that caught the fear and awe was SESSION 9, which works on the mind more than the gut.

In terms of literature, the writing of Thomas Ligotti (before he started writing non-fiction) and the book HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Danielewski creat the feelings I look for in horror.


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## James Everington

John S said:


> In terms of literature, the writing of Thomas Ligotti (before he started writing non-fiction) and the book HOUSE OF LEAVES by Mark Danielewski creat the feelings I look for in horror.


I like this person already...


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## Kevis Hendrickson

jayreddy publisher said:


> Another recommendation is any horror story by Allison M. Dickson. She is a great up and coming author.


I discovered her work a couple years back and instantly became a fan. She's an amazing author.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff

John S., couldn't agree more about "awe" being a key component of horror. I love that moment in film and on the page when you see the characters just mesmerized by the monster or the force - totally seduced, for the moment, at least!  It's done very well in Jaws (the first glimpse at the immensity of the shark), the first Alien when the creature unfolds, even that moment in The Mist where the winged creatures are landing on the plate glass at night and for a moment there's a beauty about them, before the carnage starts again.  To me, that beauty is so key in this genre.


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## Thalia the Muse

Alexandra, what a great and thoughtful post! It's true -- the best horror films and fiction have a great otherworldly beauty about them. They show us a world larger than we (or the characters) had imagined it to be, and it's exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. 

I think that some of the most beautiful movies ever made have been horror -- Black Sunday, Bride of Frankenstein, The Masque of the Red Death ...


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## RikNieu

Thalia the Muse said:


> Alexandra, what a great and thoughtful post! It's true -- the best horror films and fiction have a great otherworldly beauty about them. They show us a world larger than we (or the characters) had imagined it to be, and it's exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.
> 
> I think that some of the most beautiful movies ever made have been horror -- Black Sunday, Bride of Frankenstein, The Masque of the Red Death ...


This...


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## Steve Vernon

Wow.

I just spent the last half hour wading through this entire thread.

(Okay, so I read slowly).

So - let me see if I can grab this dog and give it a good hard shake.

Where has horror gone?

Well, as several of you folks have pointed horror has been gutshot by an overabundance of cheap gratuitous gore. It is easy to peddle that stuff out. "Look, we're ripping eyeballs out over here, folks!" "Look, we're razoring the eyeballs and sucking them out with bendi-straws over here folks!" 

Now, there is nothing wrong with that approach to horror. I dig a god Edward Lee or Wrath James White novel myself. But gore is a little like a jalapeno pepper. Chop one up and you've got a fine and zesty pot of chili. But if your novel is nothing more than a gore-filled gore-met tray of unapalling evisceration, vivisecting blood madness - then what you have written is the literary equivalent of a Jackass competition.

Hollywood has done this to us. Grindhouse and torture-porn and splatterpunk. Gore is cheap and easy and all you need is a good special effects artist - or nowadays a CGI whizz.

Horror has further been watered down with the prevalence of paranormal romance. Umpteen variations of "My BBF is a vampire/zombie/lochnessmonster"

And then there is urban fantasy - which has run amok with a parallel variation of "My private eye is a vampire/zombie/sasquatch"

All of this has contributed to what I call "The Giggle Syndrome". 

Sit down in a horror movie - especially a horror movie that has just hit the theater - and just as soon as Skullface the Night-Drenching Blood-Chiller kicks down the closet door and jumps onto the screen waving a chainsaw-piranah you will hear the giggling begin. People have become so caught up with campy self-referential kischy-barfing injoke obsession stirred up by Wes Craven's SCREAM that we - as a society - are forgetting how to allow ourselves a long slow simmer in fear.

I'm ranting and I'm rambling and I apologize that this isn't a well-honed thread entry but trying to tackle this issue is a little like waltzing with eighteen octopuses in a swimming hole full of jet black ink.

I want to end this with one final observation. In addition to the horror e-books I like to write I have achieved a fair bit of local success writing regional ghost story collections. A lot of people here in Halifax know who I am by these ghost story collections. I get invited to sit outside of an awful lot of local bookstores, signing and peddling my books. AND - if I sold one book for every TEN people who walked up and confided in me - "Oh, I never buy anything scary because I just don't like to be scared." I would most likely have outsold the FIFTY SHADES OF GREY by now. 

Bottom line - people have become afraid of fear!

But horror isn't dead. No sir and no ma'm. And it isn't likely to be dead for a very long time to come. 

Horror is still kicking around - where it's always been - in the shadows, in the borderlands that haze and drift warily between the carefully demarcated lines that claim to separate the cold steel facts of reality from the warm pure smoke of the human imagination.

Horror will do what it always does best.

Horror will haunt you.

Thus endeth the sermon.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff

Thalia, absolutely. (Thanks for the reminder about Black Sunday - I've never seen it!  Can you believe that?? I am off to Netflix right now.)

To me horror is the most sensual and visually stunning of ALL the genres.  It feels like home to me because it presents this world as both beautiful and terrifying, pretty equally.  When it's just ugliness, it doesn't feel right, and that's what the gore fests and splatter/slasher get so wrong.  I left screenwriting to write my first book because I would NOT write what Hollywood was starting to push with horror films after the success of SAW. Whenever executives are pursuing the money without understanding the primal draw, a genre is in trouble.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff

RikNieu, I couldn't agree more. Gorgeous and haunting film.


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## Saul Tanpepper

jayreddy publisher said:


> Another recommendation is any horror story by Allison M. Dickson. She is a great up and coming author.


Allison is one of my faves, too. I wouldn't necessarily classify her as on the Twilight Zone end of the spectrum; her writing does employ a lot of visual imagery that could be described as metaphorically gory. She's a good example of a writer who employs the best of the physical and psychological well.


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## Tim C. Taylor

jayreddy publisher said:


> Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear.


I know what you mean. The horror genre seems to reinvent itself more energetically than other genres. You could just wait a few years until the fashion for gore has run its course  There are horror writers around who are writing situational horror. I guess the ones without blood or skulls in the cover art are good prospects.


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## charlesatan

Personally, I find horror to be vibrant right now. It just depends where you look. For example, I was recently impressed with Tim Waggoner's The Men Upstairs (Delirium Novella Series).


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## Steve Vernon

charlesatan said:


> Personally, I find horror to be vibrant right now. It just depends where you look. For example, I was recently impressed with Tim Waggoner's The Men Upstairs (Delirium Novella Series).


Waggoner definitely rocks. I loved his Pandora Drive and I've got a copy of Nekropolis on my TBR pile.


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## Tony Richards

Steve Vernon said:


> Waggoner definitely rocks. I loved his Pandora Drive and I've got a copy of Nekropolis on my TBR pile.


Except we wouldn't know about such writers if it wasn't for the smaller presses. I can't imagine any of the Big 6 launching a 'novella series.' Face it, writing good horror has become an underground activity.


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## charlesatan

Tony Richards said:


> Except we wouldn't know about such writers if it wasn't for the smaller presses. I can't imagine any of the Big 6 launching a 'novella series.' Face it, writing good horror has become an underground activity.


Not necessarily. It's more of Big 6 publishing a certain brand of horror that they think will sell. And Orbit right now does have a novella series, with Mira Grant as one example of straying into the horror territory.

For example, writers I currently enjoy that have been published by the Big Six include:

Graham Joyce
Peter Straub
Margo Lanagan
Ellen Datlow (as editor)

Other writers being published by independent presses include:

Kaaron Warren
Sarah Pinborough
Livia Llewellyn


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## Tony Richards

Didn't know about the Orbit series. I (gladly) stand corrected. But Peter Straub has been a bestseller for many moons, and doesn't count in this context. I agree that Graham Joyce is very, very good ... more people should read him.


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## Saul Tanpepper

Tim C. Taylor said:


> I know what you mean. The horror genre seems to reinvent itself more energetically than other genres. You could just wait a few years until the fashion for gore has run its course  There are horror writers around who are writing situational horror. I guess the ones without blood or skulls in the cover art are good prospects.


I think because horror is defined more by whatever manages to terrorize us in any given moment rather than a style of writing or a particular subject, it tends to be a moving target. As the world changes, as technologies are invented and impossibilities suddenly become probabilities, new ideas enter the realm that can horrify: cloning, atomic and biological and chemical weapons, economic crises, virtual reality, etc. Subjects that enter the horrorsphere have their heyday, then wane as we become inured to it. If horror as a genre seems to be losing its effect on us, we may want to look at both the popular media for flooding us with images of devastation and to writer-hopefuls who flood the market the moment the newest horror trope is identified. But as far as horror going away? I have faith in humanity that we'll discover new ways to scare the shit out each other, and when we do, the literature will follow.


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## bnapier

Re-read this thread this morning and it inspired a blog post in a round-about away.

http://barrynapierwriting.wordpress.com/

(Mods...not sure if this counts as spamming or is otherwise discouraged or not. If so, I understand your need for force...)


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## Ann in Arlington

Well. . . .it does pretty much count as self promotion outside the book bazaar, yeah. . . . . consider yourself to have received 30 lashes with a wet noodle and don't do it again.


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## Nancy_A_Collins

I've been writing professionally for over 20 years, and for most of that time have been classified as a horror writer. When my first novel and short stories came out, I was classified as a Splatterpunk, a now-defunct 'movement' that seems to have been the seed-pod from which Extreme Horror sprung forth. Like my fellow 'Splatterpunk', Joe R. Lansdale, I was roped into the movement, and never really embraced the description. I write what I write. And I tend to be fairly hardboiled. I've never described anything just to gross someone out. Disturb them, maybe, but not turn their stomach. But back then, the argument between Quiet Horror and Extreme Horror was no different than it is today, although the names may (or may not) have changed. In the end, it has less to do with the 'type' of horror than the talent/style of the individual writer. The mark of a good horror story is disquietude. If you can still get a shiver from a horror story 20 years after you read it, because it creeped you out, then that was a *good *horror story.

For those looking for worthy, disturbing reads, I would recommend:


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## James Everington

bnapier said:


> Re-read this thread this morning and it inspired a blog post in a round-about away.
> 
> http://barrynapierwriting.wordpress.com/
> 
> (Mods...not sure if this counts as spamming or is otherwise discouraged or not. If so, I understand your need for force...)


A good piece Barry, so thanks for the mods for not blackballing the link... (scrolling down, I also liked your piece about 'We Call Upon The Author To Explain' - I love that song).


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## Michael Gust

I remember the uproar in the late eighties and early nineties when the Splatterpunks first hit. Lots of articles in the small press, places like Cemetery Dance, Deathrealm, and especially Necrofile about the clash between "Quiet" Horror and "Extreme" Horror. Pulling out an edition of Necrofile, Issue #11, Winter 1994, I see the theme is "Is Splatterpunk Defunct?" Articles like "Splat Goes Flat" run for pages. One argument was that extreme horror borrowed as much from cinema as from previous horror fiction. I still see this dichotomy today in effect today, at least, to my mind. Film has the innate advantage of being able to instantly communicate atmosphere. A lot of gore horror fiction takes this as a given when it's not. To my mind, good horror fiction takes time to build atmosphere. Simply dumping a bucket of guts onto page three doesn't cut it for me. Writers trying to convey and replicate the sensory immediacy of a film risk lapsing into a kind of incoherence that leaves readers confused, or just rolling their eyes.

I still love what I think of as "cosmic horror". Lovecraft, sure but _Floating Dragon_ by Peter Straub and _Incarnate_ by Ramsey Campbell, still blow my mind, twenty years later. Campbell once wrote that Angela Carter once wrote (while writing on Lovecraft) that horror fiction is a holiday from morality. To paraphrase Campbell, (and why not, he's ten times smarter that I am) Carter saw what she considered horror's offensiveness as a replacement for talent. I think this is a perception that horror writers are still combating today. See lack of horror sections in brick and mortar bookstores.


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## BenRoach

jayreddy publisher said:


> Over the past decade horror has taken a turn for the worse and focused on gore in order to stimulate the senses of the reader. Whatever happened to true horror that left us afraid through storyline and situational fear. Of course gore is scary but most books that use this as a source of fear has no storyline. What happened to true horror?


There is so much horror around now. But, yes, the current trend makes me sick. Twisted and graphic just for the sake of it.


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