The best scene in Insidious is when the mom moves to a new house, and she thinks it's all over, that the nightmare is gone and done, that she may now live a peaceful life with her family, and then the record she puts on skips and changes to a different song and she looks back to see a midget in a sailor suit rocking out to Tiny Tim.
The thing about zombies is that they're the living dead. Like, dead people who are somehow moving around again. I feel like that should be inherently scary, but pop culture has made them into a joke instead.
Problem I have with jump scares is that they're cheap. They're the refuge of hacks who can't create anything genuinely disturbing
Got a heart attack from a cheap jump scare, while trying to make those sweet, sweet youtube dollars? Call Saul Slendermann, you might just have a case!
Problem I have with jump scares is that they're cheap. They're the refuge of hacks who can't create anything genuinely disturbing
Well, one of the few times that characterization, nuance, subtlety, and proper buildup made something truly scarier for me in a remarkable way was the anime Monster. So, I guess quality characterization etc. helps, but danged if a good jump scare doesnt terrify me, like The Firebird Suite.
But, really, usually, the best way to scare me is a loud, sudden noise. It's just so visceral, a whole different sort of panic than the unsettling nervousness you seem to be talking about.
The only zombies I find interesting (not really scary, mind) are The Flood in the Halo franchise.
also Sredni, if you are still here, you should check my thread about my blag.
I will look.
Also, on zombies and the like: Ligotti's "Autumnal" is an interesting take on the revenant concept, but it's literally two pages long and less scary for the subject than the implications.
But really, all zombie stories worth their salt aren't really about zombies, but about death itself, or things tied to it like loss and the inability to cope with or understand it. The real horror in Pet Sematary is not the undead, but the father's guilt and terminal inability to deal with losing things or people.
Yeah, Stephen King said Pet Sematary was the one story he wrote that actually scared him. And I think he said that what specifically scared him was the conclusion that "sometimes dead is better."
Yeah, Stephen King said Pet Sematary was the one story he wrote that actually scared him. And I think he said that what specifically scared him was the conclusion that "sometimes dead is better."
It is basically the summation of every parental fear of what you could become given the right set of circumstances. That is the theme of a lot of King's work, but he's rarely that raw or direct about it.
Horror is a much more personal genre than people seem to think. You are not just trying to scare people; you are trying to show people what you are afraid of and hope against hope that someone else feels the same way.
Horror is a much more personal genre than people seem to think. You are not just trying to scare people; you are trying to show people what you are afraid of and hope against hope that someone else feels the same way.
Knock-Knock succeeded on that account.
I played that game months ago, and it unsettled me on such a deep, deep, level that I still feel uncomfortable thinking about it now.
Huh, apparently United Feature Syndicate is gone now. They sold their licensing division to Iconix, and then essentially sold themselves to Universal Press Syndicate in 2011.
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
Their licensing division and the rights to Peanuts. United still exists, though, as the copyright holder for things like Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine.
Scripps must have done it as a cost-cutting measure...
I think the reason that I connect so deeply with Ligotti's work is, aside from the prose (which is purdy), that there is this constant scepticism about whether or not anything is real, and this impression that the real world is just a thin veneer painted on something hollow and indescribably horrific. Worse, there is this recurring theme of the pure chance encounter with a hole in the scenery, a wrong turn into enlightenment; or a slow peeling away of layers as if something is waiting for you just on the other side, something that has always been waiting for you behind it all.
That idea has been the white noise in the background of the world of my personal fears since I don't even know when: That there is something wrong with everything and I'll just start noticing and won't be able to stop.
i don't care if they are fast zombies or slow zombies or smart zombies or of they're mutants or if they're the result of an ancient curse, they're boring piles of poop
cuz the worst thing they're gonna do is eat you or give you a disease that kills you
woop de fuckin do lots of things can eat you
lions can eat you, sharks can eat you, hippos can rip you in half with their teeth but not eat you because they're vegetarians, being eaten is a thing that happens w/e
and the flu can totally kill you
so all a zombie is functionally identical to a lion that sneezes on you when it tries to kill you
and you cannot seriously tell me that that's horror film worthy
Zombies are like the scariest thing in the world to me because they represent a total loss of identity.
And, like, yeah, nothing is scary when you break it down to its basest elements. Jason is just a guy who doesn't like people having sex. The Slender Man just annoys people. Ghosts are just dead people who didn't really die. Et cetera.
I see where you're coming from but as I see it a zombie is your body, but it ain't you. You're dead, but like there's some other force making your corpse do things, but the thing that makes that corpse different from a slab of steak is gone.
^^Well, that's really just a matter of personal preference then.
There are a few other things that make the idea of a zombie apocalypse scary, though: the complete breakdown of society, normal people being the real monsters, and the overriding idea that no matter what you're doing the zombies will always end up winning because you can't do much to stave off death at their hands because they're ubiquitous.
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So fuck pop culture
also Sredni, if you are still here, you should check my thread about my blag.
Stop being like me, naney. It's distressing, disturbing, distempering, and distracting.
Weird, because Kexruct reminds me of you but also myself, but I consider you to be my opposite/inverse.
I guess opposites need things in common, or they wouldn't be opposites.
Like how Japan is not the opposite of an orange aglet made of tungsten carbide.
Well, one of the few times that characterization, nuance, subtlety, and proper buildup made something truly scarier for me in a remarkable way was the anime Monster. So, I guess quality characterization etc. helps, but danged if a good jump scare doesnt terrify me, like The Firebird Suite.
But, really, usually, the best way to scare me is a loud, sudden noise. It's just so visceral, a whole different sort of panic than the unsettling nervousness you seem to be talking about.
ohai is just us
which is why a jump scare involving zombies would still make me leap out of my chair and scream like a little girl