Kamikaze Midget said:
Those writing a supplement today can't plead ignorance, or that they weren't trying to write for a game, so what's their excuse?
They don't have one or need one. Witness the Conan RPG and Iron Heroes. Both wildly popular. Both low magic. But I digress... to answer the original poster's question, I'd recommend Darkness & Dread specifically because it understands that horror needs to be
horrific, something that I think Heroes of Horrror (and a few other ostensibly 'horror' supplements and settings) gloss over.
Horror isn't just werewolves, zombies, vampires, organ music, full moons, insect-laden bogs, or witchcraft. People who hold this view obviously haven't read any horror fiction or seen a horror movie for a good, long, time. These things are the window dressing of Horror - the meat of Horror stems from being overpowered by these things, not merely showing up in the same scene with them. Seriously.
Ever see a Dracula movie where the Big D shows up, gets staked, and looted all in one scene? Or a rendition of Night of the Living Dead where the protagonists bust out of that farmhouse and fearlessly walk amongst the teeming armeis of undead? Or a rendition of Friday the 13th where Jason Vorhees runs away from zit-faced, teenaged, camp counselors instead of vice-versa?
Or what about books? Ever read that new version of Ramsey Campbell's Cold Print, where Y'golnac shows up in the bookstore and is dispatched with a .32 revolver? Or that new edition of Frankenstein where Dr. Frankenstein never loses control of his monster and instead lives in peaceful harmony with it? Or, perhaps, that re-write of The Shining where Jack Torrance is a complete pushover incapable of inflciting physical harm upon his family?
Part of Horror as a genre is protagonsists being at a disadvantage (usually extreme), forced to fend off the unnatural (be it supernatural or not) in order to
survive (note that 'suvive' can mean 'live to see another day' or 'carry on my life as normal'). It's a fundamental underpinning of all Horror - from Edgar Allen Poe's
The Telltale Heart to John Carpenter's
The Thing. Sure, it can be present in larger or smaller degrees depending upon the story - but is
never absent entirely.
You can have all the zombies, vampires, lich lords, and other window dressing in the world that you want - but if your PCs aren't at a disadvantage when they square off against it (or worse, if they
always have the upper hand), your 'Horror' won't be very horrific. You'll be playing Scooby Doo to somebody else's Evil Dead.
All of that said, I really like Scooby Doo - but it ain't
Horror.