Horror general thread [+]

[overgeeked]

The [+] is to keep the thread civil and free from people complaining they don’t like horror.

Like horror? Love horror? Horror curious? This thread’s for you.

I’d heartily recommend Morbidly Curious by Coltan Scrivner, PhD, to anyone who’s remotely interested in horror. Does a lot of heavy lifting to bust many of the myths associated with the genre. My mini-review here.

For those interested in horror but are gore adverse, check out this site.

Scary Meter

Viewers rank the gore (along with other factors) so you can filter for that and find movies that don’t go too far for your tastes. The entires are also linked to WhenJumpScares so you can know when to look away if you need to. They also have opt-in spoilers about the kinds of jump scares so if there are certain kinds of horror you don’t want you can pass.

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I just finished Shaun Hutson's horror novel Slugs. I'm doing a sampling of older British horror novels from authors who just might be the inspirations behind Garth Marenghi. Slugs doesn't disappoint. I went in not expecting much and was very pleasantly surprised that it was an unintentional horror-comedy book. Horror-comedy is my all-time favorite genre so I was really happy this one turned out that way. There's a bit of gross out, of course...and more than a bit of exploitation. There's at least one instance of a good comeuppance in here, too. Which I also absolutely love. Since there's no such thing as justice in the real world, it's quite nice to see some in fiction.

As you might have guessed from the title, the novel is about killer slugs. The novel isn't a slow burn, Hutson gets right to the point with the first kill in the first chapter of the book, but given that it's slugs, the novel covers a few weeks of time from start to finish. All the comedy is accidental. A lot of it comes from the implausibility of the premise, killer slugs as the monster in a horror book, but the author does handle the premise with an attempt at seriousness...he just picked slugs as his monster. One example is a man being held down by the weight of a few hundred slugs...a quick search tells me even with slugs double the normal size it would take about 1500 slugs to weigh about 6.5 pounds. And even the smallest cut or bite seems to hit major arteries and results in sprays, fountains, and geysers of blood.

A good, fun read if you like schlocky horror and unintentional horror-comedy.

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I’m also doing a rewatch of Tales from the Crypt, the horror anthology show on HBO back in the late 80s and 90s.

 

[MGibster]

In the words of a wise man, "I pity the fool who don't like horror."

I also like horror. As a wee little MGibster, I pretty much went as Dracula every Halloween save one year when I went as a mummy. My parents pretty much let me watch whatever I wanted to; which seemed pretty cool at the time but I'm starting to think it might have been a sign of their lack of affection for me. What that means is I saw a lot of horror movies when I was a kid. Poltergeist when I was six, Silver Bullet when I was ten, The Thing when I was six, etc., etc. We went and saw A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 in the theater when I was eleven.

What gets me is what's considered scary changes over the years. We were watching The Wizard of Oz on television when my father said, "When I was your age, those monkeys scared the hell out of me." I found it puzzling because those flying monkeys weren't the least bit frightening to me. But let's think of a classic, Night of the Living Dead released in 1968. This movie freaked a lot of people out. Parents let their kids watch it at the local bijou thinking it was like those cheesy horror movies from the 1950s and did not expect a movie where all the heroes were killed. I was about eleven when I saw it. It was a great movie I absolutely adored, but I didn't find it particularly scary. By today's standard it's a pretty tame movie.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don’t know if it inspired Garth Marenghi, but there’s loads of low-rent horror movies featuring unlikely natural protagonists.



And some higher end movies tapped that vein as well, like Ben and Willard.

 

[overgeeked]

In the words of a wise man, "I pity the fool who don't like horror."

I also like horror. As a wee little MGibster, I pretty much went as Dracula every Halloween save one year when I went as a mummy. My parents pretty much let me watch whatever I wanted to; which seemed pretty cool at the time but I'm starting to think it might have been a sign of their lack of affection for me. What that means is I saw a lot of horror movies when I was a kid. Poltergeist when I was six, Silver Bullet when I was ten, The Thing when I was six, etc., etc. We went and saw A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 in the theater when I was eleven.

Kinda the same. We had cable growing up, including HBO, so we watched way too many movies we shouldn’t have and way too young.

What gets me is what's considered scary changes over the years. We were watching The Wizard of Oz on television when my father said, "When I was your age, those monkeys scared the hell out of me." I found it puzzling because those flying monkeys weren't the least bit frightening to me. But let's think of a classic, Night of the Living Dead released in 1968. This movie freaked a lot of people out. Parents let their kids watch it at the local bijou thinking it was like those cheesy horror movies from the 1950s and did not expect a movie where all the heroes were killed. I was about eleven when I saw it. It was a great movie I absolutely adored, but I didn't find it particularly scary. By today's standard it's a pretty tame movie.

I really enjoy that though. There’s a huge backlog of horror movies, shows, and novels to work through that are just not that scary to a modern audience. Which means there’s decades of entertainment to be had and lots of great stuff to recommend to modern audiences who’re “not that into horror.” Just give them something from the 30s through the 80s to check out. Some of them are scary, sure. But most of them have nothing on today’s horror. Even some of the “scary” stuff from back then comes across mostly as camp, making it even easier to recommend for non-fans.

 

[overgeeked]

For my money, Tales from the Crypt is the best modern* horror anthology show. Mostly because of the humor, the Crypt Keeper, the twists, and the near universal comeuppance.

* FFS it went off the air 30 years ago. Gods, I’m old.

I’m rewatching the series and just finished season 1. Most of the episodes are short, around 22 minutes, but some later ones run to 35+. The twist or comeuppance is spoilered, just in case.

S01E01. Electric chair executioner is laid off and starts killing criminals with electricity but he’s caught and given the electric chair.

S01E02. A cheating wife kills her husband on Christmas but she’s stalked by a madman in a Santa outfit.

S01E03. A circus performer is given nine lives and uses them up being killed as performance but he miscalculated and is buried alive.

S01E04. A murderous prostitute sells her beauty as a joke but she learns it’s all too real.

S01E05. Gold digger marries a young, naive, wealthy woman but he finds out she’s a black widow.

S01E06. A husband retires and can’t stand all the strays his wife has adopted so starts killing them and turning them into taxidermy but the wife kills and stuffs him in revenge.

I’ve rewatched the series a few times over the years so have these almost memorized at this point. Can’t wait to get to some of my favorite episodes in later seasons.

 

[trappedslider]

"Mr beardsley?"

Also that short if you ignore the cheesy parts is actually horrifying..."No springs" whistles