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.

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Two related threads.

Call of Cthulhu General Thread [+]

Thread 'What makes a successful horror game?'

Jun 27, 2025

The question came up on another thread but I thought it was worth breaking off into it's own thread.

By "successful" here I mean that it works as a horror game, not whether it makes money for the company.

So, what do you think? What makes a successful horror game?

• overgeeked
• Replies: 43
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

 

[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

 

[overgeeked]

I’m reading through the book Paperbacks from Hell about horror paperbacks from the 70s and 80s. It’s quite good and really funny. Lots of wonderful art. I’m making a list of books to read based on cover and premise, there’s also some overlap with the Garth Marenghi research so that’s nice.

First up is The Little People by John Christopher. I love gonzo insanity so the cover and the premise: Gestapo Leprechauns, really sold me on the book.

To say the actual book is a huge let down is a massive understatement. Despite the cover and the premise, The Little People is really a multi-family soap opera with these strangers together at a hotel. About 80% of the book is the characters talking and fighting while enjoying the view from their hotel. The titular small folk appear for maybe 30 pages of the 200-page book, are vaguely psychic, and can sort meddle with people’s dreams…which they do once to no real effect. They make one woman fall down (without getting hurt) and are scattered by a single kick. They’re mutated humans that are the result of Nazi mad science. Single most underwhelming book I think I’ve ever read.

The Puppet Master movies deliver in spades on a vaguely similar premise.

 

[MGibster]

I’m reading through the book Paperbacks from Hell about horror paperbacks from the 70s and 80s. It’s quite good and really funny. Lots of wonderful art. I’m making a list of books to read based on cover and premise, there’s also some overlap with the Garth Marenghi research so that’s nice.

Oh, wow. You've just conjured up images of various cover art for paperback horror novels from the 70s and 80s. I hadn't thought of any of them in decades! I always thought the art for Cujo was scary. Never read the book.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh, wow. You've just conjured up images of various cover art for paperback horror novels from the 70s and 80s. I hadn't thought of any of them in decades! I always thought the art for Cujo was scary. Never read the book.

It's a fantastic book. Almost a coffee-table art book in that it's filled with great art and text describing the books, the plots, and the authors. My only complaint is that it doesn't lay flat like a book coffee-table art book should.

 

[overgeeked]

I just finished The Rats by James Herbert. It was a really good read. It reminded me more of the goofy 1950s sci-fi horror movies where some random animal becomes a threat and nearly takes over the world. Only it's London instead of the world. The Slugs were limited to a council estate, so despite being a goofy premise, killer slugs, it was a bit more grounded in that the threat was more limited. If you have a thing about rats, this book is not for you. But the great thing about horror always pushing boundaries is that older horror becomes almost passé and therefore easier to handle if you're not really that into horror. But good writing is good writing. Even if the monsters and scares are outmoded by today's standards.

A good, fun read if you like schlocky horror, though the unintentional horror-comedy is a lot less than The Slugs.

I can definitely see the Garth Marenghi in both books and their authors. Having watched a few interviews with Shaun Hutson, I can definitely see him as more of the real-world inspiration for the character, but the main character(s) in both The Slugs and The Rats definitely give off solid Garth Marenghi vibes. That kind of oblivious swagger and self-importance.

Tying things into gaming, I was surprised that both books followed the TOMBS cycle detailed in the Mothership Warden's Operations Manual. It's hands down the best referee resource I've seen in the last decade or so for RPGs generally, but it's also a stellar guide for running horror specifically.