# Is what you CAN'T see really more scary? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 27, 2003, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672 "2003-06-27T01:15:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/41 "2003-06-27T19:44:42Z")
I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned the perfect “don’t show the monster” movie, which is… **Silence of the Lambs**. Well, to a certain extent. In particular, the early scene where the evil Dr. Childress shows Clarice a photo of that nurse who Dr. Lecter attacked – you never SEE the photo, but can imagine how bad it was by his description: _“They were able to reset her jaw, more or less, and save one of her eyes. His heart rate never got above 85, even when he swallowed her tongue!”_ NOT SHOWING THE PHOTO had a MUCH higher :eek: factor than if they actually showed it. And then there’s the “ambulance scene”…which I can’t go into more detail since I don’t want to use a spoiler box, but those who’ve seen the movie will know exactly what I mean. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/42 "2003-06-27T19:56:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by godzillatemple \* > \*\*The fact that so many modern films have disappointing monsters is, I maintain, a failure on the part of the filmmakers to create a decent monster and not proof of the supposed axiom that it’s better to let the viewer imagine what the monster looks like rather than show him. > > I should point out, BTW, that a filmmaker does not need to show the monster in order to create suspense or dread. But for actual scares – the ones that stay with you and haunt your dreams – give me a good old fashioned monster and lots of it! > \*\* But the filmmaker’s role _isn’t_ to make a grotesque monster. It’s the director’s job, through the shots, to make an effective film. The monster is just mise en scene; the strength of a film is in its form. Take _Psycho_. (Spoilers to come, but I guess anyone who’s in this thread has probablyl seen it.) In one of the last scenes, after Sam and Lila have checked into the motel, parallel action occurs. That is, the action alternates between Lila exploring the house, and Sam and Norman talking in the office. The camera never shows you everything; instead, it leaves you wanting more. When Lila opens up a title-less book, the audience doesn’t get to see what she’s perusing. And similarly, we only see fragments of the conversation between Sam and Norman. Not showing the audience everything makes them uneasy, wondering what will happen. And Hitchcock went to great lengths to make sure we never saw “Mother” (her face, at any rate), and to ensure no one questioned why. In contrast, the book describes a lot more, and is much weaker by comparison. Furthermore, in my English class this year, we read an essay on Freud’s idea of the uncanny. This applies here, too. Showing the audience a monster is what they expect, which makes it familiar and formulaic. But something familiar in a strange guise is scary. Like when a sweet old lady spoons your eyes out and guts you in her kitchen. When someone you trust turns out to be a cold-blooded killer/mentally disturbed (i.e., _Psycho_, or many, many books and films). The idea of a bloodthirsty fiend running around and axing beautiful heroines isn’t a nice thought, but it’s an old, cliched one, isn’t it? If you can take the killer, make the audience like, trust, even sympathize with him, then it’s all the more shocking when the truth is revealed. In a case like this, it really makes little difference if the audience sees a lot of gore. In fact, it’s better that the viewer see as little as possible. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/43 "2003-06-27T20:13:10Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by godzillatemple \* > \*\* > Similarly, the scenes in the derelict spacecraft at the beginning of the film were certainly creepy and suspenseful and dread-inducing, but the movie didn’t become actually scary until the face-hugger leapt out of the egg and, well, hugged his face. That scene would have lost all its impact on me had they simply shown it in the darkness with suspenseful music and screaming, and left it to our imagination as to what exactly happened or what the face-hugger looked like. ._\* Ahah see your imagination does fill in the gaps. I’d suggest you watch that scene again. In the scene where The face hugger attacks you don’t really see it. You see a shadow move inside the egg. Hurts reaction You see the egg opens up we see Hurts reaction again, there is a close up POV shot of the contents which is indistinguishable. Next something fast and blurry leaps up and you see something (you can’t make it out really) hit the visor and down Hurt goes … end scene. See you do fill in the gaps. They could have made it a long shot where you see it leap out in full view and a long shot of it on his face but it did not. You filled in the spaces and when they show the dead version of it later (even then not too long and not absolutely distinguishable) you fill in the gaps from before. The hugger is shown later but not in its full glory when it is on his face. Even then you get one quick look at it in whole, most of the shots are in close ups of individual pieces like teh “digits” and the “tail” thiose shots are more disturbing and frightening than the creature as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/44 "2003-06-27T21:05:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\* > And \*\* Zeldar \*\* I agree that all movies based on Lovecraft’s works have been pretty bad. I really wish someone would do a big budget \* At the Mountains of Madness \*, just keep the shoggoth in the shadows and barely glimpsed at till the very end. And \*\* Mr Tambo \*\* I love your idea of marketing a horror movie as some other genre, as that might actually be able to scare me. \*\* Apparently Del Toro, the Director who did **Blade 2** and is working on **Hellboy** , wants to do a true to the book version once he finishes with hellboy. Hopefully he can keep some studio suit from turning Danforth into a beatiful woman and making them have sex in the catacombs when they are being chased by the Shoggoth. Maybe do it like a Mockumentary? ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/45 "2003-06-27T21:13:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by godzillatemple \* > \*\*P.S. Anybody else think that “Pickman’s Model” and “The Rats in the Walls” would make great flicks? \*\* I’ve seen two versions of Pickman’s Model at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR. One was a night gallery episode while the other was an adaption called “Chiliean Gothic”. Both had their good points, but the Night gallery version suffered from having a fakey looking monster that you saw quite clearly(another reason to why showing the monster is very much a bad thing sometimes) that looked like a guy dressed as a giant rat, while the other one was far too long for it’s own good without much happening. The problem is, Pickman’s model, done as a film, would need to learn from those two versions by A.) Keeping it short, because the story is only 13 pages long and B.) Showing the creature as little as possible except during the Photograph at the end. Otherwise, have some talented artist draw up the ghouls in a disturbing but vague way like Lovecraft described to serve as Pickman’s infamous paintings. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/46 "2003-06-27T21:50:41Z")
I think, as **kingpengvin** tries to illustrate, that you may be filling in the gaps with your imagination more than you realize. For example: > [@](#): > > Well, I’m not a woman, but personally I found Lugosi’s fangs and eyes to be extremely scary. In fact, Lugosi’s Dracula didn’t have fangs–at least, not any that could be seen by the audience. That you remember them being there, even though they weren’t, says something about the power of the imagination to help produce a scary image. I think, to an extent, that you’re right. A movie that _never_ shows its monster can end up just being a let-down. Some films have done it– **The Haunting** , for one, has already been mentioned–but it’s extremely difficult to pull off. I wonder if you’ve ever seen any of the films Val Lewton produced for RKO in the forties. **Cat People** , **I Walked With a Zombie** , **Isle of the Dead** , and the like. Lewton was one of the early pioneers of the What You Don’t See Is More Scary school. **Cat People** , for example, is basically a werewolf movie where you never see the werewolf. His films are very effective–I was wondering what you think of them, if you’ve seen any. The horror film director, I imagine, has to strike a delicate balance between never showing anything scary, and showing so much that it becomes laughable. And there is something to be said for knowing your own limitations. If you know your budget won’t allow you to create a convincing monster, you’re kind of foolish if you try to do it anyway. But if, despite that low budget, you can still scare the audience with the clever use of shadows, of sound and silence, and a vague glimpse of the monster here and there, that makes you a good director, and one whose films I want to see. ---
**Author:** ![godzillatemple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@godzillatemple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godzillatemple)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/47 "2003-06-27T22:05:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kingpengvin \* > \*\*Ahah see your imagination does fill in the gaps. > > I’d suggest you watch that scene again. In the scene where The face hugger attacks you don’t really see it. > You see a shadow move inside the egg. Hurts reaction > You see the egg opens up we see Hurts reaction again, there is a close up POV shot of the contents which is indistinguishable. Next something fast and blurry leaps up and you see something (you can’t make it out really) hit the visor and down Hurt goes … end scene. > > See you do fill in the gaps. They could have made it a long shot where you see it leap out in full view and a long shot of it on his face but it did not. You filled in the spaces and when they show the dead version of it later (even then not too long and not absolutely distinguishable) you fill in the gaps from before.\*\* OK, so maybe that one particular scene wasn’t the best example (what about the other scenes I mentioned?). Still, I don’t think it disproves my thesis. The moment when the face hugger actually leapt out of the egg was another one of those “BOO!” moments that certainly shocked for a moment. The reason you didn’t see the whole creature as it attacked, however, had more to do with the limitations of the special effects technology/budget than it did with an active decision not to show the critter at that time because it would be more scary not to. Yes, my mind filled in the gaps to visualize the actual attack, but that worked because they then _did_ show what the creature looked like on Hurt’s face after they cut away his helmet. If they ONLY showed the blurry attack scene without revealing what, exactly, attacked him, I still maintain that the movie would not have been as scary. Full of temporary shocks and cheap scares, perhaps, but nothing lasting. Barry ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/48 "2003-06-28T00:24:53Z")
The “show or not show the scary thing?” question was discussed in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155976) a few months ago. I’ll just reproduce here my first long post from there, since it addresses many of the same issues. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > **Hodge** beat me to the _Danse Macabre_ reference by a few minutes. As I recall, King is talking about revealing “the monster at the bottom of the stairs” or something, a typical horror setup. If, when the door opens, it’s a thirty-foot monster, that’s pretty bad, but the audience might say, hey, it could have been a _forty_-foot monster. If it’s a forty-foot monster, it could have been a fifty-footer. And so on. > > I also agree about _The Blair Witch Project._ That movie scared the **piss** out of me, while it bored other people to tears. The thing is, it doesn’t show you everything; you have to put yourself in the situation and interpolate between the data points. Yes, it’s a tiny stretch of woods, and no, they shouldn’t be lost. But that’s all the movie tells you. I conclude supernatural interference. Other viewers, given the exact same information, conclude that the protagonists are idiots. Both conclusions are perfectly reasonable given the evidence in the film; different viewers will respond according to their personal storytelling preferences. > > I don’t think horror directors pull their punches. I think filmmakers do, legitimately, try their best to make the audience wet its collective pants. However, actually frightening people in a movie theatre is very, very difficult (as opposed to startling them, or grossing them out, both of which are easy). > > Consider the recent _The Ring_, which I thought was a mixed bag, overall. There was some wonderfully creepy, disturbing stuff in it (much of which was borrowed from the Japanese original, but let’s disregard that for now), such asthe surprise of prying the fly out of the TV monitor.That isn’t _scary_, necessarily, but it does serve to slowly pull the rug of comfortable reality out from underneath us. What the movie did quite well, I think, was to combine mundane elements in unexpected ways, in order to keep you off-balance; the bit withthe horse on the ferryboatmade the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Unfortunately, there was a bunch of other stuff that just plain didn’t work, such asthe untouched loft in the barn, complete with the decades-old but operational and still-rotating carousel lampthat sadly pushed the movie back toward convention and cliche, and undercut the film’s effectiveness as a whole. > > The alternative to _The Ring_’s minimalist approach is the over-the-top visual feast, as in the 1999 remake of _The Haunting._ I’ve compared that to _Blair Witch_ on these boards many times, as they represent the polar opposites of the genre. _The Haunting_ shows you everything. I, personally, found it tedious and predictable and not at all frightening. But based on the vocalizations in the cinema, others felt differently, screaming and twitching and hiding their heads. Those are the folks who need to _see_ the beastie, to have the threat made tangible and physical in order for them to register it. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. > > The point is, there isn’t a single approach that works for all viewers. It’s quite literally impossible to formulate a single movie that would scare everybody, equally. I was creeped out by Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s _Cure_, while others were bored to tears. By the same token, the _Scream_ movies did almost nothing for me, while others labeled them the rebirth of modern horror. > > I guess I just have to shrug. My key point is in that last paragraph. Some people have to see the monster and have the threat spelled out for them to be scared; some people need to have the freedom to fill in the blanks to be scared. Check out the low-budget werewolf movie _Ginger Snaps_ for both approaches in the same film. There’s a werewolf attack early in the movie where you see absolutely nothing of the creature: you hear snarls, and the victim screaming in the dark (while somebody else looks frantically around), and occasionally you get a blurry view of the victim being flung about. Then, at the end, you get a full view of another werewolf, nose to tail. For my money, the first scene is far more effective, but some would disagree. Neither position is right or wrong; it’s all about personal preference. I also discuss the two different horror-story approaches in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49848), in a comparison of Stephen King’s novel _The Shining_ with Kubrick’s film adaptation. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/49 "2003-06-28T00:31:02Z")
Oh, and I also meant to mention that **HPL** is correct: Guillermo Del Toro wants to make _At the Mountains of Madness_, but his current _Hellboy_ project will need to be financially successful to give him the clout. In my world, _AtMoM_ is the scariest thing Lovecraft ever wrote; my favorite chilling passage is toward the end, where the hero is fleeing the depths, and happens to glance behind him. The text is something like, his mind could barely comprehend what he was seeing, it was beyond description, it was a shambling _thing_ that froze his intellect, etc., etc. The language is perfect: It communicates just how scary the creature is, but it uses your own imagination to do it. Very difficult to pull off the same effect in film; still, I know how I’d shoot it if I were making the movie. It would piss off half the audience, but it would be one of the the scariest scenes ever for the other half. As I said above, no single approach works for everybody. ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/50 "2003-06-28T01:06:50Z")
**Cervaise** Because you bring up my boy, Guillermo, I’ll add that the ooky has it’s place in horror. Seeing blood and guts and rollign heads is unsettling and disturbing and contributes a great deal to the mood. That said, my reply to the OP is still that the unseen is more scary. ---
**Author:** ![godzillatemple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@godzillatemple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godzillatemple)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/51 "2003-06-28T02:00:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > **The “show or not show the scary thing?” question was discussed in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155976) a few months ago.** Proving yet again that there simply are no original ideas to discuss around here. _sigh_ ☹ Ah well, I tried! Barry ---
**Author:** ![godzillatemple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@godzillatemple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godzillatemple)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/52 "2003-06-29T01:31:59Z")
Aaaaand, he’s back… Having given it a bit more thought (always a plus, I know), I’ve come up with two recent examples that illustrate my point. The first is _Jurassic Park_. The scene where the T-Rex attacked the jeep was one of the scariest scenes I have ever seen in a movie. Yes, they built up the suspense and terror by first only _telling_ you about the T-Rex, and then you saw the missing goat so you could imagine the T-Rex on the loose, but finally they showed the monster in all it’s glory and it was every bit as terrifying (if not more so) than I had imagined. Had it ended up looking like a claymation figure or a guy in a dinosaur suit, I would agree that they should have left it to my imagination. In this case, however, the filmmaker was able to create an image that was truly terrifying (and it wasn’t just the way it looked, but also the way it acted and sounded). The same is true for the raptors, which were first only hinted at to build the tension but were finally shown and scared the piss out of people. The second example, which I just finished watching for the tenth time, is _Pitch Black_. Yes, it had scenes early on where somebody was killed by an unseen _something_. And yes, they built tension by only showing the monsters in quick glimpses for a while. Eventually, though, they revealed the monsters fully and they were damn terrifying. My favorite scene is the one where: Paris wanders away from the group as the lights fail completely. He is attacked by something in the dark and can feel the blood. He then takes a swig of alcohol and blows it onto his lighter, briefly illuminating the scene to show all the monsters that are surrounding him as they move in for the kill. Yes, they could have done the same scene entirely in the dark, with only the sounds to let you know what hapened, and yes, that certainly would have been scary as well. But actually _showing_ the monsters was, in my opinion, much scarier than had they left it to my imagination, simply because the monsters were so well done. And I still stand behind the other classic monster movies I mentioned, such as _The Mummy_, _The Wolfman_ and _Frankenstein_, as examples of films that showed the monster completely and still managed to scare audiences silly when they were first released. No, they didn’t show every thing the monster did, and some of the deaths were off-screen. But the monsters themselves weren’t left to the audiences’ imaginations. I guess the bottom line, at least for me, is that yes, what you don’t see can be much more scary than what you do see, **but only if the filmmakers don’t create a monster that looks, acts, or sounds scary**. Steven King may think that they should never have shown the 20-foot-tall T-Rex in _Jurassic Park_ since the audience will go, “Oh, well at least it wasn’t a **30** -foot-tall T-Rex.” And he’s certainly entitled to his opinion. I think, however, that this does a disservice to those filmmakers who are actually able to depict things that are genuinely scary instead of having to rely on the audience’s imagination to provide the scares. **Cervaise** , I’d be interested to know whether you saw _Jurassic Park_ or _Pitch Black_ and, if so, whether you found them to be scary. If you did see them and didn’t think they were scary, then I guess it really is a matter of different people being scared by different things after all. Regards, Barry ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/53 "2003-06-29T02:33:51Z")
I don’t generally watch a lot of scary movies, and the ones that tend to scare me the most are ones where the “monster” is a person (and therefore isn’t inherently scary). But “The Others” scared me witless. I was _squeaking_. That’s the best evidence I have that not seeing can be, well, a little scary. Julie ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/54 "2003-06-29T03:32:18Z")
**godzillatemple:** See, I disagree with your analysis of that scene in JP. To me, the scariest point is when the kids look out the window and see that the lamb is gone. THIS is the height of tension: When you sit there thinking of the terrible, horrible things this could mean. When you realize just how _wrong_ the world is. To me, the revealing of the T-Rex is the denoument: Its the _release_ of the tension. Ultimately, though, I agree with your final statements that it really depends on how well the filmmakers create the monsters. More often than not, the monsters/aliens end up just looking cheesy and ruining the movie; I’d rather just not have seen them in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/55 "2003-06-29T05:01:57Z")
In **28 Days Later** , they show the “monsters”/zombies/people/whatever. They show them very well, and they are frightening in both their looks and their behavior - absolutely terrifying. But even scarier, to me, are the _many_ scenes in which the characters are wandering around, looking at things, and the tension builds up and you just KNOW that a baddie’s gonna get 'em… Whether the baddie gets 'em or not, that tension is just horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/56 "2003-06-29T06:23:08Z")
To answer the title of this thread, in a word, yes. Imagine you’re camping. You hear twigs cracking outside your tent. HOLY CRAP WHAT WAS THAT? If you knew it was just a raccoon, you’d be able to sleep easily…but you don’t know. It could be a bear, it would be a deranged killer…it could be anything. That’s why Signs was so much scarier before you saw the whole alien. The little glimpses were great, but the whole alien just…sucked. ---
**Author:** ![skaterboarder87](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@skaterboarder87](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skaterboarder87)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/57 "2003-06-29T06:42:53Z")
Signs wasn’t suck because it showed the alien, it’s because the alien design looked like a guy in a costume (well, and that the entire movie sucked). If they had come up with a better design, I have no doubts it’d be scarier (but the movie would still suck). ---
**Author:** ![skaterboarder87](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@skaterboarder87](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skaterboarder87)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/58 "2003-06-29T06:47:10Z")
Signs didn’t suck because it showed the alien, it’s because the alien design looked like a guy in a costume (well, and that the entire movie sucked). If they had come up with a better design, I have no doubts it’d be scarier (but the movie would still suck). ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/59 "2003-06-29T07:00:40Z")
Forewarned is forearmed. 😉 > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zoggie \* > \*\*Ditto…It’s all in the anticipation. The waiting, and so forth. In Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, he mentions that there’s always a sense of relief when you see the monster. That is, if there’s a big lead up, and then they reveal a bloodthirsty shark, the audience can say, “Well, at least it wasn’t a bloodthirsty UBER shark with uzis.” You know, it’s never as bad as you think it is. > \*\* Imho, the best example of this comes with the book/TV adaptation of King’s very own _IT_. In the final approach to kill It, the monster comes to represent the characters various fears… IIRC, it appears to Richie in the shape of an eye (Richie has a thing about eyes, you see), to Beverly in the shape of her father, etc. When they got to the end, Ben shout’s “It’s a spider!” or something, so the image of the spider becomes fixed and a spider it is. Because of your imagination, the rest of the book makes perfect sense (the deadlights?) and you feel a sense of relief when it’s all over. But on TV, it all goes horribly wrong. I can’t remember if the various incarnations appear to the band, but when the spider appears you stare at it with incredulous eyes, howls of laughter bursting from your lips. Which was the point of the book - the monster you imagine is always worse than the monster you face. Sadly, that is WAY to subtle a message to send across American TV. In short: Sometimes unseen is better. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672/60 "2003-06-29T07:06:45Z")
It isn’t just movies. This started with literature. I must say, Stephen King’s _Danse Macabre_ came to mind as soon as I saw the thread title. Recall that J.R.R. Tolkien penned some masterful scenes of horror, or rather the element of horror worked into the narrative of _The Lord of the Rings_ brought to the forefront in certain scenes. This writing worked because often Tolkien didn’t really show us the monster. Exhibit A is the Dark Lord himself, who never even puts in an appearance, except as the suggestion of a roving eyeball and as a wraithlike cloud rising from the wreck of Barad-Dûr after he’s vanquished. That cloud blown away by the western wind is one of the most chilling things Tolkien ever wrote. Moria is the most concentrated horror spot in the story. The Watcher in the Water is a classic horror beastie, and Tolkien showed us just enough of its tentacles to give us the creeps—and no more. Likewise, the cave troll that attacks the Fellowship only sticks its foot and arm in the door before being driven off; it remains scarier that way. The Balrog isn’t fully described; its appearance is only sketched vaguely, leaving you to fill in the rest with your imagination. (Ralph Bakshi’s imaging of it continues to draw hoots of derision. Old Tolkien knew what he was doing.) Shelob is the exception to these baddies, because she was pretty well described. I think she was quite horrible enough that her horror survived a fuller description. Notice how the Orcs, Trolls, Uruk-Hai and Olog-Hai are not really described. Tolkien gives the reader some work to do on this. By contrast, Treebeard gets a pretty detailed description as a benign being. Ultimately, by making the readers invest more of their own personal imagination, Tolkien brings his world and creatures more vividly to life than just about anyone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-what-you-cant-see-really-more-scary/184672.md?page=4)