I would be more alarmed to find a fresh corpse simply cause you wouldn’t know if the killer was still around and saw you, see the body and planned on killing you to.
Body of someone dead for weeks
Mummified body
Skeleton
Body of someone dead for hours
Mummies freak me out. Too much Goosebumps as a child, I guess. They just feel…wrong. Same with skeletons. Uncanny valley.
Don’t get me wrong. The hours long one would be freaky, too. Not AS creepy though.
Yeah but, horrified doesn’t really imply that your scared of the body, but shocked and distressed by it.
So it looks like not everyone would rank them like me, which is as I thought.
Least to Most:
skeleton
body dead for hours
mummified body
body dead for weeks
I’ve seen too many dead bodies over the years for them to be horrifying in any way.
Ohh man the first thing I’d do is go get my friends to go look at it. We’d follow the train tracks to find it and get a reward!
Well first things first, regardless of how long it’s been dead I would be damn sure to poke it with a stick.
Least to Most:
archaeological remains
skeleton
body dead for hours
mummified body
body dead for weeks
decomposing or fresh body that falls on you from rafters or storage locker
warm body surrounded by fresh, still liquid splashes of blood on walls and puddles on floor
friend runs up to other side of window or door, screams and is dragged away, splashes ensue
Y’know, I think I have to start watching more romantic comedies and less zombie horror.
MOST HORRIFYING
Body of someone dead for weeks
Mummified body
Dog drags home skeletal forearm as toy
Body of someone dead for hours
Skeleton
LEAST HORRIFYING
Do I get to poke it with a stick? Cause I’ve always wanted to do that.
Sorry. someone beat me to it.
I can’t say that any would be horrifying. As Quartz said, they’re just bodies.
The only one I would approach any closer than necessary to determine that it is indeed a body would be the hours dead in which case I’d have to determine that it was indeed dead.
Remember, don’t just go straight for the eye. You have to work yourself up to it.
(paraphrased Bart Simpson quote)
Rank is the opperative word, therefore
Weeks,
hours
merely because that’ll have the biggest inpact on my day, not that it’s horrifying, ‘ABC’s, no they’re really dead, then don’t disturb the evidence, we’ve got to let the authorities know.’
Mummy, skeleton, ‘oh cool.’
MOST
Dead for weeks
Dead for hours
Mummified
Skeleton
LEAST
I think worse than any of these would be one that was dead for a few days. Enough to decompose but not long enough for most of the stench to go away (as I would presume it would do in the space of weeks.)
Skeletons and mummies don’t freak me out–they’re far enough removed from “human” that they wouldn’t affect me like a “real” body would. At least I don’t think so, having never found any of the above.
Oh yeah? What if the skeleton or the mummy were dancing? Did you ever think about that?
Somebody’s who’s been dead for 5 seconds.
Whatever killed him might still be around…
Depends–what dance? 
Besides, if they’re dancing, they’re not dead, they’re undead. And that’s a whole different kettle of entrails.
By far the most disturbing would be the fresh body - because I’d have to check to see if they were still alive if it wasn’t obvious, I’d want to know what happened/be frightened there was a killer lurking, potentially have to deal with the fall-out (family arriving on the scene and grieving, criminal investigation, etc). Secondly the rotten one, because that’s messy and stinks, although I’m much less disgusted by decay than your average person it seems. Mummies and skeletons would just be kinda cool, but creepy.
:eek: Dance of the dead?!
Weeks
Hours
Mummy
Bones.
In fact, bones would be kinda cool. Can I keep some? Muahhaha.
Hmmm…well, it depends. What kind of “mummified” are we talking about, here? Like “wrapped up, tastefully, in a peaceful pose, and jutting out of a sand dune,” or “John Torrington”?