What, or who, defines horror? Discussion of genre components, literary or cinematic

In My Humble Opinion
,
1

Seeing as this is to some extent opinion placed i’m placing it here, part of me expects it to be moved. Onto the meat of it:

What defines horror as such? In literature and movies we are aware that the intention is, of course, horror, but what does this mean? Is horror an emotion, a cognitive process, is it a particular type of situation? I think even broader is, does horror have to be visceral, does it have to be intense, does it have to be horror to everyone or just one person to qualify?
I’ve been thinking on this lately after re-reading “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson. For a brief spoiler-free overview it follows a young girl and her experiences within the town related to her family history. Throughout the whole book I felt the same type of sensations I have felt over horror with jump scares and soundtracks, despite the book not having huge jump scare monsters. It’s not in your face with it, but it’s every detail that makes everything worse (better.) Its a great read, if you haven’t. IMHO it’s the kind of horror that works best, but I believe it is a mystery proper.

So now I turn to you all, what makes horror, horror? Is it what we feel about it? Or what we think about it? If it is what we think about it, could almost anything be a horror depending on reader’s personal experience? Is horror about a societal sentiment, ideas at large about commonplace fears like unknowns and death? All of the above? None?

2

Horror is a mode of writing, but it’s also a marketing category, so there’s always going to be some confusion between things written in the horror mode and things sold in the horror publishing category.

I think both evolved out of the gothic subgenre, which featured unpleasant secrets in old places, making the Jackson a perfect fit. Supernatural events and extreme gore were later addins ro the genre, I think

3

I don’t like horror at all. I don’t find jump scares or gory deaths or a sinister atmosphere to be at all entertaining. However, it could easily be argued that several of my favourite movies or TV shows have horror elements, so I’m not sure what that means as I’m still not inclined to watch the genre.

4

ISTM horror is whatever scares you. No one defines it. You define it.

That can take a variety of forms. Someone chasing you intending to kill you or cause you harm or getting sick (think zombies biting you or some virulent disease) or end of the world or losing your family/loved ones to overt violence and so on.

Maybe for you it is spiders (they scare me).

5

They say that horror is in the bloody eye socket of the beholder (don’t look at me that way-I don’t say it. They say it). It is a scene, written or spoken, that causes your heart to race not only because in itself it is terrible, but because you can somehow envision this event happening to you.

6

I think that there’s truth in this. And, since it often plays on subconscious fears and phobias, what is uncomfortable horror to one person might not really make another person even slightly frightened.

7

Carl Theodor Dreyer, the Danish director of Vampyr, one of the earliest horror films, once said this (probably not in English, because this quote I just Googled up looks different from what I am familiar with) :

Dreyer’s answer to what horror is might be that it is a “mood.”

My husband once walked into the living room where I was watching a horror film, and saw something that to me was very creepy and scary, but was funny to him, who had seen just that one scene, and had no idea what was happening. Not bust a gut laughing, funny, but in no way scary, and kind of amusing. He didn’t know about the body in the next room.

To this end, some directors use dramatic irony to build suspense; Hitchcock loved to use it: someone is carrying a box around that has a bomb in it, which the audience knows, but the character doesn’t, etc. There’s a famous episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where a child is running around with what he thinks is a toy gun, but the audience knows is real, and loaded. It’s an excruciating episode that I would call “horrifying,” even though I wouldn’t necessarily say belongs in the horror genre, but still-- there’s no one thing-- sometimes it’s when or how you acquire information, and sometimes it having it but being unable to do anything, or not knowing what to do, with it.

Some of the most genuinely “heart-in-throat” moments of my life have been trying to get somewhere by a certain time, when some barrier has been thrown up, a detour, or something, and not knowing whether I’d make it, & not being able to contact anyone to say I was on my way. It may have been a dental appointment, rather than, say, preventing a murder, but watching miles and minutes count up and down on my GPS evoked the same feelings as watching some Hitchcock moments.

8

I liked to describe the horror genre by comparing it to hot sauce, you have plenty of different types of peppers and plenty of different spice levels. What’s spicy/scary to you might not be scary/spicy to others. I think its completely subjective but in the sense of quantifying it then I’d look at the creator’s intent. A good example is Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange movie and adventure movie, albeit with horror elements. On the other side: IT Chapter 2, a horror movie with many comedic elements. Some people found Sam’s DS movie too scary and horror fans found IT C2 too funny.

What I find interesting is the deep relationship between horror and comedy. For example Jordan Peele and Zack Cregger; once sketch comedians are now acclaimed horror directors.

eg. I haven’t found any of Stephen Kings books scary even tho he is considered a horror author. However I do believe his writings/adaptations has set the bedrock for modern horror and everything has been trying to 1 up it since.