What is your favorite type of horror?

[Nathan of the FoS]

I think that Ravenloft is more "fantastic horror", a la Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, than Gothic. It varies a bit, of course. The Evil Eye is pretty Gothic, but the Grand Conjunction and Death series are more fantasy-like. Of course, we all like to say that Ravenloft is low-magic, but if you're using standard PC classes and races there's a pretty sharp limit on how non-fantasy your campaign setting can be. Similarly, Ravenloft NPCs get standard DMG gear for their level. Magic has a few unusual constaints in Ravenloft, but it's still common. D&D's closest approach to Gothic horror is, well, Gothic Earth.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Erotic.

...

Jester. Jester, my friend. Please tell me you aren't talking about Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton.

[High Priest Mikhal]

Erotic.

...

Jester. Jester, my friend. Please tell me you aren't talking about Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton.

I can't speak for Jester, but here are examples of what I mean. Love, sex, romance, and lust are sometimes key to a Gothic story. What's different is that in erotic horror (technically a sub-genre, so something could be both Gothic and erotic) passions are further explored and detailed--to a point. Poetic metaphors and veiled references are erotic; graphic depiction is just pornographic.

The vampire who seduces and beds their victims, the dark lust that spawns a curse, love so profound it transcends death, those are just some of the examples of erotic horror. There are darker ways to use it, but real life is already dark enough.

[Zettaijin]

Maybe Jester meant Jean Rollin and Jesús Franco movies? Maybe he has a secret crush on Brigitte Lahaie and Lina Romay?

[Archedius]

If I had to pick a favorite type of horror- it'd be Lovecraftian. lol I must add that I'm among a small minority that feels that there is no Cthulu mythos. August Derleth invented that term so he could attempt to write in Lovecrafts style (and failed BTW).

If you actually look at Lovecraft's complete works, the stories tie into Randolph Carter and Earth's dreamworld constantly whereas I can only think of one other story that might have a reference to that submerged horror, Cthulu. 2 works reference Cthulu directly or indirectly. At least a dozen reference the dream world and Randolph Carter.

It is true that a driving presence in many of the stories are references to antedevelian beings: Old ones, Old 'gods' etc. These things are accounted for in the largest Randolph Carter featuring story, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath- and more completely I might add .

There is no Cthulu mythos driving Lovecrafts works. The works of his 'successors' ,or as I feel about them 'imitators', could be considered part of Derleths' Cthulu Mythos. If people insist there is one- at least have the respect for Lovecraft to give the 'credit' to Derleth for it.

lol now that I have that off of my chest...my second favorite type of horror is Gothic because I love Romanticism : )

[Ornum]

Depends, really. I'm more of a fan of survival-type horror when it comes to video games (which is just the run away and stay alive version of one or more of the already mentioned types, I guess).

If it's something I'm reading, then it's Lovecraftian (which is a very loose term).

Watching? With the exception of the original Hellraiser, psychological horror. You don't know what it is and you can't see it. As a matter of fact, the perfect horror movie for me never fully shows what is stalking and/or killing people, or explains in depth what the creature/creatures/whatever is and where it came from. Again, psychological horror can have elements of other types of horror in it, which is probably why In the Mouth of Madness and it's "Lovecraftian" theme is right below Hellraiser for favorite horror movie.

[crazybantha]

As a matter of fact, the perfect horror movie for me never fully shows what is stalking and/or killing people, or explains in depth what the creature/creatures/whatever is and where it came from.

I watched Predator when I was six. I'm a huge, huge, huge, Predator fan. I hated when people started to explain who they are, their planet, etc. As a thriller that movie is, to me, a masterpiece.

As for the topic, I came to realize I'm more excited by the thriller part of a movie (or any media) then the horror part. For example, I love survival horrors like 28 Days Later, the 90's Night Of The Living Dead, and the other classic remake were people are trapped in the mall (forgot the name), but more for the "survival" part then the "horror" part, i.e. the constant tension then the psychological indigestion.

I don't know if I'm really a gothic horror fan. I think I am, at least. The most awesome tragedy story to me is Darth Vaders'. I see his story like Strahd's, etc.

I know the gothic horror theme is not meant for villains to redeem themselves, but I'm not into that. What I really like in it is the tragedy when it's similar to greek tragedy, like having a moral lesson beneath the surface and a deep message explaining our human condition.

[High Priest Mikhal]

and the other classic remake were people are trapped in the mall (forgot the name)

And you call yourself a horror fan!? JK. It's Dawn of the Dead. Technically that's not a remake but a complete redo; Romero zombies can't run and eat anything that's alive, not just humans. It's still a good movie.

What really scares me is that, at least on a theoretical level, bringing the dead back to life is possible. If you hook up a corpse to an electric current the limbs and torso will still move, that much is fact. People are banking on the possibility in cryonics as well. And we still don't know what it is that makes the body go. What is it that separates the living from the dead? If it were just a matter of electrical and chemical impulses then it would seem like we should have figured it out. But there's still a piece of the puzzle missing. That's why reanimation remains (theoretically) possible.

[Zettaijin]

Lucha libre superstar Dr.Wagner Jr. apparently re-animated a corpse as a zombie using a car battery once.

Mexican pro wrestlers... is there anything they can't do?

[Isabella]

I know the gothic horror theme is not meant for villains to redeem themselves

It isn't?

Aaaaah! I've been doing it wrong!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

What really scares me is that, at least on a theoretical level, bringing the dead back to life is possible. If you hook up a corpse to an electric current the limbs and torso will still move, that much is fact.

So would an electric fan, for much the same mechanistic reason. It's purely a mechanical response, not "reanimation" (whatever that means), and it'll stop as soon as decomposition or the exhaustion of ATP supplies renders the myofilaments incapable of contraction. The latter only takes two, maybe three good kicks from a battery-wired frog leg, then it's inert no matter how much juice you pump into it.

So if that's what's worrying you, you needn't be too concerned. Cryonics is a scam, and the electric fan (which doesn't rot) is a lot closer to coming to "life" than a human corpse.

FWIW, what always stumped me was how, despite their "near-mindless" and animalistic state, zombies in those movies could still retain enough mental faculties to refrain from eating each other. They haven't got the wits to turn a doorknob, yet they can tell a freshly-reanimated human from a freshly-killed one?

[Isabella]

Maybe they're a hive mind.

[Nathan of the FoS]

FWIW, what always stumped me was how, despite their "near-mindless" and animalistic state, zombies in those movies could still retain enough mental faculties to refrain from eating each other. They haven't got the wits to turn a doorknob, yet they can tell a freshly-reanimated human from a freshly-killed one?

They sense the brain waves of the living! It's their (un)natural food, after all.

Or maybe it's a smell thing, I dunno.

[High Priest Mikhal]

So would an electric fan, for much the same mechanistic reason. It's purely a mechanical response, not "reanimation" (whatever that means), and it'll stop as soon as decomposition or the exhaustion of ATP supplies renders the myofilaments incapable of contraction. The latter only takes two, maybe three good kicks from a battery-wired frog leg, then it's inert no matter how much juice you pump into it.

I said it was theoretically possible. The example also shows that the power that drives us is the same as what we use to run our blenders. The machine is more complex down to sub-cellular levels, but that's ultimately all it is: a machine. That said, my "worry" is the same one I have for mad scientists using genetic engineering to create an army of supermen or of aliens coming down and abducting me: It could happen, but then so could me winning the lotto. Somehow I doubt it will ever happen.

"Reanimation" is the act of taking dead, once-animate creatures and making them move of their own volition again. In fact it's technically "re-animation," based on Lovecraft's story. It's not a term recognized by the scientific community at large, instead used by laymen like me.

As for how zombies know not to eat each other, that one even I can't think of an answer for. It could be tied to whatever brough them back.

[Archedius]

Haven't scientists technically already performed reanimation on test animals? Forgive me for not having an article or source for this, but I believe I read about scientists using a detergent to flush the heart of a rat. They then regrew the cells within it and then replaced it back within the deceased rat and reanimated it.

Not quite Herbert West as it were, but if you can prevent decay, prevent further damage to any cells and fix what is wrong with the body- it is technically within the realm of possibility to revive the body to life.

That said- the concept of an altered rabies virus from the soon-to-be-released game Left 4 Dead is rather frightening

I've always preferred my zombies to be of the black magic sort as it solves the whole logic issue lol