Café de Nuit

This question came to my mind recently as I began to think about the different types of the horror genre.

Gothic horror: curses, tragic villains, the supernaturaly, feelings of isolation and helplessness.

Pyschological horror: insanity, questions of identity and reality take center stage.

Splatter horror: the horror comes from blood and gore and a monster that just doesn't seem to die.

Lovecraftian horror: derived from H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Elements of gothic horror and pyschological horror but with the uncaring, inhuman Old Ones thrown in.

Ravenloft has traditionally focused on Gothic Horror, but there are plent of opportunities for other types of horror in the domains of dread.

I'd say a mixture of all of them apart from splatter horror which just grosses me out and makes me feel queasy.

For me less=more. A few splatters of blood rather than a blood bath and a creature standing in the middle of it eating someones entrails and an atmosphere that so subtly builds to make you feel uneasy, rather than a break neck pace and constant action.

I have to agree with Algaris. It's a mix; different horror types are good for different settings and even I, who watches horror movies almost to the exclusion of all others, prefers to mix things up.

That said, my favorite type of horror is Apocalyptic Horror: humanity is dying out, monsters hunt us, the insignificance of humans compared to the "threat," nowhere is safe.

Examples include all the Dead movies (actually any zombie apocalypse-type movie), Feast 1 but not 2, basically anything that puts humans in their place. Especially the Lovecraftian feeling of being utterly inconsequential and unimportant.

Algaris wrote:I'd say a mixture of all of them apart from splatter horror which just grosses me out and makes me feel queasy.

Not to mention how a verbal description of gruesome scenes by the DM is seldom as effective as viewing them on a movie screen. Even reading splatterpunk novels seldom conveys that sort of shock-me visceral gross-out, unless the authors really know what they're doing.

Video games? Sure! But splatter just doesn't translate very well to pen-and-paper RPGs in general, IME, let alone to Ravenloft games. And when game designers try anyway, like with All Flesh Must Be Eaten, it's usually more satire-oriented than sickening.

Gothic Horror for sure. However, I wouldn't say that splatter or psychological horror aren't part of gothic horror. I don't classify splatter or psychological as genres.

I would agree that Lovecraftian horror is a different genre though.

/cheers!

-Dave

Erotic.

Jester of the FoS wrote:Erotic.

Definitely Gothic horror, particularly where the horror is built by what you *don't* see, by sounds and suggestion and chilling glimpses.

Differs, but mostly afraid of the known.....(no not the unknown). Hinting at powerful beast, NPC's. That usually works only for the players though.

For most horrific I tend to go for restrained movement/trapped while in a scene of mental or physical brutality.

And hint of being aware of something, but not knowing anything.

Guzrath wrote:Differs, but mostly afraid of the known.....(no not the unknown). Hinting at powerful beast, NPC's. That usually works only for the players though.

For most horrific I tend to go for restrained movement/trapped while in a scene of mental or physical brutality.

And hint of being aware of something, but not knowing anything.

Yes...this is real horror. I always thought that Alfred Hitchcock did horror much better than Wes Craven. I don't really find most splatter movies that scary - In fact most splatter movies that I have seen seem more geared toward the budding sadist than the fans of the scary.

Of course I always found a dose of pyschological horror the scariest. See some of the Twighlight Zone episodes, the silent hill video games, and the film "Jacob's Ladder". Nothing is scarier than not knowing if you can trust your perceptions or your own thinking...

Jester of the FoS wrote:Erotic.

If you're even marginally serious, please explain.

Seriously does anyone find splatter movies scary? Frankly they are mostly pretty dire and rest entirly on the shock value, which in an oversaturated market isnt even that effective anymore, Im consistenlty suprised how many are made...

Although I have to admit genuinely scary books and films are pretty hard to come by, but then horror is a personal thing, For me Id say Psycological horror is the core of it, with a nice dose of gothic elements providing the background and storyline.

A crucial element IMO is not having everything explained at the end. I mean how many films or books were great until they showed what was behind all the badness, and how many of those sucked? Gotta leave those unanswered questions (and I dont mean the one about whetehr they killed every last bit of Jason this time )

I've yet to read a horror novel that scared me.

Fascinated and engrossed by the story - sure - spooked, not a chance.

Same with horror movies. Feelings of unease, slight apprehension and disgust? Plenty of times. Fear? No.

I've been scared before, more times than I'd like to recall, but not by any single medium. Real life can be quite terrifying, so, to me, fiction isn't.

This said, I've actively enjoyed horror films for decades now and always had a soft spot for Lovecraft's weird fiction. But if asked which type of horror I prefer, I'd have to go with horror acting as vehicle of interesting ideas and ethics.

I like to think Fey Horror as a type of horror. A mix of the traditional supernatural and Lovecraftian indifference.

And yes, Jester, please explain "erotic horror." I believe you have more in mind than just scantly-clad female vampires (or scantly-clad zombies, for that matter ).

I can't guess what Jester was thinking of, but there was that one scene in Neil Gaiman's American Gods where a man was eaten by a prostitute's... other mouth, if you get what I'm saying. >.>