We wanted to feature Halloween/Horror type subjects for our October Quackcasts. Our extended Vampire cast has two weeks locked up.

I'd like to open things up to include other scary characters, and maybe make some comparisons between different “types” of scary beings. What do you think of these various types of horror villains? Does the supernatural chill your blood? Or is that just silly compared to the evil that humans are capable of?
Again, a pretty open subject - but what brand of scary do you like or not like? What's the scariest story you've ever heard, read or seen?

Serial Creeps
Hannibal Lecter, Michael Myers, the Scream killers, deranged hillbillies?

Monsters
Physical monsters that could include threats from the natural world like Cujo and Jaws, as well as the Tremors beasts, Alien critters, and your zombies, mummies and Frankenstein creatures.

Ghosts or Demonic/Otherdimensional types
Lovecraftian dimensions, Demons, Mr. Babadook, and various ghosts.

You could also talk TONE. Are you a blood n' guts fan? Or is the quiet, creeping unknown more scary to you?

I love scary stories and movies… for this season I prefer the supernatural themes… But one I'd like to mention is ‘Case 39’… not the most gory, not the ugliest monster… actually you never see a monster, just a glimpse of a big hand… but enough to let you know it's more than just a little girl… I think a good scary movie should leave you with at least a little bit of uneasiness, with the thought of “I know it's nto real, but let's leave the light on tonight”…

And if you haven't watched Lo, I highly recomended…

Gonna give this some thought before replying, but I just googled ‘Lo’!! Holy Crap I gotta see that!!!

The greatest monster is Man. All imagined terrors are marginal compared to the real horrors people have committed through history. Watch some old anthology movies where the human is trying to get into The Monster Club and is denied since humans are so mundane. So he tells tales of the evil men do to each other convincing the Vampire humans are the greatest monsters of them all. What is more terrifying all the Freddie Krueger movies or Schindler's List?

What do the Pupets from Pupet Master films count as?
I find that the only thing that scares me in horror films is if a child is going to get hurt! Wich is why I found the end of Seed of Chucky very unnerving…

bravo1102 wrote:
The greatest monster is Man. All imagined terrors are marginal compared to the real horrors people have committed through history. Watch some old anthology movies where the human is trying to get into The Monster Club and is denied since humans are so mundane. So he tells tales of the evil men do to each other convincing the Vampire humans are the greatest monsters of them all. What is more terrifying all the Freddie Krueger movies or Schindler's List?

I remember that onster Club… I agree that humans are the most terrifying creatures… capable of the most horrible acts… while reading the book “Half the Sky” I (regratable) learned the concept of rectovaginal fistula, inflicted intentionally on women as part of tactics of war and dominacy… that's tru horror… I remember throwing the book across the room out of disgust and anger…

Call Me Tom wrote:
What do the Pupets from Pupet Master films count as?
I find that the only thing that scares me in horror films is if a child is going to get hurt! Wich is why I found the end of Seed of Chucky very unnerving…

Remember that in Puppet Master III the puppets are the good guys when they take on the Nazis.

The scariest part of Silence of the Lambs was not Hannibal Lecter. It was Buffalo Bill. I feel like I could talk to someone like Lecter about art or enjoy an evening at the opera, but the Buffalo Bill character was a lot more chaotic.

I went through a phase when a Forensic Files marathon would constantly play on my TV. I watched looking for patterns and to see if criminology was a career track for me, but after a time, the stories became very depressing and morbid because they focused on real people who were killed. Even though I stopped watching, it taught me how to be alert and how to identify questionable characters or situations.

My other favourite horror shows include Paranormal Witness, Celebrity Ghost Stories, and A Haunting. I love it when talking head interviews are combined with low budget re-enactments. I live for D-List actors reliving traumatic events of someone's past. I now have a higher tolerance for cheap shots when a ghost pops out in the last ten seconds.

The reason I really get into ghost stories is because I used to be more “in-tune” with the paranormal when I was much younger. I moved into a house six months after the son of the previous resident died in a horrible car crash. I have read that children are able to see a wider spectrum of light and that they are more open to the paranormal than most adults. There were times that I would get terrified walking through a dark hallway because I thought I spotted a silhouette shaped like something from the corner of my eye or that I was being watched.

The scariest thing I have seen this year has to be the Marble Hornets Slender Man tapes. I have not watched the entire series, but the parts I did see freaked me enough to make a double take when I look out my window.

P.S. As I was writing this, my bedroom door started to make this loud, drawn out creaking noise and when I looked up, the door started opening very slowly. Now I am freaked out during the day time.

I don't watch any scary movies, not the paranormal ones or the psycho killer types. However, I do enjoy playing games with thriller/suspense plotlines. I deliberately seek out the ones with nothing supernatural. Supernatural things aren't scary to me or interesting. They are boring and leave me feeling detached from the story being told. I am fascinated by a good crime story, though. Serial killers are much scarier than monsters. They are real creeps, and humans are horrific monsters and need no help from magic to be so. (Also, fictional serial killers are much smarter than real serial killers, which makes them interesting and more terrifying.)

I confess to also being creeped out by anything body horror. There is one episode of The Twilight Zone I absolutely cannot watch. “It's a Good Life.” Just… No. The Brothers Grimm movie that came out a couple years ago? I could barely get through it. Of course, both of those things creeped me out far more by the shadows than anything shown in graphic detail. The suggestion is scarier.



One more thought. There is an episode of MacGyver I cannot watch. It's one where a swarm of ants is destroying everything in its path. It has made me wince around large numbers of ants for decades. Most “nature fights back” ones don't bother me because flawed science turns any horror scenario into a farce. But the MacGyver episode was realistic and researched and scary as hell.

@kawaiidaigakusei: I still see some shadow like floating people from time to time… no idea what they are…
Looks like you have a haunting now… make some videos, write a book… maybe a movie…

BIG BUCKS!!
@usedbooks: have you ever seen those shows or movies about real parasites and other stuff that actually grow inside a human body?… avoid a large meal before watching…

bravo1102 wrote:
Remember that in Puppet Master III the puppets are the good guys when they take on the Nazis.

And they were the good guys in Puppet Master 4, Puppet Master 5, Retro puppet master and then they returned to fight Nazis Puppet Master Axis of Evil!

I like the Puppet Master movies.

tupapayon wrote: @usedbooks: have you ever seen those shows or movies about real parasites and other stuff that actually grow inside a human body?… avoid a large meal before watching…

Zombie parasites are fascinating. Bot flies are interesting too. I don't think I'd be terribly freaked out to have one. I studied biology (including parasitology) for years. I raise pet rats and handle all of their health issues (this has included ruptured tumors, infected bits, self-mutilation, and things my family members prefer I don't mention nor do I care to recall.) Nothing biology-related can gross me out. But I don't watch those shows. The narration rolls my eyes. I read articles in popular science magazines, but my TV viewing is strictly fiction. I can't stand non-fiction.


My dad has had quite a few parasites in his younger world-traveling days. He tells interesting stories. My professors do too (and have slide shows).

That's the thing. You don't get scared if you are really knowledgable of the reality. I used to endlessly watch gory movies (admittedly for the gratuitous nudity) and only once got sickened enough to stop my snakcing. I knew how it was all done from special effects behind the scene documentaries.

Then I had some real life gory experiences and movies are just plain silly. Some films even are intentionally unrealistic as if to signal not to get grossed out. The waterlike spraying blood in Japanese gore films springs to mind.

As for the supernatural? When you read and know all the skeptical literature and know how to do proper research as opposed to glomming on to specious legends, ain't nothing there but the mirrors, smoke and a guy behind the curtain. Most other things you are putting there thorugh your interpretation of events as opposed to the actual turn of events. Suer there are some happenings of as Jenny Randles calls it “High strangeness” but that too may not be anything to be scared of but indeed something to be sought out and relished.

And just the same as biological movies don't bother usedbooks except to remind her of their inaccuracy, the same it is with me and most of the supernatural. I know the literature too well.

I have an odd relationship with supernatural terror… See, although I allow a corner in my mind for the possibility of things like ghosts, demons, alien abominations, I'm at heart an utter skeptic. I resist the urge to roll my eyes when people talk about seeing a ghost…
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But I LOVE movies and stories about those things! And I feel a sort of ‘longing’ for them, almost as if I wished they were real (not just standard scary stuff - I'd be delighted to discover Bigfoot or Mothman was real (although they're kinda scary too)…)! I'm not sure about why this is - do I somehow find the real world lacking? I dunno… Maybe… I honestly ponder about the concept of imagination itself. Why do we humans dream up stuff (and craft stories about) utterly impossible things to begin with? But that's another debate…
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My favorite fictional monsters are those that have a touch of human in them (Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts…). These are the only kinds of monsters, imo, that we can even begin to identify with. I used to be involved in PnP RPG Groups where we roleplayed as Vampires or Werewolves. I actually wrote a LONG werewolf Novel years ago, using the company Whitewolf's background, and tried to get them to publish it! I guess I thought it was better than they did haha!
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Inhuman monsters (incomprehensible aliens, mutated creatures…) aren't near as interesting to me. And disembodied weirdness like the Final Destination movies I don't give the time of day. The same with Enviromental Disaster End-of-the-World stuff. If it's really happening, yeah… but as a movie or story… Naahh!
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Now real life… Like many have said, other people can be terrifying. Being the prisoner of a deranged sadist, or ISIS or Boko Haram - even thinking it makes me squirm… And nature…!! Look, I do think nature is beautiful - and I love wolves. But people that think we can live in peace and harmony with large predators are fricking idiots. I'm all for conservation but it's gotta be large tracts of land with NO humans set aside for them. Bears, Wolves, Tigers, Cougars… These things, if they get hungry enough, see your kids as a snack! From a distance they a beautiful - up close they are terrifying!!
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There's another element of horror associated with human and animal threats… Lots of us like to think there's some sort of meaning to life, but when we're reduced to the evening's entertainment and dinner for Hannibal Lector or Simba the Lion… See what I mean?

Some recent werewolf tales match Medieval stories of wolves. A great missed opportunity for a post apocalypse story would be the wolf ravaged depopulated world right after the Black Death in 1349. There have been a few good and scary films about werewolves where you're never sure it's real or just mental illness. Crazy people are scary especially when they can get you to believe their delusion.

I enjoy a story where you can't tell if there actually is anything supernatural going on. Especially if it either turns out that there never was or ends in a way that you still don't know.

(As a rule, I don't watch “scary movies” but I watch plenty of anthologies, especially older ones. The best horror or sci-fi for me is highly conceptual or suggestive. Lengthy formats ruin it. 20-some minutes or pages is just the right length.)

usedbooks wrote:
I enjoy a story where you can't tell if there actually is anything supernatural going on. Especially if it either turns out that there never was or ends in a way that you still don't know.

(As a rule, I don't watch “scary movies” but I watch plenty of anthologies, especially older ones. The best horror or sci-fi for me is highly conceptual or suggestive. Lengthy formats ruin it. 20-some minutes or pages is just the right length.)

Poe and Lovecraft did their work in around that length. I also like shorterror tales including short-shorts where it's under a 1000 words.

We should have more examples here, I think…
I'll approach the Gremllims… although I considere it more a Christmass movie than a Halloween one… still the monsters, the story, the mythology, and the sillyness of it are fantastic…
Gremlins 2 approach the sillyness of the first movie effectively, IMO…
Anywho… If what I've heard is correct, the story was inspired on a fear, and/or disgust of blattaria… It was origanlly purelly a horror movie, untill it was decided to make it more familly friendly…
I've also read and heard comments on the symbology of it… a guy said it was about racism, particularily against African Americans…. the fear (some white people have) that once one appears in their neighborhood, more will come, and then violence, destruction and drop of house values…
Someone else said it's about the sexual repression of the main character, his refusal to grow up, and finally overcoming all of that… that's why Billy lives with his parents, take his dog to work, his best friend is a middleschooler… which all these can be explained once we learn that the script was written for a younger Billy, they just switched it to accomodate an older actor…
There's more to comment on this one movie alone… the overcomercialization of Christmas, mass production of toys based on characters, xenophobia, enviromentalism, etc…

KimLuster, I agree with what you're saying. I feel the same about the supernatural, somewhat: Skeptical but interested, and very into the fiction about it!

I'm probably less skeptical than you, but I know that even the couple strange things I've experienced could have several explanations, even if I don't know what the explanation might be; enjoying the possibility of the paranormal is appealing.

I do find that sometimes, my brain goes to creepy places and I get nervous about spirits, bad vibes, etc. My imagination gets to me less and less as I get older…though I can still scare myself pretty easily when I want to.

Other than the ocassional late-night paranoia, it's the more human, mundane dangers that scare me. Reading/hearing people's TRUE scary experiences online is what really interests me lately, and gives me that horror-movie thrill.

I find my instincts are awakened since I started checking out those stories; I'm always on the lookout for trouble (maybe that's the true purpose of horror stories: to make us aware of our surroundings so we can protect ourselves!)

Getting back to ghosts, I think those stories help us address our mortality, and the anxiety or mystery around what happens after death.

I really liked the movie “The Innkeepers”. People seemed to pretty divided on that one from what I've seen. The character did make some odd chioces at the end. But the flick scared me, and stayed with me mostly because I liked and related to the characters - and the themes of “not finding one's way in life” and “not making choices for yourself” stayed with me. Horror is almost always metaphorical.

I like all types, as long as they are executed well. I'm a sucker for a well designed monster, take the alien films, the monster works on a number of levels. It's dark and shodowy and plays to our primal fears. It's human enough to be familiar yet alien and faceless enough to give chills. it also play to body horror with the impregnation elements.
I find serial killers fascinating too, well sometimes. Exploring the psychology behind it is interesting if done well.
I love supernatural horrors. Although I'm a skeptic I love the idea of the unseen world and the horrors that go with it.
Quite simply I enjoy horror, not all horror, as I said it comes down to quality. I do like my horror to be pretty visual though, I don't mean graphic, but pulled off with flair. Of course I still enjoy reading horror, but it has to be evocative. One of my favourite horror books is the rats, it's very british and graphically written. Even better is the second sequel Domain which adds nuclear war to the equation. It plays on fear of rats, gory horror and the 80s fear of nuclear war.

bravo1102 wrote:
usedbooks wrote:
I enjoy a story where you can't tell if there actually is anything supernatural going on. Especially if it either turns out that there never was or ends in a way that you still don't know.

(As a rule, I don't watch “scary movies” but I watch plenty of anthologies, especially older ones. The best horror or sci-fi for me is highly conceptual or suggestive. Lengthy formats ruin it. 20-some minutes or pages is just the right length.)
Poe and Lovecraft did their work in around that length. I also like shorterror tales including short-shorts where it's under a 1000 words.

Agreed about the ambiguity of the supernatural elements. A recent example was the babadook.
SPOILERS
Although i felt that it seemed to cement that there was a supernatural element at the end and that lessened the film in my eyes.
End of spoilers.
Length… horror doean't work so well if it is dragged out.