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Originally Posted by evollove
I think I read Pet Semetary in grade school because I liked the movie, but I'm too much of a snob to know what you guys are talking about.
But I'm curious: does horror really scare? I mean, are there really stories/novels that actually freak you out as much as a movie can?
I remember In Cold Blood scaring me when I read it in high school, so I know the written word can provoke fear, but I think Capote's book is far removed from the current discussion.
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In Cold Blood is terrifying. Lovecraft is not *always* truly terrifying, and definitely never in the same way as ICB, but it’s possible to acknowledge that both are bloody terrifying.
So is, like “Wait until Dark”
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Originally Posted by evollove
Well, I didn't mean to disparage anyone who is scared by giant tentacles. I was just genuinely and non-judgmentally curious to know if that was really possible.
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No, giant tentacles” don’t scare me. But Lovecraft isn’t “giant tentacles.”
He wrote a lot of stories that have nothing to do with the Ancient Ones or the Cthuhlu mythos.
But, a lot of his stories deal with madness in various forms, and what causes it and how it descends upon someone (usually for goddamn good reasons, considering the circumstances)
The idea that humans are pawns in a scheme of beings that are malevolence incarnate, so beyond our capacity to imagine that mere knowledge of their existence is enough to drive us to suicide or worse, is scary to me.
Giant cosmic demons the size of small planets lurking under the sea, waiting for society’s collective anxiety to feed them and bring about an era of pure hatred and holocaust... that, in the right hands, is some scary shit. To me anyway.
Of course, every horror book you’ve ever read is a copy of a copy of a Lovecraft idea, so I’d understand if it didn’t work for everyone. Some people think Stephen King is terrifying. Do talking cars terrify you? King, like Gaiman, took pieces of Lovecraft and built his own style around it, in a different, far less literary, direction than Gaiman.
Either way, Horror is whatever scares you.