Horror

Horror - What Is Horror?

It's early morning and I haven't really woken up yet. I wash my hands, use the hand towel, and feel something hard crush beneath my fingertips. A large beetle falls dead to the floor. I admit I don't handle bugs all that well, or at least not when they get up-close and personal like that. So finding out that there were three more bugs in the towel really didn't make me any happier (I'm pretty sure I made a squeaking noise somewhere in there, but I'd never admit to it in court). I can't tell you how glad I am that it was the hand towel, and not the one I dry my face on.

Horror is a powerful thing. The new T-shirt of the Horror Writers' Association has a quote on the back by Douglas Winter that begins with "Horror is not a genre" and ends with "horror is an emotion." Horror carries a whole load of emotional implications that science fiction and fantasy don't. It's a much narrower field in some ways, because it must involve this emotion. In other ways it's broader, because it can encompass other genres--science fiction, mystery, and fantasy can also be horror, if they just evoke the right emotion.

Why does horror from a certain distance fascinate us so, yet cause us problems when it gets up-close and personal? Why is it I can enjoy movies about swarms of bugs killing people, yet finding oversized beetles under my hand turns me into a complete wimp? What's the dividing line between horror that excites and horror that panics?

It often seems to me that distance dictates whether horror thrills and excites or panics and disgusts. Material on the silver screen is farther away than our own bathroom, so the distance protects us. This distance is enough for some, not enough for others. The imaginary experiences of a roleplaying run are closer than the screen yet farther than the hard, flaking body of the bug under our fingers. So it has less distance than a movie (thus removing another segment of audience, presumably), but more than our own experiences.

Of course, I'm just throwing random thoughts around, spurred on by a handful of beetles. (Amazing how it grows with every retelling, isn't it?)

Horror - In The Industry

Certainly horror is a big draw in the roleplaying industry. Many of White Wolf's lines make use of horror, as well as such well-known games as "Call of Cthulhu" and some smaller ones like "Principia Malefex" and "Zero." What makes one game more horrific than another? What makes one game's horror more acceptable than another's? Is up-front in-your-face horror more horrific or less than creepy psychological horror? To a certain extent it all depends on the person. Some people will get more scared by "Rosemary's Baby's" barely-seen terror; others find gore-fests like most of "Dusk Till Dawn" more horrifying.

The horror of "Principia Malefex" is primarily that of the modern world; it's meant to be a low-supernatural game. This removes some of the element of distance, and with it, another layer of potential players. Is it too depressing? Maybe. Is it too dark? We all have our own idea of what "too dark" means. Take White Wolf's "Wraith: the Oblivion," for example. It too contains a strong theme of the horror of reality, and many people felt it was too dark. It also contains a certain element of distance: the player characters (PCs) are dead, and much of the game takes place in the land of the dead. Horror needs to hit close to home, but it also needs to leave the audience with at least a little personal comfort, a way of feeling distanced. Where that magical zone lies depends on the individual audience-member.