Levels of Horror

LEVELS OF HORROR

by Elizabeth Anne Ensley

I know that Dante's Inferno had nine levels of Hell; but how many levels of horror do you think exist in the genre? I suppose this could be divided into types, say:

Psychological/suspense - Much of Hitchcock's movies seemed to work on this level. (Suggested by Darrell Pitt)

Gore
* Splatter films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the Thirteenth, Halloween (no relation to Al).
* Comedic -- I'm thinking of the Nightmare on Elm Street series here. Even though I saw V before this so the image of Robert Englund as the word-twisting but nice-guy Visitor never left my mind, the character-driven one-liners of Freddie Kruger (though horrifying in the context of the story) always cracked me up. Humor in horror...
* Fantasy -- even in some writing as well as in the cinema, the blood-soaked scenery shines through, especially if you've vicariously lived through the carnage.

Retro - Lovecraft, Poe - suggested by Cathy Freeze

Dark
Urban

Supernatural
* ghosts
* ghouls
* witchcraft
* psychic
* alien

~#~

"Also, I wonder where the differentiation is between horror and fear. Is horror signified by something that is shocking and `horrifies' the reader? What is the definition of horror?"

~ Darrell.

"I consider Fear to be a biological response, an activation of the sympathetic nervous system--the fight or flight system. Fear is an immediate gut reaction to a threat.
Terror is primarily psychological. Fear has to be there too, but terror is about expectation, about that something that is ABOUT to happen, and you don't know from where it's going to come.
Horror is where fear and terror meet. Horror is when you have both fear and terror and are face to face with either the thing itself that is threatening you, or with clear, visible signs of its handiwork, as in a dead body. I think that horror always has an element of disgust to it."

~ Charles

~#~

Liz,
I dunno if this qualifies as a separate level of horror or not, but to me the character-driven horror tale has always been very powerful. This could very well fall into the "psychological/suspense" genre. I'm thinking of tales such as "A Rose for Miss Emily" by William Faulkner, or maybe "The Open Window" by Saki (H.H. Munro). I tend to separate those types of tales from the work of Hitchcock, for example, but that may just be me.
You probably already know this, but Stephen King has an interesting discussion of the horror genre in his book "Danse Macabre."

Thanks,
~ John Puckett

Commentary is fully welcome. I think this will forever be a work in progress.

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