At least, I doubt I could handle it. I don’t go in for scary movies or haunted houses, though I have done scant but real research into occultic things–I hate all of it. I want to hate it more than I do even. Regardless, if I were the type to seek out scary adventures for Halloween and I lived in Britain, I’d consider the ones pictured here.
The cells at Oxford Castle look like they’d be enough to turn my hair white.
You know, I haven’t had much taste for horror since I’ve been an adult (though Dean Koontz sometimes entices me in). I experience plenty of fear in real life. I don’t need to go out looking for it.
I don’t like the horror genre much in general, but some of us girls went through a haunted house this summer in Gatlinburg and it was so, so much fun!
Horror is wonderful if it teaches you to fear the right things. Lars, you had some fittingly horrific touches in Erling’s Word. (I’m thinking specifically of the end of chapter 23.)
I’m probably speaking from ignorance. When I think of horror, I think of Stephen King (whose work I dislike) and all those slasher films. Horror nowadays doesn’t seem to be about fear so much as about body fluids, disgust and nihilism.
That said, I still generally don’t go out on purpose to have something jump up and shout “booga-booga” at me. It’s not my idea of a good time.
When most people consider horror, I believe that’s the kind they’re thinking of — splattery stuff in the vein (sorry, sorry) of Jason Voorhees. Or maybe the snuff-film-ish Hostel. But the genre also includes folks such as Poe and M.R. James and even Dickens, works of real literary quality.
Okay, I’m down off my soapbox.
Yeah, that’s the stuff I think of under the horror label, even though I know the literary goods are out there. I remember being surprised that the BBC series The Tripods was called horror. It was a good series. The first book is good too (haven’t read the others). Suspenseful, but not horrorific.
I enjoy suspense, but I dislike demonic murders on the loose killing clueless teenagers. It’s stupid, twisted, and evil.
I think sufficient exposure to real fear from real peril tends to vitiate the entertainment value of the artificial stuff.
$0.02
The Tripods! Behold, the trilogy by John Christopher that made me forever fall in love with post-apocalyptic SF! I never knew BBC made a show of it. That makes my day.
Great. I loved the show, and I think I saw all of the first and second seasons, but I don’t know for sure. I want to read the trilogy sometime.