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Wait, now that we're talking about Aliens and then back to psychopath and sociopath; yeah, how about those aliens? I mean they are no psychopath for sure. They're not faking themselves... they do have no remorse but that because they simply see human being as other species (it's my people OR not my people).

And how about for "monsters" like Jason, Freddy, and the others? Human but no so human, and obviously still human too. Are there any rules/guides how to make them interesting?

BTW, are movies like "I know what you did last summer" or "Scream" also categorized as horror movies?

LVUER wrote:And how about for "monsters" like Jason, Freddy, and the others? Human but no so human, and obviously still human too. Are there any rules/guides how to make them interesting?

Freddy Kruger was a FUN monster. He was horrific, but entertaining too. (I adored Freddie's twisted sense of humor.)

From what I've observed, the trick is to make the monster Intelligent. Jason was pretty much brain dead. He didn't talk, and it was pretty obvious he didn't think either. He just killed. Booooring. Freddie, on the other hand, played with his victims before he killed them. I really liked the way he'd use his victims on fears against them, and teased his victims into thinking that there was a way to escape, when there wasn't. That made Freddie far more interesting in my book. Also, killing Freddie was impossible because he was already dead.

LVUER wrote:BTW, are movies like "I know what you did last summer" or "Scream" also categorized as horror movies?

Of course!
-- However, those were not nearly as scary as Alien. They could have been, if they had taken the plot more seriously, and NOT tried to make it funny. In Nightmare on Elm Street, the thread of humor running through it actually made it more horrific. In those other movies, the humor got in the way.

LVUER wrote:Wait, now that we're talking about Aliens and then back to psychopath and sociopath; yeah, how about those aliens? I mean they are no psychopath for sure. They're not faking themselves... they do have no remorse but that because they simply see human being as other species (it's my people OR not my people).

The horror in "Alien" is three-layered:

1) I cannot escape.
2) I cannot kill that monster.
3) The monster is able to invade my body.

The Alien is pretty much your psychopath in behavior (violent killing machine), but that's not what makes it so scare. Nightmare's Freddy Krueger isn't a psychopath, though he shares the same three traits with the Alien:

1) If I fall asleep, Freddy comes. Not falling asleep is impossible, so I cannot escape.
2) In my dreams, Freddy is unbeatable.
3) Freddy invades my dreams.

A typical sociopath trope in horror is the "charming sociopath". Think "Silence of the Lambs" and Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal is scary for very different reasons:

1) He doesn't look or behave like a cannibal. You won't know he's a threat until it's too late.
2) He's a psychiatrist and thus able to find your weaknesses and use them against you.
3) He's cunning and would do absolutely horrifying things if they help him - like wearing a dead man's face for a mask.
4) You may not be able to convince others that he's a monster because he's better at convincing people than you are.

Another great horror "monster": the rabid fan from Stephen King's "Misery". The protagonist is totally helpless, she can do to him whatever she wants to, is mostly normal... but once she realizes her position of power, she becomes a nightmare. Horror here: being at the whim of somebody entirely unpredictable.

The alien horror:

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=108

If you haven't read this yet, then you just dont know the true horror of the aliens yet.
-crGrey

I just watched Final Destination 5 and I have to say FD is one example of "true" horror movie (so true that recent FD is not interesting at all, you just watch it to see those people die horribly and gruesomely, not to see those people survive ;P ).

Let's analyze it using what OokamiKasumi gave us:

> They couldn't just call for help.
-- Who can help you from an invisible force that could manipulate everything around you (non-living object)? That could turn even an ordinary piece of rock into a lethal weapon?
> They couldn't just leave.
-- You could run but you can't hide. Death is everywhere so no matter where you go, Death will find you. Running would just delaying the inevitable.
> They couldn't simply wait in a safe corner for rescue.
-- There was no safe corner.
-- In FD, you die from doing ordinary things, you die because of ordinary things. Heck, you even die just because doing something that you've done for past 15 years... Stand still, you die. Run around, you still die.
> There was no Deus Ex Machina waiting in the wings.
-- You could only cheat Death's list but it seems Death doesn't like to be cheated. In all FD, there seems to be a way out. But in the end, those just don't work.
-- And you can't kill Death (a god), that's for sure.
> Then there was the Plot Twist:
-- There's always a reason to finish off all remaining survivors in the end of the show. So far there's only one person survive but she's still dead at the next FD.

The only option is escape. But the only way to escape Death is to die... which beats the whole purpose of the whole movie... to survive.

What makes this movie so interesting (or at least WAS) is how you could die horribly and gruesomely from ordinary harmless things that we use/see in everyday life. If all those people in FD died because of some judgment lights come from above, we won't be freaked out by this movie...

LVUER wrote:I just watched Final Destination 5 and I have to say FD is one example of "true" horror movie (so true that recent FD is not interesting at all, you just watch it to see those people die horribly and gruesomely, not to see those people survive ;P ).
... What makes this movie so interesting (or at least WAS) is how you could die horribly and gruesomely from ordinary harmless things that we use/see in everyday life. If all those people in FD died because of some judgment lights come from above, we won't be freaked out by this movie...

Yep! That's definitely Horror. However, like you, I find that series BORING because one knows the end of the story before it even begins: He dies. She dies. Everybody dies. You can't root for anybody because they ALL bite the big one in the end.

Where's the fun in that?

True, that's what I mean. Different from other horror movies, everyone in FD is just waiting to be counted... After several movies of FD, anyone would know that EVERYONE there will die at the end.
Protagonist: A man (or girl) who have vision of his (and his friends') death. The last person whose body to be counted.
Protagonist's BF/GF: Protagonist's love interest, second last body to be counted.
Another hero/heroine: protagonist closest friend. The guy/girl who stand of the protagonist's side despite all the odds. As reward, he/she is the third last body to be counted.
The others: Just people who's there to increase the body count.

The coroner guy: Recurring character. The only person who doesn't die at the end of each series. He's there so all those bodies that wait to be counted knows what awaits them (it's no fun if they don't) and to say the punch line like: "Death doesn't like to be cheated" or "No escape"

OokamiKasumi wrote:

LVUER wrote:I just watched Final Destination 5 and I have to say FD is one example of "true" horror movie (so true that recent FD is not interesting at all, you just watch it to see those people die horribly and gruesomely, not to see those people survive ;P ).
... What makes this movie so interesting (or at least WAS) is how you could die horribly and gruesomely from ordinary harmless things that we use/see in everyday life. If all those people in FD died because of some judgment lights come from above, we won't be freaked out by this movie...

Yep! That's definitely Horror. However, like you, I find that series BORING because one knows the end of the story before it even begins: He dies. She dies. Everybody dies. You can't root for anybody because they ALL bite the big one in the end.

Where's the fun in that?

Well, the first FD was pretty exciting because it WAS horror and you DIDN'T know that everyone would die. You were worried they might, but there was still a chance someone would make it because the formula hadn't been established.

I think that is a real danger in writing horror - that it can become so formulaic that the tension is gone. Then it is no longer horror, but a slasher, where you are only watching to see people die in gruesome ways.

LateWhiteRabbit wrote:I think that is a real danger in writing horror - that it can become so formulaic that the tension is gone. Then it is no longer horror, but a slasher, where you are only watching to see people die in gruesome ways.

Considering that few visual novel creators make series Horror games, I doubt boring slasher games could become something we need to worry about in VNs. I mean, it's definitely possible for a game-maker or team to make one or two slasher games, but a whole series of them like Final Destination? Not likely. I doubt any game-maker could punch out the same thing over and over like that without major brain/creativity damage.

LateWhiteRabbit wrote:

OokamiKasumi wrote:

LVUER wrote:I just watched Final Destination 5 and I have to say FD is one example of "true" horror movie (so true that recent FD is not interesting at all, you just watch it to see those people die horribly and gruesomely, not to see those people survive ;P ).
... What makes this movie so interesting (or at least WAS) is how you could die horribly and gruesomely from ordinary harmless things that we use/see in everyday life. If all those people in FD died because of some judgment lights come from above, we won't be freaked out by this movie...

Yep! That's definitely Horror. However, like you, I find that series BORING because one knows the end of the story before it even begins: He dies. She dies. Everybody dies. You can't root for anybody because they ALL bite the big one in the end.

Where's the fun in that?

Well, the first FD was pretty exciting because it WAS horror and you DIDN'T know that everyone would die. You were worried they might, but there was still a chance someone would make it because the formula hadn't been established.

I think that is a real danger in writing horror - that it can become so formulaic that the tension is gone. Then it is no longer horror, but a slasher, where you are only watching to see people die in gruesome ways.

The first and second FD was exciting because:
1. They survived at the end of the movies (although then you found out that they died anyway some time after that).
2. It's still fresh (it starts getting old at the third movies and boring at the fifth).

While we're speaking on how to make good horror...
=====SPOILER WARNING FOR THOSE WHO STILL HAVEN'T SEE FINAL DESTINATION 5=====

Someone briefly mentioned this, but one thing that hasn't been addressed is tension. Tension is absolutely needed for horror, but I think that it's equally important that tension is undermined. For example, the locker scene in Silent Hill is an incredibly scary moment because the tension is completely undermined.

You're in a dark building, blood pooled around you, and all the lockers are jammed. Except one. You open it up, the hinges creak, and the door slowly reveals... nothing. That utter lack of pay off, if done right, can be as emotionally jarring as the psychopathic horror.

Someone sort of touched on this, but another brand of horror that is super effective is the horror of the unknowable. Things like the Alien are, in part, so horrifying because their motives are unknowable to us. (Aside from the obvious "kill things to reproduce".) They can't be negotiated with, they can't be deterred (aside from mass murder) and they aren't killing humans for any reasons humans really understand.

The best part of this kind of horror is that it easily becomes very insidious, the kind of slow lurking horror that stays with you forever. Think about how unknowable the Alien motives are to us, now think about how unknowable our own motives are to the things we ruthlessly slaughter every day.

That's a truly horrifying thought.

Kylock wrote:Someone briefly mentioned this, but one thing that hasn't been addressed is tension. Tension is absolutely needed for horror, but I think that it's equally important that tension is undermined. .... That utter lack of pay off, if done right, can be as emotionally jarring as the psychopathic horror.

I see the horror stories as something akin to a Roller-coaster ride. The fall (payoff) MUST equal the climb (tension generated). However~! One doesn't need the payoff immediately, such as your empty locker room. After all, roller-coasters have switch-backs, sudden turns, loop-the-loops, and sharp descents that lead to even higher climbs before they finish -- which is what makes roller-coasters so much fun. Stories are best written the same way.

In other words: Delayed Gratification.

Kylock wrote:Someone sort of touched on this, but another brand of horror that is super effective is the horror of the unknowable.

All children fear Under the Bed and the partially open Closet without ever being told of such things because it's part of the human survival instinct. This instinct MAKES us fear what we can't see clearly, and don't understand. This is the instinct is what tells us dark, deserted places are Bad for us because things DO lurk in such places, even if they're only thugs out to rob us.

On the other hand, this makes it the easiest fear to invoke.

Kylock wrote:...now think about how unknowable our own motives are to the things we ruthlessly slaughter every day. That's a truly horrifying thought.

I read a short story about this back in grade school, about ants dealing with a human foot crushing them -- from the ants' point of view.

OokamiKasumi wrote: I read a short story about this back in grade school, about ants dealing with a human foot crushing them -- from the ants' point of view.

Now I want to read that story, sounds interesting... It won't be like "Ant Bullies", right?

LVUER wrote:...I want to read that story, sounds interesting. It won't be like "Ant Bullies", right?

I read it in an old Readers Digest magazine, I believe. The story was written like an old Twilight Zone. You didn't know the characters were ants until the last paragraph.

A human who is "pure evil" in fiction is just like those "perfect" prince-charming boys that sometimes show up in unfortunate shojou series.
They're unbelievable and unrealistic, often they don't make a very convincing person.
- Not that people don't like/accept them...
I think the pshychological "real" is scarier than a "pure evil". If you have "monster" who does hideous horrible things - but is still human, or has something in common with most people, something you can understand or recognize in yourself, (even if it's hideously amplified and twisted in this "monster",) it becomes much more horrible. Err...

My opinion in short: A "monster" with human qualities = scarier than a monster without human qualities.

Then again, anything works in context. (Perhaps it's just the drama-queen-plotter in me speaking. Perhaps.)