Horror should use science or supernatural, but not at once.

[Kimarous]

Anyone else feel the same way? Granted, I am not a huge fan of the horror genre in games and film, but if there is one thing that really breaks my suspension of disbelief, it is when the lines of the supernatural and the scientific/technological get blurred and combined in the same movie.

Case in point: any movie with haunted videos, websites, telephones, or video games. These things are very, very recent in terms of existence, and they just don't strike me as "hauntable". A poltergeist animating a suit of armour? Fair enough. A drowned girl inhabiting a VHS and crawling out whenever somebody watches it? W...T...F...

I don't have an issue with science and technology being used in horror. Heck, the majority of classic horror stories use science as it's basis, and that's to say nothing about viral zombie flicks. I just have a huge issue with modern technology used as "hauntables" for vengeful ghosts.

What do you think?

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Naah. Look at Ghostbusters. Ok it's not horror, but it blended sci-fi and supernatural quite well.

 

[PureChaos]

as long as it's done well and they explain it then fair enough. i LOVE horror films, for me, no matter what they do, if it's a 'coz we said so' then i cane be a little silly but if they explain why (like with The Ring) it can make things better

 

[Kimarous]

Naah. Look at Ghostbusters. Ok it's not horror, but it blended sci-fi and supernatural quite well.

Well, that's a bit different that what I'm talking about. It's not the supernatural using the technology as a "haunting medium", but technology being used to counter the supernatural.

 

[L4hlborg]

This is actually pretty interesting. I think that most people 50 years of now will find this acceptable.

Don't take this as an insult, but how old are you? I'm interested. Because in my theory, you didn't have vhs in your childhood. VHS hasn't always been around for you, so you find it as something that is unhauntable. Note again, this is not meant as an insult.

I myself am 16, so I've pretty much had VHS around all my life, so seeing them possessed doesn't seem TOO weird. DVDs on the other hand seem kinda weird.

 

[Kollega]

I think that relatively new technology (TV sets, VHS and DVD players, computers) can be:

A) used to counter paranormal (a-la Ghostbusters).
and
B) haunted by passing gremlins. Not "someone died in relation to this cassete/telephone/XboX 360 and now he haunts it", but "some nerd's spirit dedicated afterlife to haunting tech objects".

 

[Subzerowings]

A Nightmare on Elm Street had technology and I believe a guy that kills you in your dreams is fairly supernatural.
And it was awesome.
It's just freakin' hilarious when he remote controls a boy with the power glove and makes him fall to his death.
"Now you're playing with power!"

 

[Kimarous]

This is actually pretty interesting. I think that most people 50 years of now will find this acceptable.

Don't take this as an insult, but how old are you? I'm interested. Because in my theory, you didn't have vhs in your childhood. VHS hasn't always been around for you, so you find it as something that is unhauntable. Note again, this is not meant as an insult.

I myself am 16, so I've pretty much had VHS around all my life, so seeing them possessed doesn't seem TOO weird. DVDs on the other hand seem kinda weird.

I'm 20. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but while I have no issue with ghosts possessing pretty much anything else, I don't really care for them taking over electronic mediums.

...And I just realized that one of the books I'm writing more or less has a guy having his soul transferred to a wireless router. Damn, I'm hypocritical. >_>

 

[Hallow'sEve]

A drowned girl inhabiting a VHS and crawling out whenever somebody watches it? W...T...F...

Well, granted, that was part of the movie. But its the fantastical idea of something mundane that we take for granted (ex: car) and turning it against us by making it evil (ex: car cannot be destroyed and kills people) and making it from Hell.
Obviously (or maybe not), I'm using Stephen King's "Christine" to make my point. Cars don't scare me, and the idea of one coming to life to kill people makes me think more of that episode of Futurama where Bender became a Werecar rather than terror. It's laughable. But The Ring scared me. Being raised with VHS tapes I'm familiar with them, I can also see why the writer/director chose that medium.
1. We all watch movies, we all download movies, we live in the age of the Internet, where anyone can get anything. This is represented in the movie when you have to copy the tape to survive, you have to copy it and upload it to a torrent site (hypothetically speaking) or you'd die.
2. VHS represents a bygone era. No one uses them anymore (well, not really, I'm still too lazy to buy The Lion King on dvd), so the sterotypical "ancient evil past that comes to haunt you" is represented with something old that everyone was familiar with and knows how to use.
3. The girl coming out of the TV to kill you would be represented in today's technology a "3-D". But I don't really buy that, I think that the girl came out of the TV mainly as 1, a plot motive (how else could she kill the people?) and 2, to show off special effects (dunno about you, but it looked convincing to me, also added a good "WTF?!" factor)

Christine was scary because everyone uses cars, everyone has lost control of a car at some point. But what if you didn't lose control of the car? What if it was gaining control over YOU? It's that premise of taking everyday items and infusing them with evil, then asking the forbidden "what if?", it becomes unsettling, and downright horrifying when it tries to kill you, The Ring is the same way.

I suppose it comes down to hit and miss. Just like some people get motion sickness when watching The Blair Witch Project, some people don't find some things scary. There's nothing wrong with you or the movie (unless its a really shitty movie), but just personal preference.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

Meh, I don't care to be honest. If it's scary and not too silly, then fair doos.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

It's also inevitable that we'll see supernatural using the technology as a "haunting medium" more and more, because...well, it's not like it's going anywhere, and we gotta get ideas from somewhere

 

[reg42]

The horror genre is pretty much dead to me. I haven't seen a good horror movie in ages. I was told by a friend that Drag Me to Hell was a work of shear genius. I saw it. And at that moment my hope for the horror genre died a cold, painful death. I went back to my friend and asked him "Wtf? You wasted an hour and a half of my life?" He said "Haha, sorry man, but I couldn't resist."

 

[Aunel]

This is actually pretty interesting. I think that most people 50 years of now will find this acceptable.

Don't take this as an insult, but how old are you? I'm interested. Because in my theory, you didn't have vhs in your childhood. VHS hasn't always been around for you, so you find it as something that is unhauntable. Note again, this is not meant as an insult.

I myself am 16, so I've pretty much had VHS around all my life, so seeing them possessed doesn't seem TOO weird. DVDs on the other hand seem kinda weird.

you are 16 and used VHS?
dude, I'm 15 and I would have to go crawling through the dungeon that is my basement to find one of those tapes.

OT: personally I think it's awesome when you get a blend of technology and just random withcraft.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Naah. Look at Ghostbusters. Ok it's not horror, but it blended sci-fi and supernatural quite well.

Well, that's a bit different that what I'm talking about. It's not the supernatural using the technology as a "haunting medium", but technology being used to counter the supernatural.

The Empty Child, Space 1999, Ghost in the Shell... It can be done very well.

Oh and hellfire...Ring/Ringu

 

[Chris0132]

At the Mountains of Madness.

Archeological expedition encounters millions of years old alien civilisation with supernatural abilities and horrible magic powers, it's written from a highly scientific perspective and very nicely illustrates the point of most lovecraft books, which is that despite all our intelligence and ability to make sense of the world, we are incapable of comprehending the cosmic horrors in the universe and any attempt to do so results in insanity. It also blurs magic and technology somewhat because it has a lot of things like the aliens using genetics to create life as they require it, for labour or food, but at the same time it fits perfectly in the same world as cthulhu and hastur and all the other ancient horrible gods that have psychic powers and magic using cultists.

Most lovecraft stories have a very solid grounding in reality, the protagonist is usually well travelled and educated and inevitably tries to use science to understand what's happening, and they also inevitably fail.

 

[busterkeatonrules]

What exactly is the difference between a haunted suit of armor and a haunted VHS tape? Both are basically tools for the spirit to exact vengeance upon the living for the entertainment of movie audiences everywhere.

Besides: Ever since the first camera was invented some 200 years ago, there have been some beliefs that the image-capturing technology could also capture somebody's soul.

So the way I see it, the idea of multimedia-hauntings actually makes somewhat MORE sense than the more traditional "random inanimate object" - haunting!

EDIT: Thanks for a VERY interesting topic, though!

 

[Mozared]

Have to say I had to give this topic nearly twenty minutes of my full attention and thought before I worked out a proper response. In the end, I think I have to say that I disagree with the OP's statement.

I guess it depends in the way the science is implemented into the movie. If you take The Shining, for example, the scientific explanation of what happens would be that the man simply goes nuts and has illusions. Because this would be the actual cause, science, in the form of a gun, could stop him. 28 Days Later is, imo, another movie that combines horror with the right scale of science. But this doesn't make it ok for a proper horror movie to pluck "modified laserguns" out of the sky that can kill ghosts - that isn't combining science with supernatural but rather lame storywriting.

 

[Deathkingo]

Cthulhu uses the science of the supernatural to scare us. Is that cheating?

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Naah. Look at Ghostbusters. Ok it's not horror, but it blended sci-fi and supernatural quite well.

Well, that's a bit different that what I'm talking about. It's not the supernatural using the technology as a "haunting medium", but technology being used to counter the supernatural.

The Empty Child, Space 1999, Ghost in the Shell... It can be done very well.

Oh and hellfire...Ring/Ringu

yes i agree and i'm going to chastise you for not mentioning Poltergeist and probly one of the most iconic shots in film and horror

it can be done very well, i think it really depends on the story and how it is portrayed. haunted items, such as paintings, and stories about them have been around for years, they're just moving that into a new medium as technology has progressed.