Poll: Is Gore Truly Scary?

[GTwander]

I don't remember actually seeing anything like that. The closest thing I remember was when all those tentacle things were coming off the possessed dog.

Or when they are giving that one dead dude the paddles, and his chest rips open to teeth and bites the guys hands off?

Then his head stretches off his torso and scuttles away with spider legs?

There's tons of this stuff - watch it again.

 

[Jfswift]

Something I found creepy the other day was this creature in blight town, dark souls that was using a chewn up body as a weapon. I think gore in the right amount can augment fear.

 

[Vausch]

To me gore isn't scary at all, its just... sickening. It doesn't actually do any of the scaring but it can help build up an uncomfortable atmosphere to make the scares more effective.

Pretty much this. The original Evil Dead used its cheap gore effects very well, making it tense and seem downright horrible with how slow the pain seemed to be getting inflicted. Unfortunately that became the only thing that people seemed to get out of it, not sense of paranoia or claustrophobia knowing you're stuck in a cabin where everything can and will kill you but in the meantime it's just going to mess with you.

As for the remake, I already have a good guess about the ending if it doesn't go the same. Deadite is going to possess the dog and give us a cliffhanger ending of it jumping at someone. If not there's going to be that "I can't kill him he's my dog!" before it kills/bites the owner and gets them possessed.

Gore for me isn't so much scary as it is... discomforting.

 

[CaptainKoala]

Gore is not scary, but it can be a component of something scary. It is not scary by itself, but it can add scariness to something that already is scary.

 

[kortin]

No, gore isn't scary. It makes me feel uncomfortable and sick, but it doesn't scare me.

 

[The_Echo]

Gore isn't scary. It falls under the "body horror" genre, but it isn't horror. It's just a bit repulsive, until you get desensitized.

Unfortunately, horror films have focused on gore for way too long, and now that seems to be the only form of horror we can get (outside of jump scares, which are more startling than scary anyway).

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't remember actually seeing anything like that. The closest thing I remember was when all those tentacle things were coming off the possessed dog.

Or when they are giving that one dead dude the paddles, and his chest rips open to teeth and bites the guys hands off?

Then his head stretches off his torso and scuttles away with spider legs?

There's tons of this stuff - watch it again.

Ok, I'm going to have to watch that movie again.

 

[Olas]

No.

But his message sure is.
Global climate change isn't just a scary story, it's a very real phenomenon that's already affecting us and will destroy our planet if we don't act now. This isn't a political issue, it's an issue regarding it's a survival of the human race and it's being decided by what we do right NOW. The evidence is incontrovertible, climatologists are in full agreement, if we don't find a way to stop the rampant releasing of carbon emissions into our atmosphere our children will live in a world with mass food shortages and year round hurricanes like Sandy.
We can't brush this issue off as a problem for someone else to fix, it's up to us to make a difference.

-This has been a PSA from the Organization of OlasDAlmighty

 

[Quaidis]

The eye coming out of Ash's shoulder scared me far more than, say, the chick in Jason X getting sucked through the small-squared grate into outerspace, or the guy getting torn in half in Jaws.

There are different grades of horror movie. Some people want the sophisticated horror like in Shining. Others want to sit back and watch heads explode like in Dawn of the Dead. My favorite horror movie genre is beasts (mythical or not) attacking people. Monster flicks. It comes off campy but I like the idea of it.

The real point of over-the-top gore is to gross people out. If played right, it can be absolutely terrifying. Most of the time, sadly, it is not.

So what I'm really trying to say is that it's good to have multiple genres of horror at hand in case you have a moment where you don't want to sit back and think about it. Or maybe you do. Or maybe it's cooler to watch a lion rearrange someone's intestine.



To me, most gore in horror films does not effect me like real life gore will. And if I see gore in real life, my first reaction is to assist in any way possible. Stop the bleeding, put the body in a better position, assess the wounds and tell the emergency people over the phone what is wrong before they get there (which helps). Only after the fact am I allowed to be traumatized and cry, or go into shock. One of the two. Time and a place for everything.

 

[Loonyyy]

I've a phobia for blood, so well-done scenes of gore can get me. But it's just a lazy trick. It's not good horror, it's not good storytelling. It's just "This looks kinda icky, that'll get someone."

It's the modern equivalent of jump-scares. It should be used to exacerbate horror, not to substitute for it.

 

[Marik2]

It depends

For a long time I thought I was desensitized for seeing lots of gore and guts in games. But then I played muv luv alternative and there was a really fucked up scene that involved a lot of gore.

Happened to someone the main guy cared about deeply and it happened at the worst time.

I threw up a bit in my mouth and I couldn't sleep that night....

 

[Twilight_guy]

No. Mutilation is scary, death is scary. Gore is just repulsing. repulsing can be used to create scary but on its own is not scary. An open sewage pit is repulsing and revolting, but not really scary (unless you fall in). Gore as a focus is not scary but can make other things scary or create scary.

 

[Reaper195]

To me...gore isn't scary at all. But how it's procured is. Look at the Saw movies. Some of the traps (like the swinging pendulum) seemed really over the top and just wanted to throw blood and guts at the screen....but that pit of needles? Or that massive device which rotates your limbs a full 360? That's creepy. But true horror to me will always be the subtle stuff. The atmosphere, where you actually don't see anything. Somewhat like the Paranormal Ativity monster...only more than a one trick pony. After the first time it grabbed someone, it stopped being surprising and scary. But the build-up was good. Same with the first Dead Space, or Silent Hill 2. Or Amnesia.

But the new Evil Dead, with the exception of the tree rape thing (Because that was just fucked up, even in the orignal, without being overly violent (As non-violent as rape goes...)) looks incredibly dull. The original was alright, but I never considered it scary, probably because I saw it a decade or two after it first came out, as well as already having seen a tonne of horror movies (Good ones, at that). The remake looks so over the top. One can only hope they make sequels and the sequels follow the same style as the original series (From horror film to outright BOOMSTICK!).


So...in summery...gore is not scary. To me.

 

[malestrithe]

By itself, Gore is not scary. It is nothing more than a tool that many people use to highlight certain effects. It can become downright funny if you use too much of it during your movie.

When it's used properly, Gore can highlight a sense of dread.

I am a fan of Less is More horror movies. A barely visible corpse draped on a meat hook will elicit more emotions out of me than a well lit slaughterhouse with a thousand corpses hanging on the hooks. One is an isolated occurance, the other makes it feel common place.

 

[Joccaren]

Its not scary, its just disgusting. I don't feel fear when I see gore, more a slightly sick feeling, growing dependent on how bad it is. From this can come fear of throwing up, but for me gore itself is not scary.

 

[Nexxis]

Personally, I think gore can be scarey if used well. I'm not a huge fan of gorefest films as I feel like they just use gore to get an "ew" out of the audience, and they usually use them to such an extent that it just becomes predictable and boring. For me, gore is scarey when you don't see it coming and it is used in moderation.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

It honestly depends on the context and how it's used. Real-life gore is truly horrifying though, I don't think I've seen a movie, horror or otherwise, capture the intense shock of seeing horrible things happen to another human body. But it can work, even if it doesn't work all the time. An argument can be made for the use of gore as a horror element, certainly.

 

[MammothBlade]

I've been desensitised quite a lot, and splatter gore doesn't scare me at all. I brush off anything if it's just gore- people being disembowelled by a lawnmower, beheaded by a ax crazy psychopath, or being cut into little pieces. It might as well be comedy. There has to be a strong psychological element to it, or I might as well just accept that every character in the film is going to die, and write them off completely. Extraterrestrial, lovecraftian, and psychological terror are the best weapons a horror film can use.