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/lit/ - Literature

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15448421 No.15448421 [Reply] [Original]

In the development of horror as a genre, what year/work/author starts being scary?

Works like frankenstein or dracula are interesting, but I find it hard to believe people still find them scary. I think horror loses its effect quickly with time, so texts must have other legs to stand on as those fail. That said, how old is the oldest book that still frightens you?

>> No.15448436

>>15448421
/x/ greentexts scare me more when I'm alone at night than regular horror fiction, I think I'm just so desensitized to it

>> No.15448813

>>15448421
>expecting horror lit to scare you
Never gonna make it.

>> No.15448920

What do you mean scare you? Like you expect Dracula to literally jump out of the book and bite your neck?

I'd say that the Arctic passages in Frankenstein certainly fill the reader with a pretty sufficient form of dread that could be called scary.

I'd say the mythic poem of Inanna Descending into the Underworld, written in ~1900 BC definitely has an incredibly effective buildup and a grisly finale that's more frightening than your favorite jump-scare horror game.

>> No.15449155

>>15448436
>>15448813
>>15448920
Kinda tarded, huh?

>> No.15449192

>>15448421
How old are you anon? Horror should make you feel horror, if you want to get "scared" pop on the newest Ari Aster film and pretend it's art because he color graded in post

>> No.15449206

>>15449192
22

>> No.15449414

Late 70s is when the horror genre starts getting really good. Some of the best horror movies 70s. 80s was a golden age. It declines around the early 2000s

>> No.15449425

>>15449414
Sorry i thought this was /tv/

>> No.15449760

>>15449414
That's okay anon, I still appreciate your input

>> No.15449790

>>15449425
You're right about this though for film and tv
>>15448421
Christopher Lee always would say something like Dracula is a melodrama not horror, horror is a misnomer. Horror isn't always meant for cheap scares but you can find it there

>> No.15449799

>>15449790
What would Christopher Lee then suggest for good horror reading that's compelling without cheap scares?

>> No.15449874

>>15449799
I'm not sure what his reading list would be exactly but I think something like Dracula would be a good start if you want something more melodramatic. As an aside, he was known for reading the LOTR once a year. Personally I like the gothic style and I don't read horror to get scared but for the emotions, I do honestly think back in the day they were used as scary stories. Frankenstein started out as a campfire story and it spawned a whole genre, but humans have been telling scary stories for thousands of years, tastes just change over time and what was once scary isn't always scary now especially with visual media. Lovecraft can be scary but it's also something hard to translate to film. Poe can be scary since a lot of it can feel human and real, it's believable when someone buries someone alive in Cask of Amantillado with all of the build up in the story. The final unveiling is what I call it when the scariest part reveals itself and it's really a horrible thing to behold, imagine getting buried alive and left there? It's terrible and you can feel it in the mind of the character

>> No.15449924

I love Halloween tbqh

>> No.15451081

>>15449874
Lotta words to say the 4 most recognized authors/works of the genre...

>> No.15451105

>>15448436
This desu
Sometimes I browse /x/ before sleeping and the adrenaline from being freaked out keeps me up

>> No.15452194

>>15451105
Don't let the schizos spook you

>> No.15452227

>>15448421

Dunno, I think it is Paradise Lost or Wuthering Heights. Yes, I'm really scared of Heathcliff have my own personal reasons.

>> No.15452251

>>15448421
Edgar Allen Poe contributed a lot

>> No.15452313

End of the 19th century. When authors realized that true horror is finding out that your perceptions of reality places you outside of humanity. A floating sensation which leaves you nowhere to turn for salvation. The willows, The yellow wallpaper, Lovecraft. Frankestein touches upon this in the sense that the monster himself is a creation of this perception even if the story isn't too scary. Ligotti dissected this idea in his work

>> No.15452589

>>15452313
>The willows
Explores the misanthropy of nature. The entire work is an exercise in conveying the experience of walking into a butcher's yard while not showing anything more exciting than trees. The main character's perception of the world is the real horror and it eventually manifests hell. Blackwood also wrote a nice horror story about the perceptions and mood of a dead depressive overcoming the main character, suddenly draining his world of meaning and purpose. That's why I feel confident in viewing him from this perspective, as an author who worked with malignant perception rather than just ghosts and evil trees
>The yellow wallpaper
An inside view of a mind deteriorating. conveyed with images of women crawling around on all four, scratching and trying to break through the fabric of reality
>Lovecraft
All his stories are basically about guys not being able to cope with their perception of reality being so out of tune with the rest of society. The fishmen of Innsmouth are kind of goofy but it's played like a dirty secret of the world that only the main character is privy to and that itself drives him mad
>Ligotti
Read This degenerate little town, it's Lovecraft without the monsters

Poe is nice and so on but as I said, the cat is out of the bag once you're working with the idea of your own subjective perception of the world, how the "lens" itself through which you view things can become tainted. It also works on modern readers, Lovecraft's continued relevance being the best example of this. He many times begins with talking about the narrator's shattered mind and that's really the key to understanding Lovecraft's potency.

>> No.15453804

>>15448421
Anything that sounds like it is directly talking about you and the negative aspects of yourself can be terrifying. Also much religious texts.

>> No.15454597

>>15452589
add Machen