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I'm not 100% sure but I think I've made a thread like this before. The question is simple. In literature and film, what do you find creepy or scary? Lots of gore and blood? Torture? Murder? Insanity? Hauntings? Exorcisms?

I'm writing a horror story and I think a balance between torture, blood, and chase scenes suits my needs. I want some input from what you guys find scary though.

I'm not scared the least by blood and gore; my dad's a hunter.
I'm more frightened by: Hello, is anybody there? *No answer* Hello? *noice* H-hello?? *loud grunt*
That kind of things.

Nothing is every really scary (at least to me), but what helps with giving a sort of mood of mysteriousness, danger and suspense, is I think showing some danger as real without showing too much. If you watched the first Alien you'll understand. A slow pace also helps, give time to describe the place and be sure to put a lot of description that helps enhance the mood. The Thing also showed that mixing a threat that isn't particularly... noticeable with the lack of trust from the person presents helps make a sort of unsettling, chaotic feel that danger is close and that there's no preparation and everyone is on their own against everyone. I don't think gore makes anything scary, but it can help to enhance a certain mood you're making, depending on what it is. Speaking of gore, but sure to watch some Lucio Fulci movies if you haven't already, The Beyond in particular, City of the Dead is great too. There's some of the best and most gruesome death scenes ever, but with the music and directing, it mostly feel dreamy, nightmarish and really helps the mood of the whole thing. Speaking of awesome and very moody death scenes, be sure to watch Suspiria too if you haven't already. I think what makes horror particularly good is not trying to be scary (as it rarely works) but trying to build suspense or a particular mood and atmosphere which can be quite various.

Those films/games where you don't see the threat either at all or very much. This is exactly the reason why Amnesia is on my to-buy list. Unfortunately, there aren't many films these days that can pull off this kind of execution and it's a bit difficult to conjure up the same atmosphere with a book. These outputs tend to go for a higher gore content, and since I've been playing games where you can literally blow off heads and watch them bounce on the floor since I was four years old they have little to no effect on me. OK, maybe sometimes I'll make a disgusted noise but as a result of my conditioning I don't spend very much of my life in a state of fear any more.

I find fear of the unknown and insinuation far scarier than explicit descriptions and revealing the scary things. Sometimes the human imagination can twist with itself far more than any words can. If you say "she was being brutally tortured and mutalited" then people know what actually happened, and they can't imagine the horrors that you might get with "terrible, terrible things were being done to her". Executed rightly, this will make people conjure up the worst things they can think of in their mind. Obviously you'll want to include some real horror though.

Oh, definitely mirrors/reflections in horror movies. They always wake up in the middle of the night wandering around saying "Hello?" Then they go into the God-forsaken bathroom and approach the mirror. We all know there's gonna be a ghost's [&@%!] face in the reflection behind her!

Like part of 1408. Skip to 2:40 to see why mirrors in horror movies are as much of a plot device as magic is in Harry Potter.

The mind can always come up with far more profoundly terrifying things than any film, book, game, whatever. Which is one reason I loathe current torture-porn (Saw et al), which visualise everything.

Games that play on this mental element - like the film Alien - can be supremely, physically and chemically affecting (raised heartrate, dilated pupils and such like). Two games with lots of periods, F.E.A.R. 1 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:SoC, and the videogame equivalent of (the Japanese original) Ring, Fatal Frame 2, have all scared me witless. Played alone on a dark night, with the 'phones on, I could barely creep ten virtual paces without freezing in preparation for something else to make me jump.

But the effect is more akin to a rollercoaster; it's a sense of exhilaration, from the fearful and dangerous situations you place yourself willingly into - knowing that you're entirely safe from harm. Good, atmospheric open-worlders like Morrowind or Fallout 3 can also be creepingly terrifying. The latters Dunwich sub-quest is a great example of Fallout's sense of utter dread, played out in almost complete darkness.

For cinema, Ring (original) is probably the best chiller I can think of. Smart, subtle, shocking, and disturbing, without a single drop of fake blood - or a pit full of syringes - in sight.

Most people have already mentioned what I find to be the scariest movies (The Thing is probably my favourite horror film). I'm 19 years old, and when I had my Japanese horror movie marathon a few weeks back, I had trouble sleeping because each time I closed my eyes I would see a scary dead asian girl. The best one in my opinion is Ringu (the original Ring). The TV reflection scare is one of the most unsettling things I've seen in film (that wasn't gore related), and the videotape is a masterpiece. Ju-on (the original Grudge) was also great. One thing that really scared me was watching the security tape of the guard getting assimilated by the evil spirit. And there's another great scene involving a scared girl hiding in her bed... Think you're safe when you hide under your sheets? Think again.

And if you want to be truly disturbed and sickened, watch Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom. 'Nuff said.

I can be a bit disturbed by overt violence, but it generally doesn't bother me.

But I hate scary tension, a bug build up to something happening. Because you know it'll happen, but you don't know exactly when. Drives me insane.

I find very little scary.

Misery did have me on the edge of my seat for a good while though.

You don't know scary until you've seen Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Everything else just pales in comparison.

Most "horror" these days involves taking a really loud noise and something to jump out to scare you. Now, if you were watching Oprah and someone dubbed over an airhorn right in the middle of the show and cut to a picture for less than a second where you can't discern what's going on, that isn't scary. Not at all. That's just getting startled. Scary prying open your brain and causing such a overload you can't even sufficiently describe it as "scary."

About Lovecraft, he isn't "scary" but more over interesting. I love to read about Herbert West: Re-animator, but what happens doesn't scare me and when I read Lovecraft its more of reading an interesting book.

Lovecraft may not be considered scary next to modern horror movies, with it's atmosphere and background music combining to put people on edge before anything actually happens, but his writing still creeps me out. I'll end up finishing the last paragraph of a story and just stare at the page wide eyed.

Some of his stories end with the author talking about how what he's witnessed is so terrifying and awesome and awe-inspiring that he just kills himself to end the never-ending mind blow that drove him mad. Sometimes that can seem corny, but other times it comforts me to know that Cthulu isn't real. He really isn't. i hope

Read The Colour Out of Space and The Rats in the Walls. I think those two are my favorite Lovecraft stories.

Anything like the F.E.A.R game series.

Cosmic horror. Things unexplained. That feeling you get when you think you're being watched. Supernatural elements.

You know, for kids.

I really find disturbing that almost every horror movie has a rape scene and after that the girl is either butchered or she goes crazy. Also, big scary monsters don't usually scare me, but people that run around with chainsaws and machetes (Leatherface from TTCM and Jason from Friday the 13th). The thought that someday, maybe, a psycho like them will appear and start murdering people is terrifying to me.

Nothing actually scares me except death.

I like psychological horror. The kind that doesn't seem terrifying straight off, but slowly gets to you.

The best horror, in my opinion, can be summed up as this:

You are the only person left in the world. Completely alone. Something just knocked on the door.

Of course, there's a lot to be said for the execution of that idea. Silent Hill does it well - the idea that some nameless, faceless thing is out to get you. I'll probably get swatted for this, but I think The Room actually did that the best (though the second one is still my favorite).

Another of my favorites is Rule of Rose. A little-known game that gets under your skin psychologically. It's very much a girl's horror game, because it dredges up all those past experiences of being not part of the group and how nasty little girls can be. It pulls some of its inspiration from the old, old fairytales. It also has some very disturbing connotations, which is why it was banned in many places. The gameplay isn't as scary as the cutscenes, though.

Following the theme of twisted fairytales, you can try The Path. It takes its inspiration from Little Red Riding Hood, and makes it very, very strange. This game is only scary if you let it be scary. If you think about it, your brain will go to not so pleasant places. I like it because the horror comes mostly from your own head. Nothing jumps out at you, there's no dialogue, and it's very surreal. A very non-traditional game.

And for my last example, I can recommend Haunting Ground. That one is terrifying more because you're helpless. Completely helpless. It loses it a bit towards the end, but the majority of your play time is spent running away. There are only four monsters, they're all bosses, and you have to hide from them. Or they will kill you. It's quite possible to get trapped. It feeds off of the paranoia and panic part of horror, without relying too much on the jump-scares (which I hate because they're cheap). It also edges into sexual horror, but you won't get that too much unless you get the bad ending.