site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3737 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 26, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Can someone help me understand horror as a genre? I really don't see the appeal of it. I categorize it in 3 types, either it's jumpscares with loud music suddenly which would startle pretty much everyone, a slow burn of building anxiety with no payoff or just really gross stuff, neither which make any sense as to why someone finds appealing. What do you like about it? Is my categorization off, or maybe missing some angle? Am I just incapable of enjoying, in the sense of that ssc post how some people don't have that "coming as one" stadium/church/large gathering sense?

Pretty much all of the most stirring and wondrous fiction I have read is inextricably tangled up with existential horror. Oddly enough, I think this feeling is most straightforwardly illustrated in a 1908 children's book, The Wind in the Willows - it's all based on bedtime stories the author told his son, and in line with this the vast majority of the book consists of extremely comfortable and idyllic stories of life in the English countryside. But there's one chapter that's completely distinct from the rest, named The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in which the Mole and the Rat venture into the woods to look for a lost baby otter, and start being lured into the wilderness by a pagan god:

Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature's own orchard-trees— crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.

'This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,' whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. 'Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!'

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror— indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy— but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend. and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

'Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. 'Are you afraid?'

'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. 'Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet— and yet— O, Mole, I am afraid!'

It is only a side story unconnected to the main narrative thread - this brief delve into the cosmic is completely out of place and comes out of nowhere, and plays no part in the story going forward - but it's by far the most memorable chapter in the collection. It was removed from many versions of the book because it was deemed too strange or too creepy for its target audience. Now, this chapter certainly has a lot more of a positive and uplifiting tone than much horror, Pan here is depicted as a benign presence, but it does carry with it a haunting supernatural vibe that's merely incidental and necessary for such an encounter.

I feel as if a lot of the best horror fiction gives me a more extreme version of that same feeling - it isn't gratuitous; it's just an intrinsic part of confronting something (an entity or a concept) that by nature inherently threatens your sense of security and place in the world. It's the deep-seated, queasy emptiness and awe you get when you first realise on a gut level just how truly vast and gaping the distances between planets are even in our own stellar neighbourhood; it's the kind of memetic virus that has you staring absent-mindedly into your morning coffee once it crops up in your train of thought. Shock (the thing a lot of bad horror films optimise for) is one thing. Horror is another. Done right, it's deeply affecting in a way I barely find in any other fiction.

For much of horror it is an amplification and expansion of a mystery. Instead of who killed whom and why, it becomes how is this possible and how do we stop it? And often the answers will not be available but that's part of the appeal of horror that it can't answer everything or more often that it won't. You get what the story provides, horror makes it easy to be sloppy, yeah, but it also makes sure it's a genre that can allow anything to happen.

Now, what you're describing is the tone of horror. The telltale signs that show or trick the audience into believing that anything can happen. In other genres it's very rare for things not to work out, for evil to triumph, for the protagonist to lose and die, but it's accepted as part of the genre of horror. If characters can die horribly than it's more possible that important characters can die. If important characters can die then evil can win. If evil can win then you're watching something that you can't predict.

But this goes beyond plot contrivances. Unless a story goes out of its way to tone-match to another genre then horror is the catch-all bottom of the pit for anything weird. If it's time travel and it doesn't go out of its way to try to be a comedy or make damn sure known that it's scientific then it ends up in horror. Horror is the genre without a safety-net to make sure that it stays within certain boundaries. Sure, it makes it easy to have things end up worse because genre boundaries usually exist for a reason to make things more enjoyable but for a lot of people the risk is worth the reward because they crave things that are different, odd, unexplained or even gross.

Aside from the rest, the gross, the gore, is a taste that not everyone has but it's a human appetite that's really not served elsewhere but there are people that watch pimples being popped, or surgeries, or even actual people dying. There's an aspect of just straight up visceral response to the thing be it disgust or awe but just a shock out of the humdrum of thinking that someone being murdered doesn't matter or is nothing. A movie about a serial killer that strangles victims doesn't destroy is disrespect the body enough to make people care or be invested, the deeper we go the more we force the audience to get invested in what's happening. For most of Saw the people in the traps are people that are bad and a lot deserve to die but the horror at the disfigurement, destruction of their bodies, the struggle against death, we suddenly care whether they live or die when we probably wouldn't before if it was a just .22 to the back of the head or a rope around their necks. I don't like the saw movies, really, but I have to admit the entirety of the gore and grossness makes the deaths inside it feel closer to real than they would have otherwise and each successive one makes you want the next character to survive the trap(s). It's more expensive than swelling violins but it's probably more effective as well.

But I'll go back to what I said before, you're describing the tone of horror movies which is basically a costume these days and it's specifically trying to make you believe that anything can happen to heighten excitement. There are quite a lot of horror movies that aren't horror but just wear it as a costume these days and there are quite a lot of movies that are called horror just because they have more gore than is acceptable or set a large expectation that good guys can lose. Maybe tone is what horror actually is but I don't think that Silence of the Lambs or Green Room are horror just because they have some or a lot of that tone.

It sounds like you just don't enjoy horror and that's fine. Horror is the bottom of the pit avoiding every other genre's safety nets for good or ill.

It's feeding your need for cognition for threat and survival scenarios with superstimulus parameters. Also, supernatural horror has a lot of the same general appeal as fantasy fiction.

I told someone ages ago I was going to write an effortpost on horror and then I never did, but if there are multiple interested parties then that might motivate me to finally get around to it...

Long story short is that the sublime is intrinsically horrific.

Most "contemporary horror films" are pretty bad (for many of the same reasons that formulaic genreslop in general is bad). But there are many works that have horror "elements" (David Lynch films are my go-to example) that are brilliant.

Even the most hardcore fans of mainstream horror movies tend to look down on jumpscares. They're fun every once in a while, but ultimately a jumpscare is just a pure physiological response, like pinching someone on the arm; it's the lowest form of horror, there's nothing conceptually interesting about it.

The fundamental problem with horror is that it's a great example of Sturgeon's law - 90% of it is crap.

There is definitely good horror out there - however, a large part of its appeal for people is that it lets them examine and process scary and uncomfortable concepts through a filter of fantasy. If it's a topic that's doesn't personally scare you enough to engage, or too scary/uncomfortable for you to maintain that separation, it's not going to resonate.

There's also the problem that Torture Porn is really cheap to produce and it's absolutely flooding the market with shit, but that's a problem with the market and not the genre.

If you can tell me some examples of movies you've liked or disliked, and why, I can suggest some options if you're interested.

Can someone help me understand horror as a genre?

Sure.

either it's jumpscares with loud music suddenly which would startle pretty much everyone

The appeal of these is (a) date night with your girlfriend/boyfriend, since it's a good excuse cozy up, (b) a quick endorphin hit, like going on a rollercoaster (c) as a social bravery game, usually by young boys, where a group tries to see who will crack and get ripped by their bros.

So, social lubricant.

a slow burn of building anxiety with no payoff or just really gross stuff

The appeal of ugliness in horror, or cosmic and existential horror, is that it stirs the sense of beauty by remotion. Silent Hill 2 and 3 are games I remember not because they were scary or fun (in fact playing them could often be tedious) but because they evoked a deep longing for meaning, sympathy for suffering, and a desire for catharsis. Horror also works to make you more emotionally vulnerable to such themes, because being scared is tiring, and tired people are less emotionally regulated.

Recommended video from the Distributist. The framing is political but IIRC he discusses the psychological hole filled by disturbing horror.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats