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Pointless meanderings on arcane subjects
Mar. 8th, 2010 12:18 pmIn a friends journal I commented about the Oscar's horror film montage, that I thought "Jaws", "Silence of the Lambs" and "Psycho" were "thrillers", rather than horror films. Having given it more thought, I still think that's true, but I questioned why I thought "Jaws" was a thriller, while "Aliens", for example, was horror.
It boiled down to my preceived view of the difference between terror and horror.
Terror, I think, it a transient emotion while horror is a more intellectual response. Let me explain, the shark could eat you, but there were no larger ramifications to its actions. The aliens, on the other hand, represented a more fundamental and far-reaching threat to humanity itself. Plainly put, terror is just about a threat to oneself - or loved ones -, while horror represents a threat to humanity as a whole. Horror has terror in it, but doesn't stop there.
There's a second consideration, that of the ability to defend oesself. The shark, fearful as it was, was mortal, and destroyed by conventional means, and once it was dead, that was that. The aliens were MUCH harder to kill and killing them didn't end their threat.
I'm not expressing myself very well, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
I just had a thought; "The Stand" "Salem's Lot", and arguably "Tommyknockers" are the only horror novels King wrote (that I can think of at the moment) the rest are thrillers.
It boiled down to my preceived view of the difference between terror and horror.
Terror, I think, it a transient emotion while horror is a more intellectual response. Let me explain, the shark could eat you, but there were no larger ramifications to its actions. The aliens, on the other hand, represented a more fundamental and far-reaching threat to humanity itself. Plainly put, terror is just about a threat to oneself - or loved ones -, while horror represents a threat to humanity as a whole. Horror has terror in it, but doesn't stop there.
There's a second consideration, that of the ability to defend oesself. The shark, fearful as it was, was mortal, and destroyed by conventional means, and once it was dead, that was that. The aliens were MUCH harder to kill and killing them didn't end their threat.
I'm not expressing myself very well, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
I just had a thought; "The Stand" "Salem's Lot", and arguably "Tommyknockers" are the only horror novels King wrote (that I can think of at the moment) the rest are thrillers.
