A couple of years ago my brother, a comic fanatic (and indie comic artist/author/publisher), gave me a copy of The Walking Dead for my birthday. A few years later he gave me a DVD of the first season of the show based on that comic. And that is why, when I read that Telltale had released a Walking Dead episodic game on Xbox Live (as well as PSN, iOS, and PC/Mac), I made a mad dash for my television.
I wasn’t disappointed. The Walking Dead game is fantastic–it’s one of the best adventure games I’ve played in a very long time. The interface is simple but effective, the tried-and-true adventure game play fits the needs of the story well, and the writing is absolutely top-notch. It’s not easy to make a game like this today; somebody at Telltale has a deep understanding of how adventure games work and why they are still viable in the market, despite the failure of the genre over a decade ago. It is exactly the right game for this series, I think: no other genre could have hit the emotional notes that are the series’ signature as well as this one does.
And yet, although it concerns a small group of people attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse, with all of the dramatic zombie attacks and bloody dismemberment that you might expect, The Walking Dead is not a horror game. At least, not by Noel Carroll’s standards. In his seminal text on horror, A Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart, Carroll meticulously argues for the existence of “art-horror,” the emotion we feel when consuming works of horror (I wrote about Carroll’s ideas earlier this year). Art-horror has specific requirements that set it apart from related genres like suspense and mystery. One requirement is that a monster be involved. Another is that said monster must be plausible, dangerous, and disgusting, a role that the sauntering deceased for which the game is named clearly fulfill. But even considering the zombies, obvious horror tropes that they are, The Walking Dead fails some of Carroll’s other requirements for horror.
One of Carroll’s most insightful requirements is that the monsters of art-horror be “extraordinary.” That is, they must be something that isn’t expected, that surprises the protagonists, that isn’t a normal element of the world. This is in contrast to fantasy, in which monsters or other crazy beings are “normal” because the setting itself is extraordinary. Finding a troll in your back yard is a lot more surprising than finding one in Narnia. This “extraordinary being in an ordinary world” definition allows Carroll to cleanly separate works of horror from works of fantasy, even though both contain monsters that fit his other prerequisites.
The zombies in The Walking Dead, however, are not extraordinary. They are dangerous, sure, but they have become 
a fact of life for the main characters. The protagonists now live in a changed world; the new normal is a world in which the dead shuffle about looking for anything living to eat. Lee, the protagonist, is not surprised to see zombies. He encounters them, and kills them, regularly. Though they were initially weird, with time and exposure they have become ordinary. The world that these zombies inhabit, and how the protagonists react to that world, is The Walking Dead’s principal concern. Per Carroll’s requirements, this means that The Walking Dead isn’t going for art-horror.
Which, actually, you don’t need to read Carroll to understand. The Walking Dead has some intense scenes, but it’s not scary. It’s not trying to be scary. Carroll writes about how the emotions of characters in art-horror works ideally run parallel to those of the audience, but the characters in The Walking Dead are rarely scared. There’s no hiding in the corner or sobbing in a dark room for these grizzled veterans. They are competent, aware of their surroundings, and paranoid. They are angry, political, and scheming. And though they experience moments of vulnerability, the game doesn’t go out of its way to communicate how scared they are, because it’s not really going for scares. It’s got its eye on something else.
The real genius of The Walking Dead is that it forces you, the player, to step into the shoes of the protagonists and make hard decisions posed by the harsh world around them. The central question it is asking, I think, is whether or not you can maintain your humanity in the face of disaster. Do you act consistently when presented with the same problem in different contexts? How far will your moral compass sway when you are caught between starving, getting stabbed in the back as you sleep, or becoming food for some shambling corpse? Your decisions can’t be taken lightly, as they affect the way the rest of the game plays out.
My Lee is trying very hard to retain his humanity, to remain civilized. Even when it puts him in the line of danger, my Lee acts according to a strict moral code because he believes that deviation from it will result in chaos, and because he must set an example for the child in his charge. This leads to some significant hardship on his part, but he is confident in his decisions. There’s nothing requiring you to play this way: you could choose to be more opportunistic or vindictive depending on the situation; after all, isn’t surviving the most important thing at the end of the day? Even if it means somebody else doesn’t make it?
This uncomfortable middle ground between what is right and what is best in the face of absolute disaster is the emotional area that The Walking Dead wants to explore. Though it’s using zombies to get there, it’s not a horror game; the intent is to make you think about how you live your life rather than to raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
I could not agree more Chris. The walking dead has been a favorite of mine since its first publication as a comic in 2005, i still read it monthly. However, i do not like it for the horror, i love it for the soul. I am very pleased to see an article about this great adventure series on your site, and am also pleased to see you appreciate it for the same reasons I do. Also, just using this as a momentary podium, i check your site daily, just to see what else you’ve posted. love your work, this site not being the only great one, wind up knight is fun!
Great read, as always. I only played the first episode but need to play the others. Great game, I actually liked the game better than the show. I also felt like it wasn’t horror for some reason, but you put it so much more eloquently than I would have.
On an unrelated note, have your played the freeware horror game Ib?
http://vgboy.dabomstew.com/other/ib.htm
It’s creepy with memorable characters and a nice simple story. I loved it. Plays kinda like Corpse Party, Yume Nikki, or To the Moon. Very fun and free.
I have not played the game yet, but I guess the same reasons could be applied to the comic. The I disagree. The Walking dead starts from a extraordinary premise, since the world were the action takes place is supposed to be our world.
Of course as more numbers are released the characters learn to deal with them and becomes part of their life. But the starting point is a horror one. And even though, the writer puts them on extraordinary situations, and I think horror doesn’t leave the tone, the main characters never have advantage over the situation, even when it could seem so. I think is the exact kind of horror as the classic Dawn of the Dead or Richard Matheson I am Legend.
Btw, sorry about my poor English.
Gonna try this game ASAP. While you’re probably right about TWD not being exactly a horror game, i feel the need to point out that what people experience as horror in games and other media and art forms is somewhat relative. For example, for you Siren is one of the scariest horror games out there, while I didn’t find it particularly scary – as soon as I realized its essentially a puzzle game with crazed villagers to spice it up, horror was gone and it became almost a math problem. A traversal puzzle of sorts. Gather info – create exit strategy – die – refine – try again.
In any case, even in a setting where the extraordinary has become the ordinary, (more) extraordinary things can happen that pose a threat for the psychological and physical health of the characters, thus inducing horror. It’s just a matter of the design direction.
The fact that fear is relative is an important point.
But promotion of fear is not a requirement for the label of horror. All that is required is the intention on the part of the authors to evoke fear. Whether they are successful or not is up to individual members of the audience, but it doesn’t change the application of the genre label. I think Child’s Play is a terrible movie and is not scary in the slightest, but it’s still horror (and passes Carroll’s requirements).
The point here is not whether or not The Walking Dead is scary: that’s subjective. I don’t think it is, but some people might be freaked out at any visualization of zombies. What I mean is, I don’t think it intends to be scary. Or at least, while it may dabble in the promotion of fear, fear isn’t the main course on the menu. And, per Carroll’s (quite exhaustive) genre definition, it doesn’t really fit.
So, TL;DR: the genre definition is separate from whether or not a work is effective at being scary for you personally.
I’m a little confused by Carroll’s idea of the “extraordinary.” It feels like by his definition films like The Serpent And The Rainbow and The Birds are not horror films. As TSATR deals with exotic/mysterious religious beliefs and a corrupt politician, both we have in the real world (one could argue his powers as a sorcerer are extraordinary). And The Birds doesn’t feature a monster, just regular animals acting very strangely. Normally I would recommend either of those films as some of the best examples of horror films.
I’m curious in how these labels break down, or if there should be that much effort to label them.
I’ve never seen the serpent and the rainbow, so I can’t comment on that.
But the birds counts as extraodinary. Like Chris said, “they must be something that isn’t expected, that surprises the protagonists, that isn’t a normal element of the world”
The evil birds are not expected, and the protagonists are certainly surprised by their behavior. They are not a normal element of the world because even though birds do exist in the world they don’t normally go on killing sprees massacring humans left and right. That’s how it fits Carroll’s extraordinary requirement.
sorry. I also meant to say that normal creatures can easily count as monsters so long as there is something extraordinary about them. So, the birds’s behavior makes them monsters in The Birds. The shark’s behavior makes it a monster in Jaws. The ants’ size in Them makes them monsters. A serial killer’s strange/extraordinary behavior makes him a monster (like Jigsaw in Saw, even though he’s a normal human with no special powers per se, his strangeness and puzzles make him extraordinary and a monster).
Even the Wolves in the The Grey count as monsters. Wolves may be common in Alaska, but the important thing is, they are not something that most of the humans have ever faced before. They are out of the ordinary (extraordinary) for the humans, and so they’re monsters.
The monsters have to be extraordinary, but that does not translate to supernatural or anything like that.
I haven’t seen The Serpent and the Rainbow (or maybe I did, years and years ago; I remember the box in the video store but not the film), but The Birds probably fits Carroll’s definition without much trouble.
As ljbad mentions, the concept of killer birds represents a “monster” not known to exist in terms of contemporary science. Therefore they qualify for Carroll’s “monster” definition, and they also are surprising and extraordinary to the protagonists of that film. If the protagonists went to work every day with special umbrellas to shield them from the killer birds, and if they sat around the water cooler discussing how annoying the birds were, that would relegate them to “ordinary” and would fail Carroll’s requirements.
Carroll makes an extremely through case for his definition, but he’s also quick to point out that it’s a working definition rather than an absolute category. He wants a definition so that he can separate horror works from other works in order to study them, but doesn’t use it to pass any judgement on the work itself. He also talks about related, though slightly different, genres (terror, thriller, etc) that have a lot of overlap but are not exactly what he’s looking for.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to argue whether TWD is a horror game or not – and now that I’ve finished it (E1 & E2), I can agree that it’s an adventure game in it’s core.
What I wanted to say is that I don’t agree on what’s the primary reason for it not classifying as a horror game. Of course, when it comes to definitions, if our definitions are not the same, then we’re not talking about the same things. You have your set of criteria for distinguishing a game as a horror game, and I respect that – it’s your site after all.
But, I want to point out something, since I think you might agree. You essentially said that the major reason TWD is not a horror game is because the world and the events are not extraordinary for the characters anymore:
However, I think the most important thing is that the overall atmosphere of the game is not that of horror – and this is a design choice, made by the developers. This is what you called the intent – which is, in this case, not to scare. Now, although intent is a somewhat ethereal category, it’s, i think, a better criterion than “extraordinariness”, when it comes to thinking about horror games. Alice in Wonderland is super-extraordinary, but it’s not horror (at least, most people would agree). So, I’d say that the setting of TWD is not what ultimately determines the genre – since, although zombies are a fact of everyday life for the characters, the setting nevertheless offers plenty of opportunity for inducing horror, if the game designer chooses to do so (and possess enough skill to implement it).
Finally, you’re right about separating the designation of “horror”, from “scariness”, the latter being far more subjective.
Yes, but I’m not actually applying my criteria here. I’m applying Noel Carroll’s, which I happen to agree with in this instance. And of course, you are free to define the word however you like. Carroll’s work is pretty much the definitive research on the subject, however, and I’m inclined to defer to him in most cases (we disagree on a few minor points, but his approach is pretty hard to argue with).
And yeah, we agree about intent. But intent isn’t sufficient in many circumstances, which is why Noel Carroll wrote a whole book about this (and you should totally read it!).
Nice article, I’ll have to give this another shot. I played the demo but never really got into it, and haven’t had time to try it out again.
I’ve only read a little of the comic, but I enjoy the show. They actually film it not too far from where I live, so I was able to go check out the set for the new season, and recognize a lot of the locations. The new season airs in a few days now, hopefully it will be better than the last.
Yeah, I can totally see what you’re getting at. Though I haven’t played the game, I’ve read the first 25 issues of the comic and enjoyed both seasons of the show, but I’ll agree that The Walking Dead isn’t really horror. When the zombies take a back seat to the survivors’ personal issues with each other, and entire episodes go by with scarcely a walker to be seen, it’s definitely more of a drama. Personally, I prefer stories where zombies are a more immediate threat, but I have to admit that The Walking Dead pulls off the soap opera stuff pretty well. At the very least, it keeps me coming back week after week. I’ve heard the game is even better when it comes to that, and I plan on giving it a shot soon.
What exactly is the difference between “horror” and other similar genres like “thrillers” and “terror” and the like? Is Carroll attempting to weed out “monster” stories from other kinds of fear and defining those as “horror” then? I haven’t read the book so I’m just going by what you’ve said.
For instance, if I watch a tragic movie about a kidnapping shown from the parent’s and child’s perspective in which the intention is to make the viewer experience the terror and despair both victims feel, is that horror? Or maybe one about making a difficult decision in which you have to choose to kill one family member in order to save another? Are they not because they do not contain any extraordinary beings?
I don’t know about you but some of those snap decisions in TWD were really horrifying, not scary, but horrifying. Because they could happen. Not during the apocalypse necessarily, but during a war for example. The sheer ordinariness of them made it worse then if they were extraordinary. Sure, the zombies are not “scary” for the characters or players most of the time, but the judgments are chilling for everyone.
You should probably just read his book. Answering this question is what most of it is about.
Briefly, Carroll asserts that what we call “horror” is actually several distinct emotions. Real horror is when we are actually horrified, such as when we read about Nazi concentration camps, or witness the death of children, etc. What we get when we watch a horror movie, however, is something different; Carroll calls it “art-horror,” and it’s quite distinct from actually being horrorfied. Carroll’s definition of art-horror is quite through (see my previous post on this topic), but he’s careful to point out that his definition is descriptive, not proscriptive. He also notes that there is much overlap with other types of emotions generated by “scary” media, which we might call “thrillers” or “terror,” etc. For Carroll, art-horror specifically requires a monster, something that is not known by science to currently exist in the world, that is obviously dangerous and also disgusting. There are other requirements, too, but the monster definition is the big one.
Carroll’s aim is not to categorize all horror works under one label, but rather to understand what horror does, what it is, and why we like the way it makes us feel. The subtitle of his book is “Paradoxes of the Heart,” referencing the apparent conflict between fear being a negative emotion and our desire to experience it via art-horror.
It’s really quite fascinating (if somewhat dry) and I throughly recommend it.
And I totally will! And it’s gonna be soon, I think. Anyway, I suppose that besides the intent to predominantly focus the story/experience around “art-horror”, the work must also be, at least to some extent, successful in doing so. I guess I’ll see in the book what this means for Carroll.
A note about definitions: I merely wanted to point out that, since when talking about art we all have our views and interpretations which may or may not overlap, during a discussion it is important to agree on the meanings of terms in order for the discussion to be productive and actually lead somewhere – so, I think, since we are on your site, it’s reasonable to use your own definition (or the one you use for the specific article). I guess I just wanted to say that I wasn’t trying to redefine “horror” for you in the text that followed.
I think so, too. I just don’t think that the setting itself mandates it to be a drama rather then horror. Here’s where the intent comes into play: it’s related to what kind of story and what kind of experience the author wanted to create (or ended up creating). This is what, IMO, sets the tone, and, ultimately, genre. If TWD was more of a horror, it would still use the same setting, but it would probably tell a different story, one which wouldn’t be about survival and coping, but about being overwhelmed and about feeling powerless, lost, in doubt and in pain. It would be a story about an ordeal, but not about overcoming it. At least for the most part. And that’s what’s, IMO, typical of horror. However, as with any classification, separating things into genres is inherently problematic – at some point the boundaries begin to blur. So, what I’m really talking about here is not the genre, but the “theme” around which “art-horror”, I think, centers. Just my two cents.
I personally tend to go against thriller/horror separation. Can’t “the monster” be metaphorical? A serial killer is a “monster” of sorts, but is not unnatural or unknown to science. For example, movies like Saw are generally considered horror. Jaws (which i don’t particularly like) has (an unrealistically mean and monstrous) shark for a villain. And what if, at some point in the future, the existence of alien lifeforms is scientifically confirmed? Suddenly, movies like Alien become something that just maybe isn’t so far-fetched (yeah, a real dangerous alien probably wouldn’t be such a baddie, but, same goes for Jaws and sharks). So… At that point, is Alien horror or not?
There was some talk about this over at Frictional Games’ Dev Blog, so I suppose people get that, but maybe it’s not immediately obvious if one doesn’t stop to think about it. I think “art-horror” is fundamentally related to our ability to empathize – in the sense of having the psychological capacity to, at least to some extent, understand how someone else feels and what someone else is going through. I think this enables us to explore the things that are upsetting and frightening to us in an engaging but safe way.
OK… I better stop typing now. XD
Look at meeee stilll talking when there’s science toooo doooo….
Yeah, you should read the book. He covers all this stuff. And one of the great assets that he gives us is standardized definitions for things based on reasonably objective characteristics. It’s all descriptive, of course, so there will always be exceptions, but Carroll provides a very nice framework for talking about the genre.
Carroll’s specific requirement is that the monster must be disgusting, dangerous, and “not known to exist currently by science.
That means:
– Serial Killer? Not an art-horror monster.
– Dracula killing people like a serial killer does? Art-horror.
– Monster is not metaphorical, but “dangerous” can be. Socially dangerous entities can qualify.
– Jaws is about a larger-than-life shark, something science doesn’t believe exists, so it probably passes the test.
– Aliens are not known to currently exist, so they pass.
– Similarly, though we know that dinosaurs used to exist, they are not here now so they pass as well.
Rather saying “Saw is horror and it has a human antagonist so therefore all horror cannot be defined by extraordinary creatures” trivializes the work that Carroll is doing. His definition of “art-horror” is the emotion that we get from watching monsters do scary stuff. If there’s no monster, it’s some other emotion, albeit a close relative. He’s not saying “what are the characteristics required to make art-horror,” but rather “what are the common characteristics across a vast swath of art-horror works.” The difference may seem minor, but it’s a big deal to Carroll. He wants to understand the affect of art-horror on people, and so he must define a space within which to perform research. Generally I think his definition is quite solid.
So yeah, interesting stuff. Read the book!
OK, I get it now. The “extraordinary” really threw me at first. This all just makes me want to read the book even more.
As an aside, I think the Saw killer is a monster and Saw fits Art-Horror. He may be a string of human characters, but he’s a classic trickster character straight out of faerie tales. His character is more Rumpelstiltskin than BTK killer. The film makers jump through a lot of hoops to try and make the Jigsaw killer seem plausible but he’s basically a magic goblin. Breaking it down, he whisks people to a terrifying and magical world (he drugs and kidnaps victims to his torture dungeon), he’s immortal (different people take up the mantle when one dies), and he offers challenges and riddles that offer great rewards (victims have to escape his dungeons to appreciate life, this usually leads to the victor to an epiphany and adopting Jigsaw’s philosophy).
Well, therein lies the problem of trying to define a genre – it’s not an exact science… heck, it’s not even science, strictly speaking.
I guess that, rather than providing clear classification criteria, the value of the kind of breakdown featured in the book is more in providing some useful insights into the genre itself. And, although Carroll had to draw a line somewhere for practical purposes, note that even those works of art which fall into the gray zone contain (in varying degrees) a lot of the same or similar elements, and thus can be analyzed to some extent through the same “lens”, in a way that complements other considerations not specific to “art-horror”.
The insights I refer to are, I think, exemplified by the somewhat strange requirement that there should be a monster, and that it should be one that is repulsive and utterly unnatural.
See, that’s an “external” observation of sorts [focuses on the world/environment, rather than on the character itself].
Putting Carroll’s framework aside for a moment, the requirement is, for me, more related to the emotional state of the story’s protagonist, and by “art-horror”-extension, of the reader/watcher/player, then it is to the mode by which that state is induced [unnatural monsters]. Basically, the character feels powerless as well as physically, emotionally, and even intellectually overwhelmed (e.g. things are happening that defy logic), and the story centers around the internal struggle which arises [paralyzing fear vs survival]. And that, IMO, does not specifically require a monster in the literal sense.
I think Carroll’s points should be considered to represent some of the “core” properties of the horror genre, that provide some sort of a reference point when thinking about horror, but that doesn’t mean that the actual works of art will not add other elements.
Started reading the book, BTW 😀
Great read, as usual. But I have a question to pose.
Don’t you think that Carroll’s view is too much overly rationalistic?
In my opinion, it focuses too much on the factual and objective side of horror and forgets about the most important aspect of horror, the one that gives to the genre force and allure: the symbolical and psychological one.
In fact, horror doesn’t need monsters at all to be “art”. It surely need the “extraordinarie” aspect, the one which in fact breaks the surface of ordinary reality and becomes the pole around which the story develops, an object of fascination and fear at the same time…I guess it could be called the uncanny. But you can achieve this result in a lot of ways, it’s not so strict as Carroll points.
Agreed, but Carroll wouldn’t call those other methods “art-horror,” because he’s defined art-horror to specifically be the type of emotion you get when you see scary monsters on the screen.
The purpose of his research is not to put all horror works in a box and stick a label on that box. It’s to pick a subset of literature that produces a particular emotional response, and study it to find out why it does that.
Ok, but isn’t that a sterile approach? I mean, it’s strictly quantitative. Emotional responses aren’t stricly veicolated like a math equation.
And a “scary monster” can have a lot of porpouses other than raw emotional responses, which by the way, are more emergent from the overall situation and picture instead of being delivered by a single, unbundled, object.
However, since I’ve noticed that the book can be found for free, I’ll give it a read, since philosophy is one of my cups of tea. 🙂
Oh, I don’t think Caroll would claim that they are. His approach is extremely academic; he’s writing in a style that is designed to defend against philosophical challenges from others. And in the course of the work he challenges a number of theories put forth by other academics.
But I don’t think his approach is sterile. Rather, though his writing style is dry, he’s obviously extremely enthused by the genre and his research. And he’s done his homework; he references all kinds of stuff, from film to plays to literature, often stuff that is off the beaten path. He’s also very, very careful to keep his conclusions descriptive–he never claims to have discovered a trait that is common to all horror works.
Part of the reason I enjoyed his book so much is that I think his approach mirrors my own. He’s interested in the emotion that you feel when watching a scary movie. He’s working backwards from that emotional response, trying to identify ways in which it is triggered. It’s fascinating stuff, but it has less to do with defining the genre than it does about understanding why we react the way we do to certain story patterns. Hence the subtitle “Paradoxes of the Heart.”
Carroll would not disagree with this.
I’ll pick up the book as soon as I have time, but just based on what has been said here I have to say I have a problem with the qualification that art-horror must have a monster “not currently known to exist by science.” That’s a huge claim to make, and I don’t agree with it, but I’d be interested to see how Carroll tries to defend it.
For instance, look at the original “Friday the 13th.” (NOTE: I am not saying this is a good movie, just that it is a horror movie.) Everything that happens in that film happens within the bounds of the natural, and the killer turns out to be a normal human being, but the film is still scary (or at least tries to be). The only potentially supernatural occurence in the film happens at the very end, and is really just an excuse to get a final jump scare in. What’s more, this ambiguous jump scare is dismissed as a dream (which is why I use the word “ambiguous”). The supernatural monster in this jump scare is NOT the focus of the film, nor is it the villain or monster of the film. The scene merely makes use of a previously-referred-to character (drowned boy Jason) in order to conveniently achieve one final jump scare, and then this jump scare is dismissed as a dream. (As a matter of fact this scene was not even in the original screenplay, it was an idea from makeup effects maestro Tom Savini). In the context of the movie, it can only make sense that Jason jumping out of the lake was in fact a dream.
NOTE: Leave the subsequent “Friday the 13th” films out of this; they are completely different entities and not part of my example. When the first film was being made there was never any plan to have a sequel, let alone multiple sequels; Jason is the villain of the second film becuase the filmmakers needed a new killer, and the rest is history.
Unrelated, but many people here would be interested to know, it was just announced that Deadly Premonition is getting a Director’s Cut made for the PS3 to be released in 2013. It’s said to include new scenarios, HD graphics, improved combat and controls.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120153-Deadly-Premonition-The-Directors-Cut-Coming-Exclusively-to-PS3
Back on topic, Something I always think of when watching a horror film are the camera tricks. “Cinematic magic” Like Jason’s or Micheal Myers’ teleporting via editing. This is also why I count the Saw killer as Art-Horror. Other horror films, like Last House On The Left doesn’t use camera tricks and has serial killers as the villains so I wouldn’t count that as Art-Horror.
I sort of regret bringing Carroll up now.
He’s written several hundred pages on this topic and while it might seem easy to attack him based on a one- or two-line summary of his major ideas, I think his argument is quite sound.
So, yeah, if you think you disagree with him, or you are just interested in this stuff, read his book.
I don’t think he’d have a problem with Friday the 13th.
Why? I understand it might be a bit frustrating running around in circles with the same questions, but discussion is good.
If nothing else, it shows that the term “art-horror” might not have been the best choice for the emotion defined by Carroll, in the sense that Carroll chose, for practical purposes, among other things, to explore an emotion specifically related to dangerous and disgusting/impure creatures. “Art-horror” somehow sounds like something that is supposed to encompass that, but also be wider than that. One assumes there are other ways to write horror. I think that’s what causes the problem with people when they hear the idea.
Great read though – a lot of interesting points and insights, but I also find some of it to be a stretch. And the best part is, Carroll is quite aware of it when he hits upon a problematic point, and is fair to point it out.
One major problem I have with his philosophy lies at its very core: the assumption that the emotional response of the audience is supposed to mirror the emotional response of the “positive human characters”. Aren’t the emotions of the fictional characters supposed to be realistic portrayals of actual horror, not art-horror. And, the more realistic they get, the more effective they are. I agree that they broadly define the emotional response of the audience, but they cannot be an idealized audience response!
There’s something else at play there.
I think it would be a good discussion if we’d all read it and were talking about his points. But instead we’re debating what we think his points are based on my mega-summary. It’s not really useful because he’s already addressed most of these points in his text.
It’s cool, this is an interesting debate, but there’s so much research in this area already that it feels like we’re only scraping the surface when we should be plumbing the depths.
Maybe one work of art can sometimes be sliced into horror, thriller, terror or suspense depending on the stage of the piece, and I think the best one actually do that.
Movies like The 4th Kind, Signs and War Of The Worlds use more than one of these in different scenes.
War of the Worlds: the first attack scene could be directed as horror, while the basement alien part can be suspense but the moment he has to kill the crazy guy might classify as terror.
The 4th Kind: mostly starts as suspense and horror (horror by listening patients stories), but could also have parts of terror, by witnessing insane people.
Signs: mostly suspense in it’s entirety with some added drama, but the mix of suspense and extraordinary stuff would classify as horror, while mostly there isn’t anything horrifying in the movie.
https://www.facebook.com/Lasant
are we not talking about how great this game is?
hi! youre website is awesome, im having a blast reading it.
keep it up.
🙂
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120405-More-Throaty-Less-Groany-Lessons-From-a-Zombie-Vocal-Coach
I found an interview with the guys who directed the voice acting for the game. It’s pretty fun.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120405-More-Throaty-Less-Groany-Lessons-From-a-Zombie-Vocal-Coach