Scary v Dumb

[Sabre]

I don't like Silent Hill. The first game was good, and origins is ok, but the horror element of blobs of meat shaped like penises mushed together and symbolism aren't scary to me. Have you ever heard someone say "Oh know, something resembling childhood angst!"

Just today I heard of and read the short horror comic "The Enigma of Amigara Fault". Or as I call it when not copy pasting, "the mystery of something something fault".

The basic premise is that an earthquake revealed strange human shaped holes in a mountain side that people are mysteriously drawn to and want to enter, each person having a perfectly shaped hole "Just for them", at which point they slide into the darkness and disappear. If you are interested, stop here. You can find it on google and the rest is critical to the thread.

Anyway, after a slow start the story move at a quick pace with good atmosphere. The story ends with

the scientists discover similar holes on the other side of the mountain months later, only this time the holes are all thin, stretchy and elongated with the limbs being all wobley. When they look into the hole they so dun dun DUN! the guy who went in orinigally all stretched into a horrid none human shape!

Shocking and creepy! ...for about a second then the plot holes turn it into an excersise of rediculousness. For example, how can they survive for months without food or water for a start.

It removes all the horror from it. As well as silent hill described above, the Twilight Zone episode "The After Hours" had the same effect, anyone else have this happen, and to what horror things?

[Rogue Fox]

In terms of Scary vs. Dumb, I am not a big fan of slasher or monster movies. Both have no real plot other than "Monster/Killer X goes on a rampage in a town until only a handful of people are left who at the last minute defeat this creature." So what's the point if every movie has the same plot? Also some stretch the imagination a bit too far when trying to create the origins of a creature. (Creature X came from space/was genetically altered/released from a magical prison, etc.) To me monster and slasher movies often fall into the uncanny valley where you know it can't possibly happen.

[Asper Sarnoff]

In terms of Scary vs. Dumb, I am not a big fan of slasher or monster movies. Both have no real plot other than "Monster/Killer X goes on a rampage in a town until only a handful of people are left who at the last minute defeat this creature." So what's the point if every movie has the same plot? Also some stretch the imagination a bit too far when trying to create the origins of a creature. (Creature X came from space/was genetically altered/released from a magical prison, etc.) To me monster and slasher movies often fall into the uncanny valley where you know it can't possibly happen.

That's because you view them for the wrong reason. The point behind a good splatter/monster movie, and particulary zombie ones, is not to take them too seriously. View them more as morbid comedy's than something to frighten you, preferably with a bunch of buddies with the same mindset, and you'll get a revelation.

[Rogue Fox]

Well many I do see as a kind of comedy but by no means scary.

[Fire Yoshi]

Huh, I always thought the Silent Hill games were pretty creepy....well, some of them. Especially SH3. The weirdly shaped monsters, imo, is a big part of the game being scary. lol Scary monsters in a scary atmosphere...worlds that magically turn demonic on you.