Comments on: Graveyards are Deadly, Laying Awake, Ace Merrill, Castle Rock, and Dicks

By: j.k.lynn

j.k.lynn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:41:42 +0000

I absolutely agree that “cerebral horror” is far and away better than slopped on blood and gore. I don’t find anything scary or even really entertaining about guts and limping monsters spurting blood. Although I did enjoy Quentin Tarantino’s recent movie about a serial killer whose weapon is his car. Pretty entertaining.

I just felt the need to defend the horror genre (refer to first comment by author Cliff Burns) and Stephen King. In my opinion, King has always been able to reach into the mind and encourage your fear of the dark and the unknown. He certainly has his misses…but who doesn’t?

By: Continuing the Dialogue « Sharpening the Tip

Continuing the Dialogue « Sharpening the Tip — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:21:05 +0000

[...] 3, 2008 Cliff Burns has written some interesting comments on this blog in the past, and my response to his most recent one, well, I’ve decided to turn [...]

By: Tee Jay

Tee Jay — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:14:51 +0000

Cliff, I do agree: the cerebral horror is much more satisfying, much more rewarding as a viewer, and a reader. If you lambaste viewers with gore, they become, well, desensitized.
In my experience, a horror flick like The Ring was much more effective than any of the Saws.

By: Cliff Burns

Cliff Burns — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:02:27 +0000

What the gore-meisters conveniently forget is that fear is a CEREBRAL emotion and that merely ladling on the blood and offal usually means the author is concealing stylistic and literary shortcomings. Roman Polanski created some of the scariest offerings in cinema history and the actual amount of blood spilled is minimal, the violence suggested rather than explicitly portrayed. One of my short novels, KEPT, is being adapted into a film by the people who make the “Saw” movies–it is my profound hope that they will take my words to heart when I told them that the theme of my book is that “even in Hell there is a hierarchy of evil”, rather than merely focusing on the darker, disturbing aspects of my vision…

By: j.k.lynn

j.k.lynn — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:05:49 +0000

We come by our love of horror naturally. After all Beowulf, the Boogeyman and Dracula were invented, long before we were all around. We love to be scared and it is understandable. Horror, fantasy and the supernatural are mediums to activate our imaginations and get in touch with more primal feelings. Horror is a genre that plays on our deepest fears and insecurities.

I love Stephen King because his best writing not only paints vivid pictures but he draws you into a world where your quietest thoughts and weird eccentricities are played out in front of your eyes. He definitely has his misses, but he is fabulously unique and inventive.

I have to disagree about the horror genre being a terrible one. Zombies, vampires, ghouls, a dead relative, revenge…it all tingles your spine and sets your imagination into overdrive. It is harder to find great authors in any genre these days, not just horror.

By: Tee Jay

Tee Jay — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:34:59 +0000

Well said!

By: Cliff Burns

Cliff Burns — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:07:11 +0000

Haven’t read King in years and years–he became too much of a fiction factory. Steve, just settle down and take two or three years to write ONE GOOD BOOK instead of churning them out and maybe a bit of your literary luster will return. Right now, when Steve-O puts out a book, it provokes a shrug and a bit of the old ho-hum. But even at his worst, he’s miles beyond the crap most horror writers are producing these days. The genre has been in the toilet for a decade and most literate types wouldn’t be caught dead reading it. Zombies and vampires, good God, is that the best we can do? No innovation, no new talents on the rise, just gorehounds and people who write their first drafts in crayon. Anyone applying the word “horror” to my work is committing a huge faux pas and would be wise to take off running. I just don’t wanna associate with those lowbrow, illiterate arses.