Something you expect can't be horrifying

[Frission]

In my own humble opinion. If you know what's going to happen it's not scary.

One of the main things that makes horror scary is because it's mysterious. You don't know what's happening or what's going to happen. Everything is tense because you don't understand what you're dealing with.

If someone goes berserk that's scary. If you know that it's Steve and he's gone psychotic because he's drunk, his wife has left him, and he's a dick, Steve isn't as scary. Going down a dark hallway is scary. Knowing what's hiding in the corner rubbing it's hand with glee is not scary.

That moment in horror when the protagonist realizes what's happening, when he knows what's gone wrong, when he knows the monster is behind him with a bottle of lube is often THE scariest scene in the work. However after that things can't ever be truly scary again. It can be tense, but only in the sense of action. The mystery is gone.

In your regular zombie movie I doubt most people were left scared, or at least the second time. You don't think "oh no the dead are walking", you think "shoot that ************ in the head". If you understand what's threatening you, you can rationalize it. If you open a door and there's a 20 foot cockroach you can think "hey at least it isn't 40 foot", if it's 40 foot you can think "at least it isn't 60 foot" and so on. You can't rationalize what you don't understand.

As such even though it's still hard to make horror, the base rule I guess would be not to tell the audience everything and leave them to stew.

Now I will like to be proven wrong. Laugh at me and so forth. Throw several books at me. Show that I have made a fatal flaw in my reasoning. Show me something which was scary because you knew how the character was screwed or was even made scarier.

P.S
Sequels to horrors are almost always going to suck. So as reusing monsters. The elder gods in H.P Lovecraft's novels were scary because they were incomprehensible. Silent Hill and Fatal Frame are exceptions, because the threat is inscrutable. If there's some mystic kid running those villages he's been wisely kept out of sight.

 

[Elate]

I disagree completely. Just because you know, doesn't make it any less scary. Amnesia was the best example of this, I knew exactly what was going to happen and such, but the pure tone of the game and the atmosphere made me crap myself anyway. With your zombie example, they can be scary, just most of them aren't, to give an example:

That scene from Resident Evil (Ok I know it was a bad movie) but most of the time while they're in the labs, that is scary, because of the atmosphere. So, things can be scary, even if you know what it is and what's going to happen and can understand it all. It's just how they build it up. Like Alien for example, I still find that mildy scary with the vent scenes, I've watched that film god knows how many times, and Aliens when they're surrounded and barricaded in, but alien versus predator just failed to build that alone and hopeless atmosphere that is scary to me.

 

[Humble Grapefruit]

I disagree completely. Just because you know, doesn't make it any less scary. Amnesia was the best example of this, I knew exactly what was going to happen and such, but the pure tone of the game and the atmosphere made me crap myself anyway.

This is what I came to say. The music, sounds, lighting (Or lack of) can make or break something scary. You could have no idea if a monster was going to appear, but if you are standing in a flowery field during the day, it just won't be scary.

 

[scarecrow350]

I depends what it is and how its orchestrated, for example a scare like a jump can startle a thousand times if its set up right, but if the tone is off it would work maybe once or twice
a good example might be grimm, that has a lot of things jumping through windows etc. and they get me every single time it happens

 

[Rawne1980]

The problem with horror is it has become predictable.

Teen "slasher" horror is the worst for predictability. You know as soon as a noise is heard they will go and investigate even though they witnessed several of their friends have their faces introduced to a hatchet.

See that lass naked in the shower? Yep, she's next to go.

The gobby guy in his school football jacket? Aye, he's next.

The quiet lad that's been slowly getting closer to that decent looking lass who is the only one that hasn't got her tits out? Indeed, they are going to survive. Only just, but survive they shall.

Sometimes they try and change things and no one survives or only one. But such "dramatic" plot twists are noticeable about 45 minutes before they happen.

Atmospheric horror (i'll use The Thing as an example) that tries to build up a bit of tension and paranoia is great. The only problem is they started to take away that atmosphere in favour of more "gory" horror.

Atmosphere is always going to lay a more scary scene than gore because gore isn't all that frightening.

Take the Psycho shower scene. You do not see the knife pierce flesh, that's all left to your imagination, and it's quite a famous horror scene. Your mind can make up far scarier shit than what you actually see.

Alien, you know it's there, you hear the noises but you don't see the bugger until it's on you. That laid decent groundwork for a tense horror.

Aliens took away the tension and atmosphere and replaced it with far more action. Still a great film but for entirely different reasons.

 

[Rylot]

snip

That looks amazing. Using the toddler's perspective is a genius move. As for the topic at hand:

'The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.'-Lovecraft

In my opinion OP is partially right in that if we know everything it can take away some of horror. But in a well made movie, game, book, what have you, even when you do know what scary the scary thing is you don't know where it is or if the protagonist(s) will survive.
In poorly made horror media where you can tell where everything is hiding and what will happen that does render the piece rather not so scary.

 

[Frission]

/epic snip

That game looks awesome. The part about using a kid is innovative.

I forgot about the part that you can destroy the rationalization. That could work, although it means you just add some more mystery to it. It still means that horror can't survive without a bit of the unknown. Not knowing how many zombies there are just means that you're not completely in control. If you knew how many zombies there was in the building it wouldn't be that scary anymore.

The end victimization part was supposed to be funny or at least say that I want examples that contradict me. It seems I failed.

 

[TheKruzdawg]

SNIP

OMG. That game looks both interesting and a little frightening. I was having conflicting emotions right at the beginning when the mobile was playing that lullaby. I used to have a little accordion cow that played that song when you pulled his tail out, so hearing it both made me think of when I was a little kid and scared me because of the setting it was in. I don't think hearing it in this game will give me the same kind of comfort it used to.

Why is it that children's songs can be turned into something super creepy in the horror genre so easily?

 

[solemnwar]

If someone is going psychotic on me, it doesn't matter if I know them and their history or not. SOMEONE IS GOING PSYCHOTIC ON ME. That's damn scary son.

Actually the worst part about the knowing is waiting for it to happen, and your imagination amps it up to 11. So much worse.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I disagree completely. Just because you know, doesn't make it any less scary. Amnesia was the best example of this, I knew exactly what was going to happen and such, but the pure tone of the game and the atmosphere made me crap myself anyway.

This is what I came to say. The music, sounds, lighting (Or lack of) can make or break something scary. You could have no idea if a monster was going to appear, but if you are standing in a flowery field during the day, it just won't be scary.

Actually film makers have found that things can actually be scarier if they are put in an out of place setting.

The reason why Kubrick made The Shining so brightly colored was to make it unsettling. I think they said they are using the same effect in Bioshock Infinite.

It's almost more disturbing finding a corpse in a bright flower field than it is in a dark alley because the tone of the place completely shifts.

I kind of agree with the OP. A monster may be scary the first time you see it but if you are wading through hordes of them you get desensitized after a while.

 

[Psykoma]

The best example of the OP's idea that I can think of was cabin in the woods.

Spoiler

When the story is going on in the forest, with the redneck zombies all around surprising the cast, I was ready to soil myself.
But as soon as they get into the super secret facility, and all the monsters start coming out, I calmed down completely. Like it switched from a suspense/thriller/horror film to just another action film.
But that might also have just been a horror overload.
Maybe

But I think if something is disturbing enough, whether I expect it or not, it's going to scare me.
The Saw series of movies come to mind there.

 

[Enkidu88]

If someone tells me they're going to show me a spider eating a bird, I'm still horrified when I eventually see it despite the advanced warning.

Fuck spiders, is what I'm saying.

 

[the abyss gazes also]

Let's separate real life from fiction. Even if you expect Steve to lose his shit in real life it can still be scary if you are in danger. But if you're watching a film seeing Steve lose his shit in act 3 when you have seen it coming from act 1, it isn't that scary beyond maybe the initial jump scare when he snaps.

I tend to pick movies apart as I'm watching and can usually predict what will happen so most film set out to scare don't work for me.