What triggers horror in the audience? I’ve talked before about the difference between horror and terror. One is the anticipation of fear (terror), the other is the realization of fear (horror). The big difference between these two is that terror causes tension, and horror releases it. A good scary story will be about 90% terror and 10% horror. It builds the tension, makes you more and more anxious, only finally releasing that build-up as late as possible. The Ancient Greeks called this process catharsis– the purgation of fear. I’ve already discussed terror/tension and how to work on it; my monster will be something grotesque, animalistic and yet utterly alien. Its actions and goals will be unknown for most of the story to build the tension. But, we need that horror, we need that cathartic purging of fear. So, how do we do it?
In biology and psychology, there is a thing called the startle reflex. Have you ever noticed how men flinch when they hear a “hit in the balls” story? Have you noticed how some people scream at a scary part in the theatre? Have you noticed how people wince when you talk about the dentist? That’s all the startle reflex. It’s an unconscious reaction to something dangerous/damaging. That’s what we’re going for. That’s what you want in a horrific moment. But, again, the question is, how to we elicit the startle reflex?
The best horror moments are universal. We watch the skinny dipping girl in Jaws being eaten and we flinch.
We watch the chest-bursting scene in Alien and we wince.
We watch the derpy Darth Maul jumpscare in Incidious and we jump.
Why? because each of these moments taps into instinct. As a species, we still carry the collective memory of being prey, of bigger, meaner predators eating us. So, a shark attack is scary. We all instinctive understand how important our hearts are, how damaging chest damage is, so Alien is horrifying. We’ve all felt the breath of danger on our shoulders, of instinctively fearing that something is hunting us, so a shadow approaching us is horrifying. In each case, the startle reflex is triggered not just by a current danger, but by something deep, something primitive that we chose to believe isn’t real.
So, my monster needs to tap into something primal.
Did you know that there’s only one universal trigger of a flinch among humans? A kick in the balls doesn’t usually work on women. Hair-pulling? I’m bald. Teeth-drilling? Some people have never been to the dentist. Neck-biting? Sexy. Name an attack, and there’s bound to be at least a small group of people that can shrug it off. But there is one exception. The eyes. It’s called the corneal reflex or blink response. We all blink. We all know the feeling of getting something in your eye, how sensitive/vulnerable our eyes are. When training in hand-to-hand, you have to really work hard to override the blink response, and it never entirely goes away.
So, my monster will attack through the eyes.
I actually consulted with Ma for the next part of this: why through the eyes? I didn’t just want a rule-of-cool justification, but a legitimate purpose in going for the eyes. For those of you who don’t know, Ma’s a retired nurse; she knows biology. It turns out that there’s actually some empty space back there, around and behind the eye. It’s basically an easy-access pass to the rest of the body. Not only that, but there’s historical precedent; doctors used to perform lobotomies through the same passage: between the eye and the tear duct.
So, where’s the horror coming from in my horror story? My monster will use a tendril to drill between the eye and the tear duct, back behind the nasal cavity, and down the throat, into the torso.
Did you just flinch?
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