161 - Elements Of Horror

[matt]

What are the elements of horror? Are there any common building blocks or techniques we can use? Can we break things down to better understand how to craft good horror? I brainstorm on this but raise more questions than I answer.

[ranger_lennier]

I've mentioned it before, but my favorite horror moment is the opening sequence in Resident Evil 4. You see these villagers acting strangely, and before you know it you're desperately running away from an overwhelming number of enemies, including a masked chainsaw wielder who can slice off your head in a single attack.

The falling plate is definitely one of the weaker jump scares, in part because some others are so strong (like the ghost following you or the flashes of visibility when your candle goes out). I wouldn't say it bothered me, though, because it's not like the game does that sort of thing often.

[RightClickSaveAs]

I also have a hard time naming specific moments, it's usually just an overall feeling about games, but one I could think of was in Amnesia, when you go into the basement and have your first encounter with one of these guys:


The blurry image and darkness are important here, I tried to find a screenshot that was even darker because when I first got to that part, I was keeping my lights off. If you just look up a render of one of these monsters without any warped vision effects or darkness obscuring it, they lose a lot of their effectiveness. One of the big reasons why it works so well is you don't know what you're looking at.

At that point the game had been slowly building up to that first encounter, and it all comes together almost perfectly. You're in a basement, which is frightening, the lighting is poor and you don't have enough lantern fuel and matches to stay in the light all the time, and you've been thinking something is going to happen for a long time now, but it hasn't yet, so you're more off guard.

[matt]

I think one of the smartest things about Amnesia is that you are discouraged from looking at the enemy because of the insanity system and limited supply of matches/fuel. Things are always scarier when left to your imagination!