What do you think makes a good horror?

[senkzombie]

So I'm making a short comic that will be horror. What scares you? What kind of things or situations do you find to be scary?

[BlueDragon]

I think building tension and atmosphere over gore is important. I kind of liken it to Stranger Things Part 1 vs. Part 2. I really liked both, but what really made the first one scary to me was how there was a lot of tension combined with the monster being shrouded in secrecy. As with many monsters, if you pull them into the light, they are still frightening, but less so in my opinion.

Another good example is Hitchcock's Psycho vs. the color remake. Because the original was in black and white, they needed to rely on something more than just blood and gore to make the story scary.

Personally, I think one the scariest films was No Country for Old Men. It wasn't a "horror," but they way they portrayed their villain was just...well I mean, I could see him existing in real life and that horrifying XD I realize those are film examples, but there are concepts that can be applied to comics

[imiogri]

I love psychological horror, like Silent Hill, imagery just made to be scary is never scary to me, but if it has another layer to it, it works wonders. Getting to know the characters and then seeing horrible things done to them freaks me out more than anything else. I'm super sensitive to gore, and when it's done just for shock I bail immediately, but if it has some kind of symbolism it makes me super curious instead. It's a difficult genre lmao

[punkarsenic]

firstly - provided your horror is also thriller, although theyre not always paired - tension! anything with high tension needs good setup and payoff - you tell people a girl died in the attic, you remind them when someone finds her hairbrush, then the ghost strikes!

i think a really good example of this is the movie whiplash - albeit not a horror, the movie sets up and pays off a series of visual cues at such rapid pace and high stakes that youre on tenterhooks the entire time.

then, and this is personal, its the deep dark fears that are scarier than phobias and typical fears. like recently there was a ~scary episode of dr who all about massive spiders, and it didnt scare me in the slightest. so its spiders - theyre very scary for some people, and completely uninteresting to a lot more. whatd be scarier? humans turning into spiders and losing their humanity - its 'this could happen to you!'

[echoeotto]

Good horror can also be about making your main character face their worst fears (instead of the audience's fears). If your readers want to see your MC succeed, they'll be scared on the MC's behalf. Take somebody and explore what happens when you drag them to their breaking point.

Silent Hill, like @Mangocado mentioned, does a good job of this.

[rmdooley]

What is left unseen or up to the reader's imagination is often much more frightening. Good horror lingers in the dark corners of the mind rather than lowering itself to a series of passing jump frights.

[OttoGruenwald]

Something that's unnerving or uncomfortably bizarre is how I prefer horror just because I find the unnerving to be interesting. It's a feeling I've tried to place throughout The Power of Stardust, especially in the Starworld pages.

The Power of Stardust | Tapas