Horror is a very broad theme, both in movies and in games, that entices the mind of its consumers, and drives them to experience uneasyness, tension, fear, and terror, or just a laugh.

To me movies and games engage me and connect with me differently, and elicit different responses. Being that responses also variate because of the subgenre.

Before delving into the theme applied to both types of media, I will discuss the types of horror based on the crucial plot elements. In horror there are some variants that produce different reactions in the consumers, and in me.

I divide the genre of horror, according to the plot in:

• Spiritual horror - that delves into ghosts, demons, poltergeists, possessions, hell, life after death, paranormal;
• Sci-fi horror - that delves into aliens, portals into dimensions;
• Fantasy horror- that delves into zombies, Frankenstein, vampires, werewolves;
• Criminal horror - dealing mainly with killers;
• Psychological horror - the subgenre that explores psychology, the workings of the human mind and its products.

With these themes in mind, spiritual and psychological horror have a more intense and lasting effect on me, than sci-fi, fantasy and criminal. That is greatly due to my ignorance about spiritual matters, enough to not be able to disprove phenomenons, and my interest and exposition to human psicology, and its uncertainty. The fact that aliens and zombies in media are fictions, and that my excessive exposure to violence has dissensitive me to it, makes me less susceptible to them.

So horror affects me differently depending on the theme.

And now we've come into the discussion of horror in movies and games.

To me horror is much more effective, inside the same subgenre, in movies than in games.

Why is that?

To me movies are, by its inherent characteristics, more natural and relatable, with human actors and more natural interactions, feeling more realistic, than games. Games are by their nature more interactive, but also full of jarring elements like unatural movement, health bars, save stations and rooms, bugs, and questionable graphics. Unlike movies, games take me out of the experience often, to deal with these distractions. So some of the build up is lost when experiencing these elements.

Although of course there are bad horror movies that scare very little, with bad cg and characterization.

This doesn't mean that I'm impervious to horror in games. Nanashi no Game really creeped me out, and made me a bit paranoid playing it alone at night. Dead Space was killing me with tension, and foreboding. Clive Baker's Undying scared me playing it even in broad daylight. And those ghosts in Silent Hill 4 were really disturbing.

But the normal horror game doesn't really scare me, although it does creep me out. Evil Within was one of those cases, especially at the end, going into the safe place after Tatiana's twist.

But comparable horror movies generally make much more emotionally envolved. Event Horizon really did disturb me, The Ring scared me a good deal, The Abandoned terrified me. So did Nightmare on Elm Street.

And Fatal Frame 1 and 2 really did little for me, for those same reasons. The sound was top notch, but having to distance myself from the horror to focus the camera, and learn the ghosts patterns, while aiming to take the best shot, as well as some jerky movement of the ghosts diluated the experience a great deal. Even though ghosts really disturb me.

Evil Within's difficulty, when not spiking, and making me replay sections over and over again, it gave me tension, and that was a step in the right direction to engage me, but the mundane nature of the horror in the game (chainsaw enemies, the Keeper, the haunted), and the bugs, diluted that feeling, although I enjoyed it quite a bit.

All this leads me to think that despite the genre of the horror work, the execution is very important. And a very flawed execution is capable of draining all the dread from the experience. And making forgettable an otherwise fantastic story. Again, Fatal Frame I'm looking at you.

This sumarizes my thoughts about horror, and the genre applied to movies and games.

How do you feel about horror, and horror in games and movies? Do you feel differently? Share your thoughts...