OldCoderHow is <a class="hashtag" href="https://dansu.org/tag/horror" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#horror</a> content defined?<br><br>Some types are overdone and others are novel and interesting. I think that the difference lies in the balance between jump-scare and <a class="hashtag" href="https://dansu.org/tag/existential" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#existential</a> dread.<br><br>Some of Stephen King's works qualify as novel and interesting due to the effort that he's invested in creating unusual scenarios and in world-building. But King is a special case. He's created his own genres.<br><br>"Horror" for decades has been too much about "something is going to jump out and get you". That can be handled in a masterful manner. However, it's been done too many times:<br><br>* Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, and friends.<br>* Numerous films about murderous dolls. Not just Chucky.<br>* Hungry or Ill-tempered Creatures from Space or Mythology.<br>* Possessed Children, Pets, Vehicles, or Electrical Systems.<br>* Found Footage jump-scare films. Dozens of them.<br>* Cursed Object or Building. This overlaps other categories.<br>* Zombie Apocalypse.<br>* There's even Disney Characters Horror. See notes below.<br><br>The Disney Characters category includes "Blood and Honey" with Winnie the Pooh as the killer, "Pinocchio's Revenge" with Pinocchio as the killer, and "The Mouse Trap", which features a killer costumed as Mickey Mouse.<br><br>Outside of Disney characters, there's also the "Banana Splits" movie, which features other G-rated characters as evil animatronics. I assume that that film was seen as a way to profit from FNAF fans without needing to pay for FNAF rights.<br><br>Hungry Creatures includes a subcategory that I'll call Hungry Blobs. Hungry Blobs includes three films in the Blob series, "The Beach House" (2020), and a segment of "Creepshow 2" (1987) titled "The Raft".<br><br>"The Raft", based on a Stephen King story, is pretty good and is actually unnerving horror. But, in general, Hungry or Ill-Tempered Creatures has been overdone.<br><br>Possessed Vehicles is a broader genre than you might think. It includes "Killdozer", "Christine", "The Car", "Road Kill", "Maximum Overdrive", "Duel", "Ferat Vampire", and others.<br><br>I haven't seen "Ferat Vampire", but it's about a vampire car. I assume that the idea was, double the tropes, double the fun.<br><br>I'm not saying that there aren't great films and books about creatures or possession etc. But perhaps there have been enough for a while.<br><br>Horror is best when it includes existential issues as opposed to just deranged or hungry characters. "Mmm, brains." It's been done.<br><br>The 1982 film "The Thing", the one with Kurt Russell, combines "jump out and get you" with existential horror pretty well. Most horror films don't succeed to that extent.<br><br>Fun historical note: The 1982 "Thing" movie was a remake of a 1951 film titled "The Thing From Another World". The 1951 film was based on John W. Campbell's 1938 story "Who Goes There?". The 1938 Campbell story may have been inspired in part by H.P. Lovecraft's 1936 story "At the Mountains of Madness". Existential horror is durable. Jump scares by themselves, not so much.<br><br>The film "Annihilation" (2018), though flawed, similarly combines creatures and existential issues in an interesting manner.<br><br>Author David Silva wrote a story titled "Dwindling" that I remember after decades. The mother of a family wishes that she wasn't burdened with children. So, they start to disappear into never having existed. The hero realizes that this is happening and that his turn will come. He won't be missed because he won't ever have been. That's mighty fine eatin' on the horror plate.<br><br>The 1988 film "Paperhouse", 100% Rotten Tomatoes critics score, is a fantasy about a girl who stumbles into questions about what is real and the line between life and death. There are scenes that are close enough to psychological horror to make this a creative example of the genre.<br><br>Try the film "The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey" (1988). No connection to "Flight of the Navigator" (1986). It isn't quite existential horror, but the threads about predestination and the hero's realization at the end come close.<br><br>That film includes some subtle humor. It's interesting to see films that aren't single note. In one scene, a medieval time traveler is afraid to cross a modern highway to enter the modern city on the other side. So, he settles for showing his beloved wooden Virgin Mary the city from a distance and hopes that this satisfies a commitment he's made to God.<br><br>Predestination, dread, time travel, and humor. There should be more stories like that. I'll try to write one.<br><br>There was a junky anthology titled "The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood" (1991). It was junky because the stories were contracted for and didn't need to compete to earn publication. But one of the stories, title not remembered, stood out.<br><br>Robin Hood is a hero in Sherwood Forest in the Summer. However, if he allows reality to intrude, his band will have slaughtered the innocent, it'll be Winter and they'll be starving, and he'll have the Black Plague. The moment when worlds overlap and reality must be shunned is horror enough.<br><br>In short, Make Mine Existential.