I GM a lot of horror games, I watch quite a bit of horror movies, read quite a lot of horror stories and novels, but I've got a little problem with the modern horror genre: the heavy use of gore.
Maybe it's just me, but when I go to horror movie (or to read a horror book, etc...), I want to be scared, not disgusted; I want to scream out of relief or of fear, not out of revulsion; I want to be afraid for the character, not to worry about what next loathsome chopped appendage will I see.
Now, don't get me wrong. I know the power of a great gore moment when it arrives, I know how it helps to achieve the great and wonderful dread, but please, don't use it all too often, all too much, everywhere on the screen or the story or the like. After the 40th severed head, the next one isn't that much frightening, or revolting, it's just funny, or even campy.
King explained it much better in his wonderful and insghitful book "Danse Macabre": "I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud."
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