King (2010) describes Horror as being defined through three basic elements. Explain, using references, what these three elements are. Think of a horror story you’ve read/watched/heard that makes use of all three of these elements and show how King’s definition is at play in that narrative.
Horror is a diverse genre with many elements that create excitement, uneasiness, terror, and even disgust. According to The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.), horror first emerged through ‘gothic’ literature in the early 18th century and has been growing in scale ever since. When it comes to horror, Stephen King stands out as one of the most prolific horror authors around. His books have been so successful, that many of them have been adapted into movies that went on to win awards.
Through the years of horror writing, Stephen King has developed a hierarchy of scares, and uses this as a method when frequently crafting his horror novels. Suderman (2017), wrote an article that discusses one of King’s books titled Danse Macabre. Danse Macabre was written about horror fiction and details observations and stories of horror from King’s perception. One of the stronger parts of the book discusses three main elements that potentially makeup horror and describe it for what it is. The three main categories of horror are categorized in order and start at the least intense before moving to the main event. The first element is labelled as The Gross Out which explains the gorier and more repulsing side to horror. It could be anything from slime monsters to the insides of a person falling all over the floor. The second element is The Horror. The Horror is often associated with more unnatural things such as animals that are two sizes too big, corpses that wake up and start walking around, and disfigured people that hunt humans. The third and final element is Terror. King describes terror as the most intense and favourable elements, to which he strives for through his books (Suderman, 2017). Terror is described as an eerie sensation that you feel when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, or when you feel something lurking in the dark, you hear it and feel its breath on your skin, but when you turn the lights on there is nothing there. Suderman (2017) says that King will ultimately try to terrorize his readers because terror is the superior element, however, if he cannot terrorize them he explains that he must try to horrify and gross them out. The outcome is not as satisfying, but it gets the job done.
One horror story that incorporates King’s three elements is his own masterpiece, IT. King obviously knows how to successfully write powerful stories with his own three defined elements, the horror, the terror, and the gross-out. It is the perfect example because the book and even the film incorporates all three of these categories. The book and the film of IT both display scenes of gore when Georgie gets his arm bitten off and when Beverly gets drenched in blood from the sink scene. They also display horror when the scene in the restaurant shows weird creatures coming out of the fortune cookies and when Pennywise transforms from his clown form into his sci-fi alien form at the end. The film and the book also portrays the element of terror through the incredibly creepy sewers that Pennywise inhabits and the way that he tends to show up out of nowhere, terrorizing the loser’s club. King shows his own definition of horror through most of his works and this is what makes him one of the most successful horror authors of the 21st century.
References
Suderman, P. (2017, February 7). Stephen King’s hierarchy of scares remains the best explanation of how horror movies work. Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/7/14492124/stephen-king-rings-horror-movie-scares
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.). Horror story. https://www.britannica.com/art/horror-story
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