According to Stephen King, horror can be broken down into three elements; these include the horror element, the revulsion element, and the terror element. The revulsion element is the act of physically revolting the audience through grotesque animation. Additionally, it is the lowest level of trifecta yet still disturbs the audience, and makes them squirm. To simply sum, it is the scene in which the audience are in a way forced to close their eyes, or peek in order to continue watching. An example of revulsion as a form of horror, is present in the movie saw II, where there is a syringe with an antidote which is hung, in a see through box with fatal poisonous gas, it can only be accessed if one slips their hands through the unavoidable razor lined sleeves. This is gruesome as you can watch the gore of the hands oozing with blood as it hits the blade. The second element of horror is called horror. This is when the audience are exposed to something that seems graphically unbelievable. Accumulating to a state where the audience are shocked out of fear, and sense an inability to comprehend what actually occurred on the screen. An example of this would be the abundance of large creepy crawlies or a scene in which the dead rise from the grave, as seen in Zombieland. The final element of horror is terror. This is the highest form of fear. Viewers are presented with the ability to imagine the horror that has or is yet to take place. The suggestion of the unknown allows the viewers to fill in that space with something that is terrifying to them. Stephen King describes the terror element of horror as ““when you come home and notice everything you own has been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…”. An example of this is in the Indian movie raaz in which the woman is in a haunted forest at night, the audience’s immediate reaction, of all the terrifying creatures or possibilities that may cause her harm in her possessed state. King further states mentions how all three elements are necessary to truly embed horror within the viewers hearts, he states “it is not the physical or mental aberration in itself which horrifies us, but the lack of order which these aberrations seem to imply.”
An example of a movie that contains all three elements of horror is, ‘The Sixth Sense’. The movie is about a child psychologist who attempts to help a young boy who has the ability to see the dead, he is mentally traumatised by this ability. The revulsion factor within the film is the scene in which the audience are able to visualise the explicit gorey dead people walking around everywhere. They are able to see what the boy is able to see. The horror element is presented in the scene in which the boy is exposed to a ghost female vomiting vigorously, followed by the revelation that her meal was poisoned by her own mother. The terror element in this movie is slightly different- it is the unsaid realisations that are suggested to the audience. These include the terror of regretting things that an individual never got to carry out due to deep regret, sorrow and emotional trauma. The realisation that it is too late now.
References.
King, S (2020). Danse Macabre. Retrieved from https://cpl.catalogue.library.ns.ca/Record/5394/Excerpt
King, S. (2010) Danse Macabre.
Nellan, D. (2017) Stephen King Breaks Down the Different Levels of Horror https://www.avclub.com/stephen-king-breaks-down-the-different-levels-of-horror-1806112160
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