Question 1: 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.
King (2010) describes Horror as being defined through three basic elements. These elements as classified by King in his book Danse Macabre, are terror, horror, and revulsion. King holds the element of terror with the highest regard, believing that if an author can do their part to imply the unknown they can leave the reader to conjure up something horrifying. King has been quoted to compare the feeling of terror with “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…” (Regal, 2019, paras. 5).
‘A Quiet Place’ (Krasinski, 2018) uses the element of terror generously. In the film they have these blind extraterrestrial monsters that are hypersensitive to noise. It’s not until the very end of the film that the audience sees what these monsters look like and so a lot of terror is built through the techniques of silence and the intensity of the small moments of noise that happen upon accident. There’s a scene at the beginning of the film where the youngest child finds a battery powered toy. The parents take the toy away from him and remove the batteries to prevent any noise, but the sister feels guilty that he’s not having fun and gives the toy back to her brother. However, he takes the batteries and activates the toy and the tinny toy sound is somehow deafening in the surrounding silence. The father starts running towards the son but resounding footsteps start competing with the fathers own and before the audience knows it the boy is snatched away and the brief image of the monster is hard to understand.
King regards the element of horror as the second most important element. Horror occurs when an audience is exposed to something so horrifying and unimaginable that it invokes feelings of horror (Regal, 2019). In ‘A Quiet Place’ there are certainly many scenes that invoke these feelings. For example, there’s a scene where the main characters stumble upon a women’s body that has been mutilated by the monsters in an incomprehensible way. An older man is standing over her body crying and starts to scream in pain because he wants to die (Krasinski, 2018). This simple yet intense scene demonstrates feelings of such unimaginable desperation and horror in which none of us will hopefully ever experience.
Revulsion is the last element of Horror that King discusses. Simply put this element means to revolt the audience by using tactics such as an excessive amount of blood and gore (Regal, 2019). In Danse Macabre, King compares this to the ‘carny freaks’. He talks about a particular carny called the Geek who used to bite the head off live chickens whilst holding the still flapping now decapitated chicken in his other hand. It’s the urge to want to see something so revolting that there’s a component of something forbidden (King, 2010). In ‘A Quiet Place’ they have a scene in which a raccoon is making animal-like noises while walking through the cornfields, you see the monster’s arm come down on the raccoon and its body just explodes. Guts and blood are used to revolt the audience and further demonstrate the monsters freakish strength.
References
King, S. (2010). Danse macabre. Everest House.
Krasinski, J. (2018). A Quiet Place [film]. Platinum Dunes; Sunday Night Productions.
Regal. (2019, August 27). Stephen King’s 3 levels of horror. Regal Reel Blog. https://www.regmovies.com/static/en/us/blog/stephen-king-3-levels-of-horror
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