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.
Stephen King is known for his horror novels, he depicts that the three basic elements to horror are; The Gross-out, The Horror and The Terror. Looking at Stephen King’s own story ‘IT’ shows these three elements and shows how they add to complete the overall horror experience that people love.
The first element of ‘The Gross-out’ is self-explanatory, it is meant to gross out the audience, this can be done in multiple ways, most common with bugs, and gore as some gross topic’s horror produces. The gross element within ‘IT’ throughout both novel and film, in many different forms. On one hand there is the use of blood, gushing and overwhelming the screen in multiple scenes, but also the use of monsters (King, 2010) that represent disease and disgust to viewers like the leper in the novel that appears to one of the characters. The gross-out is the weakest of the three elements according to King (Reel, 2019).
The second element is ‘The Horror’. This is said to be the portrayal of what is meant to be unbelievable yet sparks fear within the audience, the horror is when we see something so awful, unnatural that we begin to fear it as we cannot grasp or understand what we are seeing. This is the middle of the three elements and is worse than the gross element not only can we be repulsed but our fear is determined by something we can physically see but not understand. Within King’s ‘IT’ the horror can come from Pennywise the clown as he morphs into a child eating clown luring children to their deaths, he takes the form of what the children fear most throughout the novel to make both the characters fear it and the audience watching.
The third element is ‘The Terror’, this is regarded as the worst of the three elements as it is our fear created by our imaginations (Neilan, 2017) When we turn off the light and flick it back on because we think something is there is a factor of having terror cause fear. Within it, this is the constant idea that Pennywise is everywhere watching the characters and that they can’t hide from into matter what they do.
References:
Neilan, D. (2017). Stephen King Breaks Down the Different Levels of Horror. Retrieved from https://www.avclub.com/stephen-king-breaks-down-the-different-levels-of-horror-1806112160
Regal Reel. (2019). Stephen King’s 3 Levels of Horror. Retrieved From https://www.regmovies.com/static/en/us/blog/stephen-king-3-levels-of-horror#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20acclaimed%20author,but%20in%20cinema%20as%20well.
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