#me every time in the tags explaining I'm autistic the organization makes sense to ME

[hyuninho]

Can I get a quick intro to gore and horror?

I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond to this one! I kind of wanted to have another short story out before I answered anymore asks, but oh well! ^^ (also for some reason I mostly used examples of movies and games in this answer?? For that I am so sorry, it is 3:00 am and my brain is short circuiting. I’ll probably update it later with more book recs!)

To kind of prepare you for everything I’m about to say; no, I cannot give a short intro to horror. I can try with gore, but I doubt it will be very short (I apologize in advance! ^^;). I say this all to you also with the warning that I am not like, A Horror Professional, I’m just someone who has spent an unreasonable amount of time silently observing and absorbing my favorite type of media.

So, anyways; gore by itself is, yes, technically probably a genre, but it’s also a great plot device in media that may not actually be considered gore. Pulling just from movies here as an example- the Final Destination series is creatively gorey, and are definitely considered gore films in their own right; however, I wouldn’t consider The VVitch gore. While getting pretty nasty with the gore & graphic imagery in the last third, it serves to kind of draw to themes in the story & to symbolize. Midsommar is a great example of both- a very gorey film in retrospect, BUT the deaths and bizzare body horror shown all served either some sort of symbolism, a parallel that could be drawn, or did it’s plot job of showing us how messed up and unsettling the cult was. I would say these 3 examples are kind of okay-ish benchmarks to how gore can be divided.

For gore (this goes for horror too, really!) I find it incredibly helpful to divide media I interact with not by its genre, but more by the themes within the story & effect it had on me, as a reader. Using ‘Fridge horror’ to describe a couple of books instead of looking at each one individually and being like, “ok, this is a sci-fi body horror, this is a splatterpunk, this is a supernatural slasher-” etc, really helps me out, because I’m someone who tends to read the same type of horror, rather than the same genre.

All the categories I use personally I’ll list below, but I warn you these are very specific to me because I read a lot of the same thing, & I like a good character before anything else. I think that shapes a lot of the media I interact with. I don’t know if everyone uses all of these, or if no one’s used these and I’m just a funky little loser, but this is my personal system;

Fridge Horror; A story that becomes terrifying after you’ve read it and let it sink in. For gore specifically, I find it’s less actual gore, and more “wow, you just compared a house to a human and now that thought will never leave my mind lol”, OR, gore used as weird obscure symbolism for the actual thing going on at hand- and once you’ve figured out what that thing is, it puts the piece of media into a whole new perspective. (ANATOMY by kittyhorrorshow is a wonderful game, and prime example of both!)

Obsessive Horror; Stories & Media that uses gore & body horror as a way to describe a character’s mental state (and usually obsession with a specific concept/idea) OR a set of characters' mental decline but obsession with each other. I would say the movie The Perfection (2019) does this well!

Sad/Vulnerable Horror; kind of self explanatory, but very similar to Obsessive Horror- the only usual distinction between the two is that instead of obsession being the overarching thing to tie it all together, it’s usually grief, or a character struggling with some sort of obstacle that has forced them to stop- a character being unable to move on from something and it getting gradually worse. Midsommar is a great movie for this!

Philosophical Horror; in a gore sense, I do find it funny that this one tends to be less like. Human oriented and usually has some sort of monster involved, but it’s usually something along the lines of like “what makes us human?” (insert violent gorey scene here) lol. Very entertaining. I’m gonna come back and edit this post to add specific media examples for this one, because none come to mind right now except for fanfic, but it’s also… 3AM please be patient with me haha ^^;

I don’t have any recs for ppl just dipping their toes in, because everyone is different and I don’t know what preferences work for everyone- but I would just say to engage with the media that’s kinda popular and seems to interest you in the horror genre- and work from there. It really helps to make accounts on sites like goodreads & letterboxed just to kind of stalk what other people are watching and reading! On goodreads I joined a couple of groups, and while I’m not the best at having a one on one convo with someone just yet, it really helps me to look through the forums and conversations available and to be like “Oh, shit, this person also likes B.R. Yeager? And is recommending another book in relation to Negative Space? I’ve gotta check it out!” You don’t even have to engage with people if you don’t want to in these kinds of settings- you can silently stalk forums discussing media they liked and why- its glorious and a good way to quickly add to your collection & get more into the swing of things without feeling bad because you’re never gonna read the book you got yourself 2 years ago & now sits untouched on your shelf lol.

(Definitely not a self call out.)

I don’t really know how to end this one, so I’ll end it with my favorite kind from the list I previously mentioned; Vulnerable Horror/Gore. (SPOILERS FOR KATHE KOJA'S THE NEGLECTED GARDEN INCOMING).

I personally love a good piece of media that has character specific body horror- things that frighten us, because, holy shit that sounds awful to experience- but also have an innate and personal terror to the character it’s happening to;

Kathe Koja’s short story, The Neglected Garden, is a perfect example of this. Throughout the entire story, we never learn the narrator’s name- only the name of his girlfriend, Anne, and the impact she makes on him after he attempts to break up with her- which she responds to by crucifying herself to his fence. You understand the narrator’s reaction to Anne’s crucifixion- and as it continues and gets worse- how she ended up there in the first place. Obvious parallels are drawn to their relationship before she went to such extreme measures; both too cruel and stubborn to be together- but too desperate and obsessed with each other to ever break up. The narrator is arguably, not at all sympathetic- but you still understand the horror of what he witnesses. Koja goes into graphic detail when describing Anne’s initial crucifixion, and then, the slow growing of grass and flowers as she stays still and unmoving. Her body slowly morphing into a disgusting infected carcass that’s somehow still alive is described with alarming depth. But it serves a purpose to the story, and the characters- or rather, it serves as a vehicle for understanding their relationship.

So… yeah! Lol, I’m sorry, this probably wasn’t as helpful or as informative as you were hoping, but I hope it’s still enough to kind of get a general idea of where to start. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on specifically splatterpunk (general subgenre of gore) books, I highly recommend godless.com, as they have a lot of short story collections & stand alone pieces that you can buy for sometimes as little as 50 cents! I do warn you though, sometimes there’s a bit of odd fetish content on there? Lol so… have fun with that.

Sorry for the ramble, thank you for the ask! Bye lol