Talk:Horror fiction

Actually

Actually I would say that the real well-spring of the the horror genre is more likely to be Sheridan le Fanu's work, particularly Carmilla (of which Dracula is a largely plagiaristic and unsatisfactory hack) and the short story Green Tea. But hey, let's not let historical reality get in the way of comfy modern glosses over the facts in the matter :) user:sjc

Actually, the seeds of horror fiction go back even further, to late 18th century gothic novels. I've added this and will add more on this later. Michael Wells 18:00, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Michael Wells is correct. Early gothic fiction is the common taproot of modern horror and fantasy, and one of the roots of science fiction as well.

Esr 08:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Stoker was not the father of modern horror.

After reading the article, I must disagree. Bram Stoker was by no means the father of modern horror.

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol wrote Viy in 1835 and the novel is as classical horror as it gets. It talks about witches, vampires, demons and lesser devils in a traditional Ukrainian village setting during the funeral of a local noble's daughter (who's a witch).

So I think Gogol's name should at least be added to the article. He wrote a myriad of other horror stories in his "Vechera na hutore bliz Dikanki" (Nights in the village near Dikanka).

Naming one person as the "father" of a genre is pointless. Besides, simply being the first to write a horror story doesn't mean you created the genre. Stoker wasn't the first and maybe he got alot of his ideas from earlier works...his novel is still the most popular of any of his time and prior. Most people couldn't even tell you where to find a copy of Camilla. Is it worth reading? You bet, but Dracula remains one of the most popular horror stories to date. To dismiss him as a hack as someone did previously is missing the point.Culmo80 17:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)culmo80

New section on connections with other genres

I've added a new section on connections with other genres that reflects recent advances in SF critical theory. These have implications for our understanding of horror and fantasy which I have tries to express here.

You didn't add a new section, you replaced one. The implications you have tried to express are not only faulty, their non-informative. Stop replacing large sections of wikipedia with your personal opinions.

Link

I added a link to horrorcore (a rap genre, which is very grand guinol (sp?) in style) becuase of its obvious ties.

Subgenres

I'd like to see the inclusion of various subgenres of horror fiction with appropriate examples? What subgenres should be included? Obviously vampire fiction, psychological horror, classic ghost story, cosmic horror, gothic horror, splatterpunk, weird fiction... Any thing else? - CNichols 18:41, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Puzzle Horror

Puzzle Horror is a genre that until fairly recently was usually restricted to video games, where solving puzzles is part of the gameplay (Silent Hill for example). But there's been sort of a surge of the genre in film such as the Cube franchise, the Saw franchise, and other films like Mindhunters and the French film Maléfique (which is getting a US remake). It's categorized usually by a person or group of people who are trapped in an enclosed location or situation, and the only way out is to play the game of their captors, whoever or whatever that may be. I think this would be a good addition, but I don't have any references specifically naming the subgenre that don't refer to video games, so I'm guessing people would just edit it out if I wrote one up. 74.76.142.137 (talk) 10:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

anti-violence bias?

am i the only one who thinks the "Contemporary horror fiction" section has a POV against explicit violence? it's talking about how some authors are 'capable of' writing horror without 'resorting' to violence. aside from the fact that whoever wrote that has obviously never read "misery", i don't see why the fact that some authors write against the common style of the times should be the main focus of a section devoted to the contemporary. --dan 14:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

okay i have fixed it myself to remove the pov, but i still think this section needs to be added to. there has to be more that can be said about contemporary horror fiction than "some authors use violence and some don't", doesn't there? --dan 09:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why everything in the small "contemporary horror" section is related to gore or the lack thereof.

The beginnings of horror fiction?

I've noticed that the article does not have any information on the antique horror, more specific the things which H.P. Lovecraft mentions in one of his works (loose quote, and I can not say from which of his works it originates because I do not know - all of this comes from an article in the local papers): "Petronius werewolf case, Apoleus' excerpt, short but famous letter of Plinius Minor.." Plinius Minor, whom Lovecraft mentiones, is Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (63-ca. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger. The work to which Lovecraft refers to is called (again, loose translation; I don't know what the original name is, a bit of googling might yield some results) "The Tales of Philosopher Athenodoros", written in 107. AD, and which can be found in Book 7 of his Epistulae. Does this count? Or does this article deal with works of fiction that belong to the horror genre, and to horror genre alone? In any case, this is the only mention of the early horror (fiction) I've ever encountered so far. If anyone has more information on the matter, I'd be happy to hear it. -- 10:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC) [Bob]

Other games

Seems to me it's a bit strange list of games mentioned here. Is there by any chance that Quake is more horrible than Half Life 2? And what about VtM:Bloodlines and VtM:Redemption? I think there also should be role-playing settings like Ravenloft and World of Darkness. Dreambringer 12:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Link

I added a link to http://www.fantastichorror.com/ under horror fiction sites.Hodgson 18:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Citations

The shocking lack of citations makes this article sound like a poor quality essay. Does the horror project do anything? As the article "lacking citations" template has provoked no response, i've fact tagged many of the sentences that need to be cited. I'll start cutting things in the future.Yobmod (talk) 01:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Weird fiction

When using the words "Weird Fiction", you end up in the horror article, which has nothing to say about weird fiction. When nothing is said about it, why redirect it at all? It either deserves an own article or its own section in the horror article. 80.202.38.38 (talk) 12:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Strange, searching Weird fiction took me here: [1].

did you follow a link? Like this Horror fiction? Maybe it was not changed since Weird fic got it's own article?Yobmod (talk) 16:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I AGREE!

Yeah! This place should be non-violent!! I agree with you!

by

becky--212.32.85.249 (talk) 09:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC)(212.32.85.249 (talk) 09:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC))

P.s. three orphan kittens is a good article

Expert please

This article needs the attention of someone truly knowledgeable about the subject, and needs some wikification. The bulk of the article appears above the toc. The copy rambles in a circuitous fashion. Various dubious claims are made, including a paragraph I excised that claimed horror fiction consists of just three subgenres ("dark fiction", "historical fiction", and psychological fiction; of these only the last is a true subgenre, and all three were ill-defined and the description given for psychological horror was inaccurate). 12.233.146.130 (talk) 19:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and would like to point out this sentence, in particular, which is poorly constructed: "King was responsible for the development of the horror genre beginning in the 1970s." It implies that horror fiction was invented in the 1970s, and by Stephen King. I'd suggest something like "Stephen King has been a particularly influential figure in contemporary American horror fiction since the 1970s." O0drogue0o (talk) 06:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Template

I am planning to revamp the template, removing links to categories or stub articles (unless the stub is on a demonstrably central subject). I will include major authors, artists, and works. I did similar work on the templates for sf and fantasy, Template:Science fiction Template:Fantasy fiction. Im mentioning it here because the talk page for the template is silent. of course, this page is not that travelled either.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 08:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres

User:Maximilianklein/wcgenres Maximilianklein (talk) 23:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Cartoon "Irish Frankenstein"

Was the "Irish Frankenstein" a particular person, or was the monster meant to represent fear of Irish people? Please elaborate, as it is not clear why the general English public should have had a generalized fear of the Irish at the time this catoon would have been published. Or perhaps the cartoon is a reference to a particular person? Either way, please be more specific as to whom or what the cartoon is meant to depict. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.89.193.42 (talk) 21:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Bad footnote

Footnote 14, "'Elements of Horror'. Redlodge. Retrieved 2012-11-02." leads to a 404 page. Any other source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.134.86 (talk) 00:34, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

This piece on horror fiction was very informative on the origin of horror fiction towards the 20th century and all of the steps and accomplishments that horror fiction has taken. I do wish it expanded upon how it has progressed towards the present and how much further this genre grew over time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:5B0F:B600:C56C:349C:1BC1:96AE (talk) 05:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

End of the "horror boom" in the 1990s?

Although there was a big surge in horror books during the 1970s, by the early 1990s the amount of horror books sold in the US declined. For instance: " the 1990s saw the end of the horror boom. Major authors in the field still sold well, but their works were increasingly labeled "fiction" rather than "horror," and their audiences contained more longtime fans than new readers. Meanwhile, new writers of horror and supernatural fiction failed to win mass audiences like those that had flocked to King ten or fifteen years earlier".(Rebecca Stefoff, Stephen King.New York : Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2011. (p.64)). And this: "by the early '90s, something catastrophic had clearly happened to the horror field. Those black-covered books with the demonic children and the embossed drop of blood visible through the show-through outer cover were disappearing.With them went, frequently, the entire horror section in major bookstores....the field imploded, largely collapsing down to the small-press or near-vanity press level, where one could become a "big name" with a print-on-demand novel that sold four hundred copies". (Darrell Schweitzer," Who Killed Horror? The Murder on the Orient Express Solution", in The Fantastic Horizon: Essays and Reviews Rockville, Md. Borgo Press, 2009. (p.39)) This information should be incorporated into the article. 176.61.97.121 (talk) 20:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Literature?

Shouldn't this be removed since horror is covered by film as well?--Taeyebaar (talk) 01:05, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

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Speculative Fiction?

Right out of the gate, this article is, to me, incorrect: "Horror is a genre of speculative fiction..." I think "Horror is a genre of fiction" would be more correct. Horror doesn't have to be speculative (think, Silence of the Lambs and the like). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonica (talk • contribs) 20:29, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

This is a good point. The article writer probably was more familiar with supernatural horror. Note that this article doubles as the article for horror and supernatural horror. 2601:647:CB03:5930:402A:BD68:139:CFD5 (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

"Cozy horror" listed at Redirects for discussion

File:Information.svg The redirect Cozy horror has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Template:Slink until a consensus is reached. Cremastra (u — c) 00:56, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Copy editing

An editor has undone many necessary copy edits in this article, which has lowered the article quality. These copy edits follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style (and the Chicago Manual of Style where an issue is not covered). So I have now restored these copy edits. Please leave these edits in place, to help the community to improve the article quality. Thanks much. Pac Veten (talk) 16:13, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

I object to reformatting prose as bullet points, and the majority of these 'necessary copy edits' were not necessary at all - they were simply fiddling with grammar, substituting one sentence for another without repairing any actual deficiencies in the article. MrOllie (talk) 16:17, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

First, this is a community issue, since an editor does not WP:OWN an article. Second, the majority of these copy edits were unrelated to bullet points, so that's a tangential consideration. Third, Wikipedia documentation is clear that professional copy editing is a long-term goal, which is independent of the article content that you mentioned.

For the sake of article quality, please leave these copy edits in place (or restore them if you have undone them a second time). Pac Veten (talk) 16:25, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

You also do not WP:OWN this article, so trying to force in your edits isn't appropriate. The WP:ONUS is on you to get consensus support for your changes, so no, I will not leave these in place or revert myself. MrOllie (talk) 16:26, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

My copy editing is a standard part of Wikipedia operations, listed as one of the primary tasks, actually. How did you mean, "force"--do you think that Wikipedia's top-level tasks should be changed? If so, this isn't the proper forum to make that proposal.

Beyond that, routine copy editing is generally considered below the level of consensus discussion. So your reversions (repeated) are most unusual. They are interfering with Wikipedia's standard process of quality improvement, as previously mentioned.

I was curious about an odd phrase that you used in the reversion comments: "grammar spinning". A quick web search turned up no hits for this phrase. What did you mean by it? Pac Veten (talk) 16:33, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

By 'force', I mean performing the edit a second time and then telling me to leave it in on this talk page. That is not a 'standard part of Wikipedia operations'.

Nothing is 'below the level of consensus discussion'. You need to get consensus support when someone objects, always.

As to your question, see Article spinning. MrOllie (talk) 16:37, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

It's good to hear your support for a consensus process, which should ultimately benefit this and other articles on related topics.

You may potentially be confused about the difference between plagiarism and copy editing, if I read your comment above correctly. But thanks for clarifying your intent.

If your concern is with quality, I can mention that one or more issues have been flagged in this article as needing attention, and it seems like a good opportunity for somebody with a focus on this topic. Pac Veten (talk) 16:48, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

I said nothing at all about plagiarism, so you definitely did read my comment incorrectly. MrOllie (talk) 16:58, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

First, the article that you referred me to is about plagiarism of a sort. Maybe you intended to refer me to a different article instead?

Second, it may be worth having a look at the flagged issue(s) in this article. It sounds like you have a strong commitment to the topic, and people like that can often improve article quality in a helpful way. Pac Veten (talk) 17:07, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

No, I referred you to exactly the article I meant to, which is about 'spinning' of grammar by shuffling words around without making meaningful changes or improvements. This is usually a lateral move quality wise, but when coupled with problems (like my objections here and on the other article you'd done much the same with) reversion is the proper course because the changes are on balance problems.

I have no idea what 'flagged issue(s)' you are referring to, this article carries no maintenance templates. MrOllie (talk) 18:15, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

The reverted copy edits had improved this article's grammar, usage, style, clarity, and conciseness. Wikipedia guidelines support this kind of improvement, as noted in a few places. It's a shame to omit it here.

Agreed, sorry. The other article where you reverted my copy edits--Horror films--shows two maintenance templates (from 2019 and 2021), which should probably be attended to at some point. Again, a great task for somebody strongly interested in the topic. If you think that it would be useful to add this comment to that article's talk page, just let me know. Pac Veten (talk) 18:35, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Template:Tq I disagree, which is why I reverted. MrOllie (talk) 19:04, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks much for an interesting discussion. I'll need to move on to some other things at this point.

If there's ever a consensus among followers of this page that a copy edit would be useful, people should just let me know, and I'll do my best to find the time. Pac Veten (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2025 (UTC)