Science Forums 2

[lemit]

In terms of what we're afraid of, I think it's instructive to watch horror movies. They are usually designed like television commercials, with a gothic insistence on proving a point. The commercials use color, brightness, texture, set design, positioning of characters, precision of dialogue, pacing, jump cuts, and those pesky subliminal phones, whistles and doorbells--all to get our attention focused on a product. Horror movies are the same except that their product is fear.

So how do they do it? The good ones do it by timing and patience, by developing a story so well that we don't expect something scary. But those aren't the ones I'm talking about. (As a former media critic, I'd prefer to, but that's not what I'm doing here.) The ones I'm talking about start out scary and get scarier. They have all the bells, whistles, and jump cuts of commercials since like commercials they are intended for teenagers. They don't include the things that scare those of us who have reached a certain age: wills, investments, lawyers, those damn teenagers screaming at that horror movie. Oh, yes, the teenagers. My mind wanders sometimes.

The teenagers. They're scared by more visceral things and are therefore more instructive about what scares us as a species. From the horror movies, then, it would seem that what scares us is fairly simple. Insects. Maybe snakes, but mostly insects.

I am amazed that everything that's supposed to be scary, including the lawyers, is depicted as an insect. I suppose the fact that a new, impressionable set of teenagers is being generated every few years means a new set of insects can be sold to that new set of teenagers.

But I have a feeling that surprise can have its uses. I have a feeling that pacing and dramatic tension have the potential to be more scary than exoskeletons, extra legs, and chartreuse goo. Of course I'm mostly afraid of lawyers.

And accountants! Hey! You know, there's this new movie and it has like all these accountants and you know these accountants have like four sets of legs each and like these segmented bodies and it's all like yuck, you know!

--lemit