Why Horror is Better When it is PG
(warning, Earthbound spoilers will pop up in this blog post)
I was browsing YouTube today listening to the music of the final battle from Earthbound and reading comments when I came across one that I found very thought provoking. The person commented that the true masters of horror are not writers of the horror genre, but writers of family friendly material. Now, admittedly, there are very many family friendly things that try to be scary but fail because they do not want to scare the kids too much. Family friendly writers clearly are not the masters of horror. However, I think that person’s statement was still pretty accurate. Even though not every family friendly writer is good at writing horror, I would definitely argue that, when done right, family friendly material can be far scarier than actual horror genre material.
I think a very important factor in horror is the “unexpected” value. I think if the “level of horror” (i.e. how scary something inherently is) is identical between two films, the film that you go into not expecting it to be dark or scary (i.e. a children’s film) will wind up being scarier than the film that you go into expecting it to be scary (i.e. a horror film).
Quite a few people reading this might point out that truly scary family friendly films (i.e. Return to Oz, The Brave Little Toaster) and video games (i.e. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Earthbound) are not nearly as terrifying and “bed-wetting” as scary horror films (i.e. Sinister) and video games (i.e. Resident Evil 4). However, I don’t think a film, book, or video games’ “scare factor” equates to how truly scary it is. I think the scariest things do not necessarily scare you when you experience them, but they scare you when you think about them. The thought of them makes you uncomfortable, fidgety, and nervous. I will not claim to be a connoisseur of the horror genre; I do not read horror books, I have watched less than 10 horror films, and I have not played one horror game (I mean, to me, Tomb Raider games are horror games, because I can’t handle the suspense). From what I have experienced, though, the horror genre doesn’t scare you when you think about it afterwards. You don’t talk about Freddy Krueger (from Nightmare on Elm Street) and get super uncomfortable and want to switch subjects, nor do your eyes widen in terrified fascination as you would if you saw a dead body and tried to look away but couldn’t. But when a Thomas the Tank Engine short turns steadily into Attack on Titan or Akira, that sticks with us well after watching the short, and it upsets us far more than Freddy Krueger ever did.
I think it has a lot to do with contrast. When we watch a horror movie, we expect the fictional world to be scary and accept that bad things can happen in it. Even though scary things may happen, our brains understand that those scary things are following the rules of the fictional world and so are not disturbed by them. On the other hand, when we watch a children’s film, and things are bright and colorful and happy, we accept good things as the norm. As an adult, a pleasure in watching children’s films is that it allows us to escape our troubles and place ourselves in worlds where good things happen to good people. When things get messed up and scary (even if things don’t get as “objectively scary” as in the horror film), our brains get really upset, because the screenwriters have broken our trust in the world. Not even in a child’s film or video game can we escape the struggles of humanity. Not even in a child’s film or video game can good things be guaranteed to happen to good people.
I believe it is that realization that makes a scary thing in family friendly material actually scarier than horror genre material. Scary things in family friendly material (especially when they push the boundaries, as in Earthbound) do something that horror genre material doesn’t. Horror movies make you feel better about real life: “I may be having issues with my boss, but at least my world is happier than the world in Sinister.” Scary or even just dark family friendly material tells you that there is no hope. No matter how bright and happy your world is, you cannot escape the darkness. There will always be fear, evil, and death lurking behind your shoulder. Bad things can and will happen to good people. I think confirmation of those statements is much more terrifying than anything that happens in the horror genre.
That is especially why I would like to highlight Earthbound (Mother 2 in Japan), which is one of my favorite video games of all-time but also makes me very uncomfortable whenever I think about it. Although scary children’s films certainly exist (i.e. Return to Oz, The Brave Little Toaster), they often don’t lead you into despair, instead doing their best to upset you from the very beginning (i.e. electroconvulsive therapy in Return to Oz, the air conditioner scene from The Brave Little Toaster). Earthbound, on the other hand, lies to you. The first half of the game involves you roaming the colorful United States of America as a 10-year old boy booting bad guys out of towns much like Red in Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow (and Green in Japan). It isn’t until you reach Fourside where you begin to realize there is a dark shadow following you (that Mani Mani Statue…) and actively working to mess up your plans. This contrasts greatly with the second half of the game, where you go from having to actively give consent multiple times to be dismembered, to seeing yourself become so powerful—too powerful—that your psychic powers are projecting your mind onto scrolling marquee signs, to traveling through Hell, to being told that the only way to complete your mission is to allow yourself and your friends to have their brains ripped from their bodies and permanently sent back in time in robot bodies, to battling and aborting Giygas, a fetus (that has your face) that is so incredibly evil and powerful that you cannot actually kill it.
If one compares Earthbound’s villain Giygas objectively to villains of pretty much any good horror film, the movie villain will definitely win out as the “scariest;” but it is Giygas that makes your stomach lurch every time you think about him. It is his (its?) name that sends shivers up your spine. The movie villain may make you scream, but Giygas will haunt you because unlike the movie villain, Giygas is the embodiment of everything bad that ever has and ever will happen to you. He represents how you can never escape from bad things no matter how good of a person you are, a much more real threat than a scary monster in a slasher film. I think that he is a wonderful example, therefore, of how family friendly writers can actually create scarier and more real material than horror genre writers.
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