Which violence scene is more terrifying, subtle violence or graphic violence?

[Eldoria]

Which Gore Scene is More Terrifying, Subtle (Implicit) Violence or Graphic (Explicit) Violence?​

Subtle violence is a gore scene that is not shown, but the narrative provides implicit signs that can be directly interpreted by readers.

Example: A shrill scream was heard from the house across the street. Moments later, a person came out of the house and dragged a sack that smelled fishy.

Graphic violence is a scene that shows violence graphically.

Example: A knight beheaded his enemy on a battlefield that had turned into a swamp of blood.

Edit: I mispronounced the term. It's not gore, but violence. This thread discusses explicit vs. implicit violence and their effects on the reader's psychology.

 

[JayMark]

​

Example: A shrill scream was heard from the house across the street. Moments later, a person came out of the house and dragged a sack that smelled fishy.

Huhuhuhu. uhuhuh.

His sack was like, dragging. And it smelt fishy. huhuhhuh. He scored.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Gore isn't terrifying... It's a different kind of horror.

That said, 'imagined' fears are almost always scarier than realized fears. It's always said that whatever you can come up with will be a letdown compared to letting viewers stew in their own imagination.

Again though, gore isn't scary. Graphic gore is more effective at what it wants to do than subtle gore.

 

[L1aei]

Which Gore Scene is More Terrifying, Subtle Gore or Graphic Gore? ​

Subtle gore is a gore scene that is not shown, but the narrative provides implicit signs that can be directly interpreted by readers.

Example: A shrill scream was heard from the house across the street. Moments later, a person came out of the house and dragged a sack that smelled fishy.

Graphic gore is a gore scene that shows violence graphically.

Example: A knight beheaded his enemy on a battlefield that had turned into a swamp of blood.

Subtle. I remember some stories referencing movie scenes and the characters suggesting they'll have creative liberties with them on another. My imagination went haywire on what that implied.

 

[pangmida]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't gore innately graphic? All about showing guts spilling and all that...? I could be mistaken. I always distinguished between graphic violence v.s. gore. So something like "beheaded his enemy" and "swamp of blood" was considered graphic violence to me. Gore, in my opinion, would be more like... (so sorry for this) intestines tangled, skin flayed, fractured tibia piercing through leg, etc. Ugh...

Anyways it of course depends on the story. The subtle example you gave fits suspense, mystery, and thrillers more. The graphic example suits action, grimdark fantasies more. I think "terrifying" in terms of literature is more effective with psychological horror, while visual media could rely on graphics more. So when reading, subtle horrors work better for me. Graphic gore would gross me out but not terrify me.

 

[Eldoria]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't gore innately graphic? All about showing guts spilling and all that...? I could be mistaken. I always distinguished between graphic violence v.s. gore. So something like "beheaded his enemy" and "swamp of blood" was considered graphic violence to me. Gore, in my opinion, would be more like... (so sorry for this) intestines tangled, skin flayed, fractured tibia piercing through leg, etc. Ugh...

You are right. I misread the correct term. Rather than "gore", it's more accurate to call it violence. So, this discussion isn't about gore, but about implicit violence versus explicit violence.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

You know what's really terrifying?
Poorly written scenes that are intended to be intense or scary.

 

[Envylope]

You know what's really terrifying?
Poorly written scenes that are intended to be intense or scary.

In that case they did their job. They scared you so bad, you ran away from the story.

 

[Bimbanana]

Funny thing, i'm totally fine with fight or war violence stuffs like that.
But i dont know why, im totally scared seeing medical scene. Like patients being cut open like that, ughh...

Building World Peace with My Bloodthirsty Demon Army

 

[VanVeleca]

Subtle gore is more traditionally horrifying, as you let your readers play with their own horrid imagination

But Graphic gore is more commonly horrifying, because you are guiding the readers to think a certain way and make them imagine images that may be way more DISGUSTING than their head would usually allow

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Which Gore Scene is More Terrifying, Subtle (Implicit) Violence or Graphic (Explicit) Violence?​

Subtle violence is a gore scene that is not shown, but the narrative provides implicit signs that can be directly interpreted by readers.

Example: A shrill scream was heard from the house across the street. Moments later, a person came out of the house and dragged a sack that smelled fishy.

Graphic violence is a gore scene that shows violence graphically.

Example: A knight beheaded his enemy on a battlefield that had turned into a swamp of blood.

Edit: I mispronounced the term. It's not gore, but violence. This thread discusses explicit vs. implicit violence and their effects on the reader's psychology.

The thing is that implicit violence makes the reader part of the act - you KNOW something nasty happened, even if you didn't see it - and you did nothing to stop it, maybe even enjoyed it a little... (Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics did a great little essay on this).
Graphic violence is hard to make truly frightening. Disturbing? Yes. But not frightening. It can become cartoonish (my little brother laughed at pictures of baby harp seals being clubbed because he was too young to be horrified by it and it looked like some of the cartoons that I watched with him - or, for a more recent example, the Frightener movies - that would probably be scary if they weren't so darned over the top on the violence and gore. I mean WAY WAY WAY over the top to the point where it BECOMES a cartoon). or just numbing.

Most effective is to balance these and know when to use one or the other to get the response a scene needs.

 

[Elmir_Arch-Ham_of_Omega]

Explicit beats implicit hands-down by sheer virtue alone.
Pun intended.
Irony intended.

Delivery however, is a different matter.
As my barber once told me, for every one heartfelt romance scene, there's ten sappy eye-roll worthy scenes that are the exact same premise and setting.

 

[naosu]

You know way back with the Aliens movies first started (Ridley Scott) (Aliens, 1, 2, and 3), they had a lot of darkness in the background where you couldn't really good. Originally it was because they didn't have the technology level to really make it better. But it made a lot of those movies better by creating a subtletly where you didn't see everything and adding to the mystery. Sometimes less is more. This applies here. The newer alien movies they show more but its not always better. And sometimes bling and more special effects cost emphasis that would have gone to the story instead.

I think its like that for books too.

You could be using that time that you would have used for 1 thing for more on the story and the dialogues.

 

[Anonjohn20]

Subtle violence is a gore scene that is not shown, but the narrative provides implicit signs that can be directly interpreted by readers.

Example: A shrill scream was heard from the house across the street. Moments later, a person came out of the house and dragged a sack that smelled fishy.

This requires the author to be really good at managing tension and pacing. Done right, it's really interesting, but done incorrectly, the readers will just get bored.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Subtle.

Because whatever you can write, the reader's imagination is a lot more better than yours.

Of course, you need to guide them to the horror show first.

 

[penitent]

Which Gore Scene is More Terrifying, Subtle (Implicit) Violence or Graphic (Explicit) Violence?​

Subtle violence is a gore scene that is not shown, but the narrative provides implicit signs that can be directly interpreted by readers.

Example: A shrill scream was heard from the house across the street. Moments later, a person came out of the house and dragged a sack that smelled fishy.

Graphic violence is a gore scene that shows violence graphically.

Example: A knight beheaded his enemy on a battlefield that had turned into a swamp of blood.

Edit: I mispronounced the term. It's not gore, but violence. This thread discusses explicit vs. implicit violence and their effects on the reader's psychology.

Graphic. If anyone says subtle, then do me a favor and read a splatterpunk novel. You'll be surprised at how quickly your opinion will change.

 

[Tsuru]

Graphic. If anyone says subtle, then do me a favor and read a splatterpunk novel. You'll be surprised at how quickly your opinion will change.

+1


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You know way back with the Aliens movies first started (Ridley Scott) (Aliens, 1, 2, and 3), they had a lot of darkness in the background where you couldn't really good. Originally it was because they didn't have the technology level to really make it better. But it made a lot of those movies better by creating a subtletly where you didn't see everything and adding to the mystery. Sometimes less is more. This applies here. The newer alien movies they show more but its not always better. And sometimes bling and more special effects cost emphasis that would have gone to the story instead.

I think its like that for books too.

You could be using that time that you would have used for 1 thing for more on the story and the dialogues.

Both are "good" in fact.
(explicit / graphic)
Its the dosage being more important.

The monster being hidden and not shown is scary yes. Especially games. Compared to being visible all the times.
But seeing an alien get out of the person own stomach is traumatizing-lvl scary. For years even for some.
> Pretty sure its what marked the IP in the mind of audience and whole generation, compared to other horror movies IP.




Need a balance between "shown" and "not shown"

 

[Hush25]

Which Gore Scene is More Terrifying, Subtle (Implicit) Violence or Graphic (Explicit) Violence?​

I think that graphic violence always and indeed has a shock factor. But often, for me at least, subtlety is always more effective in evoking a look-over-your-shoulder response.
In the first Alien movie, director, Ridley Scott deliberately kept the gore/violence and shots of the alien to a minimum. He reasoning was that what a person can imagine from subtle hints will always be more frightening and horrifying than anything you can show them.
I thought that was a fascinating insight into what make something truly frightening.

Edited to say: I didn't read the comments before posting mine - @naosu

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I think that graphic violence always and indeed has a shock factor. But often, for me at least, subtlety is always more effective in evoking a look-over-your-shoulder response.
In the first Alien movie, director, Ridley Scott deliberately kept the gore/violence and shots of the alien to a minimum. He reasoning was that what a person can imagine from subtle hints will always be more frightening and horrifying than anything you can show them.
I thought that was a fascinating insight into what make something truly frightening.

Edited to say: I didn't read the comments before posting mine - @naosu

Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien did not hold back much on the gore (and added some oddly psychosexual imagery that made it even more disturbing - and also added two scenes that invalidated the sequels, one of which had been in an early script the other was created from whole cloth - don't recall which ones now, and haven't seen my copy of the book in 30 years) ... that and The Black Hole are both cases where the novel is different enough from the movie that they are at least equally good but different (also the first and third books of his I read, with Splinter of the Mind's Eye in between them).

 

[Hush25]

Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Alien did not hold back much on the gore (and added some oddly psychosexual imagery that made it even more disturbing - and also added two scenes that invalidated the sequels, one of which had been in an early script the other was created from whole cloth - don't recall which ones now, and haven't seen my copy of the book in 30 years) ... that and The Black Hole are both cases where the novel is different enough from the movie that they are at least equally good but different (also the first and third books of his I read, with Splinter of the Mind's Eye in between them).

I vaguely recall the phallic, pseudo-sexual nature of it is partially why they used H.R. Giger's work? It's annoying because I recently watched a documentary on the making of Alien, with tons of interviews which included both Ridley Scott and Giger and I've forgotten the minutiae.