I am trying to coin a term for a sub-genre of horror that I believe doesn't quite fit into other sub-genres of horror. I could call it surreal horror, and that might be okay, but isn't quite accurate. I think of David Lynch's movie "Eraserhead". This is the movie that made me a permanent David Lynch fan and serves as an inspiration for my endeavors at writing eBooks for the Kindle Store. "Eraserhead" is the crowning glory of all offbeat movies. Nothing can match it for pure strangeness of mood, but it is more surreal than what I have in mind for my sub-genre. There is another factor I am including besides surrealism.
Surreal doesn't imply manufactured - manufactured reality that exists alongside "real" reality. A "Matrix""/Inception" type reality, where everything we might believe real is questionable. Another good movie example is the disturbing, reality twisting movie "Jacob's Ladder". A good book example is Phillip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" that was made into the movie "Total Recall".
To experience my vision of this horror sub-genre please visit Amazon's Kindle store and download the free sample of my e-Book called "Hallucinations". If you are curious to read the entire book it is cheap - 99 cents. This is the sub-genre of horror I am coining "synthetic reality" horror. It is surreal but it contains manufactured or synthetic reality that begs the question: is it real or not?
I am in the process of discovering authors who share this vision. I look forward to reading and recommending their eBooks. Please comment and leave links to your synthetic reality ebooks on eBookOsphere Blog.
Thanks,
Stephen Beam
2 comments:
Hi Stephen - I think you posted something about this on my book promo thread on KBoards? Happened to find your blog by chance while surfing and thought 'that phrase sounds familiar'...
It's an interesting concept; I think all horror in some way messes with the reader's idea of reality. For example Turn Of The Screw is obviously nothing like a David Lynch/Inception style, but it has the whole 'is it real or in their minds' thing, which in a way is similar. The reader is caught between two realities, the ghost being real or delusion, and the not knowing is part of the fear...
The title story of my collection The Other Room is I think the story where I've come closest to your ideas - it's got two realities in there.
Can you post the the link to 'The Other Room" if it is an eBook? That would be great.
"Not knowing is part of the fear." I like that! It also ads another layer of mystery. You keep thinking about the story after reading it, puzzling over which reality is true.
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