The power of a story to wrap one's heart in the cold grip of fear and set it racing, to put one so entirely on edge that the slightest sound will cause them to jump out of their skin, is on delightful display in the horror genre of fiction novels. This particular form, like fantasy, can trace its roots to antiquity. Ancient archetypes persist in these stories, although, according to online sources, they did not begin blossoming as a modern genre until the gothic novels of the late 18th and early 19th century.
The literary device of making the familiar strange is used to remarkable effect by contemporary horror writers. Many of their stories are set in very recognisable, everyday settings. The characters are normal people, who, in the midst of their unremarkable lives, are brought face-to-face with manifestations of evil and the supernatural so diabolical the reader's blood can run cold. These tales, set in the “ordinary,” do represent a bit of a departure from their prototypical forebears, works like Mary Shelly's Frankenstein or Bram Stoker's Dracula, whose worlds were dominated by the force of personality of the eponymous souls.
Of course, horror is a time-honoured theme of the cinema, and much of it owes a debt to the writers who provided the stories. The film version of Bram Stoker's Dracula was notable for its sense of atmosphere and suspense, and it offered the added bonus of a horror-within-a-horror via the casting of Keanu Reeves as the British doctor who would prove the Count's bane.
The literary device of making the familiar strange is used to remarkable effect by contemporary horror writers. Many of their stories are set in very recognisable, everyday settings. The characters are normal people, who, in the midst of their unremarkable lives, are brought face-to-face with manifestations of evil and the supernatural so diabolical the reader's blood can run cold. These tales, set in the “ordinary,” do represent a bit of a departure from their prototypical forebears, works like Mary Shelly's Frankenstein or Bram Stoker's Dracula, whose worlds were dominated by the force of personality of the eponymous souls.
Of course, horror is a time-honoured theme of the cinema, and much of it owes a debt to the writers who provided the stories. The film version of Bram Stoker's Dracula was notable for its sense of atmosphere and suspense, and it offered the added bonus of a horror-within-a-horror via the casting of Keanu Reeves as the British doctor who would prove the Count's bane.