What is the perfect eerieness?

[Googolplex]

Here are a lot of people who think, that dead human bodies are not eerie.
They mean, that the real eerieness only lays in dirty dark environment with scary sounds and special effects (self opening doors for sth.) and crying children.

But is it not scary?
http://www.cinebutaca.com/wp-content/upl...t31024.jpg

I think the perfect eerieness would be achieve, if this both things are compensed together.

Dirty dark environment with scary sounds and special effects "and dead human bodies".

And it is more eerie, if this bodies can whisper or move themself.

But if this things are in a horror-game if would be a 18+ game.
But I find it good, how do you think about real horror?

That can help Frictional Games for their next games (Amnesia 2 or sth.).:

[Akong]

Dead bodies are supposed to be scary because they signal danger. There's nothing inherently scary in dead bodies. If you were in a morgue, light of day, working hours and someone showed you a dead body, you wouldn't be scared. You might be disgusted, but that's something else entirely and should definitely not be confused with being scared. That's how horrible "horror" games are made these days.

A body can be used to insinuate danger. If it is a fresh corpse, you have more reason to be immediately tense. If the corpse was mauled, you know you are dealing with a physical presence, perhaps of a monstrous variety. If there are no signs of physical violence, it might have been a more abstract threat, something psychological perhaps, or maybe a disease.

Bodies are very easy tools to use when you want to relay a sense of danger, but that doesn't mean it is the most effective. Penumbra used sound to great effect. Low growls of wolves, for instance, were very effective in communicating the threat and at the same time, it didn't throw anything at our face, letting our imagination interpret the challenge.

Whispering and moving bodies are only effective if used in context. A big problem with horror games, is that they try to force a lot of 'scares' down your throat. It doesn't matter if it is relevant to the plot or anything, as long as the player is freaked out. This is a very bad practice and shows that the developer isn't really concerned about the horror aspect, and are really just throwing some horror in there, because it's popular. Look how many shooters we've had of late trying to shoehorn bland scares into their shooters. FEAR, DOOM, Half-life, etc.

Why would you specifically want moving and whispering bodies? Why do they move? How can they whisper? It could of course be explained by a deranged mind, sure, I can maybe go with that for the whisper, but explaining everything like that is a cop-out and shows lazy writing.

TL;DR: Whatchu talkin' 'bout, son?

[Googolplex]

Yes, I did not like shooters because the horror would be lost (sry for my bad english but I think you understand what I mean).
This is the point why penumbra is the best horror game yet.
If I see a corpse in daylight and middle in the town it will be just a little scary. And if you play penumbra middle in a disco or in a party with many other peoples, it is not scary. But when you play it alone at home in the darkness, it is very scary.

The corpse on my picture shows a real corpse. It is not preparated!
Its from the movie "Unrest". Its first horror movie with real dead human bodies.

I think it is very scary but corpses alone are not eerie enough.
The environment must look like a nightmare.

All this things combined results a very good horror-game. And you should not have guns or other shooting-weapons. Frictional Games makes it right to uses objects as weapons for their games.

[Akong]

You would find a corpse in the middle of the street scary because someone or something necessarily must have caused the death of this person and it could very well cause your death too. In fact if you were to see a corpse in the city, in the middle of day, you would be more than "a little scared", you would probably be quite terrified.

My example stated you were shown a corpse in a morgue. It has been dead for some time and the cause of death has been found. You likely wouldn't be scared at all, because you would know that you are not in any immediate danger.

Playing Penumbra in the company of people would be less scary, because if something was to happen, even though there is no chance of the game coming alive, there would be people there to help you.

I'm not saying that corpses can't be scary. They can. But there are other more effective ways of creating a scary atmosphere, such as sound, light, unpredictability etc. We are somewhat in agreement here, I'm just trying to explain why corpses aren't necessary for a good horror experience, and can even detract from it, if not done well.

Edit: Again, I very much agree with you about the guns. The feeling of helplessness is very important in any horror game.

[TheLittleGarfield]

That picture of a corpse isn't scary. Though it can make me puke on my keyboard, but that's not a scare...

[Akong]

Exactly the point I was trying to bring up. The sooner developers realize that being disgusted isn't the same thing as being scared, the better.

Disgust can contribute to horror, but it should never be the main ingredient.

[Mina Darsh]

Alright, gonna trail a little bit off the 'are corpses scary?' part and move on to creating the sense of danger. What I thought to be a really good idea to scare someone in a game, is to have sounds play like in Penumbra, but not exactly the same. I haven't played the parts myself in that game but I assume it was ambience like the dogs in the Back Hall part in Amnesia. What I wish to try sometime is to have sounds play right next or behind the player, clearly extremely close, but when you turn around... Nothing. These are the kind of scares that I like, you are being fooled into believing something dangerous or unsettling is near, but eventually you find out there isn't. And if you're really mean, make something happen at the point where the average player would think: "Bah, it was nothing..." Of course yeah, need an explanation

(Makes me wish Amnesia had true bug-free hardware surround support.)

[Hunter of Shadows]

The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.

Read this

Stephen King elaborated on the themes of terror and horror, also adding a third element which he referred to as "revulsion." He describes terror as “the finest element” of the three, and the one he strives hardest to maintain in his own writing. Citing many examples, he defines “terror” as the suspenseful moment in horror before the actual monster is revealed. “Horror,” King writes, is that moment at which one sees the creature/aberration that causes the terror or suspense, a "shock value." King finally compares “revulsion” with the gag-reflex, a bottom-level, cheap gimmick which he admits he often resorts to in his own fiction if necessary, confessing:

“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.”

And this

This should help clarify why bodies can be scary, but not if they're shoved down your throat

[Kman]

personally i think dead bodies/gore can be scary if used right. if you just see randomly placed blood, bodies, guts, etc. in every room it desensitizes you from them and when you see another one you just think "whatever, i saw a torn off arm in the last 2 rooms, guts spilled all over the floor is nothing" but if you use them sparingly, when you see a dead body you think "oh shit... what happened here?" and THAT'S how you make them scary

[Patacorow]

Holy shit, at least spoilerize/give us a warning on that image, asshole