with a morbid, gruesome, surreal, or exceptionally suspenseful or
frightening theme has come to be called "horror".Horror fiction seeks to unsettle and inspire a unique emotional state in its reader – FEAR
It is regarded more for what it does that what it is – emotions (fear, terror, physical revulsion etc…) are more central to the genre than the means the narrative uses to achieve them
The interest in disrupting the reader’s emotional equilibrium likely contributes to its image as being ‘deviant’ (finding pleasure and entertainment in terror is often considered psychologically ‘abnormal’)
Horror is often seen as symptomatic of some personal pathology on the part of its consumers
Horror stories typically begin with the eruption of chaotic forces into a previously ordered existence, and conclude with restoration of that order
Horror first invokes, and then resolves, the things that frighten us most
“The oldest emotion of humankind is fear and the strongest of those is fear of the unknown” – H.P. Lovecraft
