Terror vs. Horror

 Let me talk about something that came up during my research: the difference between terror and horror. To be specific, terror is the dread feeling before the action and horror is the dread after. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho. We see a woman showering in a small bathroom. She's alone. Someone opens the bathroom door and approaches the curtain. We can't see the figure but we know the woman is in danger. This is the terror. As we zoom in on the figure in the back, the curtain is ripped away and the music cuts into the audience. Ree, ree, ree, ree, ree, ree, ree, ree! The woman screams as she is stabbed again and again. She's confused, we'er confused, and afraid. The knife mercifully stops after a few stabs and the woman falls. The camera drifts from her face to the blood slipping into the drain. This is the horror.

The build up to the stabbing is the terror. We feel the fear build up in us as we watch "Mrs. Bates" approach. Then we have the action: the killing. In which we jump up as the knife comes down. Then we watch the life drift from her eyes. This is the horror. 

I remember during my research that I looked up the difference between the two. It's important because it seperates stages of horror. For Lovecraft, it's almost always terror. The realization is usually the catelyst that leads to horror but it is usually at the end. For example if we look at The Rats in the Walls, the narrator builds up the strangeness of the house such as the large gardens that were kept. Gardens that were could feed many more than the occupants of the mansion. Only after he discovers the city under the foundation and sees the four-legged humanoids does he realize why the gardens were kept: for human cattle.

That's one of the issues I came across while researching Lovecraft's lore. He usually only has one scare, and while it is a heck of a scare, it is rarely repeated. The realization that you are not the forefront of evolution is a sudden jab to the narrator's ego and expected reality that it causes him to collapse. The trick for me will be to build up the tension again and again with each book and chapter. A challenge I readily and fearfully accept.