The title doesn't do this discussion justice, so don't put too much stock in it.
I was reading a review of Peter's (OG-, to most of you) on his fine site, Horror's Not Dead, wherein he mentioned that "of any fantasy terror, aliens have it easiest when it comes to making my skin crawl." I replied that my friend had the same tendency, and that it was something I couldn't at all relate to, which sparked a short back-and-forth about why we do (or don't) find the idea of aliens especially frightening compared to something like, say, ghosts. Peter mentioned that it was certain alien features that particularly freaked him out, but it got me thinking about why I don't find them as scary in general as other typical horror film subjects.
After clarifying my own thoughts a bit, I concluded that I didn't find aliens particularly scary because they're usually portrayed as intelligent, and usually posess some degree of reason. Ghosts and other supernatural beings, however, are usually obsessive and single-minded. For whatever reason, I find this a great deal more frightening.
Great example of why the irrationality is so scary to me: I never saw The Grudge (American version), but I had someone describe a scene to me where a man (allegedly) asks to be let into an apartment building, so the woman buzzes him in, and the doorbell to her apartment rings a split-second later.
Now, to me, even hearing about that is terrifying. It's so creepy to think that this being/ghost/whatever is smart enough to try to fool the woman, but not smart enough to realize what is and is not believable (IE: someone being upstairs a mere second after being let in the door). It has all this power, but only a rudimentary understanding of things. It's like a kid playing with his dad's gun, except the kid hates you, is invincible, and never sleeps or eats. It just. Keeps. Coming.
This ties into another distinction between the two: with aliens, we still know the ground rules. You can probably cut their head off, blow them up, whatever. And you can probably appeal to their sense of self-interest and self-preservation somehow.
Films about ghosts are different, though. Part of the fright with a ghost in any film is that, for the characters, they don't know all the rules: they don't know how to kill a ghost, and they don't know how to make it go away. They have to play a game they've had no preparation for. In some instances, they can't kill it; they can only appease it somehow, which is scarier still.
I have more thoughts, but this post is getting too long as it is. So, the question is: which is generally scarier to you in cinema, and why: intelligent threats like aliens, or the unknown, like ghosts?
I was reading a review of Peter's (OG-, to most of you) on his fine site, Horror's Not Dead, wherein he mentioned that "of any fantasy terror, aliens have it easiest when it comes to making my skin crawl." I replied that my friend had the same tendency, and that it was something I couldn't at all relate to, which sparked a short back-and-forth about why we do (or don't) find the idea of aliens especially frightening compared to something like, say, ghosts. Peter mentioned that it was certain alien features that particularly freaked him out, but it got me thinking about why I don't find them as scary in general as other typical horror film subjects.
After clarifying my own thoughts a bit, I concluded that I didn't find aliens particularly scary because they're usually portrayed as intelligent, and usually posess some degree of reason. Ghosts and other supernatural beings, however, are usually obsessive and single-minded. For whatever reason, I find this a great deal more frightening.
Great example of why the irrationality is so scary to me: I never saw The Grudge (American version), but I had someone describe a scene to me where a man (allegedly) asks to be let into an apartment building, so the woman buzzes him in, and the doorbell to her apartment rings a split-second later.
Now, to me, even hearing about that is terrifying. It's so creepy to think that this being/ghost/whatever is smart enough to try to fool the woman, but not smart enough to realize what is and is not believable (IE: someone being upstairs a mere second after being let in the door). It has all this power, but only a rudimentary understanding of things. It's like a kid playing with his dad's gun, except the kid hates you, is invincible, and never sleeps or eats. It just. Keeps. Coming.
This ties into another distinction between the two: with aliens, we still know the ground rules. You can probably cut their head off, blow them up, whatever. And you can probably appeal to their sense of self-interest and self-preservation somehow.
Films about ghosts are different, though. Part of the fright with a ghost in any film is that, for the characters, they don't know all the rules: they don't know how to kill a ghost, and they don't know how to make it go away. They have to play a game they've had no preparation for. In some instances, they can't kill it; they can only appease it somehow, which is scarier still.
I have more thoughts, but this post is getting too long as it is. So, the question is: which is generally scarier to you in cinema, and why: intelligent threats like aliens, or the unknown, like ghosts?