post #1

In my opinion, the difference between terror and horror is nearly identical to the difference between knowing and seeing. When we feel terror, we fear less what is truly endangering us, and more what the mind assumes will come of a certain situation.
Terror is what one might feel when walking through a dark, unfamiliar hallway; the chance of anything harmful occuring is unlikely, but the mind will immediately jump to the worst-case scenario, wreaking havoc on one’s rational thought patterns. When you say you know something, your favourite restaurant’s specials, for example, you truly believe that you know it. However, the restaurant could be deciding to close down at that same moment, altering momentarily the veracity of what you know and what you think you know. Terror is the same; although that hallway may be completely innocuous, the terror one feels is no less real. Horror, I believe, is quite the opposite. It is the seeing without knowing, the fear impulse that (quite rightly) takes over our rational thought process.
Whereas terror is often characterized by anxious ruminating (What will happen if I go around this corner? If I die, who will clean my hamster’s cage?), horror is often devoid of any thought process at all. It is characterized by the start, the jump, the moment when you see your first roadkill from the backseat window.
Mad Men, a popular drama that many would say is as far from horror/terror as possible, is a good vehicule for the comparaison I’ve set up. There is a scene in the 3rd season where a business man has his leg severed by a tractor. The director decided to show this, blood spatter and all, hoping to get horrified reactions from his audience. However, something that he is perhaps not as conscious of, is the amount of terror in the show. The sparse dialogue, shadowed lighting and allusions to future events create a tense sort of paranoia, one that invites the viewer’s mind to complete its thoughts.