Horror

Figure 21 from Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Caption reads "FIG. 21.—Horror and Agony, copied from a photograph by Dr. Duchenne."

Horror is the feeling of revulsion that usually follows a frightening sight, sound, or otherwise experience. It is the feeling one gets after coming to an awful realization or experiencing a deeply unpleasant occurrence. In other words, horror is more related to being shocked or scared (being horrified), while terror is more related to being anxious or fearful.

Quotes

• I will make this city an object of horror and something to whistle at. Every last one passing by it will stare in horror and whistle over all its plagues.
  • The Bible, Book of Jeremiah 19:7-9, NWT.

• I look before me at my lighted candles,
  I don’t want to turn around and see with horror
  How quickly the dark line is lengthening,
  How quickly the candles multiply that have been put out.
  • Constantine P. Cavafy, Candles (Κεριά), as translated by Manolis, in Constantine P. Cavafy: Poems (2008) edited by George Amabile.

• When I finally took my husband to see Pet Sematary a few months ago, I looked over during the film, and my husband had his hands over his face...it was too funny.
  Women are wired to give birth, so maybe there's something in us that makes us more immune to horror, films with girls in bikinis getting raped and killed make me angry, but a really chilling horror film where it really gets under your skin and like it really could happen, those are the ones I like.

• Denise Crosby, in "Horror Interview: Denise Crosby wants you to be WEIRD.", The Horror Honeys, (08/2014).

• I've seen horrors, horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that, but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
  • Walter E. Kurtz, interpreted by Marlon Brando in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, written by John Milius and Francis Coppola.

• ...murder, mayhem, robbery, rape, cannibalism, carnage, necrophilia, sex, sadism, masochism ... and virtually every other form of crime, degeneracy, bestiality and horror.
  • United States Senate Judiciary Committees summary of horror comics (1954); as quoted in "Horror! Book Digs Up Lurid ‘Pre-Code’ Monster Comics", Hugh Hart, Wired, 10.31.10.