Following on from yesterday's post, I am going to spend the next few posts discussing the different kinds of horror, and how they can be used in the context of larp. Today, I am going to begin with a discussion of "shock", which I defined as the "response to a sudden stimulus whist in a state of heightened arousal". This, arguably the most primal form of horror, is deeply embedded in the brainstem and occurs on an automatic level - which is perhaps why it is so commonly invoked across various media.
The startle response is the neurological basis for this kind of horror - automatic reflexes which are fundamentally tied to survival instincts. Startle responses can be triggered by multiple different sensory modalities - visual, touch, proprioceptive (as in the instinctive response to the sensation of falling, so beloved of Inception) - but the most potent is probably the response to auditory stimulus.
This, the acoustic startle response, is the one most often taken advantage of by jump scares in film and other media; though it is usually the case that there is a visual component to focus the shock, it is generally the auditory component that drives the response. Whilst a very effective method of inducing amygdala hijack and the fight-or-flight response (CW: jump scare), this approach can be rather unsatisfying.
The classic jump scare comes in three parts - and here I'll quote Bryan Bishop's excellent article in The Verge:
One major problem is that it is very difficult to keep up any degree of pay-off if one relies overly-much on jump scares - if you're following the classic three-part setup, things can get predictable very quickly. Spring-loaded cats aside, there aren't many ways of varying the formula.
It is worth noting that the impact of a jump scare depends greatly on the amount of build-up that comes before it. The excellent (and free) Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion is an excellent example of this - shock rarely works alone, and even cartoonishly ridiculous shocks can be effective if one is suitably anticipating it. This ties into a lot of the material that I'm going to talk about in a later post, and is tied into the cycles of tension that create a rising feeling of dread before the payoff of the shock.
There is good evidence that startle reactions are greatly increased when one is already in a condition of stress, or otherwise in a state of anxiety- these clinical findings can be fairly easily related to casual observations around the tension cycle if we consider one of the main methods by which dread primes us for a shock to be the induction of hyper-vigilance. This also links into questions of the effect of concentration on the potentiation of the startle effect. Research suggests that when attention is directed to a startle-inducing stimulus the response is amplified, which one could surmise from playing a couple of Scary Maze games (CW: jump scare, obv.), or, if you prefer, Scary Flappy Bird (CW: Flappy Bird, and probably a jump scare. I don't know, I'm so terrible at Flappy Bird that I can't get beyond the first couple of pillars, and have thus never actually seen the end of this one).
The reverse also seems to be somewhat true - directing attention away from the sensory modality of the shock seems to decrease startle responses, though only in introverts. It's one of the few INTP superpowers, I guess.
The startle response is the neurological basis for this kind of horror - automatic reflexes which are fundamentally tied to survival instincts. Startle responses can be triggered by multiple different sensory modalities - visual, touch, proprioceptive (as in the instinctive response to the sensation of falling, so beloved of Inception) - but the most potent is probably the response to auditory stimulus.
This, the acoustic startle response, is the one most often taken advantage of by jump scares in film and other media; though it is usually the case that there is a visual component to focus the shock, it is generally the auditory component that drives the response. Whilst a very effective method of inducing amygdala hijack and the fight-or-flight response (CW: jump scare), this approach can be rather unsatisfying.
The classic jump scare comes in three parts - and here I'll quote Bryan Bishop's excellent article in The Verge:
In fact, a well-done jump scare breaks down the same way Michael Caine describes illusions in The Prestige, with three distinct steps. First there’s the pledge: a character is introduced into a situation where danger is present. They hear a rattling in the kitchen, or voices when they’re home alone. Then comes the turn, where the character finds a reasonable explanation, or the immediate threat is somehow removed. Everything seems alright, and the audience lets its guard down. That’s when the filmmakers execute the prestige, hitting an unsuspecting audience with the actual scare — usually accompanied by a shrieking music cue or sound effect
One major problem is that it is very difficult to keep up any degree of pay-off if one relies overly-much on jump scares - if you're following the classic three-part setup, things can get predictable very quickly. Spring-loaded cats aside, there aren't many ways of varying the formula.
It is worth noting that the impact of a jump scare depends greatly on the amount of build-up that comes before it. The excellent (and free) Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion is an excellent example of this - shock rarely works alone, and even cartoonishly ridiculous shocks can be effective if one is suitably anticipating it. This ties into a lot of the material that I'm going to talk about in a later post, and is tied into the cycles of tension that create a rising feeling of dread before the payoff of the shock.
There is good evidence that startle reactions are greatly increased when one is already in a condition of stress, or otherwise in a state of anxiety- these clinical findings can be fairly easily related to casual observations around the tension cycle if we consider one of the main methods by which dread primes us for a shock to be the induction of hyper-vigilance. This also links into questions of the effect of concentration on the potentiation of the startle effect. Research suggests that when attention is directed to a startle-inducing stimulus the response is amplified, which one could surmise from playing a couple of Scary Maze games (CW: jump scare, obv.), or, if you prefer, Scary Flappy Bird (CW: Flappy Bird, and probably a jump scare. I don't know, I'm so terrible at Flappy Bird that I can't get beyond the first couple of pillars, and have thus never actually seen the end of this one).
The reverse also seems to be somewhat true - directing attention away from the sensory modality of the shock seems to decrease startle responses, though only in introverts. It's one of the few INTP superpowers, I guess.
How does this all translate to larp, then?
Shock can be an effective driver of play, but one should be careful of its overuse. Horror elements can create a great degree of emotional intensity, which is often desirable in a larp, but the emotions that repeated exposure to this kind of fear tends to bring up are not especially productive ones. There are safety concerns as well - whenever you try to invoke the fight-or-flight response, there is a reasonable chance of the former kicking in. Nobody wants to be the crew member that jumps out of the bushes to scare the players, and ends up with a point-blank crossbow bolt to the nads.
Another safety note - it's always wise to try and have a good idea of any phobias that players may have, and to avoid using those (or, indeed, any other common phobias) in jump scares. Panic attacks are not generally the kind of emotional state that one wishes to inspire in one's players.
This is not to say that one shouldn't use this kind of scare. One of my most memorable larp experiences was at the first Dark Tempus, when the sudden unexpected appearance of a zombie caused one of my group to involuntarily throw a glass of scotch all over it as we struggled to draw our weapons. But if you are going to use shocks, then use them well.
The tension-release cycle is perhaps the most important aspect here, and one which I will talk of more in later posts. One should aim for a cycle of Dread => Shock => Calm => Dread etc, rather than Shock => Calm => Shock => Calm. The former, in telegraphing the upcoming shock, will make it all the more effective; the latter rapidly falls into Cat Cannon territory, with sudden unpredictable shocks coming out of nowhere leading more to confusion and irritation than fear.
Stimuli do not necessarily need to be overwhelming in order to trigger a shock if the tension has already been built - a quiet voice in a pitch-dark room thought to be empty may be far more effective than a full-blown screaming monstrosity appearing with no build-up whatsoever.
It's worth playing with sensory modalities, though note that the auditory seems to be the most effective. In this, larp has an advantage over many other media, as all senses can potentially be commandeered towards the creation of experience. Sound and vision are potent, especially when combined; but there may be avenues of interest to explore in touch and proprioception. Touch, particularly, has a sense of violation about it, which can trigger strong feelings of fear and revulsion - the latter of which is an integral feature of horror, as I'll discuss later.
The potentiating effect of attention should be drawn upon where possible; if a player is engrossed in some activity that is requiring their full attention, then it not only makes it easier to set up the shock unnoticed, but the impact of the shock is greatly increased. A certain amount of bait-and-switch misdirection can be used here, a technique which I will discuss later in the post on Terror.
Finally, there is what one might term the Anti-Cat Technique. This, which might be described as "scar the character, scare the player", requires shocks to have a meaningful impact; they should represent credible threats or be somehow significant in the greater scheme of things where possible. This can of course be subverted - but the subversion is only effective when the majority of shocks are meaningful.
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