User blog comment:ChristianWallis/Is the Written Word Scary?/@comment-26475800-20160824163443/@comment-28266772-20160824203854

I like to hear that some people consider fiction scarier than film. It has some fantastic strengths in that it can literally describe someone's state of mind and we can get more nuanced plot twists that aren't so powerfully signposted. I like to think of Lovecraft's stories, in that some of them really only take place with some guy at his desk writing out his process of investigation and the conclusions it brings him to. Obviously, this just wouldn't work in film. Not to mention a book can plunge into the fantastic much more easily than a film and without things like budget restraints and the limitations of CGI/practical effects. And by keeping it in the mind of the reader it can keep things personalised, and some things are just scarier in your head than they are on screen.