I know horror writers who use subtext and they're all cowards

Tis the season to be spooky, innit? I spent a lot of the weekend playing Amnesia: Rebirth for review (which is now live) and, as a contrast, watching The Haunting Of Bly Manor on Netflix.

Rebirth wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped (by dint of it being a Frictional Games game, whom I hold to a very high standard), but it is still a great horror adventure. Bly Manor, on the other hand, is teeeeerrible. Worse than not being scary, it is often actually funny. So I've been thinking a lot about horror and what kinds of horror I think are good, and why.