Suspense vs Gore

Many new filmmakers believe that writing scenes with extreme violence and blood will evoke fear and shock and thus make a project more commercially successful. While it's true that splatter films sell fairly well in low budget DVD markets, they rarely leave a lasting impression. It is not so much the horrific acts that frighten us, rather the suspense leading up to those actions - the girl trapped alone in a dark basement making that fateful turn, the student filmmakers stuck yet another night in a tent waiting for the inevitable besieging, the babysitter staring out the window as the boogie man appears down the street. As Alfred Hitchcock once said, "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it."

"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

This is not to say that bloody massacres should be avoided, as there is fun, campy self-awareness in sla sher films that many fans love. For example, Piranha 3D took blood (and boobs) to the limit in a very campy way. But a bombardment of gore, like too much bad news, has a numbing effect that detaches us from the action.

Are you a suspense or gore fan?