Newsgroup: it.comp.console.playstation
Titolo: The Daleks are scary

Someone mentioned that the daleks aren't scary enough any more, and they
should be replaced with something scarier.  My question is:  what would
be scarier than a squadron of daleks?
What makes something scary?  Is it the look of it?   The danger of it?
The number of people it's killed?  No.  It's all a matter of mystery.
We're scared of what we can't categorize.  The unknown.    Daleks are
mysterious pepperpot-shaped killing machines with funny voices.  They
can't be killed (mostly), and they move in a relentless fashion.
You know what scares me?  The Terminator.  It's a killing machine that
you just can't stop.  You can't outrun it without a vehicle, and if it
gets you, you're gone.  It never gives up.
I think they should update the Daleks.  I heard a while back about
spider-daleks, and someone made a CGI clip of one in action, and that
seems to me like it would be pretty scary.
I mean, the daleks are pretty funny-looking, and they only create fear
in an exotic setting.  What makes the Terminator scary is that it
strikes close to home.  It comes to the suburbs and it chases you
anywhere.  It enters your home and slaughters your roommate.  I think
that the actual dalek invasion of earth would be cool to see, but they
would have to have legs to be effectively-scary entering your living
room.  A pepperpot just wouldn't be scary.
What makes the Daleks, the Terminator, the T-1000, and a Velociraptor
scary is that they have been established as efficient killers and tough
to beat.   The problem comes when we see that they can be beaten, like
in The Terminator, and a new twist must be added.  We see that 800-101
(Schwarzenegger) Terminators are vulnerable to hydraulic presses, which,
although not commonplace, still exist, and have been shown to kill a
robot that survive an exploding gas truck, and we are no longer as
scared of them, and need something new to scare us, hence the T-1000,
which cannot be crushed to death, and is more efficient at chasing its
prey.     I'm sure Terminator 3 will give us a gaseous Terminator or a
flying T-1000, or something that cannot fall into a vat of molten metal
and die.
Raptors are scary as hell in Jurassic Park, but at the climax of the
show we see that a T-Rex (which itself can be beaten by standing still
and throwing flares) can take out a whole bunch of them.  Hence, the
Lost World had a been-there, done-that feel to it, and wasn't remotely
scary, except maybe for the RV falling down the cliff.
Halloween, which is a horror classic, was better than the movies that
followed it because it didn't bother to explain its villain.  Michael
Myers was a pretty scary villain simply because all we know is that one
day he flipped out and killed his sister, and was deemed "completely
evil" by his shrink.  We don't get to seem much of him, and even then,
he's wearing a mask.  He's really scary because he's relentless and evil
and ruthless and totally mysterious.  The whole illusion is shattered in
part six when we find out why he is the way he is (I think he was
possessed or something).
Hence, the Daleks are beaten in their first appearance by magnetic
flooring, and subsequently get devices to let them go anywhere.
Eventually, they gain the ability to travel in time, and (gasp!) to
climb stairs.   I think invisible Daleks would be scary, with the added
bonus that we don't get to laugh at how stupid they look.
D. Aubrey White
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How the Daleks are used create fear is important.  I'm terribly afraid of a
Dalek gliding through the hallway of an alien city.  But picture this...
It's a Saturday night.  A couple are sitting on a couch watching some
television (most likely a British Science-Fiction show involving time
travelling telelphone booths and whatnot).  They begin arguing about
something, when they hear a click.  They stop talking look around, see
nothing, and discuss with each other that they just heard a sound (did you
hear that?  Yeah, what was it?  I don't know, etc...)  Anyways, they return
to television.  One of them is hungry, and stands up, walks to the kitchen
to get a snack.  The couple still banter back and forth about something,
possibly how they're both partial to tea and muffins.  The husband (I've
decided it's the husband) in the kitchen, is talking when he suddenly stops,
a plate falls and smashes and then silence.  The wife, curious, says "honey?
are you alright?"  She walks to the kitchen and (okay, two different
options)
a) Smoldering heap of husbank smoking and steaming
b) No sign of the husband at all
I'm thinking of the "no sign of husband" scenario.  Anyways, the wife looks
around, and sees nothing.  This scenario goes on until...
Feeling quite nervous, and hearing some strange sounds, she backs into the
corner.  With shattering noise the wall of the kitchen is pierced with a
spidery mechanical leg.  A second leg bursts through.  The rest of the wall
dissintegrates as a widly twisting a movie (and squealing) Spider Dalek
bursts through.  It turns its eye-stick from side to side, sees the woman,
yells "exterminate" and then blasts here.
Other important part.
People, when shot by Daleks, traditionally glow a blue or yellow colour,
then die.  If we are to fear the Daleks,  it has to be more graphic and
painful.  Holes being burnt through the chests of people.  Blood,
explosions, cries of agony (and plausible deaths, not like that secretary on
Revelation of the Daleks).
There, now that would be more scary, at least in my opinion.
William
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 Revelation of the Daleks).
I think, perhaps, seeing the Dalek fire and an off-screen death scream
with perhaps a bit of blood sploshing into the foreground would be more
effective, as then the imaginiation kicks in.
Part of the problem these days in films I think is that they are too
graphic now, it needs to be drawn under the gory microscope and that means
that each new film needs to be that little bit more in order to prove
itself.
People forget that the reason books work so well as a media is because
nobody can beat your own imagination at creating terrors.
C.
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Well, if I were to meet some in a dark ally and they started moving 
towards me I suspect I'd be in desperate need of clean trousers!
David H Tiffany
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That would be cool, but that would require a budget.
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