Many people always associate the two descriptive terms as being similar, but they are very unique in identity. Why does it matter? Will you actually need to know the difference in horror?
It may seem like a trivial question, but it has a very valid purpose. Every successful horror author appreciates the boundaries between the two. In the novel Phantoms, Dean R. Koontz had the opportunity to make an incredibly gory novel. He could’ve easily taken many of the victims in the book and made them far more gushy, bloody, oily, and whatever other adjective you may substitute. However, Koontz didn’t seize that chance. The result is an incredibly awesome read. The bodies in this novel were far more disturbing than disgusting.
Disgusting is often a element used by more inexperienced individuals in horror. It is often intended to “shock” the reader into whatever mood the writer feels is most appropriate. But, disgust has its disadvantages.
The element of disgust is a quick way to get a response, but it will harden the audience just as quickly. After a brief period of time, disgust becomes just another part of the scene and has no particular visual value. If you construct elaborate scenes or settings around the element of disgust and don’t back it up with strong plots or good characterization, your story will ultimately fail. Instead of the novel with the scary event, it will just be the novel with the gore. One good example of this are the latter installments of the “SAW” franchise.
The first movie was amazing, but it wasn’t just the gore, the gross factor, or the disgusting bathroom where the two men were trapped. Likewise it wasn’t the bizarre tests Jigsaw administered. It was the suspense. There was a keen sense of urgency in the first movie that the sequels haven't quite incorporated. The first also had the all-important shocking twist at the end that was almost recaptured in the second and lost in the third.
Gore is not what made the movie memorable. It doesn’t mean they were poorly written or the acting was bad, it simply means the suspense wasn’t there. The audience knew too much from the beginning.
Disturbing is the ultimate goal of horror. Disturbing images creep into your audience’s imagination and will keep them up at night. “Disgusting” may spoil their appetite for a few days, but disturbing is what will keep your work in their mind.
Take the Japanese novel Ringu, by Koji Suzuki. This elaborate novel was constructed around a girl named Sadakko. It contained no gore, used the elements of disturbing and creepy, and went on to be produced into a movie. It became a blockbuster in Japan and a wildly popular horror film in America as, “The Ring.”
“Ju-On,” followed in the same footsteps. Japanese director Takashi Shimizu wrote this film for Japan and later went on to create, “The Grudge,” for American audiences.
