Horror comes in many shapes and sizes, for fears are the same.

Everyone has a slightly different idea of what makes for good horror, though there ARE objective qualities that make good horror stand out from the bad.

Video games, films, and TV shows tend to manifest the worst aspects of bad horror more than literature. These usually take the form of jump-scares, intentionally poor lighting for "effect", and implying that the audience should be afraid instead of actually scaring them. Here's a quick breakdown of why these aspects suck and should be removed from not only all media, but from the planet:

Jump Scares:

A cheap tactic that surprises and startles people.

This does NOT induce genuine terror, but rather a cheap imitation.

It's lazy, uninspired, and sadly all too common.

Poor Lighting:

Spooky things happen at night and night is dark, everyone knows this. But intentionally obscuring the visuals in media is, again, LAZY! This lack of lighting allows the viewer to imagine the sinister things happening, but this is the opposite of how visual mediums are meant to reveal aspects.

There is a big difference between a gradual lead up to a reveal and shrouding important imagery because the monster costume looks shitty in proper lighting.

Just SHOW us the scary things.

To HELL with the budget-saving.

That's the producer's problem, not ours.

Implications:

Further LAZINESS.

Dumping exposition onto the audience via a report on the radio or in a newspaper article is fine for some contextual information, but NOT if you want people to emotionally connect with that is happening.

Show us the sinister event that took place as if we were there!

Show us the bloody story you want us to be invested in!

I guarantee seeing a werewolf or vampire attack a human will have a greater impact on the audience than some plebeian reading the Toronto Star.