He is horrible — horrible beyond anything you can imagine — but wonderful. He haunts one for hours afterward. I am still shuddering at what he showed.

-H.P Lovecraft, regarding Nyarlathotep.

I have an undying love for the way H.P Lovecraft could spend thirty something pages saying "Guys, no really, this thing is just so awful you wouldn't even believe me. It's horrible and beautiful and awful and wonderful and if I even looked at it I would be driven mad. It is so non-descript, I am going to describe how undescriptive it is like I'm being paid by the word or something."

Lovecraft wasn't the best writer by any means, but I liked that he didn't come out and throw the monster screaming in your face like some cheap scare-video. He didn't let you get jaded to it by constantly showing blood-gore-blood-gore until the reader is going, "Oh. Let me guess. This room is bloody too? Oh look, a foot. Huh. Yawn."

Oh, no.

There's something to be said for anticipation and the limitless capacity of the human imagination. Just ask anyone with a fear of needles and an impending hospital visit.

Building up something without actually showing it can create dread, and dread can be a very powerful tool.

Dread is a more sinister emotion in that it seeps in slowly and festers in a way that is almost maddening.

You haven't seen anything yet, so what is there to be scared of?

You don't know what is going to happen, so why assume it is going to be bad?

Because someone or something planted the seed that it would be awful, and your own imagination watered that baby with anxiety and trepidation until it grew into a deathbloom and throttled you to your knees.

A great example, in The Punisher movie, there's a scene where a man is strung up and Castle is talking about how he's going to burn the man with a welding torch. He shows it to him, lets him hear the roar of the fire, and explains what it can do to him. He builds up the idea that this is going to hurt and will mess him up something awful. He will feel nothing at first, saying the nerves will be fried away, and he does nothing. He tells him he will smell burning meat, and then sears a steak nearby. He tells him he will then feel cold...And what does he do?

He touches a cold popsicle to his back. Likely cherry flavored. A harmless frozen sweet treat meant for children on a hot summer's afternoon.

The tortured man absolutely loses it and starts screaming in agony.

Why? Because he believed him. Castle built up all this anticipation and dread such that an unpleasant icy feeling was perceived as torture comparable to Spetsnaz.

In closing, showing can be a useful tool, sure, but sometimes it's what you don't see that's really scary.

I leave you with the most succinct example I can think of from Futurama:

"Did he at least die painlessly? ...To shreds you say." -Professor Farnsworth