Horror Doesn't Have to Be Scary

While sat reading 'Dark Water' my partner asks me 'any good?' I reply 'Yeah.. not really scary though..' and their reply was simply 'Horror doesn't have to be scary' and it got me thinking. Why do people watch horror? I always thought people like to feel scared, we can make ourselves happy, upset, worried or angry on our own or from outside influences that happen to us in our every day lives...

But we NEED something to make us scared, we like to jump at things and be scared out of our minds if even for a few moments, the way it gets your heart racing and that feel, that rush when it happens, a feeling we can't always get.

At the same time, I find with myself that you get desensitised if your an avid horror fan. Less and less scares you, we might still jump even though we know it's coming but we are never 'scared' there's so many types of horror out there, pretty much anything for every niche but we get so used to it.

Phobia's are always a big part of fear, something that might scare other people like snakes or spiders might be nothing to another person and there for a horror to them is just a movie to us, we need something to scare us that's on a personal level.

For me, personally, it's super natural horrors that get me. Things with ghosts and spirits as I have always believed in that sort of thing, for someone who doesn't believe in the occult or life after death the thought of something like SAW or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE might be their brand of fear, real people who can do harm.

 

 

 

I was always told, it's not the dead that can hurt you, it's the living and I think that saying is very true but that still doesn't change the fact it's still fucking scary. There's still some movies who can give me the proper creeps even after I've watched it like THE WOMAN IN BLACK the pacing and the things you don't see more then the things you do.

So phobia's are a large part of what makes us scared but some people have no phobia's or fears. My partner has no fears and they can sit there watching any horror movie with a stoney blank expression. So why do people like horror?

A large part of my enjoyment other then the rare chance I do crap myself or jump so high I launch popcorn clear across the cinema like an explosion of HOLYARGGGH I guess I have a sick sense of humour. I find FINAL DESTINATION amusing, how stupid the plots get.

Where horror is so damn cheesy or easy to read it becomes funny to those of us who are maybe a little less on the moral scale then other people, maybe some people just love seeing the make-up side of it, seeing all the awesome gore and effects that go into each movie.

Back to the point of 'Horror doesn't have to be scary' this is true I think. Now I am a firm believer in a scary horror is a good horror I also think there are some things that are a good balance of horror and comedy and no one does this better then the British, we have some amazing tongue in cheek horror movies.

If they didn't have say.. zombies or werewolves in them then they'd just be comedy but we have a dark sense of humour which merges with the horror genre beautifully.

Then again some bits which aren't designed to be funny could strike your funny bone, comes down to what someone finds funny and what someone finds scary.

Every culture also has it's own balance of fear and what they believe in. Movies like GRUDGE, RING, SHUTTER, ONE MISSED CALL and DARK WATER are based on woman who had suffered a horrid end and want to make their presence known, people to suffer and this I think comes from a nation where even in the modern world women are still repressed and it might not have the same impact in America or England where as it's more 'horror' to the Japanese then an old guy dying of cancer invoking traps on people to teach them 'to value their lives'

Some people just like to watch horror cus ghosts/vampires/werewolves/evil dolls are just fucking cool.

So whatever your reason for enjoying horror, have a think about your favourite movies. What about them do you enjoy? why do you like them? what gets you scared?

This is Jigsaw out, head hurts from an actual thoughtful piece of writing.

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