Do you like or dislike horror movies?

[clg114]

I think that most horror movies are poorly made and uninteresting. However, I do like a well made horror movie. The two that come to mind first are "The Shining" and "Silence of The Lambs". Very good actors make the movie.

 

[Autistamatic]

Even though Stephen King reportedly loathes the movie, "The Shining" definitely goes down as a classic in my book.

 

[china autie]

I like them with popcorn and butter.
I like to eat spaghetti when watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I like to laugh at horror movies because they cannot compare to some if the horror that I experienced in my life.

I even like the bad ones.

 

[Pats]

I've never said this to anyone because everyone loves "The Shining", but I've never seen what the big deal is about that one. (But same with titanic and many other greats.) I could sit and watch Jurassic Park over and over and still feel the intensity during the jeep scene and the raptors in the kitchen (do wish they had left out the door handles - that was the only part that was a bit much). I loved Poltergeist - the ingenuity put into that was the best (but it wasn't scary). When I was younger I watched them all: It's Alive and Pet Semetary were two of my favorites and when I was a kid the creature from the black lagoon and Dracula was my favorite (never liked the later Draculas). I'd sit up alone and watch them then run to bed and leap across the room onto the ladder to climb onto my top bunk. lol The movie that impacted me most was River Wild with Merrill Streep. I was so worked up and had to go to work after watching it.
Nowadays I don't like the graphic killing and I don't appreciate the computer graphics like I do how they did Poltergeist and Ghost Busters. Those seemed to take real talent to come up with. (Thought I don't know how they did it).

 

[Judge]

Yeah. Love the horror genre, although the teen-slasher subcategory has never interested me beyond the "Halloween" film franchise. And then intertwine it with science fiction and dystopian societies. Oh yeah.

I've especially liked a number of the presentations of season one of AMC's "Eli Roth's History of Horror". Amusing to hear personalities like Stephen King and how he detested what film director Stanley Kubrick did to his story in "The Shining".

Eli Roth’s History of Horror

 

[GrownupGirl]

I don't like horror movies at all. Of course, most horror movies these days are just too gross. They can be scary but they don't have to be full of gore and bodily fluids.

 

[Judge]

I've never said this to anyone because everyone loves "The Shining", but I've never seen what the big deal is about that one.

Point taken. I suspect most of what drives the hype around that movie is Jack Nicholson himself. Yet all he's really doing is what he does in virtually all of his movies. -Play himself. And quite "over-the top" in the process. Which admittedly is usually quite entertaining. Though I have to agree, Jack does nothing to elevate the story- or the horror genre itself.

They missed the mark in concentrating on Jack's character given that it was his son Danny who could "shine".

 

[the_tortoise]

I dislike horror movies and don't watch them.

 

[Misery]

I'll be the really odd one out here:

I love horror-themed things... just not movies. I don't actually watch movies (I lack the patience to sit still that long). No, seriously. Last time was probably like 8 years ago.

But other things? Horror themed books, manga, anime, occaisional TV shows (not often though), and of course games? Oh sure. For whatever reason I tend to have an attraction to "creepy" things. Which is something that didn't entirely occur to me until recently.

Note though that when I like horror stuff, it's because it was actually done right in my eyes. A lot of horror-themed things (in any media) just spray blood all over the place and go "OOH ARENT YOU SCARED?!?". That's not "horror". That's "spectacle". When I see a show or a game that just sprays blood all over the place, it says to me that the writers ran out of ideas.

But there's other things that I think do it right. There's a game I really got into recently, called SCP Foundation Breach. Very definitely a horror-themed game... but there's hardly any blood in it. Instead, it relies on a creepy atmosphere in a facility where security has totally collapsed, and you knowing there are horrible reality-warping monstrosities wandering the halls (each of which has it's own very detailed backstory), but not having any clue where they are. The nature of the "monsters" then adds to it, as many of them are freaky enough that they could star in their own game (and often do star in plenty of their own stories). You don't even need to be directly in the presence of the monsters to be stressed out by them. Maybe you're wandering around, down a corridor with some doors in it, and suddenly you hear a horrible SCRAPING noise from nearby. You know that SCP-173 (the Foundation's most iconic monster, and one with an extra-bizarre appearance) MUST be nearby, nothing else makes that sound... but where is it? Which door? By that thing's very nature, if you make even the tiniest mistake in it's presence, you *are* dead, as it can cross the entire distance of a room in literally the blink of an eye. And it's just waiting for you to join it in one of these rooms, and make said mistake. So suddenly you're in this situation where this horrifically dangerous thing that allows no mistakes is nearby... but you don't know where. Is it behind THIS door? And if it is, will it be standing on the left side, or the right? What if something creeps up on me while I'm in that room with it? What if the Plague Doctor (another SCP monster, with a rather obvious theme) decides to show up while I'm staring down 173 directly? All of this in the cold, broken, industrial atmosphere of the hidden Foundation facility, which is creepy enough just on it's own.

Obviously, that's a game, not a movie, but a lot of the same things that create suspense and tension (and thus, fear for some people) in a game like that, also work in movies and TV and such. It's possible to get really creative with ideas like this! But a lot of writers don't want to use that sort of thing, and I tend to think that's a real shame. So they just fill it with gallons of blood, and blah blah blah...

Or sometimes you get the ones that, instead of blood, just go "Ah, I got it! We just need JUMPSCARES!!!! LOTS AND LOTS OF JUMPSCARES!!!" and that's just as bad really.

I mean, really, lots of them seem to confuse "horror" for "spectacle", and then wonder why their stuff just ends up seeming really campy or outright hilarious to many. Not that hilarious horror stuffs don't have their place and all, but still.

 

[MeghanWithAnH]

I don't like horror movies at all. I find gore boring, so none of the movies that rely on gore interest me. The only movies that scare me are the ones that give me the feeling that something evil is right behind me, waiting to get me. I kind of enjoy that kind of horror at the time, but it's not worth it at all because that feeling will keep coming back long after the movie is over and I hate it. I've avoided horror movies for years because of that problem, although unfortunately commercials for horror movies can have the same affect and those are harder to avoid. It's also inconvenient while I live at my grandma's house during grad school because she loves horror movies and implies that I'm being ridiculous about refusing to watch them. She's welcome to watch whatever she wants, I'm just not going to stay around and watch them with her because I refuse to give my brain anything extra to freak out over.

 

[Fino]

I love horror-themed things... just not movies. I don't actually watch movies (I lack the patience to sit still that long). No, seriously. Last time was probably like 8 years ago.

Me too! Most of the movies I've watched, I watched on my computer in small bits, sometimes taking a week or more to finish. It's like a TV show! Maybe you could try that.

 

[Misery]

Me too! Most of the movie I've watched, I watched on my computer in small bits, sometimes taking a week or more to finish. It's like a TV show! Maybe you could try that.

I've had that idea, but then I cant remember what the previous parts were. I dunno, most movies don't stick in my mind well enough for that to work. Kinda like "Okay, so when we last left off, this dude was getting ready for a fight with this other jerk, and they've both got knives... wait, who are these guys again?"

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

I enjoy monster movies, Alien is one of my all time favourites, and zombie movies are fun.

I do not like horror movies where the 'monster' is a person (e.g. Saw, The Shining) because they scare me and I don't enjoy being scared. Haunting/ghost/paranormal type horror films also tend to scare me so I don't like them either.

 

[Glytch]

Oh, I HAAAAAATE the horror genre, for numerous reasons.

Picture this: I’m a guy with a hyperactive and vivid imagination and a fear of the dark. I live next to the woods. It gets REEEEEALLY dark at night, and the fence between my backyard and the woods is in really bad shape.
Get the picture? Got that in your head? Now, why would I add horror movies to that already terrifying situation?

Forgive me for that rant. I just really don’t like that genre...

 

[AuBurney Tuckerson]

As a child, I watched Child's Play 2 right before going to sleep. No fear.

 

[tducey]

In between, don't mind them but don't want them to be to gory.

 

[Gracey]

Sometimes it’s the movies where I have to use my own imagination to fill in the gaps.

The description by Glytch above is a good example.

Darkness, expanse of wooded area, unsound boundary fence.
My imagination can run rampant with that.

There’s a scene in Poltergeist,
“Mummy, they’re here”
It’s left to the imagination who and what ‘they’ are and what they’re going to do.

The early Omen films left some room for imagination.
It was the silence (not the screams and gore) that had me wondering what Damien would do next.

 

[joe2006]

I have been watching horror movies for so long that I no longer get scared when I watch them. I like a horror movie as long as it was well written.

 

[Autistamatic]

Yeah. Love the horror genre, although the teen-slasher subcategory has never interested me beyond the "Halloween" film franchise. And then intertwine it with science fiction and dystopian societies. Oh yeah.

I've especially liked a number of the presentations of season one of AMC's "Eli Roth's History of Horror". Amusing to hear personalities like Stephen King and how he detested what film director Stanley Kubrick did to his story in "The Shining".

Eli Roth’s History of Horror

I'll have to look that series up. Mark Gatiss did a similar series on BBC a few years ago that was excellent and well worth looking up.

I agree with the idea that the lack of focus on Danny's ability to shine was a shame in the movie of "The Shining" but I do enjoy the result. It's Jack's descent into madness and violence and the ambiguity over it's cause that does it for me, but I think that's where the subjective angle of horror comes in. The idea of losing my marbles disturbs me more than most concepts, so that movie resonates with me and I do love the cinematography of it

 

[Monachopia]

When I was younger - teenager and very early 20's I loved horror movies. I always preferred the ghost/suspense/thriller horror genre (The Ring / Blair Witch / The Eye, etc.), because the gory/monster type just looks really silly.

BUT, I can't watch them now. Ever since I was very little I've always been scared of the dark. I mean, logically, now, I know there's nothing there. But I can't help but imagine something awful lurking there. As I get older for some stupid reason that fear just gets amplified too much...