Why are people are afraid of horror films??

[vampyr789]

WOW me and my friends are about to watch Dead Alive (Braindead) and one of my friends is scared to watch it............i keep telling him thats its not scary at all, just gory and funny. But he keeps saying no. he did the same thing for Repo!, Evil dead, and Sleepaway Camp. he tells me that he thinks im lying, i show him the trailers but he wont even watch that...so please tell me why do you think people are afraid of horror films??

[Shlockjock81]

Usually scarring from early childhood. They walked in on their parents or sibs watching a flick and it really struck a raw nerve with them. Believe it or not, I used to be like that (It was Gremlins for me... shush!!). However I was always still VERY intregued with horror films and would force myself to watch them. For some people it's a little bit harder. Those are also usually the people that suffer from extreme paranoia or anxiety. Never give those people pot... you'd probably have to take care of them all night.

I think the best way to help people get over their fear of horror films is to show them some DVD extras... documentaries and stuff. The more they see HOW these films are made, the less terrified they'll be (and, possibly, more curious).

People are funny.

[Katatonia]

Easy, they're wimps and need a crash course of behavioral therapy. :evil:

Seriously though, the real world's everyday news is more horrific than any horror film has ever been. I heard something the other day, and it's still reverberating in my mind.

[Matt89]

Yeah I have a friend like that. He wouldn't watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when a bunch of us were my friend's place. He's serious about it too.

I dunno, some people just don't like horror films. You have to respect that. Sure life can be scarier than a horror film, but it's in a different context. Haha, maybe people can handle blunt reality as opposed to an allegorical representation of it. Who knows?

~Matt

[Slackjaw83]

I think that Shlockjock81 really nailed it. Most people I know that refuse to give the genre a chance generally have some "traumatizing experience" in their childhood (I know one friend that was made to watch "Wizard of Gore" and "Re-Animator" around 7 years old and I honestly think it scarred him for life).

Also, Shlockjock81, Gremlins was THE movie for me as well. I, having a dad that loves horror fliks and a sister 4 years older than I am, was forced to watch Horror films froma really young age (Seriously, who lets their 6 year old see "Evil Dead" or "Halloween"?!?!?....freakin' parents...)If I had to pick 3 films that i watched as a kid that left "scared the all holy bejesus outta me" marks, they'd be "Gremlins", "Nightmare on Elm St. 2 : Freddy's Revenge" and "Friday the 13th 4 : The Final Chapter".

Strangely enough, I refused to watch those movies again until I was around 15, which was a few years after I started getting heavily into the genre, and they became some of my favorite fliks.

[rxfiend]

I never could understand why adults are afraid of horror movies. I mean they're just movies after all. I can understand why kids are scared, but when a 30 year old tells me they're too scared to watch the latest horror remake, I just shake my head....

[shithead]

WOW me and my friends are about to watch Dead Alive (Braindead) and one of my friends is scared to watch it............i keep telling him thats its not scary at all, just gory and funny. But he keeps saying no. he did the same thing for Repo!, Evil dead, and Sleepaway Camp. he tells me that he thinks im lying, i show him the trailers but he wont even watch that...so please tell me why do you think people are afraid of horror films??

Sounds like he's a pussy, find a new friend.

[vampyr789]

lol howd you know?? :p
but my other two friends LOVED It :D now they want to see Bad Taste...(ive never seen it either, now im excited too)

[hellraiser40]

hmm, about getting scarred at an early age...

when i was 8-9, my mom took me to the local video store and, of course, i immediately went to the section with all the cool covers, which was the horror section

maybe ignorance on her part, but she let me rent The Howling III, which was, to me at that age, quite an experience and it made me a fan of scary, gory and strange flicks from then on

sidenote : when Braindead (= Dead Alive) was released here on video, she refused me renting it, even when i was older then (about 12), so i did the only thing i could do, go rent it alone when she was away one day, ahh, good days... :)

[KR~!]

People are scare of all kinds of weird and wacky things. Meanwhile, I LOVED monsters as a kid so I also loved horror films. Re-Animator was considered one of the best, since it was so funny. Same with the Evil Dead films.

[BoredSeal]

That´s simple. Most of people don´t want to see violence, some sick brutality or torture. I have no problem to see classic splatter violence and I like to be scared or shocked personally, but, for example, my 26-years-old friend doesn´t want to watch the horrors or thrillers, because he doesn´t want to see something violent or shocking what could shake him psychically.

Somebody can´t handle stuff like old good Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where group of friends fall in hands of violent sick people and almost everybody dies painfully. For us, horror fans, these people are just fodder for Leatherface´s family, but somebody who is not exposed to violence and horror/thriller movies sees/senses victims as real people who don´t deserve their death or way of death, plus, at the end the evil is not even properly punished.

So I would not call this "some people are scared to watch horrors" but "some people don´t want to see torture/pain/brutality/death of other people because they are too innocent inside" ;) I think I´m quite immune or dehumanized by watching so many movies, but I have my weak sides - movies like Inside where pregnant woman goes through what she goes through or Saw series where innocent people are forced to mutilate themselves to survive only because some maniac thinks he teaches them how to appreciate life. If somebody would told me before I should not watch them because they are too much for me, I would never watch them and save myself from feeling depressed few days of what I had to watch. :)

(sorry for bad English :)

[Harry Warden]

I have a ton of friends that simply will not watch horror films. They hate them. I think it's a combination of whether your parents watched them and perhaps being introduced to violent acts on film way too early. I loved monsters ever since I was 5 or 6. My dad liked horror films as well, and thus my brother and I grew up watching all sorts of great horror moves. My parents were always careful to allow me to watch only what they thought may not give me nightmares. Kids view violence much differently and are impressionable. I think this can carryover into adulthood. I'm imagine I'm older than most on this board at 43, but the film that gave me nightmares was the original Blob in 1958. I can remember being scarred shitless after watching this, and til this day, those memories are still there even watching it as an adult. My mother made my dad leave the local drive-in one summer after Night of the Living Dead (1968) began. I was sooooo pissed, and it was years later that I finally saw it, but looking back, I believe they were right to ease me into various horror films.

[CrazyFatEthel]

I guess I was te weird child, because I have always been interested in all films? I saw Halloween when I was prob 8, Evil Dead when I was 9 or 10, and for some reason I was obsessed with seeing The Blair Witch Project when I was around 7 or 8.

[msw7]

Some things you can't unsee.

(basically what BoredSeal said, but with fewer words and more bad movie cliche)

A number of people have told me that they get nightmares when they see horror movies, some for weeks. It may not be the movie itself that people are scared of, but the after-effects of it. (if I had to endure nightmares for weeks, I might not want to do something either). For me personally, I have fewer nightmares after watching horror movies - so maybe I enjoy them (in part) for the therapeutic effect.

[msw7]

sidenote : when Braindead (= Dead Alive) was released here on video, she refused me renting it, even when i was older then (about 12), so i did the only thing i could do, go rent it alone when she was away one day, ahh, good days... :)

I had a disagreement with a friend of mine (in the late 90's) about the goriest movie ever - she was convinced it was Braindead. I was convinced it was this low budget British movie that I couldn't remember the name of, but in which limbs were falling off, and a guy jumped through an alien chainsaw first the long way. She finally had a chance to show me Braindead, and I finally found out (via google) that the movie I didn't remember very well was Bad Taste.

I called it a draw (but she may have been right).

[cameron_lodge]

This is my husband's username. I just happened by and saw your post and, since I am one of the people who continually refuse to watch scary movies (no matter how he begs, pleads and bleeds out of his eyes). I think for me it is a matter of life experiences. People who have witnessed violence, had encounters with victims of violence, or even just have a very acute sense of empathy can find certain situations on film, or portrayals of conflict, painful...even traumatic to watch as they cause the person to re-live their own events or to identify with characters in a more intense way. Since the purpose of watching a movie is primarily entertainment, and no one would find that type of internal conflict enjoyable...I would stop nagging and just accept that the genre isn't for everyone.

[allmessedup]

As a kid, I was always scared and fascinated at the same time. When I got older, the part of me that was scared kind of receded, at least most of the time. Romero's Dead series gave me nightmares all through my teens [and sometimes later], but I still enjoyed watching the films. I chalk it up to some people not enjoying that feeling, although there are some horror films I don't enjoy because they bother me too much to be enjoyable, although those are pretty few and far between.

[Erick H.]

I think a lot of younger kids had their first horror movie experiences either watching films from behind the living room couch or viewing the film from between their fingers,ready to re-cover their eyes when the big scares came.As they grow up and see more films this reaction usually passes and they don't get so worked up about seeing a scary film.In your teens there is a tendency to try to break taboos and push boundaries,rites of passage usually experienced with friends.You test your nerve with horror films.
As Cameron Lodge's wife stated though,some people have suffered traumas in their real lives that take the fun out of make believe mayhem on the screen.Others just don't seem to be wired for it,they reject anything that makes them tense.A friend of mine had a girlfriend who would completely freeze up watching ANYTHING that was the least bit tense.He once had her with him at a party where a short film was run that I had done some tech work on (a friend in attendence directed the film).The film was nominally a ''horror" film,it was actually quite funny but the poor girl got so distraught at this screening that she had to go home,she just sort of shut down.Everybody is different,some people just cannot stand to be startled or jolted.It's like rollercoasters,you either dig them or avoid them like the plague.

[17thJuggalo]

As a kid, I was always scared and fascinated at the same time. When I got older, the part of me that was scared kind of receded, at least most of the time.

That's pretty much where I was as a kid. Gremlins had scared me when I was really little, but then over time it became one of my most watched movies. Also, I would Day of the Dead all the time, but fast forward through the super gory scenes.

Eventually, one of my favorite movies as a kid became Evil Dead II, due to the bad-assery and comedy involved. After that, my mom's friend taped all these horror flicks off of Showtime and HBO and let us borrow the tapes. That's when my real love of horror films began.

Also, I don't buy that "I had a real life trauma so I can't watch horror movies". Nearly everyone has has some sort of awful trauma in their life, and watching something for entertainment isn't going to scar you.

[Ash28M]

I really think you are either attracted to being scared and or the darker elements of life or your not. I have a bunch of friends and family members that as far as violent life experiences go. None of them have really experienced much less or more then I have. Yet I am the only one I know other then my GF who really loves the genre. I find if you love horror who have always loved horror. It's not something you really start gravitating to in your 20's or 30's. Something else I notice some of my non horror friends saying is I know it's just a movie but I can't help letting it bother me. Personally no matter how disturbing a film is, I have never had a problem seeing it as just a movie. Even if horror films have desensitized me to fictional violence. Real life violence disturbs me now as much as it did when I was a kid. There is just such a massive difference between real and fake violence to me that it's not even the same conversation. This is the main reason why although I like the move on a surface level, I see Michael Haneke's Message behind Funny games as Ignorant.

[baggio]

I know a bunch of people that don't watch horror movies. And you know their reason?

Because their dumb and stupid. I think that's a cop out. Because after much prying some of them admit they feel uneasy/scared of them. But some people are just afraid of the sight of blood. I know a guy that turns his head during any needle injection of ANY type of movie. My friend can watch ANY horror movie out there EXECPT zombie movies. I have no idea, because he won't tell me, but the won't watch them. Gets pretty stand offish about it too. My cousin, at my house, the movie Disturbia was on and had to LEAVE my house after a half an hour in. Actually left my home and proceeded to call up her friend when she got home because it bothered her so much. She's 45.

As for me, I really like the genre but I'm not a psycho about it. Where I only care about is to watch horror movies, which my friends think I do. I watch ALL types of genres. ALL of them. My dvd / vhs collection is an even percentage.

It's like music. I can listen to just about anything if it's good. But have a major type that I listen to.

Anybody here sometimes like the fact that some of your friends don't like horror films. Sometimes it makes me feel special or something. Like they are missing out on cool experience. Like if you went on a great vacation & tried to explain to people (who would never get a chance to go to that location) the details. You know, I wish you where there.

One of my favorite things is my buddy who's married and has kids. Tells me his kids get scared of the movies like Willy Wonka. And I said "If they think those where scary, I show him a few movies that will destroy their life and yours"

[BrokeNads]

My friend is very scared in some horror movies and no problem in others horror movies and he say is because if it can happen. In example if is a movie and is a monster with 5 eyes and 2 brains like a fish is never can happen so he is not scared because is never can happen in real life but if is a serial killer he says it can happen so is scare him. Even if is when a movie with a unreal monster is very gory and violence is ok and if movie about serial killer is no violence to show in camera is still worst for him.

[Workshed]

People are different, people are strange. I bet, somewhere, there is a messageboard devoted to Lima Beans, and there is a thread titled "Why Don't People Like Lima Beans?" and there are a whole bunch of posters claiming that people who don't eat lima beans are cretins and/or boring clods with poor palates.

Well, to that board I say, "You think you're better'n me? Do ya? Lima beans are shit and so are you!"

[msw7]

People are different, people are strange. I bet, somewhere, there is a messageboard devoted to Lima Beans, and there is a thread titled "Why Don't People Like Lima Beans?" and there are a whole bunch of posters claiming that people who don't eat lima beans are cretins and/or boring clods with poor palates.

Well, to that board I say, "You think you're better'n me? Do ya? Lima beans are shit and so are you!"

I'm afraid of lima beans. Please don't make them angry.

(also afraid of clowns and little small rocks, but for different reasons)

[bwana the clown]

but when a 30 year old tells me they're too scared to watch the latest horror remake, I just shake my head....

Of course they may just be afraid of wasting their precious time on unoriginal pap. ;)