Please Explain Scaring Yourself?
The other day I was asked if I've ever read a scary book. My first thought was, "Yes, 1984." but that's not what they meant. They meant like Stephen King, don't-go-in-there scary and I was like, "Hell no! I pick books up and I can put 'em right back down if they get scary, thankyouverymuch." But then they said that was the point of reading that kind of book, to be scared. This same person went to see Paranormal Activity III by choice. WHY!? I don't understand it! I hate being scared. Other scary things to avoid besides books and movies: roller coasters, Michigan basements, haunted houses and hay rides, exes, barreling through space 35,000 feet above the ground, getting startled, and monsters. And rats that bite your toes. Please to explain?
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Do Gary Shteyngart novels count as scary?
@deepomega
I just finished Super Sad True Love Story and will not be getting on the Staten Island ferry anytime soon, thankyouverymuch.
@Tuna Surprise
Why do I think this is not such a big sacrifice for you?
@deepomega That book is awesome! But yes sorta scary and it makes me want to move far away.
Somebody sent me a montage of all the deaths from all the Final Destination movies saying that they're funny or something and really they kind of are in their complicatedness but they just were really frightening and I don't know why I watched them because that kind of death is what happens in my nightmares to my family members
Ugh yes Jane I am so with you on this. My husband LOVES horror movvies and I hate them. I feel like, life has enough shittiness, why invite imaginary pain & suffering into your mind.
Please explain, horror fans!
I think it's like enjoying spicy food. Some people are like, mmm curry, I can't wait until there's snot pouring down my face and I want to die!!! And some people are like, why woud you want to be in pain while you're doing a wonderful thing like eating? For the record, I'm pro-spicy, anti-scary (hi nightmares, thanks for ruining sleep, which I love).
@leastimportantperson As both a pro-spicy and pro-horror person, I think this description is accurate.
And here is as good a place as any to add this distinction: although I love horror, I hate gore and violence that's there just for shock value. It's cheap, tacky, and lazy. Give me some good old-fashioned mind-fucking, please and thank you.
@leastimportantperson Though I'm pro-Scary Spice.
@leastimportantperson I am also pro-spicy/anti-scary!
@Arla Ditto, ditto! And I'm pro-roller coasters, haunted houses, barreling through space, getting startled, and monsters. Not rats, though…
Seriously, that adrenaline rush of feeling fear while secretly knowing you have nothing to worry about? Delicious. If you're not a fan of campy horror like Stephen King, try the psychological terror of House of Leaves.
@rambutan HAHAHAHAHA "try the psychological terror." Oh man, that phrase introduces all the things I'm least likely to do in the entire world.
@rambutan EEEEE Yes! I was so unsettled reading that book that I almost beat in my spousal equivalent's head with a baseball bat. Granted, he was climbing in our second story bedroom window at 3 a.m. on a rainy, windy night in November and I grabbed the baseball bat as a "kill intruder, kill!" thing, but still. Unsettled. Had to set it aside. Loved it, though.
@leastimportantperson I think this is a good analogy, because I feel the same way about scary things and spicy foods! I like things that *I* think are spicy, but then my friends are like, that's Extra Mild Baby's First Salsa, why are your eyes watering? Same with scary things. What Paranormal Activity et. al. are to others, reading, like, one creepypasta online and calling it a night is for me.
@evilmilkpudding I know, I loved it! But people climbing in your window = Are you secretly Clarissa Darling? (Or, y'know, Dan Humphrey?)
@rambutan i think that "secretly knowing you have nothing to worry about" is the thing i can't relate to. i just cannot reach it inside of me (if it's there at all?)
@Jane Marie Yes, this.
I am already afraid of waaaayyyy too many things. Why would I invite more into my head? There's a lot going on in there already. (I like to think my overactive imagination is why I can't handle scary things.)
@Limaceous Agree with both you and Jane Marie. I have nightmares all the time as it is, why would I want to encourage MORE nightmares to come?
@Jane Marie I'm with you completely.
I especially don't want things in my head that will come back and jump up and down and point and laugh at me at four in the morning every few nights for the next ten years. I'm still upset about Dante's Peak, never mind the 20 minutes of Saw on cable that I was unlucky enough to be in the wrong room during. WHY DO I NEED THIS IN MY HEAD.
@rambutan YES! House of Leaves is brilliant, easily one of the best novels ever written. The fact that it's terrifying is just sort of coincidental. Never pass up a Great Novel (TM?) or movie or whatever because it also happens to be scary! Of course, I say this as someone who is rarely frightened by such things (IRL humans are way more terrifying :-/ )
@Arla Agreed, that is a really apt way to put it. I absolutely LOVE scary movies, can't get enough of them – I'll just put them on on Netflix on lazy Sundays and watch them all day as I'm doing other things around the house. I'm in the same boat though, I much prefer mindfuck/creepy etc things, ghost stories and whatnot, more than torture porn type flicks. But that's just a preference, I think.
I definitely get scared still, though. Sometimes to the point where I'm like, whyyyy did you read that, as I'm staring at the window on my door and wondering if that's someone peeking in or just a shadow.
@yarndroid You sound a lot like me! Do you also feel sort of victorious or something when you ask yourself, "Why did I read/watch that?" Because I do! And better yet if I have to pause movie to pull myself together! It's not even that I don't scare easily — I get startled 100 times a day, it seems; it's more that I find that most scary movies are not scary (yet I'll probably watch a bad horror movie before I'll watch a good some-other-kind). I feel like if it scares me during, it's fabulous. And if there's residual scary, even better!
I'm not a huge fan of the whole "torture porn" thing either but the two Hostel movies (more so than the very few Saw ones that I've seen) had a lasting effect — like days later, I'd suddenly get an "OH, EW!" feeling. And, for that reason, I guess I like them? But, also for that reason, they're most definitely not my go-to, "I'm bored" movies. I admit to being impressed by that lasting overwhelming feeling of ickiness they delivered. My BF can't get behind that style of horror but, every once in a while, probably because of my reaction, he thinks he might watch them. I think he shouldn't because (and I hope this doesn't come across as smug or something) some people can "handle" that kind of thing and some can't; if you're put off by just the idea (and you know your less-likely-to-be-put-off-by-it GF was indeed disturbed), there's no reason to give it a try. I know he's curious, but I also know he'll be horrified in the not-fun way.
I like watching movies that are legit scary because I rarely get scared by movies at all, so I kind of…appreciate the scares?
The things that fuck me up are weird, though. Like, I saw The Descent and didn't sleep for two weeks because I'm kind of claustrophobic and dnw closeups of peoples' intestines getting eaten, and also The Thing (ew what is going on with that remake?), because I am scared of animatronic spider zombie heads with giant tongues.
@cosmia "because I am scared of animatronic spider zombie heads with giant tongues."…. and what sort of unreasonable fear do you call that, missy?
@annepersand Because it really looks like a cheesy puppet made of clay and latex and corn syrup, and everyone else just laughs at me for finding that stuff scary, but c'mon, it looks WAY more disturbing than CGI! I don't believe you if you don't think this is scary.
@cosmia OH MAN. I am totally with you in that I don't really care about how realistic effects are. I am way more about the sudden jumping out and loud noises. I will actually scream if you come into a room when I am zoning out.
@annepersand It's not even the jumping and the noises! It's like…the more surreal and fucked up something looks, the more afraid I am of it? I'm all, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS EW GET IT AWAY. I remember seeing Paranormal Activity and the only thing that freaked me out was the fact that the ghost thing had LIZARD FEET AHHH.
@cosmia Me too! My boyfriend is always like, COME ON you know who I am, plus I was in the room this whole time [while you were studying]. I can't help it, I'm very focused. Or oblivious. But I prefer focused. And being abruptly jolted out of that trance is startling!
@cosmia Have you seen the original Thing w/ Kurt Russell? They used animal parts from a slaughterhouse to create the monster. That is not corn syrup, or clay.
Don't be on drugs when you see that movie for the first time, by the way.
@yrouttasight Whoa! I did not know that. I'm going to have to watch it again, now. GOOD THING IT'S THE SEASON FOR THIS KIND OF THING (not that I ever let that stop me)
@dragoness Yes. I don't care who you are or how much I might love you, or what time of day it is, you jump out at me (accidentally or on purpose) you're probably walking away with a broken eardrum and possibly a slap in the face.
@yrouttasight YES, THIS IS THE MOVIE I AM TALKING ABOUT. brb sobbing now that I know this.
Ugh no idea why people like to scare themselves! My twin sister loves to read Stephen King and other terrifying stuff, and my husband is always trying to drag me to see scary movies. Hell naw!
Ooh, I don't do scary stuff either! But my friends love it.
Last time I went to a haunted house (about 10 years ago), I got into a scuffle with someone working there because the juicebox grabbed me (which was clearly stated on a sign at the front there would be none of). Not cool.
@QuiteAimable But of course you set him on fire.
I have a highly developed aesthetic appreciation for the morbid, which is something of a different beast to enjoying being scared but does mean that I watch scary movies/read scary books etc a lot. I guess I enjoy them, but I also get scared REALLY easily. Maybe I enjoy the adrenaline rush? All I know is that I went to go see an incredibly cheesy Canadian riff on Deliverance from the 1970s and I spent most of the movie trying to shove my head between my friend and the back of the seat.
@annepersand WHAT MOVIE? I always find it hilarious that, despite our mild-mannered reputation, Canadian movies, especially horror movies, are very consistently fucked up.
@cosmia It was called Rituals? It was like, a Blair Witch/Deliverance mash up but with doctors? I don't know, the actual logic of the horror was flimsy but parts of it were actually really fucking scary! We were trying to decide between watching that or some sort of weird French light-S&M convent girl horrorshow and went with Rituals because the description included the word "Canuxploitation," and as my friend put it, "How can you go wrong with something that could be called THE crown jewel of Canadian horror-made-during-the-late-70s-in-the-rural-revenge-subgenre?"
@annepersand I've never heard of this but I think I need to see it immediately.
@cosmia You must! Come for the dick jokes, stay for the totems made out of animal heads!
@annepersand "Highly developed aesthetic appreciation for the morbid" makes me want to peruse your bookshelf!
I can't explain it, I was born this way.
@chirdia And by that I mean, I dunno, I've always really loved ghost stories and scary movies. In elementary school I would check out this book on "real vampires" over and over. It had pictures and everything. Why did my elementary school have that?
Ghosts and serial killers and aliens and stuff, they're just so exciting.
@chirdia You have reminded me that I read every book on ghosts, the paranormal (including UFOs), and hauntings I could find when I was a kid. I can only imagine what I would have done with the internet. And what the librarians thought of me.
@Arla I was the first grader checking out edgar allan poe short stories. the librarians must have thought I was a cherubic, blond-ringleted little goth.
@Arla If anything, I feel the internet has let us down by NOT HAVING ENOUGH ghosts, killers, and aliens to read about. I'm glad we had those books– the fact that they were bound, limited in length, suggested that there was so much more if only we could get our hands on it. It kept us searching. The internet, at least for me, comes with a sense of "this is the final answer to everything and contains all information" so you end up feeling kind of let down when you can't find anything else spooky to read about.
I don't know if I made sense there, but, y'know, yeah ghosts and stuff!
@chirdia Me, too. I read so many Goosebumps books and the R.L. Stine teen-horror books. I also read a lot of the ghost story books and stuff about aliens (I was an X-Files junkie) and other horror stuff. I cannot put into words the disgust and sadness I felt when I heard that the Twilight vampires sparkle (!!!) so I refuse to read that trash on principle.
@chirdia Me too! I even started my own unofficial school club in the 3rd grade. The Ghost Hunters club. We had three members if I remember correctly.
@meganmaria Totally forgot about the RL Stine books!! They were GOOD.
@ida claire I want to be in your club. I wanted to do a Midnight's Society type of club a la Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Oh man… months and months of sleeping with the lights on and heart racing at night staring at the closet, which meant it was all coming true and happening to MEEEEE. Thank you very much Amityville Horror book!!! Most effective use of exclamation points ever!!! (I was almost in college when I read that book, it was embarrassing)
@maevemealone I was/am in college when I read that (it was last summer) and I still can't sleep! It was just too much, I think I'm ok and then that big white figure what stands at the top of the stairs or in the kids room pops into my head and I freak out and have to sleep with the TV on. Ghosts can't get you if the TVs on…
I have recently begun to like creepy stuff, but I'm still not into full-on horror.
However, perhaps I'm weird, but I would not put roller coasters in that category. They're exhilarating, not scary! (Or at least, they haven't been since I was about 10, and even then it was more "fear of the thing I dare not try IN CASE it's scary".) Love them. But also heights, for the same reason, so yeah.
I think roller coasters are different than those other scary things? Roller coasters are just an adrenaline rush – the rest mess with your head.
I hate when things jump out at me. Hate, hate, hate it. And I hate scary movies. (I kind of hate most movies, though?)
@cherrispryte but roller coasters can kill you, scary movies can't! Barring a freak heart condition, that is.
@themegnapkin Also – I like scary movies because they make me feel more prepared. Like, having seen multiple zombie movies, I think I stand a good chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse. I'd also give me better than even odds against the Blair Witch or the paranormal activity demon.
But scary, violent torture porn, like the Saw movies – I cannot watch it.
@themegnapkin The Saw movies are where I draw the line. I will literally watch anything scary but that torture porn shit. They just make you feel like a yucky person afterwards.
@cherrispryte I am with you on that! Friends try to get me to watch scary movies/go to haunted houses & think I'm just being dramatic for want of attention. NOPE, it's just that witnessing something scary will haunt me for my entire life. An adrenaline rush from a roller coaster is a temporary thrill. A scary image/concept/story is scary forever & ever!
@one cow. RIGHT? I was fine while watching The Ring – scared, but in a pretty good way. And then I did not sleep AT ALL for the next week, and it still haunts me years later. AWFUL.
@Polina YES I had to walk out of one of the Saw movies becase I hate that shit. And my friend put on Hostel when we were all drinking in her basement once, and it was the worst. It's not scary so much as that I can't even look at it
@fabel i tried to watch hostel last summer (on basic cable!) and i got about 5 minutes in before i started crying and had to change the channel. nothing had even happened yet. i like most scary movies, but i can't deal with the ones that are super gory/violent just to be gross.
@themegnapkin When I watch a zombie-apocalypse kind of movie, I think about how I would be one of the first to die. I hate being scared so much that I would probably freak out and give up pretty quickly just so that it would be OVER WITH.
Can we take this opportunity to discuss American Horror Story?
@Nutellaface Its ridiiiiic! Tami Taylor and her husband Dr. Sexy Psychobabble have GOTS TO MOVE, Y'ALL!
@Moxie the Maven They really do. You know what freaks me out more than anything? THE OPENING CREDITS.
@Nutellaface LORD THAT SHOW. The opening credits are really scary! It's entertaining-bad, as opposed to bad-bad.
@antarcticastartshere Yes! The way I keep describing it is that it's like a cult classic, only brand new.
@Nutellaface I REALLY want to like this show, but I just cannot be scared by it. Like, I wait until my husband goes to bed and watch it alone, in the dark, in the middle of the night, and then take the dog out…and no wiggins! Augh. It's like, all I can think of is "This is what Twin Peaks would have been if you took out all the joyful creepitude of it." It's like someone read about what is scary in a book somewhere and is checking off boxes for what is creepy. "Haunted house? Check. Cheating husband? Check. Mysterious maybe-evil pregnancy? Check. Scary basement? Check. Weird neighbors? Check." Like, it's so busy checking the cliche boxes, it forgets to have fun scaring us. And that's why stuff is scary! The creepy murderer in the woods (TM) is scary because he LOVES killing you. This is like some dude who kills you because he's the official government-sanctioned woods murderer who needs to stamp your paperwork five times (with a knife) to get his paycheck. /rant
@Nutellaface Wait. Is it supposed to actually be scary? I thought it was more like a campy treatise on the genre. For the record, I am loving Jessica Lange and her creepy-ass demon son.
@Ironic Hipster Meme What usually happens when I watch it is that I get lulled into a sense of "oh, this is so campy and silly" and then BAM, a demon monster eats the mean girl's face.
@ActuallyKT So I had similar thoughts to you, but a friend figured out the missing link and explained it to me, and now I appreciate the show a whole ton more: All of those things you listed are American horror tropes (well, not necessarily American in origin, but things we all recognize as being part of our horror culture…Creepy twins a la The Shining? Check! Dr. Frankenstein? Check!), and THAT is why the show is called American Horror Story! It's supposed to be a mash-up of all those cliches. And that would also explain the campy/soapy tone. With all that in mind, the show is solid fun once you accept that it's all intentional. "Oh OHHHHHHHH NOW I get it!" <–Me.
Jessica Lange, ya'll.
Also, @Nutellaface, YES, brand-new cult classic! Totally nailed it.
@nelbel22 OK you are absolutely correct in all of this BUT it does not excuse some of the really poor editing/stylistic choices (big offender is Tate and Violet's weird heart-to-heart scene in the pilot) and the fact that some of the acting is campy and self-aware (Lange, O'Hare), some of the acting is just awful (the kids, McDermott), and Mrs. Coach is giving a really admirably naturalistic performance but unless she is going full-on Shelley-Duvall-in-The-Shining it does not make sense for the tone of the show (her first scene with Jessica Lange was so jarring I actually turned the show off and had to come back to it). Also, there's a kind of strange vaguely misogynist authorial tone where I feel like somebody writing the show thinks we really need to be sympathizing with the husband, which UH. Basically, me and my ellipses are saying that I get what the show is doing and I appreciate that, but I think it does have some fundamental problems it needs to work out. I do think there is a campy, fun show in there (instead of just entertaining-bad).
The big problem plot-wise is that they shot their load with the ghost reveal so soon that no sane person would still be living in that house. I think the mythology of the house is amazing (Lost-style) and would be way more interested in seeing them kill off random families-of-the-week.
Also, the one trope they are apparently super into that I don't see much of in American horror is "people with Down's syndrome are magic" and it kind of bothers me a little bit every week.
All that aside, I actually would argue this show is basically better than The Walking Dead.
@antarcticastartshere I didn't know that "people with Down's syndrome are magic" was a thing. Is that very prevalent in films in other countries?
@Nutellaface I don't knooooowww but it bothers me so much that she is not a character, she is a walking plot advancer.
@Nutellaface It was also in Kingdom Hospital. So, I guess it's kinda a trope?
@antarcticastartshere ARgh…you've articulated exactly why I can't watch this show. The writing is SO BAD. The acting is SO BAD. I can take those two things together for two hours at a time in a movie, but week to week? In an hour TV show? I can't do it. It's too much bad!
Also, that show is not better than Walking Dead. I will fight you.
@antarcticastartshere You are right about the vague misogynist tone. I am not, never have been, and never will be Team Dr. Sexy Psychobabble. He's a douche, and we're supposed to believe that he needs to sleep around because of his trauma from his wife's miscarriage? Oh I think not, Dr. Sexy! I fully support him sleepwalking nekkid though.
@Moxie the Maven I definitely don't think we're supposed to believe he NEEDS to sleep around, I think it's just the reason he did.
I think, for me, it depends on if there is an interest other than just the scare factor. Like ghosts – HELLA SCARY – but also fascinating to ponder and debate! So I might get scared watching a ghost documentary or visiting a supposedly haunted bar (which I did last week and definitely couldn't sleep that night), but there is also a curiosity and interest there that goes beyond just scaring myself. Same goes for studying serial killers on Wikipedia!
But, say, spiders – also HELLA SCARY – and disgusting and ugh and there is nothing there for me to really learn about, I know how they work and I know I dislike them, so there is no reason for me to like… put my hand in a jar of tarantulas? Or take someone's head being gruesomely decapitated, I don't really need to see that. I'm not curious about that. It's just gross.
List of things that really scare me and I have no interest: spiders (as mentioned), looking into mirrors in the dark (Bloody Mary?!), Ouija boards, anything popping out at me, gross pictures of dead people… but I do like roller coasters.
@emilylouise I'm with you on things popping out at you. It is for that reason I can't watch 3D movies. I don't like ANYTHING popping out at me, even if it's a fluffy kitten optical illusion.
@emilylouise HAUNTED BAR. Like in The Shining?!
@laurel THIS HAUNTED BAR!
My friends and I go there every Halloween season, even though I have four years of Oxford experience and know it will totally freak me out. There's this big "case file" from the Washington State Ghost Society (yep, the WSGS, apparently that's a thing) where they record all the noises/voices/visions/etc that mediums and paranormal investigators have experienced while visiting. It is SO SCARY.
Yet every year I go to the bar, read the case studies while nursing a cocktail, drive back home to the city, convince myself that a ghost has followed me home, and sleep with my bedroom light & TV on. Ahhh.
@emilylouise Holy crap, that's forty minutes from where my parents live! I know what we're doing next time I visit.
@emilylouise I WANT TO BELIEVE.
@figwiggin It's settled. Next Seattle-area Pinup: THE OXFORD.
(See? I immediately get excited to go there even though I know how terrified I will be! Don't forget to ask about the ~haunted doll~ that lives above the mirrored bar! Its head swivels when you least expect it!)
Who are all you people?
Sorry, Jane, but my immediate take away from this was post was, "Huh, Jane's no fun."
Being scared is sooo much fun!
A good friend of mine who LOVES scary movies etc says that the feeling of building up all the tension while being scared and then the release of the frightening stuff finally happening is very sexual. I get that.
Jane, I am with you, sister. I can't watch anything scary. EVER. As a kid I couldn't watch Wizard of Oz (until I could.) and now, I swear, if even the music starts to get spooky in a movie, I have to leave the room. Because WHY would I want to scare myself/give my self (more) anxiety? I do not get it and I do not want it.
@hairspin I do like rollercoasters though because they're fun and fast! although I was late to those too…
@hairspin: My kid freak-out movie was Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. That chocolate river whoosh and blueberry thing is f#cked up, y'all.
@hairspin i have a friend who is scared of oompa loompas
she did a summer camp and someone was dressed up as an oompa loompa and she freaked out massively.
it's can be a creepy movie
@hairspin yes!! I am such a wimp when it comes to movies. E.T. and Gumby scare me to death!
And this is why gothic fiction is the best: dusty old books, creaking stairs, decrepit mansions, and ghostly apparitions. Great for eerie tension that builds up to general creepiness, but quaint enough to seem fantastical and far away. Usually!
@dearheart yes! Creepy, very-slightly-elevated-heart-level stories are fun. Like Hound of the Baskervilles – love it! Probably because by today's standards, it's the least scary thing in the world. But something like Hostel, or The Exorcist, DEAR GOD GET ME OUT OF THIS ROOM RIGHT NOW.
I don't know why this happens!! I don't even really like it, but on Sunday I ended up reading all the way through Joey Comeau's horror movie blog and read about the movies he was referencing, and then I couldn't go into the bedroom alone to put my shoes on, even though it was 2pm and bright as heck outside.
@figwiggin aaand now that's my life. Thanx.
Jane, you and I are as of one. I do not read scary books, see scary movies, watch scary TV shows, or go on things like roller coasters (though I do enjoy haunted houses because they're often more funny than scary, if it's a real scary one I avoid). See, also: the reason I hate zombies and everything to do with zombies and this whole zombie craze. Stop it, just stop it.
I don't mind flying, though.
@thebestjasmine Also, wait Jane — why did you do that zombie makeup tutorial, just the screenshot of which TERRIFIES me?
@thebestjasmine no way, it's not scary! my morning face is though.
@thebestjasmine Yes, yes, yes. I am also in this boat. A friend told me that when he went to see the first Paranormal Activity, the woman next to him started SOBBING. For real. Why anyone would choose to force this on themselves is beyond me.
@Argyle I watched it at home with a friend… Throughout most of the movie I was like "meh whatever." I was sobbing by the time the credits rolled. Ghost stories make me cry… but I keep going back to them! I like to "watch" scary movies while I'm playing solitaire on my phone. The distraction helps.
Around this time of year, every year, I try to convince myself that I like to be scared a little and watch a horror movie or read a scary book. Then I remember that no, I don't like to be scared.
This year I read the Shining.
I had to read some, then read a chapter of Harry Potter so I could go to sleep.
Watching a horror movie with me though can be amusing for others as I stand on furniture and yell at the TV.
@Maria I read The Shining during the day only. No darkness. And not near any bushes.
@QuiteAimable You are wiser than I.
@QuiteAimable I had a before-noon-only rule for my reading of The Shining. I love scary stuff now but I read it when I was an easily-terrified teenager. *shudder*
@Maria but The Shining is such a good book AND good movie. you guyyyssssssss
Fright is just another emotion. You engage in entertainment forms to experience those emotions. I watch Young Frankenstein to laugh, I watch Forrest Gump to cry, I watch Dawn of the Dead to freak out. I watch them all because they are Good Movies.
According to the guy who wrote Flame Throwers and Absinthe, people who are just a little more risk-taking than average report higher levels of contentment with their lives. His TED talk: http://youtu.be/YC8gY0ZiwLg So they may be happier?
The last scary movie I saw was The Ring, and while I loved it, I did put a sheet over the TV in my room when I got home.
EDIT: And this just came up on my reader: http://youtu.be/y_wkQBDDgvI The human slingshot. That looks scary as hell … and completely awesome.
@stalkingcat True story – when I saw The Ring, I was in college, and my bed was about two feet away from my computer screen (back when computer monitors weighed about 100 pounds). And I woke up in the middle of the night, and there was a reflection on my monitor (remember, back when they were huge and the screen was glass) of a perfect white circle. I think I hit my head on the ceiling, it made me jump so hard.
@ActuallyKT The Ring (at least, the Japanese version) is better on a TV than in the theater. It's perfect for it.
@laurel Totally. I *think* I saw Ringu on a TV (man, it's been ages), but the American version was showing at our campus theater. Which was really just this, like, classroom with a giant movie screen in the basement of the student center. My husband doesn't get why the movie freaks me out when so few scary movies do, but it's a SCARY MOVIE about how people die when they watch a SCARY MOVIE. How can that not freak you out? You're already doing it! I know better than to go into the abandoned basement alone, or to go check out the shed behind the creepy farmhouse where the weird couple whose son went missing lives, or to go spelunking in a forgotten cave system in the middle of nowhere that might be full of monsters. But I watch scary movies ALL THE TIME!
YES. Screw this noise. Gonna watch Bring It On again instead. And/or Bring It On Again.
@Tragically Ludicrous I actually find Bring It On Again terrifyingly disappointing. But how many times have I watched it? (Answer: I'm not telling, but for sure less than the OG flavor).
I hate the "scream & cry" genre that's so popular on tv these days, and horror movies that hinge on emotional trauma skeeve me right the fuck out. I don't mind bloody horror, and I'm all about action movies, but I am not interested in sitting through the last twenty minutes of The Shining stretched out over two hours.
Adrenaline junkies.
@Chesla Haha yeah, pretty much.
I love the rush of being scared. Never watched many scary movies until I saw 28 Days Later. Which altered my life. I think I was scared for about one month straight. Then I became a horror movie addict. I suppose I can't really explain that one.
@polina I could straight up watch an entire movie made of nothing but a loop of Jim going zombie-ish on the soldiers.
@wharrgarbl Yes! I loved him in that movie.
@polina Seriously, that sequence (basically from the start of the music to his reunion kiss with Chemist-lady getting interrupted by Obligatory Teenager smashing him on the head) is one of the best horror-movie bits I've ever seen. It just works so incredibly well.
@wharrgarbl That movie just creates such a scary atmosphere. It sounds gross to say but it's like you can smell the death around them.
I don't have time, so this.
Also: SHIRLEY JACKSON. The Haunting.
@melis YES SHIRLEY JACKSON YES. The original movie of The Haunting is amazingly brilliantly scary in the best way. Also, have you read We have Also Lived in The Castle? That's not scary so much as it is just unsettling. But it is also amazingly brilliant.
michigan basements are SO SCARY. and your mom always needs something from pantry down there and you can never find it and there are always spiders. ALWAYS. and sometimes the light is burned out.
@mynamebackwards and they're wet.
@mynamebackwards I grew up thinking that every household had to have more than one dehumidifier. when I grew up and moved in with a boy for the first time, he was so confused as to why I was insisting on buying one.
For me, I love horror movies because I am so rarely scared. I can jump and be surprised pretty easily but actually being frightened is a pretty hard thing for me to achieve. I mean, I can get scared by real life pretty easily (I've gone cliff jumping and sky-diving and I bike commute) so it's not like I NEVER get scared. With movies, though, it's more like I feel like I'm challenging the movie-maker. There are all these handicaps they have to contend with- I'm in a safe space, there is no actual threat of physical harm, and I know none of it is real. If they can actually generate fear in me with all that stacked up against them- well, my hats off to the film-maker.
As for why fear in general is fun- it's only fun if you can control it. In limited amounts (fictions, roller coasters, talking to strangers) it's really just poking at your boundaries and walking up to the edge of your perceptions of your mortality, your body, and your abilities and gently peering over.
Genuine terror and dread, actual danger is no fun at all, though. Real, uncontrolled fear has a smell and a taste and all of it serves no purpose except to hone all your instincts on to how to get out of it. Real fear is when you've dove clear over the edges of what you can deal with and it's just awful.
@H.E. Ladypants I love your commenting name. It's so dignified.
It's not so much that I avoid scaring myself as that I have an extremely low fear tolerance and scare myself with things that others would consider very mildly frightening. Lately I've been watching the Twilight Zone on Netflix and it represents about the upper limit of scary that I'm okay with, which is something like "light dramatic tension."
I almost want to disagree with comparing scary novels and movies to roller coasters, but then again, I love both. I like to get startled for an instant, realize I'm safe, and then laugh my ass off. Haunted houses, same thing.
First of all, I think scary movies and stories are a cathartic terror. Horrible things happen all the time in real life, but we know that horror films/books are fiction. We can indulge in being terrified for a brief period and then forget about it, and there are no real casualties.
That is, of course, if you can forget about it. As mentioned, I wind up laughing at the adrenaline rush (or often just laughing — I'm not actually easily scared). Horror scenes do not stay with me in a terrifying way; good ones remain with me if I admire them. So. I think some of it depends on temperament, for some of us. I'm very even-keeled and enjoy having extreme emotions evoked by movies and books.
I hate being startled/scared, and I can only deal with scary/suspenseful movies if I know how they end. However, I will NEVER NOT LOVE these books and their illustrations.
@cloudmir OMG. Those illustrations FREAKED me out as a child even more than the stories. Thanks for making me jump in my cubicle, lol.
@cloudmir Auggh! Those illustrations freaked me out SO MUCH as a kid and I guess they still do.
@redheadedtwit ME TOO. I kept my book face down on the shelf and then I had to give it away.
@martini SAME. I kept the books facedown on my nightstand, then they were too close to my bed so I kept them facedown in a dresser drawer, then I donated them to my brother and/or school library. Ugh why did I just look at those stupid Google Images when I already knew what they would be :/
Really?? I love love LOOOOOOOVED them – for whatever reason, they didn't impart any actual fear – just total fascination. I kinda want to go buy myself copies and re-read them all right now. Because that's a totally normal and appropriate thing for a grown-ass woman to do.
@cloudmir AGHHHHWHATTHEHELL
@cloudmir Guess what I found yesterday? The original Victoria-era short story that the scary story "The New Mother" was based on. You might think you don't remember "The New Mother," but I bet you do…two girls act so naughtily that their mother finally leaves them and sends back a new mother…with blind glass eyes and a wooden tail that thumps, thumps, thumps on the floor.
THE ORIGINAL IS EVEN SCARIER. "Your new mother is coming. She is already on her way, but she only walks slowly, for her tail is rather long, and her spectacles are left behind; but she is coming — coming — coming."
(Sorry for everyone who hates being scared.)
It's from a collection by Lucy Clifford called "Anyhow Stories" and the whole thing is here: http://books.google.com/books?id=EhkCAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
@distrighema i thought i knew what that link was going to be, but i clicked on it anyway like an idiot. WHY?! now i am traumatized all over again.
I'm with you on ALL of those except rollercoasters, and even those took some getting used to.
I love being scared (in safe situations like a movie). It's an adrenaline rush. I felt the same way when I got a tattoo. It hurt but also WHOA! That was pretty awesome!
Can't eat spicy food though.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE scary movies/shows/books. I'm not really sure why, though I always appreciate what goes into making something genuinely scary. The best scary shows/movies really play with conventions in ways that are interesting – the anxiety you get being claustrophobic and hunted in The Descent, or the very meta fear of death by watching a movie while watching a movie in The Ring. Buffy's "Hush" scares you because you don't have the comfort of breaking the tension with a well-placed joke (no voices), and Doctor Who's "Blink" is scary because the monsters only move when you're not looking, leaving the viewer wanting to catch everything when we're limited by what the camera will show us.
I'm not into slasher flicks so much, though. Jumping out at me is a cheap shot. It doesn't take anything special (or interesting) to be a hick with a chainsaw.
@ActuallyKT Excellent observations. Yes.
I love scary movies. I can take anything (and giggle) except amputations. No torture porn, ever.
@laurel Never. Some friends conned me into seeing Hostel in the theater, and I just left feeling…ick. Like, I don't feel ok watching that for my entertainment. (Not to mention the "gross for the sake of gross" aspects, which were, erm, all aspects of that movie.)
Yes, I find it VERY DIFFICULT to turn off scared once I'm there. I think others can just shut it off, so it doesn't ruin your life.
@Kneetoe Once the scary thing gets inside your head, it lives there FOREVER.
The other day on my day off I smoked a lot of weed and then watched The Others, and even though I had watched it already I have been too scared to pee at night lately.
I mean, I've seen it already, but the book of the dead! and the OLD LADY AUGH
@Nutmeg That old lady..one of the only times I have actually yelled in a theater!
@polina "But I am your daughter!" I never thought a communion dress could be so scary!
@Nutmeg That movie is like the only one with a "twist" in the history of movies that I caught on to. Like less than halfway through. And told my friend, who was sitting next to me in the theater. She LOVED that, let me tell you.
I truly, passionately LOVE horror. Stephen King, slasher movies, haunted houses, all of it. I also love roller coasters and have been skydiving and adored it, but I think those are subtly different, maybe? Anyway, what everyone else already said about adrenaline and catharsis and getting to experience fear in a controlled way while knowing that you're actually fine. I am also fairly difficult to scare, and so I'm always really excited when I can find a book or movie that doesn't just make me jump but actually gets inside my head.
There's another side of it, though, at least for me, which is: I love bad movies. I find terrible acting, convoluted/senseless plots, and dreadful special effects deeply hilarious. (Subtitle for this comment: Why Lindsay Is Extremely Excited About The New Twilight Movie.) And bad horror movies are basically the worst, and therefore the funniest. I know I should be ashamed of this BUT I'M NOT.
Lucy Knisley just happened to post a comic on this issue the other day! How very fortunate for us all.
I love scary things (heights, late night hikes, &c.), but not /gruesome/ things. I never watch movies/read books with a lot of (sexual) violence/torture. In fact, that remains the prime reason that I've never even touched Stieg Larsson's books.
Also, I have always been particularly scared by stories about pets coming back from the dead. Even /thinking/ about Pet Semetery, as I sit here in an open, well-lit room, is giving me the heebie-jeebies.
I used to LOVE being scared. Then I had some real-life violent stuff happen and now I can't deal with it AT ALL. And I don't understand how people can be into it, even though I used to totally be one of those people. I'm not sure if that adds useful data to the conversation or not.
@elizabee Yeah. I've had some violent stuff happen in the past, and I think scary movies bring back real fear for me. There's knowing you're safe, but then there's PTSD, too.
From one Michigan girl to another – having a Michigan basement is like having a portal to hell under your house! A portal to hell with shelves of preserves and a giant, ancient freezer full of ground chuck!
@pinballwizard EXACTLY. HOW OLD IS THIS JAR OF GREEN BEANS?
The Japanese version of The Grudge is some scary ass shit, and as far as I can remember, very little gore. It's the worst because it violates the sanctity of the one place you're safe when it's dark and you're scared and can't sleep.
@Ham Snadwich: It did a good job of 'nowhere is safe' but I found the time jumps and general dis-congruency of the plot to bring down the movie. Not one of my j-horror faves.
@Too Much Internet – Really? I liked it so much better than the Japanese version of The Ring, of which I thought the American version was better.
@Ham Snadwich I just watched that a few hours ago at a free campus movie showing! Free never-sleep-again!
Her head in the bag UNSEE UNSEE.
@Ham Snadwich: I have not seen the entire J version of The Ring, but I did see most of it, and I think the American version is really good and eclipses what they were doing in the J version (despite the poor choice to actually show Samara/Sadako). The mythology of The Grudge I just thought was too simplistic to wring out.
@Too Much Internet – I guess I could see that. It's been a few years since I've seen it, but there's a few scenes that really stick with you.
I much prefer reading scary stuff rather than watching it. Ghosts, urban legends, cryptozoology, mysterious deaths/disappearances, true crime/serial killers. Can't get enough of it.
Most modern horror movies are just too gory for me though.
@akapocalypse There is so much that can just be suggested in books, and that can be scary enough!
RUSSIAN TONGUES!!!
My dislike for all things scary, gory or violent is almost debilitating. Sometimes I can't even handle seeing meat in the grocery store.
Rats though, rats are sweethearts.
Sometimes it's not the fiction itself that scares me. Sometimes I wonder if the person who created the fiction is a horrible sadist/sociopath or (worse) if that person went through something genuinely effed up in life that resulted in the ability to create a piece of pop culture so scary.
Does that make sense?
@Xora Okay, I thought of an example. I don't have to be scared of that book, The End of Alice, because it's fiction. But I'm a little scared of A.M. Homes and whatever compelled her to write it.
@Xora YES. There was a story in Joe Hill's collection (he's Stephen King's son…OF COURSE HE IS) about a guy who's editing the Best American Horror series, and he gets this great scary story and becomes obsessed with the writer, only to find out GUESS WHAT it's non-fiction and this guy is a freaker. I've just spoiled it so you won't have to read it. You're welcome. SO SCARY.
@tortietabbie Well, now I have to read it, spoiled or no. Oh, PS… speaking of, you should check out TakeThisLollipop.com.
@Xora OMG why would do you that to me?! I'm never sleeping again.
@tortietabbie Aw. I thought you'd like that. Send it to all your friends!
Whoooo wants to read a spoooky webcomic?
You'll need flash and audio
Sound really adds to the experience!
Definitely watch this at work or in a public place where your reaction will delight others!
http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue
@Too Much Internet That thing made me want to cry when Kate Beaton linked to it on Twitter.
@figwiggin: Haha. At first I was like 'this art style doesn't lend itself to anything scary at all', and then I was like 'arghbbbble'
Oh man! I sort of agree with you, except that I only can't watch/read/experience scary stories that involve any situation I could possibly be in. So, serial killers? Sharks? Ghosts in your TV? Child ghosts in old houses? Ghost serial killers on a lake full of sharks? No freaking way! I watched the original Japanese version of the Grudge once and didn't sleep or shower for weeks. I still have flashbacks.
But as soon as there is any kind of distance to the story (aliens, space, olden times, mythical monsters, zombies) I am totally okay with it. Somehow my brain thinks that ghosts are real but zombies couldn't be? I don't really know why. But if I think that I will never personally be in that situation myself (because I live in the now-time and believe in science), I will love the story (e.g. 28 Days Later, Alien, Pan's Labyrinth).
@brooklebee You believe there could be ghosts in your tv but not that there could be space aliens?
@Acrylic Disaster Well, I think it's mainly that I own a TV and swim in lakes but don't forsee myself on spaceships or distant planets any time soon. Mainly the scary alien movies take place far far away or far far in the future. But I do agree that my subconscious isn't totally rational.
@brooklebee
1. I think the aliens generally come to us.
2. Giggle. The subconscious can be unruly that way.
I grew up watching horror movies. When I was in middle school, I made it my goal to watch as many of the goriest horror movies I could. And the ones with crazy special effects and monsters have never been the ones that really scare me – it's just fantasy, like watching someone else's crazy dream. And that still fascinates me. For me I think it ultimately comes down to an intense curiosity about the human mind.
weeping angels scare me.
i don't think i can handle much else.
For me, when it comes to being scared by books or movies, the fear is just a different kind of suspense. I'm not afraid for myself…just like I have nothing really at stake when watching a romcom but I still have a physiological flood of relief and happiness when everyone falls in love and lives happily ever after.
Getting a thrill from something like a roller coaster or leaning off the Eiffel tower is one thing, but the suspenseful stuff like horror movies make me feel foolish because IT'S NOT REAL. And I still get scared. I've seen maybe 4 scary movies in my 22 years.
1984 scared the shit out of me.
I scare myself too much with my own imagination to be able to watch/read get-in-the-recesses-of-your-mind-and-pop-up-randomly scary movies/books, ESPECIALLY since I live alone with a dumbcat. In an apartment in a 100-year-old house with an attic that I've never been brave enough to explore. And kind of in the 'hood. Though, even when I lived at home with mom, Protector of All Things Scary, I was a wimp. The Brave Little Toaster haunted me for years.
1984 is the only book that's actually made my heart skip a beat. "You are the dead." WTF, nice landlord/gift shop man?!
I like some horror stuff because I like good narratives, but a creepy idea can leave me with pretty bad jeebies. For instance, just the marketing for gross body-horror stuff like Slither and Human Centipede can invade my thoughts 24/7 for weeks at a time. The only way to get rid of it is by actually investigating the movies in greater detail. The actual content of the movie isn't nearly and traumatic as what my brain had been suggesting. I guess a complete work of fiction has a narrative, and when you watch/read a narrative from beginning to end, you know it's over and you can go on with your life because it's just a story.
That said, torture porn is both boring and disturbing, so I don't find it very enjoyable.
Yeah I can't handle these types of things either! Rollercoasters are something I just learned to love last year, and I think that was related to the fact that I had been drinking a bit before getting on the rollercoaster – just enough so that I could be like OK LET'S DO THIS SHIT. Now I find them pretty awesome.
Scary movies though… I watched Pan's Labyrinth with my boyfriend on a tiny laptop screen, and afterwards he started googling pictures of lemurs in an effort to explain to me just how wide my eyes had gotten during the scary and gruesome parts. I spent the entire movie with a blanket pulled up over my chin, in constant readiness to cover my eyes if needed. That film is the benchmark of, "I can handle this much scary and NOT ANY MORE".
I'm starting to test the limits of my wimpiness I guess, but it's not a project I'm particularly committed to… I like living in my safe little horror-free box, thanks.
I don't LIKE to be scared but I also will not necessarily go out of my way to avoid being scared (laziness?). For example, my former roommates LOVED scary movies and they would constantly watch them and I would not leave the room. Yikes. Also, the other day, my boyfriend was like, Hey let's go tour the haunted asylum!, and I was like, ABSOLUTELY NOT because I'm terrified of asylums but I will spend hours on the internet reading about haunted asylums and looking at pictures. Also I have had paranormal experiences in our apartment but we still haven't moved out.
I will probably try to sleep with the light on tonight.
I don't like to be *surprised*. I love Stephen King, and am currently reading the "Strain" trilogy, but I cannot even watch trailers for scary movies. My DVR is full of Ghost Hunters and A Haunting and the like, which I watch before bed. Most of the time I'm fine, but occasionally I'll be *almost* asleep and a dog will move or start scratching and scare the bejeesus out of me, and then it's over for the night – no sleep, because I am trying to convince myself there's no way for a ghost to be haunting my townhouse, but who knows what happened ON THIS VERY SITE 100 years ago?!?
I only like scary things when it's inconvenient to eat my feelings and need to numb myself. They're GREAT after break-ups.
I wish I could watch horror films, but I can't. So I'll probably never watch Texas Chainsaw massacre or The Descent and I really want to, because they're probably great. I do like to browse the True Crime library though and know everything about Jeffrey Dahmer.
I was the biggest fraidy cat in the world when I was little, so I think I can count on my fingers the number of horror movies I've seen. I've come to appreciate the horror movies that are actually good films on thier own. I always watch the Shining on the evening of the first snow storm of winter.
I have always loved a good ghost story, though. love love love a ghost story, especially if it is a "true" one.
I like to live vicariously through horror films.
Oh my goodness, I so want to jump into this conversation because I love the scary so, so much, but I feel like I have so many half-coherent thoughts about the whats and whys, and fiction and nonfiction, and types of scary, and torture porn vs. psychological scary, and "liking" something like, say, Last House on the Left vs. appreciating it (which in my head are two different things)… so now I'm scared to say anything for fear I will seem crazed and inarticulate… as this post likely already indicates.