The appeal of the horror genre.

I completely fail to understand how it could be considered entertaining. Why would you pay to be scared?

Bite my shiny metal ass.

A rush of blood to the head. And sometimes lulz because they aren't really scary. And sometimes schadenfraude. And sometimes stylish kills.

edited 5th Sep '11 11:28:32 PM by mailedbypostman

I don't find them scary. I watch them for the stories.

Except Jaws. FUCK THAT MOVIE WITH AN IRON POKER.

Please.

I like to be scared because of what the person above me said. It's a rush. A pleasant one. And the best thing? I'm safe while getting it. I can sit on my ass at home in my nice warm blanket and watch people be murdered or eaten or tortured or what have you.

And of course...lots of horror films are amazingly goofy things that completely fail about being terrifying. That or dark humor.

For people like me...I like looking at the special effects, sets, and costumes...I can do that with anything really, but the horror genre caters to my love of various morbid crap whether it be Victorian era vampire tales or gritty modern horror in the countryside.

Death scenes in particular have some very neat stuff done with them.

edited 5th Sep '11 11:32:18 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

I don't like horror, mainly due to the fact that I am easier to scare than a two-year-old. Also, I do not associate "being entertained" with "having a disturbing image jumping inside my mind and refusing to get out".

Bite my shiny metal ass.

It's an odd thrill which isn't for *everyone*. Kinda like rollercoasters. Should still give it a go though.

edited 6th Sep '11 12:38:40 AM by mailedbypostman

You can watch slashers with friends and then laugh about the ridiculousness of it. Genres like psychological horror's have better characterization and are interesting because of the drama.

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

@OP: Horror is an emotion, and a good story is based on evoking an emotion? Do you ever wonder why people pay for tragedies, comedies, erotica...?

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Well yes, I'm perfectly fine with a piece of media making me cry, but I'm too much of a chicken.

Bite my shiny metal ass.

OP: Because this is the very best trailer in the history of film trailers.

edited 6th Sep '11 4:43:38 AM by pagad

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

Sorry Nightwire, it's hard to sum up the appeal to outsiders. It's sometime you're either into or your not. It's a lot like Glee or Scat.

hashtagsarestupid

I've always been under the impression it was the adrenalin rush. Or seeing stupid Genre Blind characters cut up by serial killers or whatever.

Fight smart, not fair.

How weird, I just asked this question like a few days ago. I'm curious too. Horror. Why?

The Blog The Art

I want to be genuinely scared, not just startled or disgusted (although the latter is pretty hard). So, horror as a genre, for the most part, doesn't appeal to me, simply because it usually doesn't do what it should. There is, of course, "horror" literature (and I suppose other media) that excels not because of being horror but because of being genuinely good, but liking this is obviously not appreciating the horror genre.

edited 6th Sep '11 7:17:58 AM by ekuseruekuseru

I don't. I don't find horror scary. It wouldn't be my favorite genre if I did. I think a better word to describe the genre is "thrilling". Granted, there's technically a Thriller genre already, but the overlap with horror seems quite large to me.

Another aspect to its appeal is my interest in the particular type of subject matter it covers: death, monsters, "evil", psychosis, Gorn, and other "dark" subject matter.

And Downer Endings— as a fan of the cynical end of the spectrum, I like horror's tendency towards killing protagonists, letting the monsters triumph in the end, cruel twists, and overall bleakness, pessimism, and nihilism. It provides schadenfreude and validation for my view of the world.

{Please don't start off your answer by complaining about the thread's existence. It's kind of rude and it makes the mods cranky. —Madrugada}

I recently grew a taste for horror films. Before I was too scared to really watch anything, because it either scared me too much or too little. I think the Scream series is a good start. A basic slasher film with mostly just jump-scares but interesting enough psychological drama, with lots of self-depreciation comedy which makes the generic plot more bearable.

I've found horror films are best watched with friends, especially ones that are witty enough that you'll actually listen to them talk during the movie. If you can dilute the "scariness" of the movie with comedy, you get a relaxing experience. I tend to do this with grosser, somewhat-gore heavy movies like Saw and... The House Next Door? I can't remember its name.

I dunno, it's hard to try and explain yourself to the OP in these types of topics because it's an experience you can't easily translate to someone whose never tried to comprehend it themselves.

edited 6th Sep '11 3:34:31 PM by Madrugada

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

I know the print is extremely small, but read this all the way through. It's the best explanation you will ever get.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

To me, it's very precise horror that appeals to me. Play The Void or something.

To me, horror must be a flavor, not the meal. I want story and it can be creepy and scary as it can be, but I must enjoy story. Fear for the sake of fear doesn't really work for me.

And slasher films, ala Saw or Friday 13th... no. I don't like them, since whole point is just to see people die in brutal sense. My stomach turns around with those.

But yeah, it's hard to say what exscatly appeals in horror. Same could be said from romance, drama and so forth.

Horror movies excite me in a different kind of way.

Would you kindly click my dragons?

I remember flipping through a book of short horror stories, and coming upon a graphic description of a lion tamer being eaten by his own lion. That seems to me like the perfect summary of how horror is fundamentally different from other genres—the standard arc in a normal story would either have the tamer succeed in mastering the lion, or make the lion the hero of it all.

(I personally don't get horror, but I don't criticize it. Anything so incredibly removed from the standard narrative arcs should by judged by its own standards.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

For the same reason as Scarecrow is far and away my favorite Batman villain. It's because "the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear".

There's something very telling about what a person fears the most, out of anything in the world.

I'm short on time, or I'd write more about this.

Still Sheepin'

Oh, I don't mind having a little horror, just like how I enjoy humor and Tear Jerkers. A good story should offer a taste of everything to the reader. But horror as a distinct genre disturbs me. I never read a story or watch a movie with the sole reason of being scared shitless ( as I said before, I am too easy to scare). I do enjoy horror with comedy (for example, Gremlin) because they never take themselves seriously.

Bite my shiny metal ass.

One good thing about the horror films that are more on the suspense side than on the CHAINSAW BLOOD GUTS EVERYWHERE zomg!!!!!

Is that at least you dont know weather the charcters will get to live or die, and if they do die you wont feel too dissapointed about it.

I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.

I admit, I have considered watching the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. As one reviewer put it, "The only thing better than seeing an underdog kick butt is seeing an actual dog kick butt—and there's a German Shepherd in this film that puts all those slackers in Eight Below to shame."

edited 6th Sep '11 10:44:21 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

For me it's the atmosphere. Also the music.

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