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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that people who 'enjoy' horror films are just a little bit fucked up?

237 replies

LastMinuteLouise · 29/12/2011 00:07

Maybe I am just an oversensitive person but I find watching my fellow man being terrified, screaming and then horribly killed, with blood and guts spewing, just a bit offensive! I am aware it is not real (plenty of real stuff in the news which is just as bad) but just having these images in my head upsets me. DH says he just forgets it when it's finished - he's currently watching 'Devil', some fucked up film about a devil in a lift Hmm. Most of the dramas and films these days are about people getting murdered, getting killed or being dead. It is so mainstream.

I mean where do these film makers get these ideas? Surely they should be committed? Are we all supposed to have this 'dark' side that they make into 'art'? Where is the entertainment in having horrifying images in your head?

I remember watching 'Changeling' a few years back thinking it was about a woman who's son disappears and who is then given a 'ringer' back by the police. I was totally unprepared for the scene in which young boys (my DSs age) were shown being axed to death. Fucked me up for months weeks and I was watching it alone. I remember shouting at the screen, please tell me that did'nt happen but apparently it did.

I don't know. Am I abnormal?

OP posts:
MudAndGlitter · 29/12/2011 00:09

YABU.

Feminine · 29/12/2011 00:10

YANBU ...try living in the US.

You can get some wonderful gore during the breakfast news.

So, no not abnormal at all.

Both DH and myself are surprised at the films/TV shows being produced these days.

Original poster
LastMinuteLouise · 29/12/2011 00:11

Maybe I am just too pathetic empathetic. I just can't bear images or sounds of people in pain Hmm. My youngest DS is 17 months old now, the same age as Baby P when he was murdered and I can't stop thinking about him. What a fucked up world we live in eh?

OP posts:
Limejelly · 29/12/2011 00:17

No you're not alone, I can't stand horror films! How can anyone get any enjoyment out of being scared or watching others be scared?

I've never understood it, but then I am a self-confessed woss!

Limejelly · 29/12/2011 00:18

Wuss, stupid auto-correct!

yellowraincoat · 29/12/2011 00:20

People have always been interested in the dark side of life. Look at all the vampire legends that have been around for centuries. The world is no different now to how it's ever been, really. If anything, it's less fucked up now. People used to go to watch public executions all the time.

Is it fucked up to watch horror films? I don't think so. It's a safe adrenalin rush. It's exciting to be scared.

Honestly though, all of those "Saw" type films make me heave, not sure what people get out of them but I don't think it's particularly fucked up to watch them. Something like "Paranormal Activity", it wasn't gory at all, but oh my God, it scared the shit out of me so much I had to switch it off.

yellowraincoat · 29/12/2011 00:21

But also, why are you all going on about "watching other people being scared" or "getting killed"? They are ACTING. They're not ACTUALLY in pain, you know!

PrimaBallerina · 29/12/2011 00:22

YADNBU

Why do people like to watch sadism? Horrible. I don't want it in my head either.

DioneTheDiabolist · 29/12/2011 00:22

YANBU. I have enjoyed horror (films and books) from childhood (my parents thought that my being a reader was good enough and never monitored my choice of material). I willingly admit to being a little bit fucked up. I am in no way violent though, and surely everyone is a bit fucked up?

Original poster
LastMinuteLouise · 29/12/2011 00:29

Of course they're acting Yellow but having the images in your head is not entertainment surely.

I am not talking about the old fashioned vampire movies either where you see Christopher Lee putting his fangs towards a damsels neck which would have been terrifying back in the day (see how desensitised we've become?). I am talking vivid, close up images of blood spurting and sounds of people being mutilated etc in movie's today. I just find it bloody depressing and fucked up.

OP posts:
starsintheireyes · 29/12/2011 00:30

Look, Im not fked up(i hopeGrin) but I do love my saw/hostel type horrors. Im not into violence or anything like that but I love the psychological aspect of following/trying to guess the storyline and the fear/adrenaline rush(im a scardy cat!) I always sit there afterwards though thinking how the hell did they think that up, surely the storywriter must have some issues?!

Original poster
LastMinuteLouise · 29/12/2011 00:32

I find books are getting more violent as well. 'The Lovely Bones' FFS really upsetting, could not bring myself to watch the film. Did we need a book/film from the perspective of a dismembered murder victim? Nice.

OP posts:
yellowraincoat · 29/12/2011 00:34

But why do you think we're more desensitised now? If anything we're MORE sensitive. Like I said, people (children included) used to go down to watch people being hanged. Not even centuries ago, within the last 100 years.

I wouldn't say we're more desensitised but that there's a lot of easily-accessible lowest common denominator films around these days.

SweetLilyTea · 29/12/2011 00:36

YANBU I love a good scary film, supernatural stuff, but not the real torture/gore stuff like Hostel. No way. The images just stay with me for months afterwards.

Thanks for the warning about the Changeling. One to avoid.

Thumbinnapuddingwitch · 29/12/2011 00:37

YANBU. I can't be doing with horror films or gratuitous violence - I have an overactive enough imagination without being fed images I then can't lose. Especially anything sleep-related.

And don't EVER EVER EVER read anything by Karin Slaughter - she is one fucked-up lady. Possibly from going through life with the surname "Slaughter" (assuming it's not a pen name). Just don't do it.
And the Kite Runner - another one to miss, especially if you have a DS.
Don't watch Final Destination either (any of them).

DioneTheDiabolist · 29/12/2011 00:41

I read 120 Days of Sodom in my teens and it's centuries old. Despite the latest slasher movies, nothing comes close to Freaks and Nosferatu for sheer levels of disturb.

Honestly, I don't think it's that big a trip. My mother volunteered for a human rights activist on the 70s. The photos I saw and transcripts I read put to shame any works of fiction I have encountered since then.

Beginningtoffeealotlikexmas · 29/12/2011 00:42

YANBU. I hate films like this and find nothing entertaining about watching people be scared or hurt. However, my son (just 12, FFS) and his friends at school all think these films are 'cool' and are trying to outdo each other with the scary films they watch. I hate the fact that so many horrifying films can be downloaded so easily from the internet. We have installed parental controls on the computer and had lots of conversations with our DS about what it is acceptable for him to watch, but we can't always police what he gets to watch at his friends' houses. It upsets me that he wants to watch things like 'Saw'. I just don't get it.

kerrymumbles · 29/12/2011 00:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JaceyBee · 29/12/2011 00:43

I think 'horror' is too wide a genre to condemn all who enjoy it to being a 'little bit fucked up'. There are many, many films one would categorise as 'horror' which don't have any blood/gore in them. And plenty of films classified as 'action' or 'sci-fi' which have loads. If you are referring mainly to the recent-ish sub-genre dubbed 'torture porn' or 'gorno' then YANBU, but only because they tend overall to be ill thought out and badly scripted/acted with little to 'interest' the viewer other then a few explicit set pieces. Basically just lazy film making.

The point about not wanting to watch things that you find upsetting because they make you think of your own dcs is fair enough, I felt the same for a long time and am only just getting over it now mine are a bit older, but I found watching the news/reading the tabloid press far more disturbing than watching a bit of escapist fiction.

Being EMPATHIC (not empathetic!) has nothing to do with it, I am extremely empathic and love horror movies. YANBU for not wanting to watch them (each to their own and all that, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than go and see a Richard Curtis movie personally) but YABU for judging those of us who do.

thepeoplesprincess · 29/12/2011 00:45

YABU. Devil is practically a kids film [winks]

WinterWonderlandIsComing · 29/12/2011 00:46

Not sure you can compare unlike things and culture and context play a big part.

I am forty and have never seen a violent death or a person resting peacefully in real life. I was never exposed to horror films a s a child and neither do I seek out such images.

But from the ages of five to whenever I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to go to Church I was regularly told about and shown awful graphic images of a supposedly lovely man being horribly tortured every week at Mass and every year during Stations of the Cross. What is more, this man had all this done to him for mankind in general and for me, personally.

slowburner · 29/12/2011 00:47

Yanbu. I hate them and wonder how people can get enjoyment out of watching awful images. I struggle with anything that shows pain especially in children and in fact rarely watch tv since having LO, DH is a massive horror fan, I like scifi, but even some of that is too much there days. I'm a right big girls blouse!!!

yellowraincoat · 29/12/2011 00:49

Ugh, this suddenly reminded me of that Salvador Dali film Un Chien Andalou [ponce] where an eyeball is slit in half with a razor.

And that was made in the 30s.

WinterWonderlandIsComing · 29/12/2011 00:49

That's pretty fucked up too I'd say and that was only a few years ago.

Tortington · 29/12/2011 00:49

i dont get the entertainment value in the saw films or final destination

but i wouldn't go all fraught and hysterical over watching them. i just dont see that watching 'how many weird ways can a person be killed' films are in any way entertaining - or indeed part of the horror genre

horror to me is a good ghost story where its all about the suspense rather than the act