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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think horror films are horrible

330 replies

Somethingthecatdraggedin7 · 16/03/2025 15:46

I have never understood why people enjoy horror films.
By that I mean the genuine films of that genre not crime/action whatever which have violence in them.
I watched part of a horror film at a freind's place when I was much younger (late teens) and was completely freaked out and left my friend’s house. The film was so shockingly nasty that it took me years to block out the images.
If you enjoy horror, why do you like them? Is it a thrill akin to a rollercoaster for you?
I honestly don’t understand why people like watching torture etc.
YABU = Horror films are great fun and I can’t get enough
YANBU = Horror films are horrible and I avoid them

OP posts:
SerafinasGoose · 17/03/2025 19:48

NeverDropYourMooncup · 17/03/2025 18:54

I find it difficult to reconcile the idea that horror is not Art.

Art exists to provoke, to reflect, to question our place in the universe and our deepest desires and fears. Art depicts love, beauty and joy, yearning for the sublime - but must also address our deepest fears, the most base instincts, the terror of a sound in the night and the unknown monsters inside us, in others, in the family, society and the world - ultimately the fear and revulsion of death, decay and ending of consciousness.

Horror looks straight into the darkness. What could that sound be? What was in or happened to the child to create the near superhuman man? How do we see him or escape from him? Is it fighting alone or in joining together? How do we find protection from creatures larger, that cooperate in attacking humans, that look just like us or are completely alien in their biology, intent, reason? Why do we fear them so much? Why do some freeze, some run, some scream, some fight? Are we weakened by love or strengthened by it? Will men ever understand the fear of death that women have carried throughout existence, the pain, the blood, the terror that brings forth new life? Will we triumph over death with our medicine and guns and technology or are we as helpless as any huge martian in its three legged armour in the face of pestilence and disease or will an ability to cheat time through suspended animation be pointless due to what we find - or what finds us as we sleep? And if we were to cheat death, would we actually want to, or is the price of doing that too high?

If we're going towards folk or religious supernatural horror, is God or Faith or religious practices going to save us, or are we pointlessly crying out for help where a much older, a primal existence truly has power? Or is there something monstrous about the audience that wish to see these things?

A schlocky horror film looks at some of these questions, these fears, the fundamental existential terror, just as much as a a highly regarded novel or much vaunted portraiture. And for that, Horror is Art. It reflects us, gives our existence back to us and goes straight to the deepest terrors humans have known since before we had words to express them.

I liked this post very much, and am with you on this. Something in our human psyche likes to give ourselves a fright - to flirt with mortality and some of the darker undertows of our humanity and culture. This is why (I think) some of the most terrifying horror is psychological, and why so many Gothic tales are capable of natural interpretations as well as supernatural ones.

The good, old-fashioned fairy story - one of the oldest story forms known to our species and passed down and down via oral storytelling traditions - has always addressed some of our most taboo familial and cultural topics. By the time this stuff came to be written down by Perault, Andersen and the Grimms it had been very much watered down. The 'wicked stepmother' figure largely replaced the incestuous father. And the whole genre/s is full of death, necromancers, necrophilia, taboo sexuality, mastery and sexual power, sacrifice and torture. After that it was death of the biological mother in childbirth. And these stories always focused on the nobility and/or the peasantry, rarely those who came between.

This is truly dark stuff, and the later gothic etc offered constant rewritings of it - sometimes to the tune of nearly identical plotlines. There's also the idea of mysterious, alien landscapes or haunted places cursed by histories of violence or oppression. Humans want to keep reading/watching this stuff over and over and over, and have done almost since the dawn of time. There's a reason why gothic and dystopia in both film and literature are amongst the most frequently watched, read and sold genres out there - and have continued to be for generation after generation.

JackGrealishsCalves · 17/03/2025 19:55

There are different types of "horror" films though.
Slasher movies I generally don't like (although I do like Halloween) but more supernatural or occult movies I love.
We're not all meant to like the same things, that would be very boring

notarealgreendress · 17/03/2025 20:29

IHaveDefectedToTeamDog · 17/03/2025 14:01

@LiveinHarmony if the characters in horror films behaved sensibly there often wouldn't be any horror! They're not going to switch the light on, call for backup or leave that noise outside uninvestigated are they?!Grin

I'm reminded of this Community skit 😀

Y

Thursa · 17/03/2025 20:48

Last horror film I watched was Friday the 13th in 3D, so back in the ‘80’s. The bit when the guy got his head squeezed so hard the eyes popped out. I mentioned 3D, right. I took the glasses off, sat there with my husband till the film ended and that was the last horror for me!

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