Are you the only one who enjoys horror?

[Bebpo]

I grew up on horror short stories, novels, films cause my mom loves the genre.  She'd have all these great Stephen King short story collections lying around and I worked at a video store so I got to rent a lot of the more interesting horror stuff that I was curious about.

As an adult though I am the only person I know who is into horror.  None of my friends read horror stories or watch horror movies.  Same with every girl I meet or talk to.  None like horror.  People either say
A) the genre creeps them out
B) the genre is for kids
C) the genre is for low-brow unintelligent folks
D) gore is gross

A lot of the preconceptions about the genre are baseless and wrong.  It kind of reminds me of anime where people think it's all tentacle porn and don't realize there is some truly great stuff in the genre. 

I know on the internets there's a lot of horror fans, but irl do you guys actually have people to enjoy horror with?  I still watch a decent amount of horror films but I watch them all by myself cause no one will watch them with me :X  and I still love reading good horror stories.

This post was brought on by watching Creepshow blu-ray.  First time I've seen it and it's good cheezy fun.

[The Fake Shemp]

I have that Blu-ray coming in tomorrow. How is the transfer? I love the original, very much.

That's a big negatory, because I groomed my siblings from a young age to love horror. My sister and brother have a very warped sense of reality as a result! It's awesome!

I was dating someone that refused to see horror flicks. It became kind of a deal breaker for me.

[EmCeeGrammar]

The problem is that I've been burned on too many flicks that just aren't scary.  Its mostly jump scares and gore.  I like gore if its all in good fun, but  when the movie can't seem to set a mood correctly or build tension its obvious they cop out with someone getting mutilated in cg fashion or whatnot.

Run-on sentence

There was this collection of short stories I enjoyed as a kid.  I forget the name but it was a series accompanied by grotesque black-and-white drawings that did its job pretty well.

[The Fake Shemp]

You're talking about the Alvin Schwartz stories. Great stuff. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark used to freak me out as a kid.



There's a lot of great stuff out there, but if you're lazy, then it's frustrating. Failure to overlook foreign films, cult classics, underrated stuff from years past and such will yield a lot of mainstream mediocrity.

[EmCeeGrammar]

Yep.  I fell off the goosebumps bandwagon pretty quickly.  SSTTINDD was good shit though.

[The Fake Shemp]

By the time Goosebumps hit, I was already reading Stephen King and Poe. I never understood the fascination, considering there was far darker and entertaining material available to youths.

I don't think stuff like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Choose Your Own Adventure (the dark ones, that offed the kids all the time) exists for the tween set anymore. People get so uppity about that stuff.

There are very few children's books I fondly remember. Sideways Stories from Wayside School,Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (well, pretty much everything by Dahl), etc.

I wonder if they still hold up.

[Human Snorenado]

I was way into horror flicks as a kid- bought Fangoria magazines and everything.  I grew out of it after I figured out that the only chicks in the scene were either A) gross or B) insane.  Well, that and I developed taste at around 13 or so and was able to realize that the vast majority of horror flicks were, in fact, terrible.

There's still some great classic horror literature to appreciate, but from a cultural standpoint it's been dead for about 25 years or so.

[chronovore]

My daughter is getting into it; whenever we go out to lunch, if the place has manga on hand she will always grab the horror/ghost ones. Even so, I'm not watching DESCENT or HALLOWEEN with her, since she's only too young for them.

As for the whole genre being stale, I think it died in the US some time ago, but Japanese horror is somehow really scary to me still. I'm not into the whole torture-porn stuff like Hostel and SAW though.

[muckhole]

Funny thing is, as a kid, I absolutely refused to watch any sort of horror, figuring it would freak me out too badly (nightmares etc.). When I was finally convinced by a friend to watch some, I was shocked at how "mild" they were, not really scary or disturbing at all. Turns out my imagination was far worse than anything people tended to film, and I spent a lot of time catching up on what I'd been missing out

Flash forward and yeah, I don't really have any friends who enjoy horror as much as I do, and though I'm no  connoisseur regarding the genre, I get burned constantly by friends who watch a flick, tell me it's "The Scariest/Goriest Movie of All Time", only to watch it and spend the next hour and a half rolling my eyes. The quest is ongoing for flicks or stories that will really creep me out or disturb me.

[Great Rumbler]

I like horror, although I don't really too many horror stories [mainly just some Lovecraft from time to time] or that many horror movies [maybe one or two per year] but I do enjoy a good scare. I'm not really a fan of what "horror" has become recently, though, with all the dumbed-down PG-13 scares or torture porn.

[chronovore]

Im easily scared by horror flicks and they haunt me for ages after I watched them 

You know what scene freaked me the fuck out? The scene in The Sixth Sense when he wakes up in the middle of the night and follows his mom into the kitchen. That bothered me for months, no joke.

[Himu]

I've never been scared of a horror movie since puberty.

I love horror.

[Great Rumbler]

Im easily scared by horror flicks and they haunt me for ages after I watched them 

You know what scene freaked me the fuck out? The scene in The Sixth Sense when he wakes up in the middle of the night and follows his mom into the kitchen. That bothered me for months, no joke.

I got freaked out by Chucky from the Child's Play movies. Like for weeks afterward I had an irrational fear that he was hiding in my bathroom cabinet, waiting to come out and slash me with his knife.

[Diunx]

Im watching Drag Me To Hell as we type and its freaking me out. I just hope everything works out for that cute blonde Im not really freaked because the movie isnt scary actually. Its just that she is placed in socially awkward situations which I cannot watch without cringing.

Im easily scared by horror flicks and they haunt me for ages after I watched them 

My dog started scratching my door during the scene where they were trying to kill the demon, it scared the shit out of me.

[Bebpo]

I get jump scared from jump moments, but it's not often that anything truly puts the fear of god in me anymore.  I remember when I was a kid reading IT and I was freaked the hell out.  Lately, I guess [REC] was kinda freaky at the end part in the dark.  I really liked Dog Soldiers but it was more hahahaha than freaky. 

I don't like or understand torture porn.  Watched the first Saw and it was...ok, but didn't interest me to watch any more.  If the scenario looks interesting for a torture porn film I'll just read the summary at one of the moviespoilersummary websites. 

And Wilco the transfer for Creepshow is great.  Really good colors and very clean. 

[Diunx]

Saw was absolute crap, don't know how the fuck it's got like 10 sequels, all I could think while watching that movie was "is this the princess bride guy" then I went to IMDB and it was indeed him.

[Cormacaroni]

The Exorcist and The Shining are about the only really great horror movies IMHO. Maybe Candyman. I like Raimi but I don't really class his stuff as horror. I'm not really interested in anything much these days. Too desensitized maybe.

[The Fake Shemp]

The Omen? Rosemary's Baby? Nightmare on Elm Street? Shaun of the Dead? An American Werewolf in London? Halloween? Scream?

There are a lot more really good horror films than just those two.

[The Fake Shemp]

And Wilco the transfer for Creepshow is great.  Really good colors and very clean.

I've found it inconsistent, so far.

It is pretty clean, and the colors are great, but anything with low lighting has a ton of grain and just looks pretty awful.

Daytime shots with natural lighting and indoor shots look really, really sharp. I just wonder if it's the best they could do with the source material.

[Bebpo]

Yeah I just chalked up the grain to the source material and the age.  Unless it's hardcore terrrrrible grain like you can't see the picture underneath (occasionally seen that come up), grain really doesn't bother me.  Plus I watch stuff on a smallish tv 36" so it's not that noticable.

[The Fake Shemp]

It's just some of those nighttime shots and stuff with low lighting look pretty bad. The Stephen King segment especially (not that his terrible acting helps).

There are shots from the Ted Danson/Leslie Nielson segment, especially on the beach, that are crystal clear. It truly is a difference between night and day.

[Cormacaroni]

The Omen? Rosemary's Baby? Nightmare on Elm Street? Shaun of the Dead? An American Werewolf in London? Halloween? Scream?

There are a lot more really good horror films than just those two.

The Omen was scary at the time, cheesy as fuck now. Rosemary's Baby I haven't seen. Nightmare on Elm St. /Scream/ Halloween- don't get them at all. They were ok at the time but I have no desire whatsoever to rewatch and can barely remember most of them. Shaun & Werewolf - great, love them to death but I don't consider them horror anymore than the Raimi action-comedies.

Just not my genre I guess.

[Enl]

My Scary Stories senses were tingling.

Can't believe I sent out my PS3 to get repaired this week. I've been waiting months for Creepshow to come out and years for Phantasm II.    Creepshow was pretty much the horror film that scared me like know other when I was a little kid. I couldn't even make it through the first story without having to cover my eyes when the Father's Day zombie appeared, and I would have nightmares about the monster in the box eating me alive. Good times.

[The Fake Shemp]

I still think The Omen holds up pretty well. I dig the original, a lot.

Rosemary's Baby is great.

I think if you don't "get" Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream or Halloween, all of which transcend the slasher sub genre to legitimately great horror, then yeah, it's probably not the genre for you.

I don't know how you could not consider An American Werewolf in London or Shaun of the Dead horror, though. Just because they both have dark humor, doesn't mean they're not horror flicks. Landis' film is violent, and brutal and has its scares. As does Shaun of the Dead.

Fear and humor are natural bedfellows - if stuff like Shaun of the Dead doesn't constitute horror, then I don't know what does.

[Cormacaroni]

Well, ok - if I'd happened to have brought up Werewolf first, i'd probably have been saying something like 'now i don't like most 'horror' but i fucking love American Werewolf and find it scarier than all that slasher shit because the scares take you by surprise'.

I didn't find Shaun remotely scary...and nowhere near as funny as I hoped it to be. (Spaced and Hot Fuzz are way funnier).

Will check out Rosemary's Baby for sure. Mark Kermode loves it and he knows his horror.

[Bebpo]

Shaun of the Dead is a weird, weird movie.  I find the first half a hilarious great comedy 3.5/4 stars.  I find the 2nd half a pretty generic real zombie film that's not scary in the slightest, 2.5/4 stars.  Weird movie.  I liked Hot Fuzz more because it was consistent it what it wanted to be.

I'm actually watching Creepshow in parts.  Watched the first 2 stories last night.  Really enjoyed Father's Day, the asteroid one was a little dull.  Tonight watched the next two which were both great.  The beach one was creepy although the ending is kinda cheezy (Leslie Nelson was awesome) and the crate was just excellent.  I hate bugs so I'll watch the last story tomorrow.

[The Fake Shemp]

Yeah, Stephen King's segment is the only clunker. I dig the other three. Creepshow 2 only has one decent segment.

I felt Shaun of the Dead was pretty awesome all around - the climax is divisive, but I think it works. I find it more memorable than Hot Fuzz.