questions about fear

[2eclipse]

aryaluna and mirage897 have got me truly interested in this today.

i hate being scared. i just hate it. i don't like scary suspense either. the only scary movies i really like are the ludicrous ones like cemetery man and frighteners and the army of darkness stuff. hell, i don't even like roller-coasters and have only learned to tolerate them by getting LESS scared of them. the only shiver that is a good shiver from reading scary books is when i already know what is going to happen and so am less afraid for the characters than i would be if i truly didn't know the outcome. my willing-suspension of disbelief is a whore. a bit too willing.

but i hear ya'll talking about the horror genre with relish all the time!
how does that work? for those of you who like horror, what is it about being terrified that you enjoy? or is it that you simply don't find the same things scary? are there limits to what you can enjoy and what will give you nightmares? do you actually get nightmares? i mean, if you enjoy being afraid...is it really a nightmare? what makes fear real and uncomfortable for you? does it have to be about you or someone you love for it to be unpleasant? or is it just about expectations? i know for me i was troubled, but not afraid after 9-11 because 1)everyone i knew was safe and 2)it didn't alter my sense of safety. i didn't feel that we were safe before the horrible events.

are there any other people out there who really hate being afraid?

please answer in as much detail as you can, i'm really interested in this.

Comments

[aryaluna.livejournal.com]

It got very very long so I posted my response in my journal, and stuck it behind a cut. :)

imo

[madjulyin.livejournal.com]

there are some movies put in the horror genre that I don't think are horror.

Everyone has a different threshold of what horror is and what someone considers being scary. I am most scared by movies that could actually happen to me. If something is so far fetched that they are reaching for horror it is sometimes more comical. Most zombie movies I've seen aren't scary to me.

movies like hide and seek, may, and some vampire movies scare me, mostly because they are about normal people who have things that could easily happen to me. My night mares are mostly about people I know doing outrageous things, like I had one the other night that tracy was wrapping freshly born kittens in aluminum foil, they looked a lot like baked potatoes, and wanted me to juggle them, and i can't juggle, so I kept dropping them. she kept making me juggle them until they died. it was kinda scary.

[silvertongue1.livejournal.com]

"i don't even like roller-coasters "

REPRESENT!!!! I hate them too-- scare the bejesus out of me.
That, and I hate motion sickness they induce.
~Amanda

[planetjake.livejournal.com]

I'm weird about horror/scary flicks; I love 'um but I shriek like a little girl, hide my face and peek during the build up to a "jump" moment, and I flinch easily at gory/gross bits. Ironically in real life I feel pretty fearless about stuff. Most of my phobias that really haunted me as a child/teen (heights, darkness, basements) and have been replaced by that more singular fear death and and the end of this consciousness. But even that is mostly sublimated by the knowledge that there is nothing I can do about it in the end.

Aside: On 9-11-01 I was in Jamestown, North Dakota (re: middle of nowhere). That evening we saw carloads of people packed up to leave town. And I remember turning to my friend Levi and saying "where the heck do they think they're going? Running to the hills? THEY"RE IN THE HILLS!"
We figured they were headed to Manitoba.

[sooper.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, I love horror, but I also generally don't get scared by it. There are rare exceptions, but I just don't feel any sense of fear from most horror. I enjoy horror because it is a more interesting way to tell a story. If someone has a story about this loser guy whose girlfriend is fed up with him because he's such a shiftless lump, but in the end he proves he's got more initiative than she thought and they live happily ever after, hey, nice story, but kinda dull. Add Zombies to that, and you've got "Shaun of the Dead", which is loads more interesting, exciting, and funny to me than some generic romantic comedy. Horror has a lot of facets that people tend to overlook because it isn't "high drama", but there are loads of genre films that are brimming with social commentary, there are a lot that are very personal and meaningful, and some that are just plain funny in a way that your standard comedy can't be. Some people like to be scared, but that isn't the sole reason people watch horror.

[sooper.livejournal.com]

I'd say mostly that my sense of safety didn't change after 9-11, but I was in DC when it all happened, and I will tell you that right then, I was very much afraid. I've seen a lot of different reactions to it, ranging from total paranoia to complete lack of concern, but I'd wager there were not too many people in DC or NYC at the time who were not pissing themselves.

[keisolo.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes horror for me is poking at the parts of my brain that DO produce nightmares, and some of my darker poetry and fiction.
And honestly, sometimes it is just reassuring to find that there are darker things out there than what is in my own hEad and my own past.
Then again, I also guess it depends on what you define as horror. (Exaples of what you were thinking of?)
Most "horror" genre either doesn't produce nightmares for me, or doesn't produce anything that is interesting enough to overlay what is there for me already. There was one particular Stephen King short that made me look at my closet funny for a while, but it wasn't exactly nightmares...
Actually, now that I think about it, that may be another reason I can enjoy horror. For a long time I actually sought a "scare" that would be in my head and in my dreams more than what was already there. Because a nightmare that has no resonance from reality, or is at least not picked so directly from one's life, is less disturbing than one that is.
And now stopping before this becomes really rambling.