Horror

Every few years, I see a surge of interest in horror films that inevitably seems to overpower advertisements in all sectors of the media, then vanishes with no one really remembering any of the films that came out during that period. And of course, movies aren't the only media source that this happens with, seeing as gaming seems to go through similar phases, but the two don't seem to align very well. And while October is the month to be scared, it doesn't always coincide with Halloween, as the movies and games just seem to appear.

I don't really understand the horror genre. I mean, I understand that some people get a kick out of being scared. They enjoy the adrenaline rush it gives them, and they generally have a dark and twisted sense of humor as well, so on some level they get genuine entertainment out of it all. But it all seems a bit shallow. A lot of the horror films I have heard of are little more than jump scares and creepy atmosphere that are reaching to push buttons rather than get under the skin. In fact, they seem to be so shallow that anything that could be considered genuinely terrifying has to be put under a different title - psychological thriller.

But the thing that I really don't understand about it all is that, going in to it, you already know what to expect. People are going to die. Something terrible is going to happen. And either the main characters are going to fail and die along with the others, or they are going to miraculously pull through and defeat the horror that gives the genre its name. And it's not a matter of consciously thinking about these things - these are what you are looking for in a horror film. In fact, if a horror film is lacking in these elements, it is criticized for not really being horror.

That being said, why are you afraid? Why should you be afraid? True terror comes from the unknown - not knowing what is going to come, or what you are faced against, or what it could potentially do to you and the people around you. But if you know that you are going to be facing up against something sick and twisted, you're already expecting the worst of it. You go into that experience knowing that people are going to die, and many people actively try to guess who's not going to be making it to the credits. Worse yet, they are often able to do so accurately.

To me, it just seems like poor writing. Horror appears to do little more than take every cliche available to it and put a different coat of paint on it. Age old magic, threats from beyond the grave, a benevolent figure that turns out to be the cursed one all along. We see these repeatedly, and they don't seem to be going away anytime soon. In fact, maybe that's why there seems to be pauses between these kinds of media being released. To give people enough time so as not to realize that every horror film is the same as the last.

Perhaps they just aren't for me. Perhaps I simply have the wrong kind of mindset for the entire horror genre. But it's hard for me to really understand what kind of mindset you would have to have in order to enjoy them. There have been some horror things that I have enjoyed. But they were pretty different from most horror films and games you see out there. And I only fully enjoyed them once.