I feel like now the real world is much more scarier than horror in media, I kinda got desensitized to fear in horror games. Still scary, but I remember being much more terrified when I was younger.
I think the fears I enjoyed in movies as a kid unfortunately were ones I would need to get used to in my adult life. For example, cosmic horror doesnt even register anymore since I had that big existential crisis in high school. Now the only thing that gets me is body horror, and I hate body horror.
well that depends. when i was younger i was scared to even watch a horror movie but when i watched my first in middle school i laughed at it (not in a bad way) and have been getting the last laugh ever since
Life is far scarier than any horror movie.
I’ve never been scared by scary movies. I’m reading IT by Stephen King (for the second time, I first read it when I was 11 or 12, or about the same age as the kids in the book) and it’s good, but it’s not scaring me. Neither did Pet Sematary. Next up will be The Shining. King makes some good scary situations, but they don’t really make me scared.
The only thing that’s really triggered a fear-like response (more like anxiety though) is movies with scenes of domestic violence (particularly towards kids).
Horror scared me as a kid, and still scares me now, hence why I don’t watch it or play horror-based video games.
Much more as a middle aged person than when I was a teen / younger adult. Probably still less scared than when I was a little kid.
I watched a lot of darker / violent movies when I was 15-25, and really enjoyed them. But over time I started finding horrible stuff happening really hard to watch. It’s not so much the fear, it’s just that I can now empathise and imagine suffering in a way that I just couldn’t when I was young.
I can’t enjoy a stupid slasher movie when all I can think of is how the families of the dead teens would have to deal with the grief. Even action movies, unless they’re pretty campy, just remind me of what real people genuinely and tragically have to experience.
It’s kinda shitty. Sometimes I think i need to desensitise myself, but it also means that older movies where violence and darkness is often implied are still really impactful.
As far as movies are concerned, it was a lot more scarier when I was younger. Like mentioned, I think the vast majority of horror movies are just… costume playing. One exception, that is not strictly speaking an horror movie but still is a movie that did really scared the hell out of me the first I watched it is Jacob’s Ladder. I was pinned & terrified.
As far as books are concerned, it depends who I’m reading as getting older I’ve been introduced to real… I would not say scary writers but real disturbing. Those that will not shy away from the most… delicate topics.
Want to share some of those writers? It’s not easy to find books that are actually disturbing.
I feel like now the real world is much more scarier than horror in media, I kinda got desensitized to fear in horror games.
I think it’s just accumulative life experience and it wouldn’t matter if the world was regressive or not while I’m alive in my opinion.
Still scary, but I remember being much more terrified when I was younger.
“Gooey Gus" the purple slime monster from the PBS show “Ghostwriter" scared the absolute shit out of me and I had recurring nightmares for months after watching one episode of that 4 part storyline. I even suspect that if Aphantasia could be trauma induced, that’s what did it lmao. I don’t think I even watched the whole thing, my mother just happened to have it on while cooking dinner one evening on our tiny CRT TV.
So yeah I agree.
I’ve watched this show since as an adult and it’s pretty good for the time it came out in for young adult audience horror but man is it goofy lol.
Here’s all the episodes sitched together:
1994 so i would have been 4 years old when it aired, but maybe 5 or 6 if it was a rerun I can’t remember.
These days I’m pretty hard to shake and I’ve watched most horror and played all the famous games. Except VR games. I won’t play VR horror it’s too much for me. Alien Isolation VR mod is the scariest thing I’ve ever tried to play and I couldn’t do it.
Definitely younger. I started watching horror movies at 4 or 5 so I’m pretty desensitized to most types of horror, but am constantly chasing that feeling. Jump scares and gore do nothing for me, I want “afraid to turn off the lights” or paranoid anxiety for few hours after. That’s the good stuff.
I doubt the current state of the world played as much of a factor in your desensitization to horror compared to the development of your brain and continued exposure to horror content throughout your life.
I was terrified of a monkey stuffed animal as a kid. Didn’t need genocide and Trump’s second term to grow out of that.
i don’t really understand horror as a genre. i don’t really remember any horror i’ve seen as it leaves no real impression, and i don’t seek it out.
have you tried Get Out (2017) or the same director’s Nope (2022)?
no, i don’t seek out the genre as i said.
For my part as a kid, anything that was scary wasn’t just scary in a classical sense but because it was fast, violent, and unrecognizable. Nowadays most of what’s scary is easily recognizable and I think many of us have spent time thinking about just how we’d react in that situation. (Whether or not it would work, mind you xD). Now, real horror… not the silly shit in the movies… still retains some of that ‘magic’. (I hate myself for calling this magic, I hate it haha). Indie horror video games exemplify this horror, imo, because it’s almost completely fabricated from someone’s imagination that’s not mainstream at all… it jumps out at you and in a split second you have to friend/foe it.
I watch Hollow play these games (cuz no thank you), in attempt to ‘normalize’ more and more so I can just enjoy a quiet evening in the dark with a smile.
Younger, I was 11 when I watched The Exorcist (1973). Oh boy, I was scared to sleep in the dark for like a month
A friend in middle school invited me to sleep over at her house and proceeded to show me that movie, or rather her big sister fast-forwarded through all of the “boring” parts so we only saw the “good” parts. I did not sleep that night.
I grew up watching horror movies and was largely detached from the fear, it never got to me outside the occasional jump scare. Sometime in my 30s that started to change, and then I also made some bad choices like watching horror movies after eating too many shrooms, which has made it worse. I still occasionally enjoy horror but mostly I find the genre unpleasantly stressful. My body in general seems to be a lot more reactive. When I was a kid I once had a chunk of glass impale my hand, which I dealt with totally calmly as blood gushed all over. Recently I cut my hand while cooking and nearly passed out and threw up. I think I am getting soft as I age.
Younger for sure, watching horror movies on a CRT from VHS, when you are pre-teen or something, is scary! Now I am completely desensitized from them, they do nothing for me, and I don’t watch them anymore, I prefer to watch something else.
