Science/Skeptic Mentality and Fear

[SkepticalScience]

Just wanted to take a quick non-scientific survey to serve as a reference point.

Any of you ever find horror movies or TV shows scary??

I generally don’t, but I remembered being scared by all kinds of stuff when I was a kid. This was before I knew anything about science though. . .

I distinctly remember being scared of ghosts and alien abductions. Stories about those things totally gave me the willies. Now, I am just kind of annoyed by these things, and certainly don’t have any fear of them.

This T-Day I might rent some old scary movies and see how they impact me. I suspect, that aside for being startled, that I wouldn’t be scared of any of them.

Just wondering if others of like mind were in the same boat.

Thanks,
SS

 

[Seismosaurus]

Just wanted to take a quick non-scientific survey to serve as a reference point.

Any of you ever find horror movies or TV shows scary??

I generally don’t, but I remembered being scared by all kinds of stuff when I was a kid. This was before I knew anything about science though. . .

I distinctly remember being scared of ghosts and alien abductions. Stories about those things totally gave me the willies. Now, I am just kind of annoyed by these things, and certainly don’t have any fear of them.

This T-Day I might rent some old scary movies and see how they impact me. I suspect, that aside for being startled, that I wouldn’t be scared of any of them.

Just wondering if others of like mind were in the same boat.

Thanks,
SS

I very, very rarely find movies scary. I've seen so many that mostly I find "scary" movies boringly predictable - "this would be a good place for a spring-loaded cat moment... yeah, there it is. I wonder how many times the bad guy will come back to life?"



Minor spoilers for Blair Watch and much bigger ones for Hannibal follow...



I only recall two occasions when a scary movie provoked a real response from me; one was the Blair Witch Project. I saw this in a packed theatre that was almost uncomfortably warm, but near the end as they go into the abandoned house, all the hairs on the back of my arms stood up on end and I started shivering just slightly. I wasn't scared as such, but I was wrapped up in the movie and more than a little spooked.

The other was the portion of Hannibal where Lecter eats Krendler's brain while he's still alive. I'd read the book so I knew what was coming, but even so it freaked me out. It's odd because blood doesn't usually bother me, and I've seen far worse things before, but I couldn't actually watch that scene. I was staring at the floor, literally in a cold sweat, trying to keep from being sick, and I really, honestly couldn't force my eyes to look up at the screen. To this day I have no idea why I reacted that way.

Ghosts and such in movies don't generally irritate me, unless the movie is trying to say they are real. I remember being extremely annoyed with that White Noise movie for that reason.