I don’t understand horror media. Wait. That’s not what I meant to say. What I meant was I don’t understand horror in general. No, that’s not quite it, either. Ok. I’ll just spit it out. I find most horror juvenile and boring. Not scary at all. Jump scares are just bodily reflexive reactions that are about getting away from the thing in your face. It’s not really being scared, per se, at least not for me. If anything comes at me out of the blue, I’m going to jump. It’s a physiological response rather than one of horror. Plus, it’s cheap. There’s no thought in it. Anyone can do a jumpscare at any time.
I will allow for the tension in situations such as the xenomorph in Alien Isolation. But again, that’s not really scary–that’s tension. It’s brilliantly done and I tried to play the game, but I couldn’t because it’s first person. That might be one of the reasons I don’t find horror games scary–because I can’t play first-person games. And horror isn’t horrifying in third person, really. At least I presume because I don’t watch horror movies. Again, not because they’re scary but because I find most of them boring/juvenile.
I am all for the psychological horror, but physical horror leaves me cold. Hm. Physical comedy also leaves me cold, which is interesting. Mostly because it’s too broad. It’s funny because I love musicals–which surprises people because they are so unrealistic. But I’m fine with that because they’re not supposed to be realistic. You could say the same with slapstick comedy, I suppose, but humor is different in general.
It’s interesting because I was talking to my brother about all this. He said that of course I didn’t like most movies because I was already three steps ahead of them. I hadn’t thought about it, but he’s right. Because I’m very adept at picking up emotions and motivations, I can see every plot point coming a mile away. He, on the other hand, is not good with emotions in anything other than the broadest strokes. I joked that we could make a podcast based on our very divergent reaction to movies because it would be amusing. When he said what he did about of course I could see three steps ahead, a light bulb went off in my brain. Everybody knows about about the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to people thinking they’re better than they are for no good reason. The lesser-known result of the study, however, is that people who are better at something than other people underestimate how much better they are. Why? Because it’s normal for them, so they have no frame of reference for how difficult it might be for other people.
I have always known what other people are feeling. More to the point, I have always felt what other people were feeling. That’s one reason I don’t like movies–I don’t want to feel what they’re feeling. I’m better at blocking out other people’s emotions now, but it takes effort. When I was in my twenties, I felt other people’s emotions as intensely as I felt my own–especially the negative ones. It was one reason I hated being around other people. I would look around the room and immediately know who was feeling bad. Not only that ,I would know why. “This woman is being abused by her husband.” “This child is being abused.” “This guy is super-depressed.” Was I right? No idea because it’s not something I could bring up with most people. So I can’t say with any certainty that I was right about why they were feeling bad, but I can tell you confidently that they were feeling bad.
For the longest time, I simply assumed that everyone else could feel other people’s emotions the way I did. I never knew about empaths and Highly Sensitive People (HSP). I really don’t like the latter label because it sounds too precious, but whatever. My brother and I have talked about it quite a bit lately and he helped me to realize to what extent I am different in this area. I always knew that I felt things more deeply than most people, but I always assumed it was just a bit more than others.
Nope. It’s a lot more.
Now, for some reason, this doesn’t extend to horror. I don’t feel much of anything at all while watching horror movies or playing video games. Well, more the former because as I mentioned, I don’t play horror games. Like I said, I think jumpscares are cheap. But most of the situations in horror movies don’t actually happen. I part of one of The Ring movies, the one with Naomi Watts, and it was just boring and bad. IMDB users agree with me, apparently. I did watch The Host by Bong Joon-ho, which I actually enjoyed, much to my surprise. It wasn’t scary, but it was a good movie.
In the first Harry Potter movie, the first time we see the dementors is on the train. It’s supposed to be spooky and scary, and I laughed out loud when I saw them. I thought they were adorable and I wanted to cuddle them. My friend poked me in the ribs to shut me up, but I couldn’t help it.
I’ve seen snippets of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. Neither of them scare me. Same with the xenomorph in the Alien movies. In fact, I can’t think of any monster who has scared me. There was a movie I saw with Jim Carrey in it as an author. It was when he was trying to be SERIOUS and it was utter trash. Though it was supposed to be scary. I just could not suspend my belief enough (I just wrote disbelief. Ha.) to accept the ridiculous premise.
This is my problem with movies in general, actually. When the Matrix first came out, my Taiji teacher at the time couldn’t stop raving about it and how it was the epitome of Taiji. I saw it years later in a theater with my then-boyfriend and mildly enjoyed it for much of the movie. That’s because both Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are hot as hell and I would not mind being sandwiched between them. The story was nonsensical, but whatever. Then, there comes the moment when Carrie-Anne Moss needs to revive Keanu Reeves and kisses him. She fucking kisses him! In a movie about breaking out of the matrix and being different, they resorted to the tritest thing ever. I stood up and shouted, “This is bullshit!” because I was so incensed. Fortunately, my boyfriend was pretty chill and there were only two or three other people in the theater (different boyfriend than Pulp Fiction boyfriend, obviously).
Talking to my brother about my distaste for movies made me shift from there’s something wrong with me for not liking movies to realizing that it makes sense given my sensitivity to other people’s emotions. Seriously, it’s a relief and I have my brother to thank for it. I never have to feel guilty about it again.