Horror Movie You Didn't Think Was Scary

Wow, this is a hard one. In truth, virtually all of them. But I guess I'll go with Night of the Living Dead. It's a wonderful movie to watch, and I do consider it a great film, but I don't think I was ever scared while watching it. Some films will hold me in a kind of suspense that seems like fear, but not NIGHT. I enjoy the drama more than it scares me.

Whether or not one finds a movie scary depends on one's ability to empathize. If someone has a high ability to empathize, then yes, they do get scared when watching movies because they are seeing the events of the movies from the perspective of the victims. It's not the same form of fear the victims feel because the experiencer ultimately isn't in danger, but it is a form of that same feeling.

On the other hand, if the person watching the film isn't one who has an ability to empathize, then focus is often on things that disturb and disgust.

It sounds like you fall in the latter camp, whereas I fall somewhere in between. I rarely get scared, but I do get scared sometimes.

I could try to find the study where I got this information, but it's been a while since I read it, and I'm not sure what it's title was or where I found it.

Maybe when I was a little kid, I found some things scary, but now, I don't find horror movies "Scary" at all... As it has been pointed out by other posters, just about every movie that comes out now, has "done it" all already. Interestingly, I find that most horror movies, are so over the top and so full of stuff, I can't actually see how anyone can really be scared of them... Uncomfortable, sure. Even startled, during a "Jump Scare" moment...

But, I know now, that most films are all just fiction, and just don't happen in real life... so, it's hard to get scared about anything now, and I feed no need to run and hide...


Now, the movies that do get to me, are the more simpler ones, and ones that could happen every day... Like...

Cujo (1983). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cujo_(film)

A rabid dog trying to kill you and you are trapped... And all you have to do, is open your door, and CHOMP!

or

Duel (1971). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_(1971_film)

A mysterious truck driver experiences road rage, and tries to terrorize and kill a man out driving a car for a business trip.



Both films are much more scary to me than one about Possessed "Killer Dolls"

The Exorcist (1973)

I was stationed just outside Washington D.C. during its original release. The Washington Post reported people fainting and others fleeing the theater. In D.C. the movie was actually rated "X". Three years later I saw the movie with an all-black audience in a Detroit "grind house". (Actually the glorious Fox Theatre before it was restored.) They didn't take a moment of it seriously, hooting and roaring with laughter through all the scenes that so shocked the "sophisticated" D.C. movie-goers. They much preferred the kung fu second feature. I wish the director and the movie critics who show such reverence for Exorcist had seen it with Detroiters. I think the movie is schlock and remain disgusted with Friedkin for having such little faith in his own skills that he resorted to "embeds" to goose the feeble scares.

Duel is very underated nowadays. And it is scary. I imagine viewers found ut scarier when first aired because there was less traffic on the highways which meant less help in such a situation and NO cell phones.

I've always thought the diner scene was incredibly suspensful and so great at inducing paranoia.

Yeah. I first saw it in 2015 and I'd already seen countless horrors by that stage - classic and otherwise. 

I gotta agree on The Exorcist, I saw it when I was 14 and was expecting to have the hell scared out of me and not be able to sleep, it was interesting but it wasn't scary. I had an adult tell me that it scared them, not because of why it scared everyone else, but because of the idea behind it of a demon possessing your child and you can't do anything about it. It's a good point but I still never thought it was scary.

I don't think it's that simple. I have no problem empathizing with film characters in general.  For example, films, though not usually horror films, can make me cry at the drop of a hat.

Most horror films I see as "dark fantasy."  I expect most characters in them to be killed (that doesn't always happen, of course, but I see it as the default, so I'm not surprised when it does happen).  And I tend to see horror villains more as anti-heroes.  Horror villains are basically Batman with more twisted moral views.  Villains often have many characteristics that make them allegories for social outsiders.  A lot of my attraction to horror films is simply the mood.  They're dark, macabre, melancholy, creepy, weird, etc.  I like those aesthetic qualities.  I like fantasy, too.  So when watching horror films, I tend to be "rooting" for the villains, the darkness, the creepiness, etc. at least as much as I'm rooting for the "normals."  I don't want the mood to end.  I don't want Dracula to be killed.  I want him to slink off into the darkness to return again (and provide another film for us).