How do you react to horror movies?

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I hate them so much! I watched Saw and wanted to cry the whole time.......I cannot understand why anyone would want to watch someone be tortured pointlessly! I can't stand watching people suffer, even if it is just acting. On that note, I love bad old horror films that are cheesy (Leprechauns on the Sci Fi channel for example), and I do like really good horror films that make you think & are more of psychological thrillers and not just meaningless torture, like the Silence of the Lambs or something.

There are several amongst my favourite films of all time.

The Fly . Cronenberg version. You can laugh at the special effects all you like , I still feel his horror at his disintegrating body and his sense of being taken over by insect politics; " they don't have any" , and the sadness in the horror ( which true horror always has) of him adding spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee without stopping and his talking faster and faster.

The Prince of Darkness. Carpenter. You can laugh at the special effects all you like( !), I still adore that moment when the black guy is advancing down the corridor with his throat cut , laughing, and when he stands in front of the mirror crying at his reflection, and the homeless in the street transformed into mindless pawns, and the maggots in the tin of food one of them is eating , and the ants coming out of the heater in waves, and the man in the courtyard who turns out to have been an illusion created by hundreds of cockroaches who have eaten his body.

The Shining. The little boy making his finger talk in a husky whisper and bob up and down. The little boy alone in the cavernous and engulfing corridors of the hotel. The father typing over and over " all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" .

The Thing. Carpenter version. You can laugh about the special effects etc (!) but I FEEL cold watching that film!! Paralysing paranoia! And feel much happier once they burn everything and reduce the number of people to two at the end.

Alien. Aliens.Brazil. Twelve Monkeys.The Brood ( Cronenberg), Don't Look Now( Nicholas Ray), Ring ( japanese version),Dark Water, Resident Evil. Twenty Eight Days Later , which I was disappointed by first time but find more and more horrifying each time I watch it again, because of the military , and the driven desperate rabid.
And The Hidden, and dozens of others.

To me horror films are just about the only place that I find my experience of life presented. Precious and indispensable signs that I am NOT alone ! !

I enjoy them as long as they are well done and have an excellent plot...I do NOT appreciate movies that are made for the gore factor! Give me Poe or King and a well made film and I am in heaven.
However, I do have the tendency to react very strongly to films emotionally while I am watching them. It is odd to others but natural for me.

Ouinon I agree with alot of what you said. I think for those of us who do have a more sensitive fight or flight reaction, we can relate more to horror films. Since at times it seems you feel that sense of anxiety on a daily basis, I mean not to such an extreme extent, but uh..something like it.

I'll have to rent Prince of Darkness off of Netflix. I'm waiting until Saw 4 comes out on DVD, cause I have Hyperacusis, so I can't go to the theater it's too loud. Most of the films that have really disturbed me are foreign horror films, because there are less restrictions on what topics they can deal with. One film I reccomend against seeing is A Tale of Two Sisters from Korea. Not because it's bad, but because the ending is so sad! I really had to try hard not to bawl at the end of that film.

Not only the anxiety and fear, but also the dislocated deformed disorientating disturbed physical/bodily existence/experience so often portrayed, and the alienation, and the obsessions , and compulsion, and disgust, and sense of unreality , and the barriers between people , and the "inappropriate emotions" and the despair, and the rejection,and the loss of self. etc I think that the best ones are among the greatest films ever made.

I flinch when theres the swelling of the strings and then an orchestral "BAM!" and suddenly a little asian child or ghost in the foggy mirror or a corpse/zombie/killer steps into frame. Yeah, I flinch when that happens.

I like horror movies (maybe with an exception of gore horrors; I can't overcome my disgust and force myself to watch films like "Guinea pig" series or "Necromantic"). When I was 10/11 my mother and I used to borrow two films every weekend, one for her and one chosen by me and that last one almost always belonged to s-f or horror genre.

In the beginning I was afraid of creatures from said films ( the title character from "Pumpkinhead" for example, or that zombie woman from "Pet sementary II" - God, I still remember that in that time our artificial christmas tree wrapped in an oilcloth was standing in my room behind the curtains and I was dying of fear it's not a tree waiting for Christmas but a blood thirsty mother of that boy from film wrapped in pall ). Later I started to developed a liking for horror more and more and even the most scary monster isn't able to throw me off balance now.

I love old B horror movies. I have an overwhelming collection of them. I love old Hammer Horror films, too. New movies are all about how much blood can they fit in per square inch. But there's a lot to be said for a finely crafted psychological thriller. I too think movies benefitted from the MST3K treatment. I find it hard to watch anything now without shouting out at the screen when I find things too ridiculous to move on!

I don't think new movies with all the gore really do much. I am a sucker for a good zombie or vampire movie, though. Shaun of the Dead is one current favourite. How can you take being eaten by zombies too terribly seriously that way?

I like the idea of watching horror movies, especially those involving a small bunch of people, things like the original Blair Witch project, 28 day's later etc.. I'm quite interested in apocalyptic type films, which is probably a pretty unhealthy interest!

Most of the time though, when I do watch a horror movie, I usually end up feeling disappointed, or I stop watching half way through because it's just crap, and feels like it's just regurgitated material, stuff like Wes Craven horror movies..

To actually answer your question , I think I'm less sensitive to gory or spooky type material than most people are, but thats probably because I've become desensitised from watching too many of them! I seem to have slightly different takes on what's really frighting, or disgusting, to most people.

Can't get enough of them; great stuff!

My personal favourite is 28 days later, as some of the scenes are set near where I used to live!

Horror movies don't bother me that much, unless they're so gory or feature such horrific visual effects or themes that they make me feel physically ill...

Games are better for me. Even if they're not technically horror games, they can still scare me. Quake II for example features some horrifying sounds if you've grown to recognise them, and don't get me started on how bad Aliens Versus Predator puts me on edge. It's bloody scary.

I love horror movies! They're the only kind of fictional movie I like. I love the Evil Dead movies, and Return of the Living Dead, and Devil's Rejects, and 28 Days Later.

I love the old ones, but never watch the new ones. Can't stand gore or torture.

Karloff, Lugosi, Carradine, the classics ....

I love them, although I often end up sympathising with the 'monster'. All the ditsy female screaming and panic drives me mad and I love it when one of them ends up in pieces. I had a lot of sympathy for the Blair Witch.

Other favourites include The Shining, The Ring, Scream, 28 Days Later, The Wicker Man (original version). After I'd seen The Ring I rang up a few of my friends who had also seen it and whispered 'seven days' just to hear them inhale sharply - hilarious

Torture porn gets tedious (stuff like Saw and Hostel) although Texas Chainsaw Massacre is great.

Not sure if he classes as a horror director but I usually enjoy M Night Shyamalan's films, especially Sixth Sense, The Village and Signs.