Horrors - what scares you?

By 'what scares you' I'm not really asking for a list of films, rather the themes in horror films which make your hair figuratively stand on end and cause your eyes to dart from side to side after you've switched off the lights...

For me it's ghosts rather than slashers, creepiness rather than gore; what we don't see is far scarier than what we do. The score of a horror can also make or break the atmosphere and is more effective than any amount of SFX.
 
Quiet bits scare me more than any gore or monster effect could. Often the best horror relies on the the viewer's imagination doing the work.
Large groups of zombies can be scary too. Which is why I try and avoid Wood Green shopping mall after dark...
 
i agree but often horror films dont scare me because i always seem to think 'its only a film' but films make me jump something stupid, especially when characters jump out when its dark or someone opens a door a they are there.
 
Anything scares me or makes me jump, I'm a complete wuss. Generally I don't watch 'horrors', I can't stand gore like the chop them up type. I like the spooky type of films involving the supernatural. The psychologically disturbing ones are the scariest for me, you know, the type that you don't see much and it's left to your imagination - like Blair Witch. Never been so bloomin frightened - had to sleep with the lights on for two nights after watching that at the cinema. I remember even the big hard blokes walking out going "ooohhh sh*t".
 
I agree, you know that something's going to happen, you just don't know when and when it does, you get a shock but it was this build-up that made you really scared that you eventually jump. If you look at most horror films, the gory bits are usually only on screen for a split second, the one's that rely on loaRAB of gore aren't that scarey in my opinion, I think they disgust you more than anything else. Films like Saw seem to be a mixture of both. That did have suspense but it was very bloody, it actually didn't scare me, it was the really good storyline and twist that made it a good film but I thought it was more blood-soaked thriller than horror, I know genres overlap so you can't really categorise all the time.
 
Any theological horrors, dealing with God / Devil themes. Hence, The Omen, Exorcist, Emily Rose, Prince of Darkness etc really leave me feeling uneasy. Anything that makes you question the nature of good and evil and that leaves you thinking well after the film's ended, is usually a good sign.

Ghost stories, done effectively and where it's based on some semblance of truth, are a little unnerving too. Films dealing with the afterlife - recently, the first White Noise movie with Michael Keaton was fairly effective. As was Flatliners before it. I plan to see White Noise 2, though don't expect that to be as effective.

Slasher movies / body gore flicks (Hostel etc) just don't have the same effect and are a poor substitute for true horror, though appreciate they have their own audience.
 
What scares me, well, gives me goosebumps is the music score, but only when it's done correctly.

Having the advantage of a complete home cinema, the surrounRAB and deep bass really do give the movie a most welcome atmosphere. Has been known for me to actually leave the seat with a few films.

Something that does give me the creeps is, a young child with a demonic/evil voice.

Blood and guts has no affect on me horror wise.
 
I've never seen a film that has really scared me. It's weird because whenever i go cinema to watch a horror i am always the one who is too scared to watch and sits there with my hanRAB over my eyes. Yet,when it finishes i find the film boring and the others who wanted to see it get scared. I just don't think horror movies are my type,but the kinRAB that do freak me out abit are films involving the devil as a previous poster said:

Such as The Omen,The Exorcist etc.

Also realistic ghost stories scare me. Gory films make me laugh seeing what the writers come up with next.. eg. Hmm let's have him stab him in the eye with the screwdriver.
 
I'm very jealous! :D

The mention of children with a demonic/evil voice reminded me of something I hate - nursery rhymes/familiar melodies sung by children over spooky music... I can't think of an example right now but I'm sure many will know the type I mean.
 
I love to see the gore in horror films, the more gruesome the better for me, makes me laugh more than anything.
As for what scares me, the monsters in movies aren't really scary anymore - things that jump out startle me - that's what I like.
For example, the beginning of The Descent is very shocking
(re: the husband in the car) and that set me on edge a little from the start and I was anticipating more. The Hole is quite similar.
The Final Destination movies are similar - they combine the 2 good elements for me - gore and the anticipation. You don't get a lot of horror movies like that nowadays. I guess in a way the Saw films are similar too.
 
I've never really seen the Final Destination series as horrors - I know they are horrors but there's no element in there that I find spooky; nothing chases them but death itself. It might have been good to actually see a scary Grim Reaper figure in there rather than household objects etc. that kill the characters. They are entertaining films though.

One thing I will add is that despite my OP, there's no one theme that will never fail to scare me - although I find ghosts (and demons/the devil that ASIFZED mentioned) spooky, I'll find ones like The Grudge and The Exorcist spooky but The Ring and Emily Rose will leave me cold... it's strange. I was terrified by The Nightmare on Elm Street films as a kid but similar ones (that I watched at the same age) like Hellraiser I found laughable. I mean Freddy Krueger is laughable as an adult but as a kid... *hides underneath covers*
 
Horror films on the whole don't scare me at all any more. I've watched them so much that I must have become immune. Films like Alien and Dawn of the dead gave me nightmares as a kid but I re-watched them recently and didn't find them scary at all. Nowadays, I find it's more to do with how the filmmaker plays with your mind. A recent film I found scary was Hard Candy:
You are left guessing until near the end about who is the goodie and who is the baddy. In the middle of the film, she performs some "surgery" on the guy and at that moment I thought she was a psycho. I really cringed at that scene. But at the end it comes out that he deserved it.
 
Definitely the supernatural or unexplained.
A good movie based on true events or unanswerable events get me spooked.
Films like Poltergeist, The Entity, The Others and The Haunted are some of my favorites.

Though new age horrors like Saw, Seven, My Little Eye and Hostel are all like well that could happen :eek: :eek:
 
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