Question - Does Anything Really Scare People Anymore?

a reply to: KindraLabelle2

The last time I took a scare from a movie was with 'Paranormal Activity' on the big screen.

I see I'm not the only one.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Not much scares me anymore either. I like watching 'spooky' vids too, like MrBallen stories on YT. But it doesn't scare me. The only thing I've seen recently that has scared me is an old 70s horror film called "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer". Hard to explain why, but it is quite unsettling. It was rated x upon its release and I believe it was the film responsible for the NC-17 rating for non-pornographic content.

But in general, not much scares me either. We adjust to our environments, and this includes what we see on media. After a while, we just get used to the insanity.

originally posted by: KTemplar
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck


Every time Biden has a press conference, his beady little squinting eyes scares the bejesus out of me.

Even people with teardrop tattoos are more trustworthy imo!

He reminds me of one of them black-eyed children all grown up. Whatever you do, don't let him in.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Question - Does Anything Really Scare People Anymore?

Fear of "the other," those not like us.

We see that fear perpetuated and played daily in politics and in world affairs.

*That* fear is what motivates people, usually without any just cause, into sometimes unspeakable acts, both locally, nationally, and globally. It also motivates people to take action in other ways, against the interest of others, or sometimes even their own. History proves that.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

He reminds me of one of the aliens in fire in the sky movie. The Travis Walton story!

Commitment scares the # out of me lol

Jump scares have been in horror films for decades with the first official one being from a 1940s movie called The Cat People. Yes there have been remakes of that film.

Jump scares can be effective when used sparingly. For example often listed as one of the best jump scares ever you have the hospital hallway scene in The Exorcist 3.

Not all quality horror relies on sudden moves and sounds though. Recent films like Get Out, Hereditary, The VVich, The Wailing, Train to Busan are all different types of horror films that have all received their fair share of critical acclaim.

Someone mentioned Henry: PoSk which was a solid film for the time . Compared to films like August Underground, Atroz, Bunny Game and others then Henry seems like something so tame and vanilla.

You have films that are actually horrible. I dont mean poorly made just films that all you can do is shake your head at how disturbing and nihlistic they are.

Megan Is Missing (enjoy this if you are parent).
A Serbian Film
Martyrs (the original, not the remake)
Inside
Irreversible (not a horror in the traditional sense but i guarantee you will feel horrible watching it)
Okay you can just list all the French New Wave era movies.
All the Tumbling Doll of Flesh, Guinea Pig or similar movies out of Asia.
Classics like Salo or Possession.
.

Finally you have the true depths of depravity that are the compilation type videos circulating on Reddit, 4Chan, Dischord , other similar services. I am not going to list any of them in this open message though i will answer in DM. I wont give names because when you look into the abyss for too long then the abyss starts to look back and that is my choice to stay away . These films are often comprised of the very darkest , horrible things you imagine humans doing to other living things. Cartel, terrorists, war, abuse of every type and worse populate these collections.

Anyway, i'll talk horror films of any style or genre for hours so feel free if you are looking for suggestions.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I’m a big o’ scaredy-cat. A few years back I wanted my kids to watch nightmare on elm street, as I remember that
Scared me so much.

They were cracking up so bad they were crying. They really didn’t believe that could scare anyone.


What scares people now…
Having to work 8hr, 5 days a week.
Pay for their own food.
Take care of their own kids.

My older kid watched "It" a few years back after the remake came out, she was probably around 11 or 12 years old.

Halfway through, she shut the TV off and declared Pennywise (!!!) to be "pretty lame, mom."

Granted, I'm not a fan myself, but I DO give props to the character -- Pennywise is unnerving as hell.

Then again, the kid may be a genuine horror flick heathen -- she crowned "The Shining" a "cure for insomnia".
Ouch.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

The only thing that scares me is spiders with good reason , 30+ years ago i was working in a old 1700s house here in the uk the carpenter /joiner removed a 4 foot section of skirting and this 12 inch spider with legs like string and a tiny body about the size of your thumb nail run up the wall and across the ceiling , it covered about 10 foot in the time you could click your fingers .

Then about 2008 i was having a cuppa with a couple i know and left about 9 pm on a winter evening on a beautiful quiet village in the central belt of Scotland , under these 1930s houses is mine shafts 300+feet deep with only a cap of 15-20 feet of concrete on top then houses were built on it with probably hundreds of miles of coal mines underneath in all directions , As i closed the front door i looked down the path as i took a step of the step i saw what i thought was tumble weed roll up the path about 18-24 inches in a perfect ball roll up towards me in 5 or so seconds i managed to take 2 steps towards this rolling THING .

In that few seconds i realised that thing was a creature of some sorts , it looked like those light shades that are round and made with sting in a perfect ball with space all around it definitely something for the cryptozoology department , it turned on a dime and rolled into the front garden but as it did i saw how tightly it had closed itself down if that THING had spread itself out it would have been 5-6 foot across and my first heart attack would have happened decades sooner , this was the second time in my life i had run screaming like a girl .

I had pushed all this to the back of my mind until a few weeks ago when at 3.30 am with the living room light dimmed right down i lay back on my couch stoned as heck thinking to myself go to bed i looked up at my main wall and there was a frigging wannabe tarantula about 4-5 inches long had appeared from behind a picture , luckily i had the hoover plugged in but had been to lazy to use it , its one of those pull behind you models i took of the end just leaving the round tube and became a hunter for a few seconds , i sucked the thing but it was a good inch plus in the legs from going up the hoover i smashed its legs with the tube to get it in and i kept the hoover going for a good five minutes thinking this would kill it how wrong i was when i went to empty the bag a week or so later guess what crawled out of the now in the bin hoover bag one badly mangled spider .

Long story short i had nightmares for about a week after that and am still not over it nothing else seems to bother me but spiders

The reply posts are really good, opethPA has an esp. good post about horror films, thanks everyone.

As good as all these posts are, with people discussing their phobias, what movies scared them, the different scare tactics used, the reaction by the younger generation, it still leaves the question I posed in the OP, "Are we being manipulated into being passive and defenseless by desensitizing us to our natural fears?"

My conspiracy warped brain can't but help to tie this in with the 45 communist goals submitted into the Congressional Records back in 1963. Goals 20 - 25 indicate that this may be the case.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

As I posted earlier . . .

This all brings me back to the possibility that this conditioning, this desensitizing, is part of some plan to weaken people, make them easier to control and allow corruption to escalate. When nothing shocks you, then it is possible to get away with more and more horrible things without a severe reaction from the public.

I want to stress that everyone is answering the topic question very well, but I was mostly just trying to draw people into the conspiracy angle with such a general question. However, all the information people have so far contributed is helpful with other ideas I've been thinking about regarding the fear response in general, so thanks again to all.

A question that I would like some opinions on.

What media stimulates the highest fear response in the most people?

Audio media such as radio programs, music, spoken word, etc.

Audio/visual media like movies, TV programs, gaming, other.

Literature, including articles, short stories, novels, other.

Live performance like concerts, plays, speeches, etc., minus any real life experiences that were not a presentation designed to produce a fear response.

To answer my own question I'd say audio/visual as it is engaging two senses and it's probably the most common media experience. Followed by live performance* that engages all the senses and then literature as it can get into your mind directly when you're reading and people do a lot of reading.

* Live performance includes much of what happens in the public during daily life and can cross over to A/V media with live broadcasting. Also, it may belong after literature depending on how much exposure you have to manipulated live events like getting pulled over by the police for example.

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
A question that I would like some opinions on.

What media stimulates the highest fear response in the most people?

Audio media such as radio programs, music, spoken word, etc.

Audio/visual media like movies, TV programs, gaming, other.

Literature, including articles, short stories, novels, other.

Live performance like concerts, plays, speeches, etc., minus any real life experiences that were not a presentation designed to produce a fear response.

To answer my own question I'd say audio/visual as it is engaging two senses and it's probably the most common media experience. Followed by live performance* that engages all the senses and then literature as it can get into your mind directly when you're reading and people do a lot of reading.

* Live performance includes much of what happens in the public during daily life and can cross over to A/V media with live broadcasting. Also, it may belong after literature depending on how much exposure you have to manipulated live events like getting pulled over by the police for example.

Thank you for creating a damn awesome thread that is normal for ATS. =)

For me I would say its the dead space, the unexpected quiet , the detail that is implied rather than explicitly spelled out in any medium that gets the best response for me.

When people look at a movie like Jaws , considered a classic, it works for a few reasons with one of the primary being the limited screen time that the actual "shark" is on screen. Sure that happened as much due to technical difficulties as it did by choice.

The first Paranormal Activity worked because their was plenty of building tension but not much action. I didn't view that as a classic "slow burn" film like The VVitch but it did ramp up its jump scares with nothing.

The not knowing is what works for me regardless of it is a book, movie , music or show.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

What media stimulates the highest fear response in the most people?

Audio media such as radio programs, music, spoken word, etc.

Audio/visual media like movies, TV programs, gaming, other.

Interesting.

I have a record I have had since I was a kid. I can't recall the name right now, because the record is in storage, but it's basically a ghost story: a first person narrative, a guy travels to a supposed haunted and dilapidated house due to the "stories" about it, to explore or see what the hype is all about, recording it in "real time". That record scared the # out of me as a kid.

That said, I would say audio/visual (creepy/horrific visuals combined with sound). I'd go so far as to say that audio alone can become visual simply by the imagery it generates in our minds, which goes back to my original post about fear of the other/those not like us.

Audio in itself can be terrifying in the right circumstances, but I think we're mostly used to audiovisual stimulations of terror.

See that record, and raise you the War of the Worlds 1938 broadcast.

originally posted by: opethPA

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
A question that I would like some opinions on.

What media stimulates the highest fear response in the most people?

Audio media such as radio programs, music, spoken word, etc.

Audio/visual media like movies, TV programs, gaming, other.

Literature, including articles, short stories, novels, other.

Live performance like concerts, plays, speeches, etc., minus any real life experiences that were not a presentation designed to produce a fear response.

To answer my own question I'd say audio/visual as it is engaging two senses and it's probably the most common media experience. Followed by live performance* that engages all the senses and then literature as it can get into your mind directly when you're reading and people do a lot of reading.

* Live performance includes much of what happens in the public during daily life and can cross over to A/V media with live broadcasting. Also, it may belong after literature depending on how much exposure you have to manipulated live events like getting pulled over by the police for example.

Thank you for creating a damn awesome thread that is normal for ATS. =)

For me I would say its the dead space, the unexpected quiet , the detail that is implied rather than explicitly spelled out in any medium that gets the best response for me.

When people look at a movie like Jaws , considered a classic, it works for a few reasons with one of the primary being the limited screen time that the actual "shark" is on screen. Sure that happened as much due to technical difficulties as it did by choice.

The first Paranormal Activity worked because their was plenty of building tension but not much action. I didn't view that as a classic "slow burn" film like The VVitch but it did ramp up its jump scares with nothing.

The not knowing is what works for me regardless of it is a book, movie , music or show.

What is implied rather than spelled out is more effective than the jump scares then?

At some point there has to be a time when the audience has figured it out, or they may think they have it figured out, but then a twist pops up.

I was thinking about Kolchak vs X Files.

Kolchak was rather low budget in many respects, but I found it scarier than X Files in that Kolchak didn't have a clue, but knew something was going on, while Mulder mostly had the answers going into the case.

Kolchak had some interesting stories that got pretty weird, but X Files went well beyond that and had some shockingly realist effects, props, make-up, etc., however, they usually revealed what was going on before Mulder and Scully got deep into the investigation, while this wasn't the case with Kolchak.

When Kolchak got into trouble (usually alone) and was in real danger, I was actually worried about his character because he was very vulnerable and unprepared in many cases, while when Mulder and Scully were in trouble, they were trained and armed FBI agents and had each other to count on. I never once believed that maybe Mulder or Scully wasn't going to make it even when it looked like they weren't.

Overall, X Files should be far more shocking, scary and intense for me, but it really isn't because of how they lay the story out for you rather than let you discover it with the main characters.

originally posted by: SirHardHarry
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

What media stimulates the highest fear response in the most people?

Audio media such as radio programs, music, spoken word, etc.

Audio/visual media like movies, TV programs, gaming, other.

Interesting.

I have a record I have had since I was a kid. I can't recall the name right now, because the record is in storage, but it's basically a ghost story: a first person narrative, a guy travels to a supposed haunted and dilapidated house due to the "stories" about it, to explore or see what the hype is all about, recording it in "real time". That record scared the # out of me as a kid.

That said, I would say audio/visual (creepy/horrific visuals combined with sound). I'd go so far as to say that audio alone can become visual simply by the imagery it generates in our minds, which goes back to my original post about fear of the other/those not like us.

Audio in itself can be terrifying in the right circumstances, but I think we're mostly used to audiovisual stimulations of terror.

See that record, and raise you the War of the Worlds 1938 broadcast.

Great story, thanks.

I think that because War of the Worlds was presented as a news report mostly, it was entirely believable, where as radio programs like The Shadow, Lone Ranger or Flash Gordon would have been easily recognized as fiction. So the fear induced in that story would be due to it's realism, it was believable in the way a news report or documentary style presentation is. Similar to how propaganda can instill fear in a population when published with the news media (something I've been implying in this tread that no one seems to be getting).

I thought I'd add that the "fear of the other" is basically the same as the fear of the unknown. If it looks different, acts different and sounds different, it may be a deadly threat, at least until some level of basic knowledge or tolerance is reached. This is a natural survival instinct that can be defused by becoming desensitized to the presence of the unknown "other".