Ok, but are you really sure you don't like it? (a horror movie post)
I was talking to a friend of mine recently (hey, Cricket, wassup?) who mentioned in passing that she doesn’t watch horror movies.
It’s a comment I hear fairly frequently. Now, me? I love horror movies. And not just the A24, super artsy, oh isn’t it saying something so meaningful about the human condition kind, either. (Sidebar: I rarely enjoy an A24 “horror” movie because they’re…well, not usually horror, even if they do have witches or whatever. More on that in another post, maybe.) I like everything from your over-the-top slasher to your so-tense-my-bones-might-crack thriller. Shlock to majesty, Psycho Goreman to Get Out, I love all kinds. So when someone tells me they don’t “do” horror, I must ask why not.
Sometimes it’s because they really can’t handle gore. Other times it’s because they prefer not to put horror-related ideas into their heads. A lot of the time it’s because they don’t know enough about the genre to pick out something they’d enjoy. And, you know, fair. I can present many different arguments as to why horror is a valuable addition to your media consumption mix, and odds are good I can find something in the genre you’d really dig, but there’s really no need to put in that much effort when there’s so much else out there begging for your attention. So if you’re just plain not into horror, ok.
But my friend said something really interesting, unexpected, and insightful: She didn’t really know why she didn’t watch horror movies. She suspected that it was because she’d made that decision at a younger age, and then simply never questioned it as she got older. In other words, something made her “not like horror movies,” and that became a default position she never had to reconsider.
A version of this happens to all of us. We decide we don’t like a certain genre, actor, director, or even format, and never bother to check in with ourselves to see if that’s still true. It’s no revelation to say that people tend to stick to things they know they like, whether that’s food, movies, or vacation spots. With limited amounts of time and money, it makes sense to go for the sure bet. Why risk disappointment when you don’t have to?
This is not the part of the blog where I tell you that you need to take risks to enjoy a life well-lived; that if you don’t ever branch out you’ll never know the beauty of a whatever it is you haven’t seen. Because not only is that elitist, it’s also flat-out untrue. You can be a very happy person just coloring within the same lines for your entire life. Yeah, people will think you’re uncool and basic and maybe you’ll objectively be uncool and basic, and who actually cares about any of that? It’s your life. Everyone who tells you different either wants money or to feel better about their own lives by judging yours.
This is, however, the part of the blog where I encourage you to check in with your reasoning for shunning specific things. Your taste or circumstance may have changed in ways that impact your decision-making and you might be denying yourself something you’d love because of a set of conditions that don’t exist anymore. To go back to the horror example, special effects have improved dramatically, allowing for much more realistic monsters/ghosts/machete wounds. Audience evolution has also allowed the genre to turn the “final girl” trope on its head — or avoid it altogether — while telling stories far more varied than “dude kills horny teenagers.” (Yes, yes, there was always more on offer than that, but a slasher or something slasher-adjacent is often someone’s first exposure to horror and we both know it, so calm down. Go alphabetize your Argento collection or something.)
Even if the media hasn’t changed all that much, your reaction to it or interpretation of it might have. I couldn’t stand the character of Dr. Weir when Stargate Atlantis originally aired. I didn’t like the way she kept getting in the way of Sheppard and his team, constantly throwing obstacles in the way of what needed to be done. Ask me back then if I liked Atlantis and I would have at best shrugged. I recently rewatched the series and had a much different reaction. Twenty years and a lot more corporate responsibility later, I understand where Weir was coming from. She’s the one who has to deal with the bureaucrats back on Earth; whatever happens on that base, she’s the one who’s ultimately taken to task for it. On a nerdier note, I can also view Atlantis through a budgetary/production/marketing lens and think about things like how daunting it must have been for the team to redesign the actual Stargate itself. Oh, it’s only one of sci-fi’s most identifiable props and you need to make it look distinct for this show but also clearly be recognizable, no pressure there at all.
My point is just that it’s always worth a moment or two to re-examine your taste. Not because oh my GOD you’re just WASTING your life if you don’t, and I can’t even BELIEVE you’ve never seen [insert someone else’s favorite thing here]. Try watching the western, the Korean soap opera, the anime, the slapstick comedy, the period piece, the documentary, the Marvel movie, the whatever. Not because someone else is looking for validation about their own preferences by getting you to agree that something is great, but because you’re curious about how you might’ve changed as a person.
Maybe it’ll turn out that, yep, you’re still not into whatever it is, but then again, you may discover something truly interesting about the work in progress that is you.