What Do Your Horror Movies Say About You?



Horror movies really come down to three categories. We could push it and say suspense/thriller and SciFi can also be horror, but let’s just talk straight-out horror genre—found on the aisle at the video store. Take a look at your collection and see which type you seem to have the most of:

Ghosts/supernatural/paranormal (e.g. “1408,” “Castle of Blood,” “Dead Silence”)

Stalker/slasher movies (e.g. “Halloween,” “Wrong Turn,” “When a Stranger Calls”)

Monsters/demons/beasts
(e.g. “30 Days of Night,” “The Howling,” “Blood and Chocolate”)

If you ever wondered what your choices say about you, here’s some assumptions that can be made (BTW, my majority is ghosts/supernatural/paranormal):

If the largest amount of your horror movie collection involves ghosts/supernatural/paranormal, I will take a wild guess you’re a romantic at heart. You like storytelling, darkness, mood, atmosphere, and the unseen. You’re highly intelligent and don’t need your story fed to you on a platter. You’d rather leave a great deal to your imagination. For you, the unseen is the most horrifying concept. You want your story to go at a nice creepy pace before building up to terrifying. You don’t need a lot of stimulation or dialogue. You just need good acting, good scripting, and a really artistic cinematographer. More than likely, you’re a spiritual person and a bit of a philosopher who often wonders about the afterlife. Some more obscure movies I’d suggest to add to your collection for a connoisseur of this type of genre are “Sauna,” “Stir of Echoes,” “Deathwatch,” “Castle of Blood,” and “The Evil.”

If the largest amount of your horror movie collection involves stalker/slasher theme, you are more than likely a person in need of high stimulation. The world of stalker/slasher movies is instant thrills and chills and you are more than likely a multitasker at heart. Your mind is actively tearing apart the hero/heroine’s movies to figure out what you would do in such a situation. You don’t have a lot of patience for sitting through movies, and these keep your engaged. Like cheering a favorite sports team, you pick out the character you want to survive and you’re on the edge of your seat with them until the end. Some qualities you might enjoy about this segment of the genre is kicking soundtracks, beautiful nubile characters, being wound up tightly by the pursuit, and relief when the bad guy dies (since life so rarely has such justice). Some more obscure movies you might want to add in this category would be “Catacombs,” “Black Christmas,” “In Dreams,” “Valentine,” and “The Return.”

If the largest amount of your horror collection involves monsters/demons/beasts, my guess is that you’re a closet SciFi person and perhaps a bit more conservative by nature. To you, a monster is a clear-cut enemy—nothing parading as human, so no guilt in the killing. Monsters are imposing and powerful, angry and large. To kill a monster is to truly win a battle! People who enjoy monster films usually appreciate the special effects and monster-making capabilities of the moviemaker, as well as the overall damage and mayhem. A monster is kind of a metaphor for fighting a foreign enemy—it’s “us” against “them.” Unlike slasher films in which the characters are all fighting for their own lives, in a monster movie everyone bands together to survive. This category can include traditional monsters like vampires, zombies, and werewolves and go into the giant-sized ones like Godzilla and King Kong, but also such things as oversized Grizzly bears, aliens, Sasquatch, great white sharks, and the rest. In fact, here’s some more obscure movies you might want to add to your collection in this category: “Them!” “The Cave,” “Brotherhood of the Wolf,” “Day of the Dead,” and “Cloverfield.”

I’ll be curious to see just what category you fall into, please report!

Comments

  1. Ghosts would be my favorite. The unseen and unknown for me are the best type. But I have to say one of my very favs. is the original Halloween!

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  2. I am definately a Ghost/supernatural/thriller person, first and foremost. I love a great thriller that keeps me at the edge of my seat. I also like those monsters/demons/beasts as well. Give me a good movie about dinosaurs, bigfoot or even Godzilla and I am there.
    ~Jules~

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  3. Becca and Jule;
    I have to admit, It was hard for me to count. I have 150 movies (down from 300), so figuring out the overall theme was tough. I barely made supernatural with slasher/stalker next and monsters last, but I think that's just cause monster movies can be hard to find. Sometimes, I pop in "Joy Ride" when I want a real chilling thrill in the background when I'm writing horror--plus, the naked scenes with the guys going into the diner are a nice distraction, so nubile bodies might be another affliction of mine. Hee hee

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  4. Well, I'll tell you right now that most of my movies definitely involve monsters, demons, and beasts. There's just something so real and immediate about them. But while it is nice to have a clear-cut enemy (and a subsequent and decisive course of action in dealing with them), I definitely have more in common with the "ghost" people. While I do thoroughly enjoy action and violence in my horror movies, I need atmosphere and an intelligent/philosophical essence behind it all to keep me entranced. I could so tell you were a "ghost" person.

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  5. Jeez, Grim, if I'm not a ghostie person, what am I doing contemplating "Ghost Hunting Theories"? Hee hee

    I have to admit, I wish there were more monster/beast films. I am absolutely agog over zombie and werewolf ones. I think the attraction is that you can't reason with them and that makes them more sinster. Even Michael Meyers would occasionally stop and cock his head and listen for a moment (before he killed), but you aren't talking a werewolf or zombie outta chompin!

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  6. I am a Steven King sort of person. I've seen all of his flicks and really enjoyed everyone of them. If only I had that talent.
    Mary

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  7. I am with you on the supernatural/ghost stories category. I have always been fascinated with the subject, and with the unseen. As a toddler, my mom's first indication that I had artistic leanings was when she gave me crayons and I produced lovely drawings of graveyards, some even with the dimensions set up like cross sections, so that you could see the bodies buried below ground as well - the thing that freaked my mother out the most was that all my dead people were always smiling. And this was at an age where I had no real experiences with death as of yet. By 1st grade I was reading Nancy Drew, by 2nd, I was a huge fan of the gothic romances, Victoria Holt being my favorite. And the scary movies? I was so young as a fan that I remember sitting in my toy box with the lid pulled down just so that I could peak out at the tv, I just loved being scared. My mom is the one who turned me on to all the old B&W ghost movies, like The Univited, The Haunting, The Innocents, etc.

    I don't like slasher/gore type movies, the world is crazy enuff w/o giving the psychos even more ideas, and I don't get scared over monsters, beasts, etc - though I did like The Mothman Prophecies, so some of them aren't too bad. As for fantasy stuff, I like some, but not most.

    One thing that really frightens me is the demonic. Maybe it is my catholic upbringing, but supernatural beings of demonic origin scare me more than anything. I probably would not have found Paranormal Activity so scary if it were not for the fact that the ghost was a "demon"

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  8. Jennifer;
    Yup, I'm in agreement about the ghost movies. The old classics are awesome because they're so true to a haunting and possible. I don't carry a belief in demons or evil, so those subjects don't frighten me, but I was raised a Methodist and I noticed all the Catholics I know are still very frightened by that concept. I think those parameters on religion to keep people tightly reined in is a sad commentary on religions that they feel the need to frighten you children with these concepts. I don't know a Catholic who can shake that idea from their mindset, even ones who retired their religion. It makes for interesting movies like "The Exorcist" but those don't scare me. I'm actually more frightened by the concept of a stranger's ghost watching me unseen.

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