#that are overused as a cheap scare or disgust tactic

[reject-dystopia]

I hate that they have spiders at all bc it’s a massive reason I rarely every play in survival mode - I have REALLY bad arachnophobia, to the point that I can’t enjoy Minecraft in survival mode at all. I know many times people who share this sentiment.

Arachnophobia is THE most common phobia, if there is a species that is unfairly hated then it’s spiders. (I can recognize that and still freak out bad when I see them). Who for the most part, at least to my knowledge in the Northern Hemisphere, stay away from humans or are passive.

Wild cows and pigs however will attack way sooner of you approach them, sometimes wild pigs in Europe will attack you simply bc they see you if they have their young close by. For the most part they will also not approach humans/ avoid us. But if humans come close, they will perceive us as a threat, rightfully so if you ask me, and attack. You have to come a lot closer to a spider for it to perceive you as a threat than a wild pig. Wild cows/ animals of the same group are similar for that matter.

So if “we don’t want people to approach them” is a good reason to not help out sharks here, who really need it, then we have to remove cows and pigs too.

And sharks, who’re still killed for the crime of existing in their natural habitat simply because humans claimed part of their habitat and destroyed the rest. Who’re still hunted, have their fins cut off and thrown back in the water to slowly drown or bleed out or be eaten while they’re defenseless and in excruciating pain. Sharks, who’re to this day unnecessarily feared and seen as a danger, unjustifiably so, considering cows kill far more humans than sharks and you have to seek out shark for the most part while encountering a wild pig is a lot easier.

Sharks REALLY need our help here.

And if we managed to give wolves a better image again after almost hunting them to extinction partially out of fear, we can do the same with sharks.

So give us passive sharks already!

And remove the goddamn spiders while you’re at it or at least give us the option to remove them with a simple button for those of us who suck at modding thank you very much

i couldn't reblog this gem so here you go

[knights-of-the-glittery-table]

When it comes to horror, it’s true, jump scares do nothing to affect you outside of the physical response of your body. You can be jumpscared in life by something as simple as someone rounding the corner of some shelves in a supermarket when you were concentrating on which crisps you wanted so I can’t ever give credit to horror that relies on musical cues and sudden jumpscares.

When you’re home at night, the adrenaline wore off hours ago and while you can appreciate a well staged jumpscare, it isn’t going to keep you awake or have you excitedly talking the film up to people.

The issue with horror being HORRIFYING is unfortunately directors and writers also go the other way of cheap reactions: ‘sick and twisted scenarios’. I put that in quotes as that’s what I think they would describe them as. Just as throwing out loud noises or things literally jumping out at you, too often we are seeing the main crux of a horror film relying on torture, sexual abuse, necrophilia, drawn out scenes that upset people and can indeed haunt them but they are as empty as jumpscares, lacking actual feelings horror should draw out of you.

For me, these tactics are on the exact same level of being cheap as throwing a hundred jumpscares at a viewer and seeing what sticks because ‘some of them will work’.

I suppose I would call these types of films ‘skin deep horror’! At the time of viewing them you’ll leap in your seat or feel sick from something depraved playing out on screen but it never burrows any deeper.

I couldn’t say I can pinpoint when jumpscares became an overused trope but it’s a lot easier to do that with ‘torture porn’ as the subgenre came to be know which started with the likes of the Saw series being mainstream releases (I stand by the fact the first one is actually not particularly gory except for the scene near the end, it’s more on par with dark crime thrillers) and Hostel. (The French Extreme New Wave really enforced that with the likes of Martyrs, Switchblade Romance, Inside and Frontiers but that is a bit later!)

It meant for a number of years trying to gross out horror fans (and the general public) was the goal rather than give them anything to truly unsettle them or latch onto their thoughts.  To watch one of these types of films (still made today just not with the insane output we had at one point) you feel disgusted and a lot of discomfort but there is nothing outside of it to attach itself to your fears and feelings. It’s an empty threat so to speak.

The infamous ‘A Serbian Film’ could be a pretty good example. I have watched a lot of horror over the years, a lifelong fan and I have been made to feel very unhappy with images I have seen on a screen but with this type of film it becomes a parody of itself. You can only throw so many outlandish visuals with the sole purpose of shocking you in that moment before it all runs together and although I sat with a frown on my face I wasn’t driven to feeling haunted and thinking about it days after.

There is a big difference to me in using scenes of abuse and torture to viscerally drag reactions from an audience and having skills to build fear and dread.

Horror is fascinating! Every single human on the planet has their own personal experiences and feelings that lead to what horrifies them. A lot of collective fears are common place, for example, a fear of insects and maybe a fear of the dark. I have no issue with creative people calling upon these things to help unsettle their audience or a couple of well timed jumpscares. I’m also not saying scenes of a disturbing nature have no place in horror, I am just very critical of those which are 99% style and 1% substance.

I’ve come away from a lot of films irritated by what I’ve seen moreso than anything else but I’m a 2000 year old vampire who has sat through a lot and of course things won’t startle or cling to my bones as they might someone who doesn’t entertain the genre much and that’s fine.

A trend for now in horror is the slow burn, a lot of thrillers with one or two scenes that push the film from ‘drama’ to ‘horror’ as brief moments of content or subject matter breached are too disturbing or taboo to be labelled as anything else and those do in fact drive me kind of insane but that’s just a personal preference, a lot of those are enjoyable to many people!

(please no more f-ing 80s nostalgia. I beg of you. Stranger Things opened a terrible can of parasitic worms for a while and believe me I enjoy neon and synth)

I am speaking broadly in that I would love to be scared. It is why I am a horror fan! It rarely happens but just because I am difficult to scare doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a well put together story and enjoy the journey. A well put together horror film stays with you and in my case makes me feel so EXCITED and realise why I love horror so much!

I hope we have some great stories coming, there are so many subgenres of horror we can hope for some gems to enjoy and hype up soon! I want to be unsettled and left thinking about horror films long after I watch them, it’s all part of the love!✨

a horror film not being scary isnt a bad thing. horror is supposed to HORRIFY, and conflating it with this obsession with scares has really messed with the genre imo. its why so many films are ineffective with audiences, because they leave no lasting impression due to the fact that filmmakers are focusing so muchon trying to scare you and not actually exploring things that deeply unsettle us.