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Can someone help me understand horror as a genre? I really don't see the appeal of it. I categorize it in 3 types, either it's jumpscares with loud music suddenly which would startle pretty much everyone, a slow burn of building anxiety with no payoff or just really gross stuff, neither which make any sense as to why someone finds appealing. What do you like about it? Is my categorization off, or maybe missing some angle? Am I just incapable of enjoying, in the sense of that ssc post how some people don't have that "coming as one" stadium/church/large gathering sense?
I told someone ages ago I was going to write an effortpost on horror and then I never did, but if there are multiple interested parties then that might motivate me to finally get around to it...
Long story short is that the sublime is intrinsically horrific.
Most "contemporary horror films" are pretty bad (for many of the same reasons that formulaic genreslop in general is bad). But there are many works that have horror "elements" (David Lynch films are my go-to example) that are brilliant.
Even the most hardcore fans of mainstream horror movies tend to look down on jumpscares. They're fun every once in a while, but ultimately a jumpscare is just a pure physiological response, like pinching someone on the arm; it's the lowest form of horror, there's nothing conceptually interesting about it.
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