I have this longtime Facebook friend, we  “met” in an old Facebook group about horror. Our immediate connection was a love of the book American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. To this day we’ll frequently reference lines from that book when one of us messages the other or comments on each other’s profile.

Recently we had a brief conversation about our history with horror, with both of us admitting to watching horror movies when were probably, in hindsight, far too young to be reading and watching such things.

I was raised on horror stories, I’d say it’s my second favorite genre, after science fiction. My mother also loved horror, she had all the Stephen King novels on her bookshelf, which for some reason I just never got into. The only book of King’s that I read completely is The Stand. But we were watching his movies together, like Carrie, Cujo, Creepshow, and Christine, and other films like The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror, and The Omen. We loved the slasher franchises, like Halloween, Friday The 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. I loved the old classic Univeral horror films, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, and the crossovers. And there were all those Vincent Price movies.

And like I said, I was young, I’m talking Elementary school-age, which may seem like poor judgment on her part, but it really didn’t negatively affect me. At least I don’t think it did. I wasn’t the type of kid to see that stuff and get nightmares. Maybe because I was introduced to it so young, I built up an immunity to it. Most of it was just entertaining, not really scary.

I’ll admit The Amityville Horror did creep me out a little. That house looked like an evil face.

But the only traditional horror movie that really scared me was…

JAWS!

I remember seeing that and being scared to take a bath afterward, I just didn’t want to get into a body of water (again, I was really young). And I never did learn how to swim, in hindsight that’s not connected.

So as brought this up to my friend, I started to ponder about why this scared me when so many other hardcore horror films didn’t. Maybe because it’s more real? I think instinctively I always knew that ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. are fiction, so there’s no reason to be scared of them, because I’m never going to encounter one of these fictional beings. But sharks are real. I could get eaten by a shark.

And when I think of other movies that “scare”, they’re stuff that could happen. I refused to see The Descent, because I’m a bit claustrophobic, the very idea of being trapped in a cave freaks me out. I don’t even feel comfortable riding in elevators, to be honest, and I avoid them whenever possible. There was a movie called Blindness that I also refused to watch because I’m absolutely terrified of going blind.

I remember when I discovered the band Metallica, it was when I saw their video The One. But this was just the performance version, when I later saw the version that includes clips of the movie Johnny Got His Gun, and learned it’s about a man who loses his arms, legs, and is blinded and loses his voice, and he’s basically trapped as an invalid in a hospital. He just wants to die, but can’t even kill himself. That is the ultimate terror for me. No way in Hell I’ll watch that film. I can’t even listen to that song again. I’d rather be dragged to Hell than experience something like that.

So, yeah, that’s the kind of thing that scares me. What about YOU?