The unfair criticism of horror movies
By Stu White
It’s easy to scoff at horror movies for being illogical and unrealistic, but such criticism misses the point.
They crawl out of the woodwork every October. Avoiding them is impossible, and hiding will only make it worse when they get their claws in you. They slink and slither out from the shadows, fangs bared, appetites insatiable. You can’t run to safety and can’t reason with them; they refuse compassion to those they don’t understand, those not of their kind.
No, I’m not talking about vampiric, bloodthirsty monsters. I’m talking bout the gibbering, tireless people who find it necessary to announce their utter disdain for the horror genre.
You’ve encountered these creatures before, surely. They may differ in shape and size, but their hair-raising screeches, when translated into English, are all the same: Horror movies are illogical and childish. They’re never scary. That murderous beast isn’t realistic, at least not based on any known theory of evolution, and those kids in that haunted cabin aren’t making Data-esque perfectly rational choices. See, if I were in that situation — which I would never be, of course, because I’m very smart and rational — what I would do is…
As annoying as these people are, as punchable as their self-assured smugness makes them, it’s hard not to look upon them and feel twinges of “oh, bless your heart” pity. These horror haters, armchair critics cocksure in their takedowns of the horror genre’s “obvious” flaws, are people woefully misguided about what it is that makes horror movies enjoyable. In terms of misplaced criticism, they aren’t far removed from idiots who believe that they are rocking professional wrestling fans’ worlds with “wait, you do know this is fake, right?” questions. Just as wrestling fans know wrestling is a work, horror fans are comfortable with the logical missteps of many horror films. Suspending disbelief is part of the joy (and the fear).
Horror movies get a bad rap for being illogical, but are they really more so than movies from other genres? Think about all the romantic comedies set in New York City: in a sprawling metropolis of millions and millions of people, two people with complementary personality traits — she’s motivated! he’s goofy! — just so happen to collide on the street corner — she’s rushing to her lawyer-y job! he’s walking dogs because he’s an artist and needs income! — and proceed to fall madly in love. Think about action movies and the convenient piss-poor marksmanship of henchmen. Unless you’re someone who considers CinemaSins unquestionably erotic, you can overlook these impossible coincidences and enjoy what’s happening on the screen, lack of realism be damned.
It’s clear why horror movies aren’t given the same latitude when it comes to unrealistic situations and illogical character choices: people for the most part don’t enjoy being scared. People want to feel warm and fuzzy, and people want to feel excited and thrilled, so overlooking the ridiculousness of rom-coms and action flicks is second nature. In no possible parallel dimension would high-priced attorney Anne Hathaway date, like, a bearded twenty-something kazoo busker, but it’s cute to dream, so the audience rolls with it. There’s no conceivable reality in which a villain on the cusp of world domination would pause five minutes before achieving total victory and deliver a monologue, but hey, people want to see Bruce Willis, armed with a gun of infinite bullet capacity, save the day. People may chuckle or roll their eyes at these logical inaccuracies, but it is only in the most extreme cases of #actually nerd-rage pedantry that people write-off a whole movie for daring to bend the rules of reality a smidgen.
When it comes to horror movies, such leeway isn’t granted. It’s a defense mechanism: If I refuse to engage with this piece of art in an open, honest way, it can’t have power over me — i.e. it can’t scare me. It isn’t that horror as a genre is inherently dumber than any other genre; it’s that horror asks audiences to go to emotional/mental places that are uncomfortable. Scoffing at the the teens who split up when they hear the scary noise outside is a way to dilute the potential power of the movie. It adulterates the art-audience dynamic. It’s like going to a decent restaurant, seeing a bottle of ketchup on the table, dousing every bite of food in a flood of said ketchup, and then complaining that the food sucked. The ketchup was there in the first place! I just ran with it to its logical extreme! The problem is with the food and the ketchup, not with me.
A similar error, equally obnoxious, occurs when horror haters project themselves into the on-screen situation and conclude — surprise, surprise — that they’d be the smartest, calmest, most capable person in the room. This overconfident self-assessment stems from the comfort of not having to actually deal with the terrifying situation being presented. Why wouldn’t you just stay calm and do ___? is only ponderable for those outside of the actual frightful experience. It’s like how people who have never been in a fight feel oh so confident in their fighting abilities. Fighting is more than just going through a series of moves: it involves receiving and tolerating pain. No matter how big you are, you don’t know what it’s like to be hit in the face until you are hit in the face. Fear works in a similar fashion: if you are not actually experiencing it in the moment, your opinions on “proper” responses are invalid.
This is not to say that horror movies should be above criticism. There are plenty of bad horror movies out there — lord knows there are plenty of bad horror movies out there — and those movies shouldn’t be shielded from critical dissection. But criticism should engage movies on movies’ own terms: approaching horror movies with the same mindset with which one approaches a mathematical proof is ludicrous. It’s a disingenuous way to write off an art form as lacking merit. It’s a form of intellectual posturing: This thing is so dumb it isn’t even worth my honest engagement. There’s nothing wrong with disliking horror movies, nothing at all, but that dislike is personal, not a reflection of the genre as a whole.
When it comes to appreciating and understanding horror movies, suspension of disbelief is essential. Naysayers choose to associate said suspension with a lack of intellectual rigor, with being unobservant, yet it is they who are committing the error in thinking. Ravenous in their hunger to be brainier than thou, they fundamentally and intentionally misinterpret horror movies, preferring to be seen as “smart” than as some poor dope who gets freaked out by a spooky film. They are the real monsters of the Halloween season. Be warned.