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[More_Badass]

"It wasn't scary" is a common criticism you see when anything horror is discussed (cough The Witch cough), and I think over the years, I've come to see that kind of assessment as odd. It seems to imply that if a movie or work isn't actively scaring you, making you feel fear, than it's a failure in the horror department. Maybe it's not even horror.

Although when I hear criticism like that, I tend to envision their definition of "scary" as said work making them react like this during it

But I feel like the idea that something horror has to scare you to be considered as such to be pretty narrow. Especially when you consider that a veteran of the genre and subgenres has probably seen dozens or hundreds of takes on various genres, and thus the mechanisms of those genres have probably long been acclimated to.

But horror can unsettle and disturb, make you feel uncomfortable and tense. Personally I don't think those are the kinds of reactions that are usually associated with the "it wasn't scary, it wasn't actually horror" criticism. To be fair, it's way easier to startle with a quick scare than it is to create an atmosphere of dread, so I can see why the former has been so closely linked with what a work of horror is supposed to be do

I always view it as two veins of horror, that a work can try and scare you or it can make you feel scared for the characters. The former is usually replete with startles and jump scares, since the work is trying to be a digital/film haunted house: creepy stuff and scares. Most modern horror movies, Five Nights At Freddy, and so on.

And the latter is stuff like The Exorcist, The Shining, The Witch, games like Inside, Stasis, etc., where the horror comes the atmosphere, the settings, the imagery, the situations in which characters find themselves, the implications of the narrative, that don't have you cowering from the screen but feeling dread and tension due to what's happening onscreen and in reaction to what's happening to the characters.

A character entering a dimly lit basement and slowly moving a flashlight. only for something to lunge into frame, is the former. Slowly moving a flashlight to reveal some grotesque tableau that makes you and the character react in despair is the latter.

Books are pretty much always the latter, since they need to rely on words and mental imagery to create a sense of tension and dread. And games can be pretty varied in that regard. Soma has its jump scares and can make you nervous about entering the dark depths, but also offers a lot of haunting imagery and story beats that linger in your head to complement the more visceral horror.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

That pretty much sums up why Eraserhead is one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen.

I couldn't stop thinking about it the first time I saw it.

 

[Fancy Clown]

I cringe every time I hear this "criticism". It seems to be leveled a lot at The Witch recently, which boggles my mind because that's a classic in terms of how it is evokes dread and atmosphere through its heavy emphasis on characterization.

 

[daviyoung]

Correct. Would you also agree that comedy movies don't have to be funny?

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

That pretty much sums up why Eraserhead is one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen.

I couldn't stop thinking about it the first time I saw it.

Man, I thought I was ready for Eraserhead when I finally saw it a few years ago. Grown-ass man, a fan of Lynch stuff for decades.

I wasn't ready.

 

[Seductivpancakes]

Jump scares have conditioned me to expect something when the camera or character are in certain positions of the scene. I'm not sure if that's intended to keep audience members on the edge of their seat are just a natural for anyone who watches a lot of horror movie.

 

[brandonh83]

Agreed. It's why when some people say they don't think Silent Hill is scary, for example, I'm just like oh, because there wasn't some cheap bang on the soundtrack that startled you? And I mean, it has those, but it leans on the dread and atmosphere more so.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Jump scares have conditioned me to expect something when the camera or character are in certain positions of the scene. I'm not sure if that's intended to keep audience members on the edge of their seat are just a natural for anyone who watches a lot of horror movie.

They're telegraphed all the time now.

Chris Nolan is secretly great at jump scares because he tends to throw one into his movies and they're never telegraphed and you keep not expecting them in Chris Nolan movies.

 

[Hilbert]

Thanks. As possibly the forum's foremost horror novel fan, I have made similar arguments in the past on this site, and been dismissed. I am bookmarking this for the future.

 

[More_Badass]

They're telegraphed all the time now.

Chris Nolan is secretly great at jump scares because he tends to throw one into his movies and they're never telegraphed and you keep not expecting them in Chris Nolan movies.

In my household, whenever we watch horror movies as a family, we practically have a running commentary of predicting the jump scares. You can almost always see them coming from a mile away

 

[Dusk Golem]

100% agree with you, scariness is subjective. It can be a nice bonus, but so many people think that horror = scary, and if it's not scary it doesn't succeed as horror. But that's very far from the truth.

You can tell who's only dipped their toes into horror and who's more of a genre fan by this line because it's such a common misconception for more casual audiences. I wish it wasn't that way, but it's not easy to understand and describe 'horror' and its limits of what defines it (which is admittedly a pretty gray genre sometimes in what is and isn't horror, with no definitive 'line' so to speak so using 'scary' makes it easy for people to digest it). I come from the stance horror works better broadened as I think horror can be attached to any other piece of word and often is a complimentary tag to other genres, as well with various trappings, tropes, and styles of its owned it's formed over time from creators exploring the space.

However, until horror has a clear definition I do unfortunately think most will associate 'scary' with horror. But I would say certainly as a horror enthusiast that while being scary can be a nice bonus, many of my favorite horror works aren't really that scary. In fact, I think a horror work that is purely scary, but not much else, is a fairly empty experience. I would much rather have something with more depth and better execution but lacking the scares than something unimaginably scary but not much else. However it doesn't help that scariness is a subjective things, further graying the lines of the genre and its outer limits.

I see so many takes on horror from people who obviously haven't delved deeper into the horror genre talking about a horror work but cementing it's, "Not really horror," because it wasn't scary. And I admit as an enthusiast, it's a bit saddening to see that. I feel like one of the biggest strengths of horror is just how varied the genre actually is. I just feel horror is such a different genre than so many others due to it being a genre focused on something that's not easily tangible that trying to fit it in with some more 'standardized' genres is a tough cookie. There's some easy to identify horror films from standards set by what came before, but horror is a very progressive genre in that it technically can change over time as more creative takes come under its belt, or even as standards of what modern audiences think of horror change. I would say our definition of horror now is very different than 50 years ago, for example.

 

[Seductivpancakes]

They're telegraphed all the time now.

Chris Nolan is secretly great at jump scares because he tends to throw one into his movies and they're never telegraphed and you keep not expecting them in Chris Nolan movies.

It's probably why I really appreciated The Witch. Everything about that film was haunting.

 

[Magus1234]

I think this argument is usually only made for hollywood horror(big screen decent budget), not any other form of it. This is why you see so many people talk about the Witch, because they see horror and it's playing at a theater and know what to expect. For people who go find horror movies,they know this.

 

[Cipher Peon]

I agree.

If I measured every horror movie by "was it scary?" every horror movie I've ever seen would get a giant F with the exception of The Blair Witch Project, Rosemary's Baby, and arguably Poltergeist.

Horror movies tend to be more fun than scary, and I'm okay with that :>

However, when it comes to The Witch... I don't think it's haunting or dreadful or anything like that. It feels extraordinarily dry and dull, which in its defense works for it. I wasn't in suspense for a majority of the film, which is why I think it's the worst out of the recent "artsy fartsy horror movies". Even It Follows, which I found even more devoid of tension and suspense, had poppier elements that made the movie a blast to sit through twice.

 

[Servbot24]

Correct. Would you also agree that comedy movies don't have to be funny?

They don't have to have traditional jokes

 

[Musician]

As you point out with your Some example some horror strikes a balance between the two, but leans heavily upon dread rather than "scary". The thing is a great example of this, I feel.

A movie has to earn it's jump scares. If it doesn't it's just a haunted house show, like you said.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Correct. Would you also agree that comedy movies don't have to be funny?

Didn't you see the Ghostbusters remake?

 

[Undefined]

this scared me into having explosive diarrhea.

 

[More_Badass]

I agree.

If I measured every horror movie by "was it scary?" every horror movie I've ever seen would get a giant F with the exception of The Blair Witch Project, Rosemary's Baby, and arguably Poltergeist.

Horror movies tend to be more fun than scary, and I'm okay with that :>

True. Most horror movies are like amusement park haunted houses. You go into those to come out laughing with friends about their hilarious reactions to the scares, not to come out traumatized and disturbed

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Didn't you see the Ghostbusters remake?

:O

 

[FlowersisBritish]

This is sucha weird thing to read because Op is right, but the headline ia wrong. A horror anything that fails to be scary is, by my book, a failure of the horror genre. Its just that OP brought in "scary" to include atmosphere which is something that can ve scary. If there is nothing(this can be very very broad) that is "scary" even if its just an unsettling idea than i think it fails as a horror story.

 

[Reeks]

"



But horror can unsettle and disturb, make you feel uncomfortable and tense. Personally I don't think those are the kinds of reactions that are usually associated with the "it wasn't scary, it wasn't actually horror" criticism. To be fair, it's way easier to startle with a quick scare than it is to create an atmosphere of dread, so I can see why the former has been so closely linked with what a work of horror is supposed to be do

I'm definitely a veteran horror fan. I religiously watch horror movies (and others, too) on a daily basis. It's integral to my happiness. Anyways, as a hardcore fan I also HATE that when a movie is legitimately good, people want to say "oh, it's not horror." As if to be horror, it has to follow a certain formula and inherently be bad. One of the reasons I love horror is that as far as film-making goes, the 'rules' are more lax - it's a space open to creativity and to genre-bending, even within it's own loose genre. But this seems lost on a lot of people... again and again people want to distance movies like Silence of the Lambs from the genre even though it's definitely horror. Maybe horror-thriller, but still horror. I've heard the same about The Shining and The VVitch etc. Drives me fucking nuts. And it always comes from people who are not horror fans, because they're experts and all....

 

[Musician]

This is sucha weird thing to read because Op is right, but the headline ia wrong. A horror anything that fails to be scary is, by my book, a failure of the horror genre. Its just that OP brought in "scary" to include atmosphere which is something that can ve scary. If there is nothing(this can be very very broad) that is "scary" even if its just an unsettling idea than i think it fails as a horror story.

I think we're approaching something very interesting in this thread though. As I think about my favorites in the genre, like Jacobs Ladder, it's not exactly scary. Or is it? In a way, wouldn't movies like irreversible and requiem for a dream count as horror if sense of dread is key?

One of the reasons I love horror is that as far as film-making goes, the 'rules' are more lax - it's a space open to creativity and to genre-bending, even within it's own loose genre.

Very true! I would love to see more mainstream surrealist horror. It's one of the reasons I love the Silent Hill games. Following a "normal "protagonist with "normal" reactions through the surreal nightmarish landscapes with it's sudden jolts. The protagonist works as an anchor in those games. Acting as surprised and disgusted as the player. I can't say I've seen a movie like that other than Jacobs Ladder.

 

[Cipher Peon]

True. Most horror movies are like amusement park haunted houses. You go into those to come out laughing with friends about their hilarious reactions to the scares, not to come out traumatized and disturbed

I agree! My favorites tend to be the ones that take themselves extremely seriously but in actuality have the depth of a puddle, since the juxtaposition makes them very amusing to watch. My favorite example of this is "House at the End of the Street", which I believe I enjoy the most out of any human being on this planet because I actively think about that movie from time to time.

Even so, I love the dread ones every now and then. I actually really enjoyed the second Woman in Black film because of how surprising it was at building suspense. One of my biggest pet peeves in horror films is when dread is building and they cut away to relief the suspense before paying it off. It happens CONSTANTLY, and Woman in Black II actually works with it in a clever manner by stringing along two scenes that actively build together. It's great stuff and I know nobody really liked that movie but I did and I will happily sing its praises!

Didn't you see the Ghostbusters remake?

Hell, even the original Ghostbusters.

I can't find one thing remotely funny at all in that film. It's devoid of laughter.
But I LOVE it. It's charming and full of life with a very engaging cast that provides a variety of memorable setpieces. Excellent film. Just don't think it's anything resembling funny.

 

[badcrumble]

The worst is people saying that horror games need to put your character in a lot of bodily danger or else they aren't scary. By that metric, Silent Hill 2 isn't a horror game but Battletoads is.

 

[Fisty]

Scariest movie I have ever seen?

Blue Velvet.

Without question. Dennis Hopper makes the entire 80s horror pantheon look like Sesame Street

 

[Mimosa97]

By " scary " people usually mean jump scares.

I hate jump scares that's why I don't play most horror games because they heavily rely on this overused mechanism. I liked movies like The Witch because : no jump scares. I really hope we'll see more movies like The Witch who only rely on the atmosphere and writing to convey the horror.

 

[Nameless]

Agreed. The Horror I find most effective excels at evoking those feelings of dread, unease, and palpable tension. It seeks to disturb and unsettle as opposed to outright scaring me(which never works). The Witch is recent a master class in this.

 

[supernormal]

Not directly on topic but I recently met a person who is absolutely unresponsive to horror in media. I mean absolutely no reaction. I've mentioned before how I'm fairly unresponsive to jump scares, but I still feel dread and anxiety when a camera lingers too long before turning the corner in a dark hallway with eerie music.

This girl on the other hand could have totally been playing Mario 64 or something. I stapped a VR helmet on her and she played The Kitchen, Until Dawn Rush of Blood, Here they Lie and then PT. All of her commentary was regarding the gameplay mechanics and the feeling of prescence, the whole horror aspect just completely flew over her head. I've never seen a person like that before.

 

[More_Badass]

By " scary " people usually mean jump scares.

I hate jump scares that's why I don't play most horror games because they heavily rely on this overused mechanism. I liked movies like The Witch because : no jump scares. I really hope we'll see more movies like The Witch who only rely on the atmosphere and writing to convey the horror.

Jump scares aren't inherently bad. It's that they're used as a crutch so often. But jump scares have been used effectively in pretty much all the horror classics. The Thing, The Witch, The Exorcist, Alien, etc. all had jump scares in them

The idea is that the jump scare should be the capper on the building tension. It doesn't even have to be something jumping at you. Consider the scene in The Witch,

Spoiler

with the mother hallucinating and then the quick jump cut to the shocking imagery of her in the chair with the crow pecking at her.

That's a jump scare, but it works because it's also worked as a moment of revelation and it stayed onscreen just long enough for the viewer to register what they were seeing.

 

[Dusk Golem]

That pretty much sums up why Eraserhead is one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen.

I couldn't stop thinking about it the first time I saw it.

Man, I thought I was ready for Eraserhead when I finally saw it a few years ago. Grown-ass man, a fan of Lynch stuff for decades.

I wasn't ready.

Scariest movie I have ever seen?

Blue Velvet.

Without question. Dennis Hopper makes the entire 80s horror pantheon look like Sesame Street

David Lynch has a talented eye and directing ability to making scary ass shit. I would honestly say some of the scenes in David Lynch's films are some of the scariest I've ever seen in movies in general. Scariness is subjective, but there's very little out there like David Lynch's scary scenes. He doesn't even label or consider them horror movies, but I think it being infrequent is part of what makes them scarier and how they occur in the flow of his films.

There's been a lot of analysis done on Lynch's works, and there's a lot of reasons why Lynch is regarded as well as he is, but honestly one of the biggest things that's talked about less often in detail than it should be is how Lynch just so happens to be a fucking master of making the mundane terrifying.

 

[Reeks]

Very true! I would love to see more mainstream surrealist horror. It's one of the reasons I love the Silent Hill games. Following a "normal "protagonist with "normal" reactions through the surreal nightmarish landscapes with it's sudden jolts. The protagonist works as an anchor in those games. Acting as surprised and disgusted as the player. I can't say I've seen a movie like that other than Jacobs Ladder.

Jacob's Ladder is terrifying. In recent years there have been a few good surreal films. Off the top of my head: Baskin, Beyond the Black Rainbow, and (maybe) Starry Eyes

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Well the problem is a lot of horror movies try so hard to be scary that they forget to make a good movie outside of that, so if it's not scary you're just left with a bad movie. I hate Amnesia because I didn't find it scary and without that I was left with a boring as fuck game where all you do is slowly shuffle around and squat behind barrels.

 

[Mimosa97]

Jump scares aren't inherently bad. It's that they're used as a crutch so often. But jump scares have been used effectively in pretty all the horror classics. The Thing, The Witch, The Exorcist, Alien, etc. all had jump scares in them

The idea is that the jump scare should be the capper on the building tension. It doesn't even have to be something jumping at you. Consider the scene in The Witch,

Spoiler

with the mother hallucinating and then the quick jump cut to the shocking imagery of her in the chair with the crow pecking at her.

That's a jump scare, but it works because it's also worked as a moment of revelation and it stayed onscreen just long enough for the viewer to register what they were seeing.

You make good points. I still don't see how that scene in The Witch could fit in that category but I see where you're coming from.

 

[Reeks]

Jump scares aren't inherently bad. It's that they're used as a crutch so often. But jump scares have been used effectively in pretty all the horror classics. The Thing, The Witch, The Exorcist, Alien, etc. all had jump scares in them
.

Preach.

Jump scares are also more prevalent in big budget horror movies (Sinister, Annabelle, Mama, The Conjuring). Of the whole genre, I find these the least entertaining.

 

[zeemumu]

Sounds like you favor psychologic horror or suspense/thrillers over pure shock BOO HAUNTED HOUSE horror. My favorite horror films are ones that keep you shaken well after you've left the theater.

 

[Reeks]

David Lynch has a talented eye and directing ability to making scary ass shit. I would honestly say some of the scenes in David Lynch's films are some of the scariest I've ever seen in movies in general. Scariness is subjective, but there's very little out there like David Lynch's scary scenes. He doesn't even label or consider them horror movies, but I think it being infrequent is part of what makes them scarier and how they occur in the flow of his films.
.

Agreed.

Edit: messed up reply

 

[Violence Jack]

I'm definitely a veteran horror fan. I religiously watch horror movies (and others, too) on a daily basis. It's integral to my happiness. Anyways, as a hardcore fan I also HATE that when a movie is legitimately good, people want to say "oh, it's not horror." As if to be horror, it has to follow a certain formula and inherently be bad. One of the reasons I love horror, is that as far as film-making goes, the 'rules' are more lax - it's a space open to creativity and to genre-bending, even within it's own loose genre. But this seems lost on a lot of people... again and again people want to distance movies like Silence of the Lambs from the genre even though it's definitely horror Maybe horror-thriller, but still horror. I've heard the same about The Shining and The VVitch etc. Drives me fucking nuts. And it always comes from people who are not horror fans, because they're experts and all....

You sound like me. The horror genre (whether it be games, films, or literature) is part of my daily routine. In fact, horror is something that is deeply ingrained within me. But I don't watch horror to be scared. I haven't been genuinely frightened by horror since my teenage years. I seek out all things horror because I'm fascinated by the psychology that goes into it. For example, I watched Rosemary's Baby for the first time in over a decade, and it still holds up to being a mesmerizing piece of work. Another one, The Descent is unique because it has so many layers to uncover as to what the film is really about. Those are two films that stayed with me for weeks after viewing them.

I can respect opinions, but what really grinds my gears are those who try to downgrade great films that are horror because they feel like if it's not somebody getting hacked to bits, then it's not horror, or it's "boring".

 

[Fisty]

David Lynch has a talented eye and directing ability to making scary ass shit. I would honestly say some of the scenes in David Lynch's films are some of the scariest I've ever seen in movies in general. Scariness is subjective, but there's very little out there like David Lynch's scary scenes. He doesn't even label or consider them horror movies, but I think it being infrequent is part of what makes them scarier and how they occur in the flow of his films.

There's been a lot of analysis done on Lynch's works, and there's a lot of reasons why Lynch is regarded as well as he is, but honestly one of the biggest things that's talked about less often in detail than it should be is how Lynch just so happens to be a fucking master of making the mundane terrifying.

Yeah he really nails the horror aspect of "dream" logic really well, like hyperreality and deep metaphor. Blue Velvet is masterful in it's ability to ratchet up tension and keep it at an insane level for an insane length. Basically when Kyle MacLaughlin gets in the car with Hopper, its the most tense and uncomfortable series of scenes in probably any movie I've seen.

The episode of Twin Peaks where the killer is revealed and the following murder are definitely up there as well, and alot of that is down to the filming technique and the build up of the series to that point. Still get queezy in the run up to that episode.

Eraserhead was fantastic because it was almost cosmic horror, just completely baffling and anything can happen because there seems to be no logical reality that binds the narrative.

Hell even the first "bum guy" scene in Mulholland Drive is pretty terrifying, and i see shit like that on a daily basis

 

[InaudibleWhispa]

I'm with you wholeheartedly. A slow building atmosphere or sense of dread is my favourite thing in a horror movie. Is it scary? I guess it depends on the film and your definition of the word. Some I just might like the style, others might just gradually make my skin crawl with tension. I very rarely stop to consider "man I'm so scared right now", screaming or jumping or putting my hands to my face, I'm just consumed by the atmosphere. I wouldn't consider a jump-scare fest that made me jump 10 times "scarier", it just evoked a lazier, easier physical response than an emotional one.

David Lynch has a talented eye and directing ability to making scary ass shit. I would honestly say some of the scenes in David Lynch's films are some of the scariest I've ever seen in movies in general. Scariness is subjective, but there's very little out there like David Lynch's scary scenes. He doesn't even label or consider them horror movies, but I think it being infrequent is part of what makes them scarier and how they occur in the flow of his films.

There's been a lot of analysis done on Lynch's works, and there's a lot of reasons why Lynch is regarded as well as he is, but honestly one of the biggest things that's talked about less often in detail than it should be is how Lynch just so happens to be a fucking master of making the mundane terrifying.

Yes! I just rewatched Fire Walk With Me, the Q2 fan-edit with the deleted scenes added, and he somehow made a girl looking at a ceiling fan terrifying.

 

[Sephzilla]

That pretty much sums up why Eraserhead is one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen.

I couldn't stop thinking about it the first time I saw it.

Man, I thought I was ready for Eraserhead when I finally saw it a few years ago. Grown-ass man, a fan of Lynch stuff for decades.

I wasn't ready.

Yeah, Eraserhead lingered in my mind way too long

 

[Kain]

The two scariest horror movies I've ever seen were Alien and A space oddisey. I'm weird I know, but no other movies scared me like those two

 

[hampig]

I think the problem is that horror is synonymous with "scary movie" for most people. Just look at the Scary Movie movies.

The average scary movie and horror will look the same at a glance, so those looking to "ride the rollercoaster" of a scary movie may be heading into a creepy slow-burn without knowing it, and those preconceived notions of what you're about to see can really mess with your perception of something.

 

[Dusk Golem]

The two scariest horror movies I've ever seen were Alien and A space oddisey. I'm weird I know, but no other movies scared me like those two

It's not weird, scariness is such a subjective thing that it can be hard to gauge in an overall sense, just a personal sense. Scariness can also be amplified by external factors from the film, IE when we're just in the right mindset to really be susceptible more to horror than we usually might. And of course, different things scare different people. Something that might even scar one person may not even as much as phase another.

 

[Fisty]

The two scariest horror movies I've ever seen were Alien and A space oddisey. I'm weird I know, but no other movies scared me like those two

2001 is a great pick, definitely got that feeling too. A being so far beyond humanity that we find it completely incomprehensible to the point of being percieved as a large black rectangle, guiding the evolution of an entire species of wild animals to become space-faring explorers and then transcendent. Very intriguing concept, and fills me with dread to think humanity is that powerless in the universe.

 

[Reeks]

You sound like me. The horror genre (whether it be games, films, or literature) is part of my daily routine. In fact, horror is something that is deeply ingrained within me. But I don't watch horror to be scared. I haven't been genuinely frightened by horror since my teenage years. I seek out all things horror because I'm fascinated by the psychology that goes into it. For example, I watched Rosemary's Baby for the first time in over a decade, and it still holds up to being a mesmerizing piece of work. Another one, The Descent is unique because it has so many layers to uncover as to what the film is really about. Those are two films that stayed with me for weeks after viewing them.

I can respect opinions, but what really grinds my gears are those who try to downgrade great films that are horror because they feel like if it's not somebody getting hacked to bits, then it's not horror, or it's "boring".

Same here re:not watching horror to be scared. I like to analyze how violence is portrayed and how scenes are constructed to build fear/tension, whether successful or not - and in the latter case, why? Similar to what you said, I feel like deconstructing films in this way gives a window into human psyche. I also watch a lot of serial killer and true crime docos. Sometimes it can be a bit of an issue. Every partner I've ever had, at some point in the relationship, has said, "can we watch something a bit more light-hearted right now?"

Rosemary's Baby is a perfect film imho. Ohhhh and The Descent is so good- lots of fun.

 

[rackham]

I think games should be scary. If a game classifies itself as horror, it should at least leave you uneasy. Movies are a bit different.

 

[Dusk Golem]

I think games should be scary. If a game classifies itself as horror, it should at least leave you uneasy. Movies are a bit different.

Most of the Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Fatal Frame games have never scared me (REmake did in parts and so did Silent Hill 4 in parts), but I enjoy them all, would consider them horror, and think most people would too. In general, most horror games don't scare me. Amnesia didn't scare me neither (But strangely, Penumbra and SOMA did in parts).

Scariness is too subjective a thing to be a proper gauge.

 

[Fbh]

Agreed.
I like the horror genre but I really dislike jump scares. I have to admit that they get to me, even with how telegraphed they are, but the sensation of being "scared" from some sudden imagine with a loud noise just isn't something I enjoy.

 

[Baron von Loathsome]

I'm just starting to get into horror films, and I'm getting a feeling that I prefer atmosphere to traditional scares. Most of my favorites so far - Rosemary's Baby, The Wicker Man, Alien, The Shining, Cat People, Altered States - are more about the atmosphere than about "scares." In comparison, I found A Nightmare on Elm Street just good, not really my thing.

Although I'm not the bravest individual, I'll tell you.