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Elise Boratenski's avatar

I really enjoyed this! Modern horror is a genre I tend to stay away from, but I also love classic gothic fiction (Frankenstein, Dracula, Edgar Allen Poe). I think you articulate why a lot of modern horror is tough for me-it can be excessively gory, explicit, or blur the lines between good and evil. But classic/quality horror doesn’t do that-same with classic detective fiction (my husband is always confused by the fact that I can’t handle horror movies but find Sherlock Holmes cozy). I also really liked your point that seemingly calm/light watches can be more dangerous for us than we think-I constantly am discerning where to draw the line with entertainment that I know is trying to promote moral/intellectual beliefs opposed to mine

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William Collen's avatar

I'm usually too creeped out by most horror films but I really appreciated "Nope" and some of M. Night Shyamalan's work ("Old" for instance). The only truly horrifying film I've ever seen, though, is "Requiem for a Dream," because what it shows is *really happening*. Yet despite the abjectness at that film's ending, it excellently portrays the consequences of bad decisions; its moral sense remains true.

Your point about balancing darkness and hope was well put—that's probably the reason I don't care for much of Lovecraft's stories. In them, the monsters remain undefeated; the stories are deliberately written to promote a sense of helplessness and despair, which are qualities that simply don't align with my Christian view of the world.

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