An Extra Friendly, No-Tears Guide to Watching Your First Horror Movie

The wonderful world of horror with the sensitive viewer in mind

Photo by David Dibert on Unsplash

Hi there! Can I get you to watch a horror movie?

You’re at least a little curious about them, aren’t you?

Boy, I was – from the time I was a little kid. I honestly think I was born liking horror, though I didn’t know what that meant. I was fascinated by movie reviews in the paper of horror movies, and posters and trailers at the theater. I always wanted to find people who had seen those movies and could tell me what happened. When I got a little older my dad started letting me watch some of his old favorites – when Mom wasn’t around, of course. From an early age, I was interested in the genre, I wanted to have access to it, I loved people showing me what they were into, and today it’s by far my favorite genre of film. I look forward to good horror movies coming out like the holidays. I love horror novels, too, and everything that’s influenced by horror tropes. Basically, if it’s horror media (by which I mean fictional or dramatized content within the horror genre – not graphic media depicting or describing real horrible events, which is not part of the horror genre), and people say it’s good, I’m there. 

I think a lot of people who came from Christian backgrounds grew up with an anxiety that watching horror was wrong, or, worse yet, that it would “open up a door” for demons to become actively involved in your life (this is literally a scene from The Exorcist, by the way). Though my own family wasn’t like this, I knew a lot of people who treated horror movies as though they were – well, real. That exposing yourself to scary material might make your own life more frightening, or that by watching violent movies you might become violent yourself. 

If you’ve “deconstructed” from your evangelical origins, you’ve probably come to question whether or not these “spiritual warfare” tropes of demons entering your life through media is actually a rational fear (good news, guys – my house continues to be demon-free). But what you might not have done yet is followed that feeling all the way to watching your very first, super-safe, so-much-fun horror movie. 

When I was at Wheaton College, I held a lot of hands and got a lot of Christians through their first horror movie. All of them remain horror fans today, and none of them have become demonically oppressed. I love to help people become horror fans. Not everyone wants to be a horror fan, and not everyone is cut out to be one – but more of you may be than you think. If you like spooky stories, urban legends, gothic novels, haunted houses – you may have the makings of a real horror fan just waiting for their freak flag to fly. All you need is a little nudge from your coach! And that’s me. 

In that spirit, this is the world’s friendliest, gatekeeping-free guide to getting into horror. This is written with sensitive people who think of themselves as scaredy-cats in mind. If you’re the kind of person who will buy a ticket to Saw 10 just because your friends are and don’t see what the big deal is, this guide isn’t for you, because you don’t need a guide. This is a no-tears tip sheet for people who would like to try horror, but think that they’ll be too scared. THAT IS OKAY! As we’ll talk about, horror is above all a controlled experience. You are in control of what media you put in front of your face and how you consume it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But by controlling your environment and dipping your toe into material you can handle, you might find that you like the water a little more than you thought you would – and maybe even build up to loving movies you never dreamed you could sit through. 

Don’t worry. This is the friendly guide. I’m not going to tell you to do anything you don’t want to do, or tell you you’re being a wuss if you don’t want to watch this or that. I’m here to hold your hand and tell you that with a little preparation and nerve you’re going to have so much fun with horror. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?  Horror is a form of art, and art is supposed to enrich your life, not damage it. And horror is, above all, fun. The best reason to get into horror is to have fun. Watching scary movies can be fun. Talking about them afterwards with your friends is fun. Getting gassed up for a big release is fun. Learning about the history of these movies and how they came together is fun. It’s fun! It’s really fun! You’re going to have fun. Just wait. 

Here, I’ll show you.

Guidelines for a Good Horror Mindset

If you’re in the horror fan community already, or you’d like to join, I’d like to set out some community guidelines for how to be a good fan, how to participate in horror fandom, and how to make horror watching as welcoming and as fun for everyone as possible. My goal with these guidelines is to maximize fun. Horror is best enjoyed as part of a community to talk about and enjoy it with, so horror fans should be welcoming and understanding to new fans – as well as grizzled, gnarly fans. Fans also should feel free to consume horror media in a way that maximizes their ability to access it and to have a positive experience. 

Here’s what I’d keep in mind if you’d like to become a horror fan, or if you would like to be a good fan. 

1. No one has to like horror and it says nothing bad about a person to dislike it. It’s no different from liking spicy food, or not liking spicy food. You’re not a wimp if you don’t like spicy food, you just don’t like it. Horror is the same way. If you try one movie and realize it’s not for you, that’s a fine decision. Have fun enjoying what you like!

2. It also says nothing bad about a person to like horror media or particular horror media – or to have any other surprising reactions to what’s the screen, like laughter or excitement. Horror fans understand the difference between real violence and fictional violence. There’s nothing about enjoying a big crazy slasher that means you’d be happy if similar violence happened in real life. 

People feel all kinds of feelings while watching horror movies, and they go to them looking for all kinds of experiences. They’re not twisted or sick, they just like something different. If you found a movie was too rough for you, but you’re surprised to find someone who loves it – there’s no need to be unkind about it. You just had a different experience. Maybe ask what they liked about it and learn from their experience. 

It sometimes does happen in horror (or any media, really) that a real person was harmed during the making of a movie – such as Shelley Duvall in The Shining. These raise some tough ethical questions about what it means to enjoy a piece of media, and many of us will come to different answers about how that shapes the way we engage the material. But on the whole, try to avoid rushing to judgment if you meet someone who liked a piece of media that you didn’t, or someone who had a very different experience watching something as you. Instead, treat it as a way to experience media through their eyes. 

I remember a few years ago I met someone who couldn’t stop laughing during a scene that I found incredibly disturbing in The Witch. If I’d written them off as a sicko I wouldn’t have gotten to hear more about how they experienced the scene – which has since sharpened my thinking about the use of smash cuts and transgressive images in horror and how they impact people. Horror is often very extreme, and it causes extreme reactions. Treat other people’s reactions as a chance to be curious, not to criticize. 

3. Just like you can serve eggs poached or fried or scrambled, you can serve a horror movie lots of different ways, and they’re all correct. You can enjoy a horror movie however you like it! You can watch it silently, or you can scream (be respectful of other people’s viewing experiences in a theater, of course – but in my experience horror crowds in theaters are pretty vocal). You can go with a group or you can go alone. You can watch it at home or in theaters. 

Most importantly, you can take steps to modulate how immersive of an experience you want to have. You can have the volume of your movie high or low. You can close your eyes, or you can fast forward through violent scenes. You can walk out for a few scenes if you’re in a theater. You can start and stop for breaks, you can watch it during the daytime, you can turn on every light in the house, and of course, you can turn it off if you’re not having an experience that you want to have. 

Many horror directors have a vision for how you should watch their art: in a big dark theater being fully immersed in the experience. That’s a great way to watch horror! But, if you are curious about a movie yet don’t think you can take it at full strength, it’s okay to put some distance between yourself and a movie and taking more control of your movie-watching environment. There are no bonus points for getting through a horror movie straight up with your eyes opened and white-knuckling it through an experience you hated. You sure can do that if you like! But you don’t have to. 

4. There is no single horror experience. Horror is a genre that exists in many media - TV, movies, novels, short stories, video games, tabletop games - you name it (though movies are the genre I’m primarily engaging in here). Horror comes from all over the world and some subgenres have specific regional flavors – J-Horror ghost stories, for instance, or “Ausploitation,” or New French Extremity. Horror can be supernatural – or not. It can be gory – or not. It can take place in our world – or not. It can feature monsters – or not. Horror can be sad, like Lake Mungo, or satirical, like Get Out. It can use violence to disturb, like Martyrs, or violence to make you laugh, like Cabin in the Woods. They can be wild and colorful, like Suspiria, or they can be cold and alienating, like the other Suspiria. 

Be curious and open minded about what other people experience and what they’re looking for. You might be surprised – and you might realize that you want to have a similar experience. I remember when I was just starting to watch horror I didn’t really understand the concept of “fun” or “funny” gore, and I actually thought it was really disturbing that people would find some violent scenes funny. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t seen it yourself, but safe to say, I now know exactly what that tone is, and I’ve realized I like it too!

If you’re just starting out, don’t watch movies without doing a little work first to know what’s coming. You don’t want to find yourself forty minutes into a New French Extremity movie when you’re looking for a low-gore psychological thriller. Read reviews and ask around. Some experiences suit some people more than others. That’s okay! Finding out what you like and don’t like, and finding more movies that you enjoy, is all part of the fun of being a horror fan. As you enjoy more horror movies, you’ll get a better sense of what horror is more up your alley and what isn’t.

The most important thing to remember about watching a horror movie for the first time is that you are in control and you never have to have an experience you don’t want to have. That’s the magic of horror, really – it lets us explore difficult feelings, taboo themes, or nightmare situations, but in a way that is perfectly safe. It can challenge you, but in a way that feels safe. You also might find that, similar to being on a roller coaster, the adrenaline of watching a horror movie and being safely exposed to fictional “danger” is actually a pretty cool experience. 

I’m Intrigued… What Should I Watch First?! 

That’s a great question! Everyone’s answer for this will be different. 

Here’s my idea: watch the movie you’re most curious about, or the movie that made you think you’d like to watch horror. I have friends who got into horror because they really wanted to know what all the hype about Get Out was about – then they got addicted. Maybe you were the kid in your friend group who begged out of seeing Saw in high school, or maybe you caught Alien on cable as a kid. Maybe you’re a cinephile and The Shining is intriguing to you because of its place in the Kubrick canon. Or maybe you’re just dying to know why people say this or that movie is so disturbing (okay, maybe don’t start with that one).

So the best advice is to just start where you want to start: whatever movie you want to see that made you think this article might be for you. Just go ahead and watch it with the amount of environmental controls you need to make it fun. A movie theater might not be the best place to try horror for the very first time – start at home where you can set the stage for the experience you want to have without bothering other viewers. Invite your friends, get some snacks, pour some wine, turn the lights on, cuddle your dog, take breaks and give it your best shot. You can always stop if you want. 

If you do this with a few different movies, you might start noticing something magic happening. Namely, that even though the movie scared you, nothing bad actually happened to you or anyone else. You were scared, but then it was over! You were completely safe, and you got to go back to your normal life after. Over time you might find that a feeling of fear or tension that you first tried to dispel when you first started – by turning on the lights, for instance – isn’t actually a feeling you want to dispel anymore. Once you realize that you’re safe and in control of your horror experience, the feeling of fear during a movie starts to feel different. It starts to feel fun, or exhilarating. Or it starts to feel funny! Or it can feel cathartic. Or it starts to be less noticeable so you can focus on other things happening in the movie. It can feel like a million different things. Once this happens, there’s no stopping it: you are definitely a horror fan. Congratulations! The world is your oyster now. 

If that sounds like a lot of fun but you still don’t think you know where to start, here’s an easy toolkit. A great first horror movie is one that is not too much of anything – not too scary, not too gory, but also fun to watch in a group. Your mileage for what is scary is going to vary tremendously, so I’m going to put some notes here on why I think this might be a good scary movie.

Some good suggestions: 

1. Jaws - not too violent, very few jump scares. 

2. The Conjuring - no gore, happy ending (a slight warning: even as an old pro I find The Conjuring to be absolutely terrifying. Your mileage may vary). 

3. Get Out – no extreme gore, happy ending, funny 

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street - monster cheese, though be aware that the Freddy Krueger character is sexualized and this might be uncomfortable for some viewers. The original Halloween is a good choice for the same reasons, though the first scene might scare you off.

5. The Sixth Sense or Carrie (Sissy Spacek version) – minimal gore and a lot of focus on drama between score scenes. 

6. The Host (the Bong Joon-ho one) – monster cheese, funny

Once you’ve done a few of these you can start looking for similar movies to get a sense of what you might like. If you like monster movies, maybe you’ll like The Thing or Alien, which add body horror elements to the monster movie. If you like movies that make you think about social issues like Get Out, maybe you’ll enjoy George A. Romero zombie movies. If you’re drawn to the characters in Carrie and want an arc you can invest in, maybe you’ll like The Babadook. 

You won’t like everything, and that’s okay. But horror fans are usually eager to share their favorites. Once you find something you like, usually a path to similar movies opens up pretty quickly.

“I Hear What You Are Saying About Fun But I’m Still Too Scared”

Are you having a hard time getting your foot in the door? That’s all right. Nothing to be ashamed of.

The guide I have above is basically for people who would like to start watching horror but feel like they are on the starting line. However, some people start out several hundred miles behind the starting line of being a horror fan – either because they’re naturally easily-scared people or because they have a lot of trauma in their backgrounds, religious or otherwise. It’s totally okay for them to stay back there. But, if you’d like to, here are some ideas for putting some extra training wheels on your horror bicycle. 

1. Before you start: Watch a comedy with horror elements – Ghostbusters, or a “Treehouse of Horror” episode from The Simpsons. How’d that feel? Were there parts that made you uncomfortable? Think about the feeling of being exposed to horror elements and how it felt for you. You might be able to get a sense of what you can and can’t handle from these elements alone – for example, if you realize you’re really creeped out by the idea of demons or ghosts, maybe you would enjoy something from a completely different subgenre instead – like a Hitchcock movie

2. Is there something in a movie you absolutely cannot watch? Kids or animals hurt, or sexual violence? If so, the internet age means you never have to be caught off guard by a single trigger in a movie as long as you live. Doesthedogdie.com traces 180 possible triggers and crowdsources people who warn people about them. If you want to watch a movie but are afraid of encountering something that will really freak you out, knowing ahead of time that a movie won’t “go there” might make this more manageable. 

3. The absolute no-fail way to get yourself through a horror movie: read the Wikipedia plot summary, start to finish, of the movie in question, then watch it. Keep the screen open so you know what’s coming next. You actually might enjoy this process more than you think you will. The human brain is actually wired for stories you’ve already heard before – it can actually be really pleasant to watch a movie knowing exactly how everything will happen (you watch Elf every Christmas, right?). Reading ahead of time what’s coming means nothing will catch you off guard and you can simply enjoy the experience of hte movie taking place.

Horror isn’t for everyone, but because it’s such a diverse genre, it’s probably for more people than you think it is. If you have never tried to watch a scary movie, you might be surprised how much fun you have with it – and how many horizons of great movies open up once you can stomach a scary movie. It is, as Wes Craven put it in his advertising campaigns, “only a movie.” It can’t hurt you. But it might be able to give you a really good time.